November 17, 2005
why do i do these things?
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The Movie Of Your Life Is Film Noir |
 So what if you’re a little nihilistic at times? Life with meaning is highly over-rated. Your best movie matches: Sin City, L. A. Confidential, Blade Runner |
November 17, 2005
Lunch: Chicken Fried Rice
Fortune: “Life to you is a dashing and bold adventure.”
Lucky Numbers: 14, 15, 18, 24, 36, 45
Meaning: You have 14 things to do at work, 15 errands to run, 18 things to do at home, 24 minutes to do it in, 36 minutes before you receive the materials you need to complete the work, and a 45% chance of someone being angry when you don’t get it all done. “Life to you is a dashing and bold adventure”? No shit. You’re dashing around trying to get it all done and bold enough to post that fact online.
November 16, 2005
So the audioblog posting worked. Who knew it was so easy? I started investigating the idea as an option for the upcoming roadtrip to Virginia. I can post pictures from my cell, but as I was working on the War of the Worlds lesson plan, which required some research on podcasting, I began to think it might be interesting to buy a mic for my iPod and record pieces while on the road. Then when I reached the house, I could upload them.
On the whim of the moment, I decided to see what blogger supported. Behold, they have an agreement with audioblogger for free audioblog postings. Well, free if you don’t count the cost of the phone call; but with the number of minutes I have, it’s already covered.
I’m not sure that it’s something that will really work for me though. I’m a better writer than a speaker. I don’t know that I can say anything really useful outloud, and my travelogues have always been a construction that required a lot of thought and interconnection that I don’t think is possible for me when I’m working outloud. Still, maybe it’s worth a try.
Now that I’ve gotten home and had a chance to look at the resulting post, I’ve realized what the catch to the system is. They store the MP3s on their server. Now I’m techno-savvy, and I downloaded a copy to my machine, which I uploaded to my server. I changed the link to my copy. The copy still exists on their server, however, and I don’t think there’s anyway to remove it. So who owns my intellectual property?
More importantly, there are some pretty strict terms. I apparently agreed not to “upload, post or otherwise transmit any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, vulgar, obscene, invasive of another’s property, hateful, racially or ethnically discriminating, or misogynistic, or objectionable.” That’s a pretty wide-ranging list, and without any indication of who is deciding how those terms are defined. Much of the info in the list of do-nots is fairly standard—don’t do things illegal, don’t upload viruses, etc.
My favorite may be that I have agreed not to “impersonate any person or entity, including but not limited to a Listenlab official, guide or host or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.” So much for the blogs of comedians who do impersonations. Now I understand that you shouldn’t pretend to work for the company, but this restriction seems a bit too extensive.
But on to the ownership issue, which isn’t as bad as I had feared:
Listenlab does not claim ownership of the content you place using the audioblogger service; however, Listenlab may provide a link or other access to your content and/or to your blog site to the extent that it is already made public in order to promote your Audioblogger posting and/or the Audioblogger service or otherwise in connection with its promotional, advertising or sponsorship efforts, and you hereby grant Listenlab a royalty-free license to use such materials and affirm that you have all necessary rights in such materials to grant this license. Listenlab reserves the right to include advertising, sponsorship, and/or promotional materials as part of its Audioblogger service.
So I own it, but they may do with it as they like. I imagine tacked on “This audioblog brought to you by Listenlab” kinds of comments. Oh well, it may be an interesting experiment, and I don’t see any information that suggests I broke any rules by copying my file to my server. As long as I can copy the files to my machine, I can edit them in Audacity to remove any advertising nonsense. Free is cheaper than buying an iPod microphone, and it’s probably easier then transferring the files around.
Since you may know the contents of that audioblog posting, I should tell you that I did, indeed, find and secure one “sparkle-butt Santa.” I procured many groceries, but they were out of puff pastry. How am I to make prosciutto pinwheels without puff pastry? There better be some restocking overnight.
Once I had everything put away, I returned to the lesson plan, and finally finished it up. It was nearly done when I left work this evening. It just needed an assessment, and I realized as I was driving that I needed to add a note about using podsafe music and sound effects. Audio Broadcasts and Podcasts: Oral Storytelling and Dramatization is out there provoking the world into Martian-filled panics. That gives us 22 lessons so far. Tomorrow I may try to squeeze one more out before sending in the (late) content report. I need to edit and add 5 new calendar entries as well. Should mostly be a day of odds and ends. I’ve taken Friday off for the oil change and remaining errands (and cookie baking).
The Gettysburg Address (Inbox Ideas)
November 15, 2005
The Ideas section for this week’s Inbox focuses on The Gettysburg Address. Okay, I know. It probably seems like a stretch to some of you, but in actuality, it worked out fairly well. The entry includes some information on primary and secondary sources as well as some resources on Gettysburg-era Doublespeak.
And speaking of Doublespeak, I found out today who is receiving the Doublespeak Award at Annual Convention later this week. It’s such a badge of honor for this recipient. Really. It’s not a negative thing at all for them. I’m so tickled :)
I spent much of the day noticing that it was pouring rain (not pouring, pounding), working on last-minute details for Convention, and, this evening, working on the War of the Worlds lesson plan. I need to get it online tomorrow for the content report.
November 14, 2005
The additional blade for my cute little Change-a-Bowl arrived on my front porch today :) When I ordered the extra blade, the operator suggested it could be quite a while because they weren’t even in the system yet.
This was a binge buy in the first place. I saw the commercial on Sunday the 30th and ordered it moments later. I don’t do many binge purchases like that, but I wanted it. I had it by the end of the week, though I didn’t order super-speedy shipping. Sadly, however, I ordered the wrong one; so I only ened up with one blade instead of two.
Oh well, I called the number and ordered the extra part; but the operator was so discouraging that I really didn’t expect to see it before Christmas. What a surprise :) Now I can make krinkle cut things and finely grated things. I already chopped up all the onions in the house yesterday. I need to go shopping tomorrow so I can chop even more things.
November 13, 2005
I’ve decided to pretend everything with be okay with Thanksgiving, even though I get daily reports on oddities. Today’s news, the washing machine has been broken for months. Sigh.
Trying to pretend, I’ve created a tentative menu for what I want to cook. Some of it I can do in advance before I leave. I’ve already baked 2 batches of the chocolate cookies and 1 batch of the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Those are all in the freezer so they’ll stay fresh. I figure they can thaw on the drive. More cookies to bake this week. I’m also going to prepare the finger foods. They’re all things that can be prepared (or partly prepared) and frozen then taken out, thawed, and baked off.
I may end up scaling back, but at least I have the plans and the recipes. Actually more recipes than I need. I don’t really need a recipe for mashed potatoes or gravy; but they looked lonely without links. At least I have a starting place. Now we just have to all cross our fingers. Sigh. The stove and oven better not be broken.
November 12, 2005
I’m not completely sure why I did this, as it only tells me what I already know. I hate myself and never try hard enough. A quiz wasn’t really necessary to figure out things like I have no love.
| This Is My Life, Rated | |
| Life: |  4 |
| Mind: |  4.8 |
| Body: |  2.6 |
| Spirit: |  5.4 |
| Friends/Family: |  2.8 |
| Love: |  0 |
| Finance: |  4.7 |
| Take the Rate My Life Quiz | |
New gutters
November 11, 2005
I don’t really understand myself today. Maybe I’m just really depressed. I stayed at home today. Lisa and Sharon both had kids out of school, so they were staying home with them. I was well over 40 hours, so I figured I’d skip out too. I didn’t really get anything done though. I found that my new gutters were being installed around 11, and I did some work on a lesson plan on audio dramatizations. There were random work issues to deal with as well. I guess all that was normal.
I made a shopping/errand list. Got dressed. And went back to bed. I keep thinking about things that haven’t worked out. I never really wrote about my Thanksgiving plans because I was afraid something would go wrong. Naturally, something did. Most of my family was going to come to Illinois. I was going to get to cook for everyone. A lot of people would think that was crazy, but I was really excited. Last Sunday though, I got word that some people didn’t want to come for one reason or another. And the one person who couldn’t come because he was working was disappointed that people were all decamping. So I said I’d just go home to avoid their unhappiness.
So for the last few days, I’ve been wandering around thinking of things I don’t have to do (don’t bother to clean that table; no sense in putting that stuff away; don’t bother buying that extra food). When I’m not doing that, I’m noticing stupid things that I already did. . . . why did I bother buying and freezing that extra sausage? why did I waste paper printing out that recipe? what kind of idiot am I for gathering up that stuff? what made me order these puzzles for them to put together?
When I originally planned to take today off, I thought I’d get a jump start. I figured I could cook some things ahead. I stupidly thought I’d bake and freeze some family favorite cookies and appetizers so they’d be ready to go. And I thought I’d start rearranging some things in the kitchen so all the cooking would be easier.
Instead, I’ve done little. I made a normal, weekly shopping list, but never gathered the will to go any further. I’m such an idiot, and I seem to just sit around and hate myself. Why bother going to the grocery store? I should be eating air anyway. Why buy anything? And damn those baby pandas. They always make me feel so sad and lonely. I’m such an unholy mess of a girl. There’s really no hope.
November 10, 2005
My dear technical support friend at the MCI Foundation had the site back up by 10:30. We still don’t know quite what caused the problem. Which means that we don’t know whether it will come back or not. The highlight of the day, however, was a class of students who were supposed to use one of the interactives, and when they found that the site was down they sent us less-than-scholarly e-mails (which we had to reply to in a “professional” manner). Here are some unedited samples:
- i am pissed offf
u guys suck - you suck i need this site and it sucks you assholes
- as far as i am consirned u can shove this site up ur asss
- you dawm morons eat shit try not to get any on your lips
- asses.y couldnt u just keep your sight on it was fine i was just on it yesterday .dickheads.eat shit
- fuck you suck dick bitch (that one from someone named “Bob Dick”)
- shit faces cock master (from “u suck”)
- i hate you i had a progect due tomorrow n now im going to fail because of you.so now im going to get in trouble by my teacher n my parents. so now i cant get a 4 wheeler if i dont get it done n if you dont have it up by tomorrow u can shove this site up ur asss.fuck you
Good Times. Good Times. Of course, my question is where the devil was the teacher. Why wasn’t anyone noticing that these kids were having so much trouble, let alone that they were sending out all these messages?
I could describe the rest of the day, but what could top these messages?