Pinky Stuff

[Pinky]

#easterspooge is pulling me out of my double swan dive just in time.













I've been putting stuff like this out there on major holidays. Please click if you're having a bad weekend.

I'm passing this on to all my star brothers and sisters out there from PinkO??sterCultÔäó and #TeamSpooge.

[Pinky]

Junk like this is why I fail to check my email more than 2-3 times a month.

I can only imagine the kind of third world flogging required to grind this out of some idiot's head through a keyboard into a scam because so many aging Americans still fall for this kind of crap. So thrilling to find out I'm a millionaire and that there is a warning attached about not attempting to get to 'my' money. Personally, I think this is a fourth grade assignment for a select set of super genius kids enrolled at an off the grid 'home school' who use cyber terror training to become our next elite force of cyber defense.

By the way, for those of you who are still really green, creating a fake 'from' in an email that looks real is first grade work. I've watched trolls spook forums and start wars with this little trick for years, rolling around laughing when angry parents start jumping into the forums demanding to know what's going on.

I guarantee you, though, that if there were a 900 number in this email, my dad and several other seniors in his age bracket would call it over and over trying to get hold of a real person who knows what's really going on. (Those of you possibly still unaware- 900 #s charge you by the minute to make the call.) A couple of years ago he kept getting anonymous 800# calls that said call back at 900-something and he obediently did it and sat on hold, trying to find out why he was being told to do this. If nothing else positive comes out of me posting this, please put your aging parents on the national do not call registry. If they are listed and still get scammed, the Feds will go after the number you report doing the scamming. Otherwise there really is no protection for people who can't help falling for this stuff.

Another by the way, this is Ban Ki-moon. Also, "bobby doweny" is your tip-off since putting it in search leads to this and this.

Why am I even bothering with this? Because I think it's funny. After two decades of email scams, people still fall for this enough for it to be a continuing viable operation, and there are trolls out there raking in dough because stupid sheeples. I'm also bothering with this because I know you, like me, want to make sure to discuss this stuff with your aging parent. It's kind of like the sex talk they gave us years ago, only much more serious than unwanted pregnancies and VD. Life is hard enough already on a limited income without stuff like this going on, or this, or this, or this, or this... you get the picture.

Remember when they said print is dead? I feel that way about email. Email is dead. I barely use it. The only thing left that email is even good for is setting up accounts across social media. I feel the same way about the phone, too. No one I don't know has any business interrupting my life for any reason in the world, especially if it involves giving out personal information and anything to do with money.


U.S. Department of Justice

From	Federal Bureau of Investigation Washington.dc@fbi.govhide details

NOTE: If you received this message in your SPAM/BULK folder that is because of
the restrictions implemented by your Internet Service Provider we the (Federal
Bureau of Investigation) urge you to treat it genuinely.

Federal Bureau of
Investigation
Anti-Terrorist and Cyber Crime Division
J. Edgar Hoover
Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue,
NW, Washington, D.C
20535-0001,
USA

Service Hours / Monday to Saturday:

Attention

We bring to
your notice that your Email address has been in our database of scammed victims
for a long time, Due to complains by individuals and Governmental agencies, an
emergency meeting was held at the United Nation Building in New York with the
general secretary of the United Nation Ban Ki-moon and Heads of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I) and Cyber Crime Division.
You were randomly
selected to be compensated, that is why we are in contact with you so take your
time to read this information carefully.
Series of meetings have been held over
the past 7 months with the secretary General of the United Nations, which Ended
3days ago. It is obvious that you have not received your funds valued at $1.5
Million US dollars, due to past corrupt governmental officials who almost held
the funds to them self for their selfish reasons.
The National Central Bureau
of Interpol enhanced by the United Nations and Federal Bureau of Investigation,
have successfully passed A mandate to the president of the United States of
America to boost the Exercise of clearing all foreign debts Owed to individuals
and organizations, Who have not Receive their Funds yet to effect the release of
your fund Valued at $1.5Million US Dollars, You are advised to contact F.B.I
funds Transfer agent Mr. Bobby Doweny with The information below,


Name: Agent Bodbby Doweny
Email: Office_bobbydoweny2015
@usa-11.com

You are advised to contact him with the information's as
Stated Below:

1. Full Name:
2. Delivery
Address:
3. Phone:
4. Fax Number:

6. Age:
7. Marital Status:
8. Country:

9. Occupation:
10. Preferred Payment Method (ATM / Cashier
Check)

Do disregard any email you get from any impostors or offices claiming
to be in possession of your ATM CARD, you are hereby advices only to be in
contact with your assigned F.B.I funds transfer agent Mr. Bobby Doweny. Forward
any emails you get from impostors to his office so we could act upon and
commence Investigation.
CC. TO:
Supreme Court of the United States


U. S. Courts of Appeals
U.
S. District Courts
U. S. Circuit Courts


Courts of Special Jurisdiction


Bankruptcy Courts
Court of Claims, 1855 - 1982

U. S. Court of Federal Claims, 1982 - 1992
Customs Court, 1890
- 1980
U. S. Court of Customs and Patent
Appeals, 1910 - 1982
U. S. Court of International Trade, 1980
-
Commerce Court, 1910 - 1913

Territorial
Courts

Courts of the District of Columbia

Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals
Judicial Panel on
Multi-District Litigation `
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court
Federal Courts outside the Judiciary

Note: This email
is fully under supervision of the FBI and will be until your funds have been
remitted to you, Meanwhile we urge you to treat the above requirement with
utmost urgency to enable us dispense our duties and obligation accordingly
thereby allowing us to serve you in a timely fashion. Upon satisfactory receipt
of all the above mentioned, you will be further acquainted with the detailed
delivery itinerary including information of the diplomat who will accompany your
consignment.

Yours sincerely,
James B. Comey Jr
FEDERAL BUREAU OF
INVESTIGATION
UNITED STATES, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
J. Edgar. Hoover
Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue,
Nw Washington, D.C.
20535-0001,
USA

-----------------------------------------------------------------WARNING------------------------------------------------------
This
Communication is from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, beneficiaries are
advised to adhere strictly to directives. Any fund beneficiary who ignores
instructions will be doing so at his/her own risk.
� 2015

[Pinky]

I guess it's nice to know I'm doing ok. I didn't realize this was a big thing to worry about until I hit a couple of forums full of people asking how 7% rates, or whether 20% out of 500 is good. You people realize you can back out and restack your rows and change your histories, right? I think the better question is what is actually going on in your noggin while you're playing. Things IÔÇÖve learned about life from playing solitaire.



Had a cool convo with the CEO of Gecko Systems this week, kinda thrilling he found me on linkedin. You guys know I'm big on addressing depression and have a robot thing, turns out this guy is leading the brigade against troll bots causing suicides, that's a real thing. The second snip clicks to the article I linked him to about the kind of stuff I keep hinting around that brain chips will probably be used to help people with depression one day. Pacemakers can help with heart rhythm, cerebrospinal fluid regulators can be embedded in the body, we've got prosthetics galore helping with everything from vision to digestion to mechanical movement, so why not brain chips to help regulate bipolar disorder, depression, and insomnia? Anyway, here you go, a guy who's actually working on robotics and interfacing in many ways, including pulling bots over on twitter like a traffic service, which is awesome.





On the other end of the twitter spectrum-



I started this next bit last month and it's still sitting around, so I'm going to put it here while I'm cleaning out some of my stash. I'm in an end-of-two-week-snow-headache-and-floating-on-a-painpill mood right now, so I have no clear purpose, I don't care what goes splat, and I know no one gives a crap so shut up and skip over this part. February was hard on everybody.

Things I've learned not to do on twitter

1- Make a general complaint about a product or service, because a helpful rep appears like magic and starts chatting me up with cheerful personalized customer service right there in the public feed. I had to remind one guy not to ask me private details in public, and then had to ask him not to DM me. Twitter is not a sales floor. Simply making a vague apology and linking me to a help page would suffice.

2- Assume accounts like restaurants targeting specific audiences won't suddenly slump into an alcoholic depression and start spamming politics or porn. While some can get away with blaming an account being hacked (which is ridiculously easy to proof against), others seem not to care and just do it anyway, as if they don't spare a thought to how that sinks their professionalism into a public quagmire. But hey, if someone's paying for followers, why should they care. I'm often surprised when some of them actually notice I unfollow them for that and try winning me back.

3- Get involved with people taking sides. This is hard. It also makes me sad. I know I will lose friends and gain spam groupies if I even stick a toe in muddled issues going out of emotional control. I think the saddest part is that I'm really really good at debate and take glee in exposing stupidity, even if it's from people I totally agree with. So, no one knows what I'm really thinking.

4- Anything and everything on twitter can be ruined into dick jokes, porn pix, bloody dementia, mocking for sport, and none of it can be saved with 'faith in humanity restored' or 'cuteness overload' or witty sarcasm. The only thing you can do to survive twitter is wear goggles and hang on. You embrace the crazy or go home. I have learned not to give up on twitter. Any bad day can be buried under a swift round of retweets.

5- Assume anyone is on my side. There is no side. Sidetaking is an illusion perpetuated by a bunch of people simultaneously having bad days and using twitter to dump and feel better or more powerful.

Back to real life. How long do olives keep in the fridge after they've come out of a can and been drained? Might need to see if the crows and squirrels like olives.

Just noticed this is 2 miles long already. Sorry about that. Here, have a fanvid a friend of mine made.

[Pinky]

There's this thing on twitter with some of my friends called #napclub. I never hear them stumbling back to real life with stories about how a SpongeBob episode became the most talked about television show in HISTORY in 5 minutes flat after SpongeBob poured Patrick a couple of drinks in little square cups with floating eyeballs, and such a realistic scent of whiskey floated into all our brains that twitter super exploded and the world was never the same after the SpongeBob creators teamed up with the Jack Daniels sales team to create the first true smell-o-vision experience with an episode called "Smell-O-Vision" that seemed so real to me that I scoured the internet looking for it after I woke up, swearing that dream had to be a take-off on something I'd seen before. It wasn't.



Apparently, however, smell-o-vision is being worked on outside the U.S., not specifically with SpongeBob and Jack Daniels, but with viewing experience targets in general.
COMPANIES DEVELOP 4D AND SMELL-O-VISION -- IS THIS THE FUTURE OF FILM VIEWING?
Japanese smell-o-vision TV releases scents with per-pixel accuracy



Rest assured, when they finally get 3D printer televisions off the ground, smell-o-vision won't be far behind. All they'd really have to do is send signals that trigger our brains to fetch the correct memories from our own odor catalogs, and BAM, #smeevee. That's right, I'm all over inventing that hashtag, just in case. Anyway, it's probably been 25 years since I drank any whiskey, but the memory of it was just as sharp in my dream as ever. Imagine how my drinking twitter buddies could be affected by the unsubtle nuances of alcohol bouquets popping up in the middle of their shows. I'm seeing a lot of kaching here.

[Pinky]

Xanga is back.



I think the biggest angst I ever dragged all over the internet and especially this forum was the big Xanga server move, which began on Sept. 1st, 2013. The only thing I can compare it to is maybe facebook users whining that the earth blew up and facebook disappeared for nearly two months and then when it reappeared half their stuff was missing, and the rest looked like Godzilla ate it and ever since then everything has gone wrong and some of them set up campsites monitoring everything so they can pop out and lob rocks because they're still so angry. Has any other blog host on this earth achieved such loyalty that 1 1/2 years later, users are still begging for it to come back and trolls are still spending quality time venting about it?

Xanga gained my undying support the week of Hurricane Sandy, when the Xanga Team sludged their way through weather and flooding in the dark to keep servers going with generators, at God knows what kind of expense to themselves.



So when Xanga announced the server move, I locked down, buckled in, and gripped the console. Here I am writing about it afterward on a fansite that still continues to get worldwide traffic.



Some of you saw me drop everything I was doing, including a book contract, to feverishly keep salvaging my Xanga blogs to backup blogs for just in case. During this time, the Xanga Team kindly extended my fees (and anyone who asked for it, basically), saving me several hundred dollars and greatly reducing my stress over another holiday season. I've been joking around that I have something like 2 million words in private Xanga blogs, and while I can easily back them up and indeed did so, my Xanga blogs have been such a deep part of me becoming who I am that I can't see letting go of that. Ever. As long as Xanga keeps host servers going, I will be part of Xanga. Which is funny because when Xanga was at its peak, very few people there knew who I was. Now I'm world famous (haha, I know, funny, right?) and I owe most of that to Xanga.

I wrote a thank you to Xanga a couple of days ago. You can click the pic to read it.



If Xanga had never moved to new servers, I would never have grown beyond my wildest dreams. If Xanga had never challenged me to the hardest thing I've ever had to do on the internet, I would never have risen to such a challenge and conquered. I have gained so much confidence in myself since Sept. 1st, 2013 that I can't imagine ever gaining any other way. Because I chose to reschedule and ride my life out with Xanga going down like a Titanic, because I chose to keep my faith in a handful of people who have a dream, because I chose to trust my own choices- I am strong. I think maybe in some ways I will never be shaken again. I know now that when internet stuff gets hard again, I will know how to laugh. I learned so much about myself during this adventure.

Many Xangans mourn the loss of community. Xanga is struggling to hold that community together on facebook. Xanga originally birthed several sub communities, as well, one of which was Autisable. I contributed several blog posts to Autisable as Bluejacky, my first public blog that I started being my whole real self on, as opposed to being a fansite owner, or a space alien. I had another sorta 'real' blog at Thodin but deleted it years ago after tangling with Teen Grrrl Squad, for lack of a better euphemism. I've since then been officially diagnosed with Asperger's, and knew I'd found my people (endless debaters with empathy deficit, lol) on Autisable. Since the Xanga move, I have divided my Bluejacky salvage into two new blogs- Aspienado at wordpress, and Surveypalooza at blogger. These two blogs are the two "Spock and SpongeBob" halves of my brain that I have difficulty reconciling but must live with at all times. Disentangling them onto blogs has been crucial to my own understanding of how I (and people around me) survive my Asperger's. Put those together with Spaz, a third blog spinoff, and the theme song I had up on the original Bluejacky blog before the server move makes sense. The book I'm working on is Existential Aspie and was originally scheduled (by me) to be published a year ago. However, I'm doing my best to finish it up now, on crunch time, as they say, and I feel will be all the more well-rounded because of the big Xanga server move.

Xanga was always a writers haven. People who are born to write and create wind up in places like that, be it storyboards for film or code for apps or fashion design. Xanga had everything from pet blogs to celebrities lurking among us, and the Xanga Team created fun ways to for us to get to know each other. Lurking and stalking the more popular posters from afar was kind of like a game, and I learned a lot about social interaction watching others play with social networking. I would be lurking all over the mysterious Xanga Team if I could, wizards behind the curtain.

Before I ever had friends, I had Xanga. Because I had Xanga, I have friends.

[Pinky]

I wonder if Doctor of the Dead appreciates me mentioning him in my 2015 Shorty Award interview. I've discovered that most of the people saying they voted for me this year aren't being counted because 1- a reason wasn't given for why they nominated/voted, 2- they weren't logged into twitter when they pushed the 'tweet your nomination' button, 3- they may not have authorized the shorty awards to tweet on their behalf, or 4- they may not have twitter accounts. If all that had worked, I'd actually have more votes this year already than I got last year, so I've got cool friends. I think Shorty Awards kinda sucks for not allowing people without twitter accounts to vote and for not allowing an option to remain anonymous. There, I said it. And while I'm saying stuff, we all know it's about the rich and famous (again), right? There's no such thing as a popular vote among the masses in a worldwide competition. All the same, it's one more place I can stamp my web presence on, BOOYA.



I've been a little more sadistically mocky lately, what's up with that?



It's probably something like this going on in my life. Nothing to worry about, been here before, but in case I seem crabby at anyone, apologies. Unless you're a verified TV show twitter account that follows me and then unfollows after I list, yeah- all my venom. I love twitter to death, but it shows you who the real jerks are in a hurry.

[Pinky]

2015

Hogworthy is a thing this year. Because me & a writer for Cracked and ZombieChops say so. Click this for the full convo.



I've also been assigned a Star Wars identity by @ladiosabri, only the biggest Daniel Jackson fan on the planet. She also wrote a fun Walking Dead post.



I resisted this for a long time. I know some of you don't believe me.



"For whatever reasons, Ray, call it... fate, call it luck, call it karma, I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe that we were destined to get thrown outta this dump." -Dr. Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters. This number doubled over this last year.



Probably because of stuff like this.



I'm gonna go Snake Plissken all over your social media butts this year. Major phone fail is NOT A PROBLEM.



This continues to be a thing. #TeamSpooge I still can't explain it. All I know is that the Spock in my head is thankful the Spongebob in my head has a direction to go in now.



I also seem to have been inducted into a world squirrel family on twitter. We have #squirrelitude. I'm so sorry I wasn't the first on that hashtag.



My baditude is full swing right now, thanx to the nasty 25 degree wind outside. I say dish it out, world, I'm not listening. Groove is in the Pinky brain.

[Pinky]

So I got this email alert that someone hacked into my facebook.



First of all, the dates are backward- the break in apparently happened after the alert was sent. BUT WAIT. Closer inspection reveals it happened UTC time (that looks so official, doesn't it), which is where all the world time zones start, and you go Oh, yeah, meridian time is about 6 hours ahead of me, so the times actually do match, OMG I'VE BEEN HACKED. (That's what they want you to do, freak out.)

The next thing I did was look up the IP location. I pasted the IP address into the little query bar and got the Prudential Insurance building in New Jersey. I'm pretty sure Prudential isn't hacking my facebook, so that's either a really good proxy someone is bouncing under for cover, or this email is a fake.

So, even though I know better, I clicked 'this form' and it went to what looks like a dead site, so this cyber criminal didn't even bother setting up a fake form. I'm going to bet at this point that the whole purpose of this email was simply to get me to take the bait and click out of panic, but I clicked out of curiosity. All kinds of info can be gathered when people click around. I play with several different stat trackers, and there are way more sophisticated collection trackers out there than simple stat tracking. Your computer sends information OUT every time you click to a site. Anyhoo, whatever you do, DON'T start filling out info on forms you have to click to out of alert emails before you investigate first. Your chain is being yanked.

I got into my facebook settings and of course, nothing had happened. My password was FINE.



Anyone else getting email alerts about your facebooks? This is a good time to review your security settings on facebook. Click on the little lock in your facebook menu.



From there click on Security, scroll all the way down to "Where you're logged in", and when you click that you'll see a list of all the devices that are logged into your facebook, like your phone, ipad, laptop, desktop, all the devices you use to access facebook. Even if they are all yours, sometimes it's handy to click "End Activity" and force your devices to refresh with a new login prompt. If anyone is piggybacking into your account, this boots them right off.

AFTER you have removed all the active extraneous devices, reset your password and review your alert security. I use a code generator that texts my phone when my account is accessed from a new device. Since I never got an alert text, I didn't panic when I saw the alert email that my account had been hacked and the password reset by someone else. They couldn't have done that without me knowing. I love the phone alert system. Besides, if someone had been able to get around all that security and changed my password, they were dumb to not end the activity on my devices if they didn't want me getting back in.

This is a lot of work, I know. It seems like everywhere we go now we have to do pilates all over the internet setting up security, but it sure beats trying to get your account back after someone has taken it, especially if they are using it to make your life miserable.

Several years ago I had a different facebook account, and I played with their security. I was able to find back doors into private accounts and read anything I wanted. Facebook is getting really good at security now. I'm sure the security code they have to build is a nightmare, or the coolest puzzle on the planet, depending on how your brain works. Facebook is getting really huge because they are getting really good at security.

So don't have a heart attack over an email alert. Check your settings, glance over your security, and chalk it up to having a public email address getting spammed by wannabe hackers.

[Pinky]

I suddenly veered a couple of days ago into wondering why Nancy Drew took so many showers. Is there any connection to why shower questions pop up in so many of my surveys? I never thought to speculate on why it disturbed me as a preteen that she seemed to need to shower 20 times a week (or more?) and every single shower was quick. I grew up on a farm, rugged and dirty, and I was mystified why a young sleuth who barely got smudged would need so much hygiene maintenance. I found out on twitter about a year ago her original writer was a guy. Apparently that guy was into girls who didn't waste time luxuriating in bubble baths and scented oils, but the idea that he'd need to mention every time that this fictional hygiene-obsessed person showered kinda weirds me out.

So I was scoping around the webs querying "how many showers did Nancy Drew take", because aspie obsession gripped my soul, and wound up with this gem. http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Nancy_Drew It doesn't really mention the showers, but points out everything else that must have unconsciously been bothering me, as well, because I loved it.

I respect authors who can dredge up years of hack writing into collective fandoms and potentially loads of dough for everyone involved with production, but shower reports? Morticia says it best.

I think more people see this thread than all my blogs combined, so this-



To all my U.S. friends waking up to migraines, disabilities, social anxieties, and sadness this Thanksgiving Eve, I'm right here with you, and we're going to be ok. Just put on your caticorn armor.



Tell the world "Bring it!"



But with all due seriousness, if you are having a *really* bad day, please let someone know. Also please know that you're not alone!
The Other Side of Depression by Anne Wheaton
Depression Lies by The Bloggess
Oh no you didn't... by moi

You guys- there is no such thing as a difference between YOU and someone famous when it comes to depression. Well, except that when someone is famous, they can reach more people about it. Holidays are very hard when we've lost loved ones or our own futures look bleak, and especially if we're challenged and struggling all year. I know it's hard to reach out and hug the internet.



If you are bogging down and need distraction, start here.

[Pinky]

Nearly 500 views since that last update 2 days ago (and I never linked that anywhere) and that guy is still begging twitter for 40 ratings by Sunday. I looked the guy up, he's got an impressive entertainment resume, but when I saw the donate button on their site I just laughed. They may be popular, but the people I run with support their own content out of pocket. I've been asked why I have never linked donation buttons on my blogs since I have full disability and scrape my dimes together to support my own little empire (and I have never accepted compensation for link sharing or writing), and the answer is simple- full autonomy. I answer to no one. Maybe one of these days things will be different, but for now, I'm all about free sharing on the internet as long as possible. In ten years there might be no such thing as free public access. Internet is going to turn into one of those parking meter things, where you put the quarter in to see the content, like pay per view. To donate to someone else having fun drinking and traveling and yapping to fans might change real quick once they start charging you to see and hear what they do. That's what comiccons are for.

Just noticed I'm finally coming up in a top ten on google search for Lexx. Awesome. And that little blurb in the bottom right corner is mine! I've been working on getting onto the front page with new content for 2 1/2 years, but there was so much really old junk that I kept getting buried.



Moving on! Wait... Looking back! This is from the last post I made on one of my private blogs.

November 24, 2009
Private: exponential escalation of stupidity

Extortion. Threats of bodily harm. Lies blowing up into such of rage of neighborly hate and side taking that I was actually told on the phone this evening that ÔÇ£this is the sort of thing where bodies could disappear, itÔÇÖs beyond the lawÔÇØ. Why in the world I got dragged into it is so far beyond me, I canÔÇÖt even comprehend why it would be important to any of them what I think.

Deer season. In the Ozarks.

Yes, I'm serious. I'm still debating whether I'll ever tell that whole story, might wait a few years, you know, because bodies disappear. People are so funny when they get upset. My fave true stories are the ones that still get me spittin mad when I tell them but everyone cracks up because they're so ridiculously funny.

There were tweets flying around this week about a teacher that butchered a rabbit in a classroom. They should have had me there. But seriously, I thought teachers had to get curriculum approved before presentation, plus there's OSHA and PETA and actual classes and jobs for correct food processing where you get professionally trained, right? I mean, if real life must be demonstrated in a children's classroom without having to be approved first, then a teacher could conceivably walk in with a bomb and then teach the kids how to defuse it. I'm calling it, our future schools will eventually be military run for competency because this social experiment we've been doing for decades is super fail. How many of us are going to need to know how to butcher a rabbit? (I ask facetiously... lol.) In case you still haven't hit those links -> survivalists- end of the world, 2012- mach II

I know, I'm in this weird mood, I've been up since 3:30 and, like every year, I'm praying Scott gets his deer as quickly as possibly so normal life can resume. Deer season just before Thanksgiving is one of the most stressful things we go through all year, mostly because we lose even more sleep than ever and our spare cash goes to licensing and processing and gear. For those of you gnashing your teeth wishing you could get into this forum and rant about anything and everything wrong with hunting or even about me personally, here. There is comment space there.

I walk a fine line between very spectrumy political and religious followers. By and large the biggest challenge is always people we know in real life. Five years ago was really hard and I did a good job holding my tongue (no one is special here, don't feel singled out), but that doesn't mean I can't tell the truth when I finally find a fun way to say it. See, this is why that book still isn't published yet, I'm wrestling with cost/benefit projections. The coolest stories are always the most controversial ones. Word construction is a lot like a food challenge, you develop a balance of emotion and story that doesn't overburden the reader with bad vibes and extra work processing what really isn't their stuff. I think that's why I tend to lean toward a more humorous view nowadays. My literary idols are Terry Pratchett and James Thurber.

Dawn has finally arrived and I'm hearing shots. Someone several acres over may have gotten lucky. I need to stop dumping my nerves in here and go do real stuff. I go kinda OCD on my house when my nerves are up, and yesterday I started tearing the kitchen apart and deep cleaning, moving stuff around, pitching stuff into the trash. You know. NERVES.

Here you go, in case there really is a zombie apocalypse and you need to catch a rabbit.

[Pinky]

People have asked me in the past why I don't 'name and shame' when I occasionally get a little uppity about business accounts that I sometimes go out of my way to do favors for and then get used and blown off like I'm just part of a free breakfast that came with a free service called twitter. Some of the people I've unlisted have 5 or 10 times the follower numbers I do and don't hobnob with people like me, a tiny little blogger who interacts with real people all over the world and never tries to sell you something or drum up my numbers on you.

Then there are other accounts that say thank you. They don't hesitate to tag my name into their timelines. I've been retweeted by celebrities with way more followers than those selfish business accounts that can't waste their time putting up with me not licking their shoes every day in my tweets, even though I go out of my way to make sure they get plenty of visibility through my accounts.

My follower numbers and traffic numbers have never been hurt by people who step on me and then dump me when they assume I'm stupid enough not to notice they used me. It's part of the game, and I play along. I'm a convenient stepping stone, yes. But only for that step. There are less than 70 accounts I allow not to follow me and I still follow them back. I don't list anyone I personally don't care about unless they have followed me first. They unfollow, I unlist. Easy. I've pretty much stopped doing that favor because it's getting so fashionable for business accounts to feel like they owe nothing to people who respond to their follows with a free listing that would never have otherwise happened. If they were smart they'd create a thank you list of people who did them that favor. Oddly, very few people seem to think of this strategy.

Once in awhile I point out a mistake I think someone is making.



You see, I got nearly 1000 hits just in the last week for a Walking Dead review that goes out of its way to promote other people. I often do favors for people that tag me to retweet or even just spend a little time talking to me, but this guy, despite being a sort of bigger fish in the zombie pool than some of the others in the list, has never taken the time to find this out. He's so busy pushing his own agenda that he literally does not care what his followers do unless they are obviously doing it for him. He wants hangers on, not a real network. So the day before I do today's review, he unfollowed. Which is cool. And I unlisted, which is my usual response. BUT. I couldn't help noticing how ironic his timing was.

And then at 2:44 pm he tweeted "Dropping bots and RT rings has consequences" and then proceeded to push for more followers. Another one of his still listed accounts retweeted it, so it wound up in my feed even after I unfollowed him. Seriously? He wants more followers, and he dropped a person who graciously listed multiple acounts AND is literally getting 40-50 hits within 2 minutes of every tweet link. And that's not counting the round the clock viewing that comes in. Or the 11,000 views I've got on a Walking Dead article I wrote. Want more followers? All he had to do was talk to me and I'd have linked him into my reviews, which would make sense if he wants zombie fans to listen to HIM, right?

So, I got grouped in with a bot because 3 times a day I do 5 retweets with a gang that has less than 15 people in it. Wow. So that guy doesn't care about me or my followers, who I have proof jump on links as quickly as they get their phone notifications, he doesn't tag me and say "Hey, I've got this link and a show, please retweet", he just boots me out after I put him into an exclusive list of fellows that he actually looks more popular than. I've got some fairly impressive media following me because of that list, but he doesn't have time to notice things like that. He's too busy decluttering and begging for more followers.

IRONY.

I'm going to tell you guys something. Celebrities DM me. I get invited to personal soirees and A-list clubs. There are things you guys never get told. I've gotten tens of thousands of views on sites that are so scattered that most people have no idea what all I am really into. I have been asked by professional websites to write for them, help them with their site building, and even run their forums. People in so many fandoms know who I am because I dabble everywhere I go. I have turned down some nice job offers, some of them from millionaires. My twitter account may be only 2 1/2 years old, but I've been on the internet since 1994. Some of my lurkers actually go back that far, bless their hearts. They know all my names, who I've been, what I've done, and still have links bookmarked to pages that are long extinct. People who only see me as a stepping stone, fine. As soon as you step off, you're not part of my life, either.

Yeah, I'm a little bitty person on twitter with a retweet gang. I LOVE FANS. I ENJOY PEOPLE. I am set up this way on purpose. I am one of the originators of the retweet game. I find cool fun witty stuff and neat pictures and wind up with more followers when I do that. I've got friends coming out my ears, people I like who like me back, and I'm not about to treat them like stepping stones and then push for more followers. I think that is a horrible way to do business, and it's not fair to my followers to subject them to that kind of stuff in my list feeds. I've blocked people without hesitation in list feeds for spamming. Me retweeting 5 tweets 3 times a day is NOT spamming. So yeah, I took that personally and pointed out the irony.

To be fair, I'm not going to tweet the link to this blurb. A thousand hits a month on this thread without me even tweeting links to it is enough for me to say something like this. Those of you who own business accounts on twitter, do a little thinking before you tweet like people are beneath you and then beg for followers. That's so fifth grade.

[Pinky]

Woke up to a new game this morning. Click this snip to see the whole thing, it's really cute. It opens up too big to snip it on my screen.



Someone got this. *click*



So I tried it and -->got this<--. It was fun scrolling down through all of them. Even though I've posted thousands of pix in the last couple of years, many of which I've completely forgotten about, a lot of them aren't mine and I think it's funny they wound up associated with my name in a search because of the word 'meme'. Who knows how the internet works, right? Here's a fave. It clicks to a fun story. I was on the fringe of this mob before I met most of you guys on twitter.



Jumping onto a completely unrelated track, is this true? So many photoshops jerk us around on twitter, I fail to gasp any more.



I also want to know if this is true. It clicks to a photo site, but that site doesn't link to original source or any kind of explanation. Attempting to look up 'chickens with blue combs' only gets lists of articles about a bad health condition chickens can get. I can only assume this was colorized.



After deeper digging I found this, clicks to an awesome photo effects contest, so since I can't find any other pix like this at all (actually, entry #113 was still another blue combed chicken), I sadly concede that our world lacks a really cool chicken breed. After I scrolled through all 135 entries there were more 'colorblind' contest links to click, and they look awesome, too, so if you're bored today, there you go.



Today's search for truth was brought to you by The Walking Dead Parody by The Hillywood Show?«. Ok, not really, they didn't pay for a feature spot here, but this was uploaded yesterday and already has 140,000+ views, check it out.

[Pinky]

I had the coolest dream about twitter last night. You know how they have subset auto searches, like they group all your photos and lists? I dreamed they added more stuff, like an 'all your tweets containing links' section (which could eventually be categorized by link type such as science or gaming depending on the tags in the articles or pages the links go to), all the hashtags you created (and then rank your hashtag usage which would be cool for people playing hashtag games or watching trends), and a search through your own convos by key word, which made looking up past tweets way easier and faster.

Those of you who don't blog, many blog hosts already provide a personal search engine on your own blog where readers can look for key words or phrases. I'm not talking about tags. If you don't know this, you need to snoop around some more. Other services outside of twitter allow deeper twitter searches, and I actually pay one of them so I can look up stuff most people can no longer find even on their own twitter accounts just because it's too load heavy to find older stuff, plus I use two others. I'm not talking about hoot suite or tweet deck kind of services, they are cumbersome and not helpful for what I'm talking about. Twitter has capability for way bigger service and has flirted with several beta models (while the rest of you grumble about change, I dig through stacks of performance assessments in press releases), but installing the necessary engines for individual user access will be a huge thing that needs to be go-ready.

Twitter is already on the cutting edge of becoming the ultimate in thought organization, and I can envision it becoming more reliable than wikipedia and even google search. What I saw in my dream last night was so thrilling that I jumped up out of bed as soon as my eyes opened and paced the floor while my laptop booted because I was afraid I'd forget all this before I could start typing.

And for the lesser inclined *cough*celebsandfans*cough* it's just a great time being there yapping our little brains out.

[Pinky]

What gives? Don't you guys have lives??? lol, probably pings from spambots. Or something. Not sure how the filter works here. *rubbing eyes* Not sure how I feel about 1,000 in one month.

So, checking in, the complete blog renovation is going well, still thinking I can git'r'dun by Halloween. Burrito is on her way, so today will mostly be about figuring out giant crayolas and raisins showing up all over my house. I took facebook off my phone after a half dozen reinstalls over the last year because I'm tired of dead-end controls, so I'm a little scattered this week developing a new facebook work pattern. Have been a little scarce with the Lexx gang over there this last week. Other than that, all the sites and accounts are set, I think I'm on track for holidays so I can keep up this year, and if

-ok, now it's a working breakfast-



Where was I? Ok, if I can stick to the rest of this track I'm on through the end of the month, I might just start disappearing every little bit and get my original work going again. Dare I hope?

In the meantime, I'm reading Fluency by Jennifer Foehner Wells. I've heard there *may* be some interest in turning it into a film project, crossing fingers.



Sitting tight waiting for Nobility to premier, have been watching the press releases all summer. From their facebook- "“Nobility” is a new sci-fi dramedy dubbed “The Office” meets "Firefly". Set 700 years in the future, it’s about the C.A.S. Nobility, Humanity’s most powerful starship with a crew, that’s, well, anything but noble." My favorite Lexx cannibal Giggerota (Ellen Dubin) plays Col. Theia, check out the rest of the awesome Nobility cast.



Looks like Scott might need some help. We're into drawers and stuff right now, so next stop is finding another drawer to reload with burrito stuffs.



This is our jam today.

[Pinky]

You know the big broohaha about twitter has facebook-like feed filters coming? I dreamed last night that there was a new drop down menu in twitter with new functions, and one of them was like an invitation button. You know how facebook lets you invite your friends to like your page and twitter has a promo thing that lets you pay to jump into other people's feed even if they aren't following you? Yeah, something like that. You could fill up a list of twitter names to invite to follow you. In my dream it did NOT show up in private messaging, but somehow showed up like a pinned tweet at the top of feeds. Can you imagine how annoying that would be? Political and fan accounts would go crazy with invitations. I really hope this never happens. The last time I dreamed about a twitter change, it actually happened.



I mock twitter every little bit by subscribing to these ridiculous report cards that big companies and growing businesses take very seriously, and then laugh when I read articles announcing that half the things listed here actually have no real meaning. I've been saying that about 'reach' ever since I first ran into this. Potential to be seen or get response but not actually being seen or getting response is a dumb way to measure worth. Anyone trying to sell product will tell you how it feels to sit around not being seen or responded to. You could have huge billboards and TV ads, but if you have restricted frontage entry for any reason (road construction, for example), that matters not, because you can't make money on people driving on by. I don't think twitter is any different, and that's why so many people jump up and down waving at big accounts to notice them. Anybody can get pretty numbers with a little bit of effort. It's like playing a game.

This was my report card for July 2014.



And this is the report card I got for August. ~gasp!~ I'm slipping! O_O The horror!



And I'm basically 'wasting time' right now during a huge time crunch to get 5 huge things done, so here you go, have fun getting this one unstuck out of your head.