The Quotidian Ones

Cheering the Hell Up, Day 10: It takes a village to brand a communicatrix

beaneyeslogo Spend ten years writing ads and another ten acting in them and you get very, very good at marketing...

Not!

Proof? When I started my little sideline graphic design business, I had the genius idea to name it "BeanEyes Communications", impossible for people to fathom, vaguely embarrassing when they did.

That's only the most obviously idiotic mistake I've made on my road to Financial Solvency Outside Of Acting. I've also isolated myself, underpriced myself and been generally clueless about promotion, position, networking and a host of other really useful aspects of marketing.

But I'm learning. With the help of a number of smart people, including The BF, several hotshot designers and my terrific marketing mentor, I'm overcoming my terminal cleverness and might actually have a viable business one of these days.

So RIP, BeanEyes. Long live communicatrix!

Oh, and happy June...

xxx c

Super Tuesday, or How You Know God is Still in Her Heaven and All Is Right with the World

headband 1. Your sister not only turns you on to actual fast food that is both SCD-legal and tasty, she turns over a packet of photos and memoribilia you've not seen for 30 years AND makes you this bitchin' headband!!!

2. You leave yourself only 35 minutes to get from Hancock Park to Westwood, still get there on time and find an open parking space right in front of the dentist's office.

3. Both of your clients who have deadlines sign off on the work in a timely fashion, with grace and gratitude.

4. Your printer not only has the 411 on what specs and paper you ordered for a particular job over a year ago, he gives you the same price.

5. You receive assurance from someone of unquestionable character that you are neither evil nor immoral, no matter how much poop a certain chimp sees fit to fling at you.

xxx c

P.S. I love you, Liz. Onward and upward...

A preliminary and rather alarmingly woo-woo perspective on SXSW

I'm still wiped out from my five-day sojourn at SXSW, and I seem to be in good weenie company. It was a notable experience in many ways: my first trip to Austin; my first trip to a real conference; my first trip when I've been on the precipice of a Crohn's flare. But the most notable thing about my trip was that I went without an agenda. Yes, I've long wanted to see Austin, and yes, I was interested in seeing what a big festival was like and sure, it's always nice to do those things in a tax-deductible fashion, but trust me, it's always hard to plunk down a serious amount of hard-earned cash with no guarantee of tangible benefits in return. I'd looked over the list of offerings beforehand, and didn't see that panel or presentation which was going to give me answers to the big questions that consume me nowadays: How do I find that thing that feeds me and the world at the same time? How do I keep body and soul together while I do it? Or maybe, after I find it?

I'm planning to post more about the panels and films I attended later, but my major takeaway I can get to right now:

I will probably not make money with any of my online ventures, present or planned. And I'm okay with that.

I'm okay because I no longer need stuff so much as I need happiness. (Recognition is still attractive to me, but I figure by the time I get any, I won't care much about that, either.)

I'm okay because I saw people up on those daises (which looks a lot like daisies, doesn't it?) who were making money and people who might never and the only thing that I found compelling in either was the passion that drove them.

I'm okay because I found out that for the most part, the people up there on those pretty daisies weren't receiving outrageous renumeration, but maybe a small perquisite in exchange for sharing their time and knowledge.

I'm okay because for five days, I saw passionate, well-crafted films that took years of people's lives to make about topics so obscure and unmarketable the filmmakers couldn't possibly expect to receive adequate renumeration.

And I'm okay because for five days, I was immersed in an atmosphere of nurturing and tolerance and possibility that I'd started to think couldn't exist in this scaredy-ass, me-first world anymore.

More later. Much, much more...

xxx c

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Behold! the fugliosity that was me in advertising!

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Today I auditioned for a spot I'd really like to book. The part is funny, the casting director is smart (meaning, the spots he casts are low in cheese factor) and, imagine, I could use the money. Casting directors often give a group explanation prior to a string of individual auditions to save time and so we don't stink up their tapes with super-creative, actor-y input. Today, after reiterating his usual acting directive, "Very small, very real, very 'film'", a directive which I now hear in some form from nearly every casting director on nearly every call, leaving me to wonder why there is still so much bad, over-the-top acting in commercials, this casting director drove the point home by letting drop that the director of this particular spot also directed Junebug. The implication being, if you know Junebug, you know what we're looking for and if you don't, you're going to give a bad, over-the-top performance which we will waste no time in erasing from our tape.

Now, I have not, in fact, seen Junebug, but I am familiar with the vernacular the CD was tossing out. You see, I like to keep up with my worlds colliding, so I happen to know that Junebug was directed by one Phil Morrison, with whom I worked on a series of Wheaties commercials which I wrote in my previous incarnation as an advertising copywriter.

Normally, this ain't no big thang. That life was long, long ago, and most people's memories don't extend that far, especially when it comes to remembering the copywriter, who is slightly less important than an apple box on a commercial set. In fact, we're seen as so inconsequential, we're frequently not invited to the shoot at all: I wrote a Gatorade commercial shot by the notorious Joe Pytka, but was subsequently hired as an actor on a couple of his commercials. Of course, I was not in attendance at the former and saw no reason to bring up the connection at either of the latter, so it really didn't take much to fly under the radar.

The Wheaties commercials, however, were a slightly bigger deal. There were lots of verbal shenanigans in my tricky little scripts, so I was actually consulted on this or that more than once. Plus the spots starred Michael Jordan! Michael Effin'* Jordan!!! This was a huge break for the then-very-young Phil, whom we found via some groovy interstitials he'd done for MTV. Plus...Michael Effin' Jordan! Surely Phil would remember every minute detail of that week we spent together on a Chicago soundstage, I thought.

That is, I thought until I uncovered this commemorative photo of me**, MJ, and an assortment of client-side and agency dorks:

MJ_and_me.jpg

Now not only am I certain Phil Morrison will not know me from Adam, I am also sorely tempted to submit myself to that Oprah show where they're looking for people who look better today than they did 10 years ago.

Because (a) I am pretty sure I'm fugly enough in my high-waisted, reverse-fit jeans to win a free trip back to Chicago and (b) if they give me two round-trip tickets, maybe I can convince The BF not to break up with me for revealing my shame...

xxx c

*And if his middle name isn't "effin'", I'd like suggest right now that he change it; my god, could he have a more appropriate middle name?

**If you can't find me in the group, I would be the one on second from the left, doing my impersonation of a really unattractive lesbian. Good at it, aren't I?

UPDATE: Link to larger sizes of my fugliosity at Flickr, here.

Goal-free, as free as the wind blows

cornell_artsquad.jpg Along with not being much for Valentine's Day, I'm also not much for networking, self-promotion, school spirit or any type of change.

But 2006 is destined, it seems, to be the year of doing stuff I am not really much for. So a couple of weeks ago, I combined all of the things that repulse me (excluding Valentine's Day, which had already been addressed separately) by attending my very first meeting of the Cornell Entrepreneur Network.

I did have a nominal reason for attending: to see and hear Steven Shapiro (ENGR, '86) talk about his book and philosophy, Goal-Free Living. After all, with my twin pursuits of punditry and ultra-organization, it was only natural that I want to see, up close and personal, someone who is not only living his non-goals, but getting other people to sit up and take notice.

I arrived late by design, giving myself 45 minutes to get from Hancock Park to the Skirball Cultural Center during the height of rush hour. (For you non-locals, that is akin to giving yourself 16 hours to drive from Yakima to Key West. In a Geo Metro. Filled with cinderblocks.)

Unfortunately for me, or not, depending on how you look at it, things were still just ramping up when I arrived, 10 minutes before the talk was supposed to start. Worse, everyone, it seemed, had come in pairs, like this was some Ivy League Noah's Ark. Some had even come in clusters. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to elbow my way into a goddam cluster. I'm shy, dammit!

Clicking into survival mode, I managed to kill a little time at the sushi and meatball stations, and got thrown a pity chat-up from the friendly and outgoing CEN organizer, Shannon...but STILL no one was showing any signs of massing in the speaking area.

Then a funny thing happened in line at the bar: I met someone. Someone else who was also not there with anyone else and also in need of a drink. We got to talking, so much so that the meatball station was threatening to close. He excused himself...and someone else wandered over to say 'hi'. Then one of those Noah's Ark couples wandered over and started talking, too, and all of a sudden, we were all chumming it up on the way to our seats.

The talk was great. I'll go into greater detail once I've read and reviewed Steven's book; for now, suffice to say that Steven was a lively, engaging speaker with an interesting tack on accomplishment, and that I more than got my money's worth from the seminar. What was really extraordinary, though, was the way the evening started out as one thing (me coming to hear a speech) and ended up something else entirely, me leaping to the podium during open-mic time and giving a brief but impassioned speech about my presentation graphics* skills.

I left the evening with a handful of business cards and a whole new perspective on goals. Had I gone to the networking meeting with the goal of networking...well, I probably wouldn't have made it to the meeting, let alone collected any business cards. Throwing myself into something new and scary just because I had a feeling that I might benefit by seeing and hearing this speech, all kinds of things happened.

The not-so-good news? I'm still sitting on those business cards, two weeks later, and I still haven't sent my own card to the printers. Having backed way, way off my type-A goal-focussed lifestyle a few years ago, I'm now thinking it may be time to reintroduce a few of the old carrot-and-stick measures. Or at least time to climb into the cinderblock-laden Metro and point her East. With any luck, I can reach the other coast by sometime next year.

Unless, of course, I find something really cool along the way...

xxx c

Photo of Cornell University's Arts Quad by Hobbes vs. Boyle via Flickr, used under Creative Commons license.

*After my recent tussle with the Evil Empire, I'm still having a problem saying P***rP***t.

All my love, just under the wire

sketchbook

I am not so much for Valentine's Day, just like I am not so much for St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Halloween, Christmas or even Thanksgiving, although I mind that one the least.

After many years of grappling with What To Do On Holidays, I have finally found peace with the notion that all days are equal chances to offer love and good fellowship and even, hell, especially, candy. But if I am to honor saints or presidents or martyrs (or be honored in their names), I would rather do it with words or pictures or hugs & kisses (especially kisses) than anything you can buy in a store.

That said, this little sketchbook is still my favorite Valentine's Day gift ever. Until today, that is, when I get The BF back from duties that took him elsewhere.

And so, I am off to the airport. May you all fly with wings to the one you love.

xxx
c

Ich bin ein pimp

monks So I'm lounging in front of the 12" at my country house this afternoon, sipping bourbon, going to traffic school, when who should show up but Andrew Ward, photographer, and his lovely wife, Alex (or as Supah-Pimp likes to call her, AlexandraCreative). Not a total surprise, I suppose, as Alex was to become the newest owner of The BF's old 17", and the "country house" is actually The BF's regular-usual house and he'd arranged the hand-off in advance and even maybe told me about it, but I was deep into Lesson 5 out of 155, "Interacting at Intersections!", so I probably missed the old "hi" sign.

Anyway, since Andrew is a photographer and Alex is a web designer and The BF is a genius and I am a dork, our conversations always seem to go off on some geeky tangent; as we were conducting our business in the computer resale facility that The BF's dining room office has become, talk naturally turned to RSS feeds and SEO, specifically, how to drive traffic to Andrew Ward, photographer's website (which, coincidentally, was wholly designed and implemented by Alex I. Ward, sole proprietrix of AlexandraCreative). Alex, who has designed many lovely websites, was big on hidden links. Me? I've drunk the blogging Kool-Aid, and am all about the frequently updated content. I mean, think about it: if you were a spider, would you want something you couldn't see, or lots of fresh, meaty content?

Just talking about blogs gave Andrew Ward, photographer, a big fat Irish headache; reading a bit of mine almost made his head explode. And when I suggested he tack on a blog to that terrifically-designed website of his where he sells modestly-priced giclée prints of his beautiful work...well, I think he actually stood up and adjusted himself. Or wait, did that mean he liked the idea?

Regardless, he got seriously fired up when he heard how a nowheresville burg like communicatrix lands me in the top of the search rankings for critical terms like "Colleen Wainwright", "communicatrix", and "how to kill a crab". True, the name "Andrew Ward" is a lot more common than "Colleen Wainwright," but still, your own website oughta come up in the first page of search results for your own name, right?

So to prove the power of blogging (and, by extension, communicatrix-dot-com), I am shamelessly pimping Andrew Ward, photographer (and his lovely wife, AlexandraCreative). Visit the site! Buy a print! Or just...I don't know...visit the site!

Because hey, I may be a pimp, but that doesn't mean I don't like to keep my bitches happy.

xxx c

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What I learned on my trip to Chicago

  1. Airborne works pretty well.
  2. Chicago can still kick my immune system's ass.
  3. No matter how light it feels in the store, the 12" PowerBook morphs into an Acme anvil after two hours on your back.
  4. If you live in the Midwest, you resign yourself to a winter of frozen ears or Hat Head.
  5. Call me "pointy".
  6. Regardless of your will to pass him by, Manny, the shoeshine guy from Atlanta's, is stronger.
  7. It'll cost you $8 per person, standing up.
  8. Not including tip.
  9. If I had to move back, I'd want to live in Wicker Park.
  10. I probably couldn't afford it anymore.
  11. The best espresso in Chicago, oddly enough, may well be at the venerable Miller's Pub in the Loop.
  12. The chicken Kalamata at Athenian Room is still the greatest entrée in all the land.
  13. Especially after five single malt pours at Duke of Perth.
  14. Great friends are not location-specific.
  15. No matter how many exposés they run on the filth that lives in a hotel bedspread, I'm still going to contribute to it.
  16. For better or worse, Dell'Alpe has cornered the giardiniera market.
  17. I really do miss public transportation.
  18. I really do love L.A.
  19. Everyone loves The BF.
  20. Break your shoes in first.

xxx c

Shedding my ill humours

cw_wickerpark While my rancor towards a certain piggy software monolith is perfectly justified (viral marketing comment b.s. from monolith weasel-flunkies notwithstanding), I had found myself getting a wee bit cranky in general. Too much work is usually a good thing for me, especially when it involves a mix of the design and the acting varieties (the latter still pays better, by far), but too much holiday merriment and too much sunshine can only mean one thing: time to go to Chicago.

Right on cue, Chicago stepped up to the plate. When we landed here on Friday, it was overcast. When we left the hotel to train it up to Old Town for dinner, it was raining. When we got off the "L", it was, I shit you not, hailing on us. And when we finally tromped out of the steakhouse a few hours later, it was snowing like Christmas at the North Pole.

How can you not love it here?

Despite offers from my plugged-in friends to procure tickets to various carnivals, cultural events and carnivals masquerading as cultural events, I stood firm: I am here to stuff my face, see my friends, and purchase enough giardiniera to last us through the next trip back. This being Chicago, home of bar on every corner, or, more accurately, four bars at every intersection, there has also been a considerable amount of sport drinking, but the BF and I are kind of maxed out on alcohol now, so we'll probably just glut ourselves on Italian beef and Kalamata chicken (oh, god...that chicken...) for the rest of the stay.

What has been most lovely about this here stay (why is this visit different from all other visits?) is, I won't lie, having the BF in tow. (Or, on some occasions, being in tow of the BF.) Partly because it is wonderful being able to close the circle between your old friends and your new, but also partly because that boy takes some A-number-one photographs with his fancy-ass camera.

xxx c

Photo of me wearing all of my clothes at once by the BF.

The best laid plans of oft-laid women...

cheesysmile Okay, okay, I was perhaps a little overambitious thinking I could wreck-reate, Get to Empty and move the cursed blog in 11 days. Actually, had the cursed rain gods not woken me at the highly ungodly hour of 5 am, I might have sucked it up and made the move today. But me and code, we have a passing acquaintance at best. Add lack of sleep and I'd be sure to do something stupid like not bow low enough or call its mother a left-handed, bicycling whore and gum up the works for who knows how long.

On the bright side, since I promised myself I'd take care of all this crap last year, this year's resolutions are as yet unsullied.

I did, in fact, "get to empty" (vernacular for step one of David Allen's geek-approved Getting Things Done system for organization and lifestyle management) late last night, a signal event, as it involved me plowing through a solid, vertical foot-and-a-half of pulpy dread, including TWO, count 'em, TWO spiral notebooks filled with 80 college-ruled pages of line items. Each. I've been dodging those suckers for months now.

But now (non-geeks, please look away) I've dragged all those messy scraps that have been cowering in the dark corners of my purse(s), my glove compartment, my various voice mail accounts and voice memo recorders and summer jacket pockets, and stuffed them into a clutch of plain text files which fit elegantly onto a single thumb drive. Yee-hah!

Of course, now I have to keep up with the program. Collection, like fresh New Year's intentions, does not an implementation make.

However, I have hope. Outside of getting back on the SCD wagon (I fell off hard and was soundly trounced by horses bearing cupcakes and marshmallow snowman Peeps), my sole resolution for at least the next month is maintaining GTD. Hell, I may even take up smoking again! Well, not really, but I figure I may as well wait until the crowds thin out at the gym.

So no move for two weeks-ish. Until then, I'll probably stick to reviews, linkage and other stuff that doesn't require too much in the way of imagery.

Did you know you have to port all of those pictures to the new server by hand!?!

xxx c

P.S. Speaking of linkage, I am thriiiiiled to announce the arrival of my pal, Erik Patterson, to the blogosphere. His gig? One new thing every day. And he's tenacious, pups. Now all you non-Angelenos who can't get out to see Erik's fabulous plays can get a dose. Of writing. Get your minds out of the gutter...

Gee...no, GTD!

I confess: my passion for giving unsolicited advice is almost as great as my passion for making lists. So when Neil Kramer, a.k.a. Citizen of the Month, a.k.a. Blogebrity's newest word pimp, posted this semi-solicitous comment on a semi-recent post about the power of making lists, my hard little heart leapt for joy. (All I really want for Christmas is to be like Heather Havrilesky.)

Dear C-trix,

You seem to be a person who's found a great deal of inspiration from list-making and organizational tools. Since I look up to in these matters, I've tried to sit down and make lists of my own: things I want to do with my life, places I want to go, people I want to meet. But after writing down the numbers on the left hand side of the page, I get a severe case of jitters as I think about what I truly want, and I always end up ripping the list up. What is wrong with me?

Well, Neil, I do get a lot out of making lists. Listmaking is more than useful to me in the organizational sense, I also derive great comfort and security from my lists. They relax me! They cheer me up! They are much, much cheaper than cigarettes, alcohol, or dulling lifestyle pr0n like cable TV, Oprah magazine and weekend getaways.

That said, there is, or can be, a masturbatory quality to lists. Right now, for example, if that old saw were true and applied to listmaking, I'd be getting fur stuck in the keyboard as I type this.

That's why, along with a few other projects I'm implementing over the holiday break, I'll be baptizing myself at the church of David Allen and adopting my new faith: GTD.

Much has been written about the GTD, short for "Getting Things Done", method of organization. Don't believe me? Check Technorati*. Google that sucker. Shrines have been erected for Allen and his philosophy of stress-free management all over this geek paradise we call the interwebs. So I won't go into too much detail here, other than to say this:

GTD is not about organization for organization's sake, but clearing your mental (and I believe, spiritual) decks for bigger and better things than remembering whether you need to pick up socks at the grocery store, making it especially good for creative people who spin like tops most of the time.

Good? Wait, let me revise that: terrifying. The 25% implementation I did of GTD two years ago scared me so much with its potential for change and growth, I immediately abandoned it for fear of the potential (and attendant responsibility) I could suddenly see lay (lie? laid? christ!) with getting my shit together.

But the world turns and times don't change and eventually, I get sick of it. Besides, I finally saw the part where Allen says it's just FINE to make lists for fun if that's what floats your boat: just don't forget to do the heavy lifting first.

So I'm using my blog once again for what it does best: humiliate me into making changes. I'll stop posting after this Friday (one more treat left for good little boys and girls!) and use the time to get my house in order. Literally**. The first step in implementing GTD is what Allen calls the Collection Process, or "Getting to Empty." That means grabbing every bit of stray paper, every item on every list, every to-do/read/pay/whatever in your paper, electronic and voice corrals, putting them in one place and then sorting through, beginning to end, until you know where everything in your life is. No "I'll think about this later." Now. Do it. Delegate it. File it. Trash it.

He warns people to block out a minimum of one day, preferably two for this escapade. I'm thinking two and keeping a third day flexible, just in case. I'm not looking forward to it, and yet I am: he's described the feeling most people have at the end of the processing, and it sounds like two parts realizing the monster in the corner was just a coat on the chair and one part noticing how good your head feels when you stop banging it against the wall.

And who knows: maybe there will be extra blogging. One of the unexpected benefits most people feel (outside of relief) is a surge of creative energy. If you're not keeping a bunch of crap in the RAM, there's room for some cool stuff. God knows, I like cool stuff.

So keep a good thought. Buy the book and play along if you like. It should be an interesting journey.

If nothing else, it'll be a really dorky one.

xxx c

*21 posts in the last fifteen minutes!!!

**Well, it's an apartment, almost literally.

GTD references:

You can get the book here. You can read a good intro to GTD on Merlin Mann's website, here.

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Who in the world is Samantha Burns?

My site traffic has been up significantly* this month, despite anemic posting. Most of it I owe to the hit-and-run gossip juiceheads coming from a particular celebrity board (note to all you looky-loos: yes, I really did kiss him, on the lips, and yes, there really were zero fireworks on either side). I can't really count that because, like the geeks Merlin sent over back in October when I did a rare (but spicy) riff about my unbridled nerdlust, you don't gain new readers from your random meanderings, and pretty much all I do on communicatrix is randomly meander. What can I say? Sometimes I like to talk about Sartre; sometimes I like to talk about my twat. Hey, who's paying for bandwidth here?

Anyway, occasionally someone funny and smart and literate will stumble upon my messy playpen and dig it and tell a few people and maybe even grow my actual reader base, and that's fantastico, dude. To ease the burden of clicking through the 80 billion links you'll have to by the time communicatrix is a household word, Michael Blowhard is the most likely patient zero for this here website, sending the far more quality-consistent and popular Neil, who sent the equally far more quality-consistent and popular Brandon, who has already sent more readers my way than I can ever hope to repay him for in tequila or sexual favors. (See? Booze! Sex! Tortuous, English-major-gone-mad sentences full of mismatched words, references and phrases! No wonder I am shunned like sushi at the Sizzler: I'm so incongruous, I can only mean trouble down the road!**)

Regardless of my lack of stickiness***, I still thrill to see those quality leads show up in my stats. You would, too, if your schizo blog cast such a wide, useless net. No one of substance reads me, but by gum, I am at the top of the Google rankings when anyone is looking for the 411 on NSA or the human organ that Georgia O'Keeffe based all those flower paintings on. Still, some things completely confound me.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Samantha Burns.

Somehow, I wound up on Miss Burns' 'random bloglog', which, as she states in her highly comprehensive FAQ, "used to be part of a private blogroll for exploring new parts of the blogsphere, but several readers asked for it to be made public, and voila, it's now public."

Firstly, I cannot fathom having "several" readers ask me for anything. I'm lucky if one or two of you post about your fantastic poker site. Secondly, I can't imagine myself in the RSS reader next to:

  1. Britpoppa, who closed up his gossip shop in May of this year
  2. Marc, whose 'Messages' bear the tagline "trying to keep up with God's worldwide wonders"
  3. Tony, who moved his After Grog Blog to a new URL in May of 2003 (what is it about May, I wonder?)
  4. Taranne, who moved her whole Rue to a new URL a year ago (I think...it's in French)

But thirdly, and most importantly, I couldn't figure out where Samantha Burns came from. She's been around since July and already she's a Large Mammal in the TLB food chain, linked out the ass on Technorati and a finalist for Best Canadian Blog in the Weblog Awards. And while she is quite adorable (see photo, above), it's not like she sits around pissing off liberals or yakking about her twat.

I think I will just have to get down with the fact that, if anything, I'm the tortoise in this blog race****. Perhaps it is due to my horrible coding skills: I don't know how to make those fancy Javascript links that have my imprimatur in them even as they direct people elsewhere. Also, I have this little focus problem. As in, I can't focus on this blog enough to come up with a cohesive theme, much less a marketing strategy.

Or maybe it's really true that I'm just here for the beer, the blogging equivalent of 'beer' being 'freedom to write whatever the hell I feel like'.

That's bullshit, of course. I want my micro-brand-Oprah empire just like everyone else in this Oklahoma land rush we call the blogosphere. But after 10 years of writing ad copy and 3 more writing fascist sketch comedy, formats give me hives and self-promotion feels too much like a busman's holiday.

I pay the price, of course: my little ditties may draw raves and earn me trips to Montreal, but my soapbox sketches still clear the theater.

Ah, well. You two are still here with me, right? Right?

Shit.

"Hello...Samantha?..."

xxx c

*These things are relative, Chuckles. I'm wagering my former writing partner, Rick Crowley, will be able to eat me twice over in TTLB by the end of the year.

**I had really hoped to squeeze in a sneeze bar reference, but that paragraph was getting ridiculous even by my decidedly loopy standards.

***Yes, I'm reading The Tipping Point. As well as Blink, that Suze Orman book, Found, Getting Things Done (again) and the pertinent content from the New Yorker dating back to J-U-L-Y of 2004. Don't ever let anyone tell you my eyes aren't bigger than my stomach.

****Although recent reconfigurings in the TLB knocked me down from a brief high of Flappy Bird to a shameful low of crunchy crustaceonness.

NOTE: This post originally uploaded on December 13th at 9:15am, but had to be back-dated since, as usual these days, TypePad status is SNAFU.

Rick Crowley is in the house!

I've blogged about my old writing partner before, wondering why the funniest people on the planet have to move on to stupid things like marriage and children instead of spending their damned time amusing me like they're supposed to. Well, as far as I know, Rick Crowley is not about to leave his stupid wife and kid (hi, Sha! love you!), but from the looks of the first post, that might actually be a blessing since they will likely provide excellent blog fodder.

Rick is a storyteller supreme, he's forgotten more about spinning yarns than most of us can ever hope to learn. And he's as good in person as he is on the page. I am hoping that with time and encouragement, he might be coaxed into podcasting, and my cyber-life will be complete.

So what are you dawdling around here for? Head on over to the imaginatively named Rick Crowley weblog and feast your hungry, hungry eyes. They will thank you, those peckish eyes.

And I will, too. Because if I can send 50 of you over there, I get to make Rick tell the white sweatpants story.

"Bwahaha!", "All your blogs are belong to us" and other dorky sign-offs.

xxx c

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Holi-daze

There are things I love about the holidays (the music, the shows, the decorations, the emphasis on gathering with loved ones) and there I things I don't like so much (the attendant hassle).

Perhaps Shane has taken the right approach, bow out gracefully, admit that the added pressure of festivity on demand is too much for the slender shoulders of the lone micro-blogger. Of course, last year, the holidays didn't dampen my enthusiasm; on the other hand, as a brand new blogger, everything was shiny and new, Christmas et al even more so.

At any rate, life (and its own attendant hassle) continue, with or without holiday spirit. I think some of my foot-dragging may have to do with plain old life overload; perhaps once I finish implementing GTD like my fully-actualized dork brethren, I'll have more time for bloggy purposes.

In the meantime, posting will likely be more sporadic than usual. This, in an attempt to keep it as meaningful (present entry excepting) as possible.

I love my blog and all of its seven readers (yes, I believe the current stats safely allow me to quote "seven" with surety).

Some things to look forward to by the end of this holiday season:

  • a move to WordPress, with stem-to-stern revamping!
  • the full launch of the c-trix's web presence for design work, BeanEyes Communications!
  • a possible spin-off to add to the communicatrix empire!
  • much attendant hassle!

And people say nothing happens in this town between Thanksgiving and New Year's.

xxx
c

Quotation of the Day: Only 27 Shopping Days 'Til Christmas Edition

"It seems as though we've marketed ourselves into a corner, where theonly way to grow is to find increasingly narrow niches of decreasing utility. The consumer portion of our economy is now dependent on a four-week long debt-fueled race to buy the useless."

, Seth Godin, reporting on next year's garage sale trinket