Things To Point Out
Sunday, May 4, 2008
It's already been up there for almost a week, but it hit me today that most of you never visit my actual site and instead prefer to read the text removed from its context within the fabulous template, which is of my own creation, so I thought I would write a terrificly long sentence to tell you that you should come to my actual website and take a look at this month's masthead. It is raining, but my birdies? They are so happy.Also, I have this new link right up there under the masthead that leads to the Suggestion Box. You might find me self-flagellating and tearing my hair out (what is long enough to grab a hold of) later when some twits decide it will be all funny to suggest I eat more cock or do something more important with my life like save the Arctic's Layson Albatross from their own stupid habit of getting killed by things while sleeping in mid-flight.
The purpose of the Suggestion Box, though, is to find out what you want to know about or what you want to know more about, and the vast majority of you people are truly very nice and know how to use a person's suggestion box appropriately and with respect, especially when said person's suggestion box is all new and virgin-like and in need of decent treatment so that it does not grow into a bitter shell that balks at the very thought of anyone even daring to hit its submit button. Right now, it is a wide-eyed little fledgling of a thing, batting its eyelashes at passers-by and hoping for lollipops.
Thirdly, I received my bi-monthly e-mail from Photojojo which has the Photo Time Capsule of my photos from approximately one year ago. It made me immediately pissy about the 14°C (61°F) weather that I was enjoying until that moment:
That picture was taken out on a deck at night about a year ago. Last year at this time it was warm enough to do that, but this year, it is still going down to about 5°C (41°F) at night, if not colder, and I doubt anyone is going to be sharing icy drinks outside tonight unless they're homeless.
The weather and I are going to have to have a serious sit-down about this, especially since I already have to close my living room window at 6:22 p.m. because it is getting too cold to have it open, even though the sun is still out. It's fucking May! And I want my deck drinks!
Labels: the here and now, the metablogging
comments (8) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
Five Star Friday, Unveiled
Friday, April 18, 2008
After my paying gig last night that started at 8:15 a.m., I came home with Five Star Friday on the brain. It needed its own home. Being a bit pointy, I had to let that sucker out, and out it came in one unending torrent from 5:30 p.m. until 12:20 a.m. Do you know what fifteen straight hours of work sitting in front of a computer screen does to a person?I look like hell. My eyes are puffy and red, my skin is pallid, and I keep sitting around with my mouth hanging open. Now, if only I were an overweight teenager sitting in my mother's basement, the picture would be complete.
So, please, I beg of you, head on over and take a look at the product of my labour, and remember while you do so that I did this for YOU.
Welcome to Five Star Friday!
Love,
Schmutzie.
Labels: five star friday, the metablogging
comments (8) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
Five Star Friday Is Getting A New Home And Is Hankering For Your Submissions
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Alright, folks. I have a mission, which means I am going to make gross assumptions about you and your level of commitment to this mission. My mission is this: Five Star Friday. And you? You want to participate, spread the word, and help make this celebration of good weblog writing a success.I got so excited about it that I bought the domain name, I am building the website, and, if all goes as planned, which it never does, because this is the internet after all, it should be up sometime this evening at www.FiveStarFriday.com.
My goal for Five Star Friday is for it to be a celebration of good content from weblogs across the internet. Whether it is funny, sad, thoughtful, or joyful, if you think a particular weblog post is a cut above the rest, I want to include it in Five Star Friday. All types of content are welcome, whether it be sports, poetry, photography, or catblogging. Even spinster aunts crave a little more fame.
There is a ton of good content out there that rarely gets out to breathe, because, let's face it, many of us could fit our fanbase into an elevator, and isn't it a shame to let all that genius slowly disappear down this vast hole of intertubes? I think it is.
How To Submit A Weblog Post To Five Star Friday
(The reason I insist on using Twitter for communication is that, otherwise, my e-mail inbox would rear up, smack its greasy lips, and swallow me whole. We can't have that.)
So, now I charge you all with the task of submitting excellent weblog content to me, pronto! You've got less than twenty-four hours. Go!
And remember to keep an eye out for www.FiveStarFriday.com. It's going to be spanky.
Labels: five star friday, the metablogging
comments (6) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
A Call For Superior Weblog Entries
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Today is Tuesday. I am not a fan of Tuesdays. They fall right after Monday, which as a post-weekend reintroduction to beige cubicle life, does not create a great setup for the workweek. Tuesday is the day before Wednesday, which it pales near, because Wednesdays, being in the middle of the workweek, are able to see the hope that is at both ends of the beige cubicle life cycle.Tuesday is like cold oatmeal gone lumpen like leftover breakfast.
But! See that? There is a bright But! here. You can all help with the suckitude that is Tuesday.
You see, I completely realize that I allow Tuesdays to be what they are for me. I slothfully roll back into the bowl of glutinous porridge and let it envelope me. It is disgusting behaviour for one who would be the master of her own path.
What I want is some really, really very good weblog reading material from the internets (that's you), because nothing lifts my spirits and my creativity quite like good writing. Please leave links in the comments to recent webly excellence. It can be your own entries that you are pimping out or those of others that you think should be read.
You will help me crawl out my Tuesday doldrums, and we can all share weblog entries like a reading circle gone amock.
Have at it! Give me your best finds. We can broaden our horizons and see what's out there. Plus, who doesn't love a little extra link love?
Labels: the metablogging
comments (30) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
New Masthead
Friday, March 21, 2008
Do you see that new masthead I have installed at the top of this website? If not, refresh your browser or actually make with the clickety and head on over from your feed reader to take a look.
See? It's birds. I drew them in Photoshop using nothing more than the touchpad on my laptop, so it was hard to add any smaller details like, you know, wings. I am sure that it's okay, though. I don't think they're going anywhere.
Labels: the metablogging
comments (30) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
Keeping House
Sunday, February 10, 2008
I have not done this thing known as housekeeping in a long time. I avoid it because it always makes me feel like a host who goes too far during the home tour before they serve supper.Host: And this here is our bedroom. Do you like the drapes? We just bought them. Where are you going?
Guest: I thought you were going to show us the rest of the house.
Host: I will, but first take a look inside the closet. It has shelves and hangers and everything.
Guest: That's a lovely closet.
Host: Yes, and have you seen the hooks on the door?
Guest: They're very nice.
Host: Check out this doorknob. Notice the fine craftmanship.
Guest: Uh, yeah.
But I will dispense with the apologies and get down to keeping house.
I have also added four new photographs to my Etsy shop:
There are a bunch of new blogroll participants in the Collection of Spectacles and the Cockroll (which is genitals-free, in case you were concerned about clicking on that link).
And then, on top of all that, I have added a page of free desktop wallpaper. I intend to keep adding to that in the future, so it may or may not be worth checking back on occasionally.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go shower and get all gussied up for the spectacle of flaming cheese at an upscale Greek restaurant with the fine Saviabella, Superstar, and the Palinode. What is better than cheese? Cheese on fire. And what is better than cheese on fire? Burnt cheese ready to eat. I always like the burnt cheese at the edges of a plate of nachos better than the nachos themselves.
I am a participant in Blog 365.
Labels: the metablogging
comments (6) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
An Art Gallery Wants For Guest Bloggers
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Way, way back on the 7th of December, I was asked if I would guest blog for the MacKenzie Art Gallery, which is basically one of the two largest galleries in the province of Saskatchewan. I was flattered, to say the least, and then the e-mail sunk lower and lower in my inbox until this morning, when I remembered that I was not only invited to write for them but also asked if I might post a little blurb about their call for more guest bloggers. Oops. I wave my white flag at the holiday season.So, finally, here is their call for submissions:
The MacKenzie Art Gallery Seeks Guest Bloggers
Would you like to collaborate with the MacKenzie Art Gallery? If so, start writing! The MacKenzie Art Gallery launching a blog in January and we are now accepting submissions for guest contributors. Send a short proposal in!
Our goal is to have blog entries that are relevant to our readers. This may mean they deal with topics such as art, the local scene, the gallery, artists, or reviews of exhibitions and programs. With the exhibition Warhol: Larger Than Life coming up in January you may want to consider writing about pop culture, pop art or Andy Warhol. Or you may have a completely unique creative idea -- and we want to hear about it! Blog entries can be personal essays, reviews, creative writing or even visual in nature.We are not looking for academic essays. We want entries to be in your unique voice.
Bloggers whose proposals are selected will receive two complimentary tickets to visit Warhol: Larger Than Life. In order to be considered we need:your name and the URL of your blog (if you currently have one) a very short, informal synopsis of what you would like to do for your guest entry, including the approxmiate length it will be a short bio that we can use to promote you with, if your submission is accepted a deadline -- tell us when your entry will be ready for us to post
Proposals are being submitted on an ongoing basis.
Submit proposals to:
MacKenzie Communications
T.C. Douglas Building
3475 Albert Street
Regina, Saskatchewan
S4S 6X6
Canada
(306) 584-4273
Or email: mackenzie@uregina.ca
You can also contact the MacKenzie Art Gallery on Facebook and on MySpace. The MacKenzie can also be found on Flickr and YouTube.
I already have a piece brewing in my head.
I am a participant in Holidailies 2007.
Labels: the metablogging
comments (3) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
Do You Etsy? Lulu? Zazzle? Cafe Press?
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
If you make stuff and sell it online and read this website, I would like to know, and so would a lot of other people stumped for gifts for their fathers who already own enough socks and golf balls and spy novels.Today is your day to shamelessly self-promote your must-have doorknob warmers and what-have-yous. Have at it!
I am a participant in NaBloPoMo.
Labels: the metablogging
comments (17) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
My New Etsy Shop
Saturday, November 24, 2007
I have gone and done it. I have finally opened up an Etsy shop of my very own to sell stuff. At some point, there may be more than just photographs for sale, but for now I am selling twenty-one different 8"x10" and 5"x7", black-and-white and colour, matte, bordered photographs for $15 and $20 a piece.I meant to do something like this much earlier, but every time the thought ran through my mind, I could not think of how to go about it. I do not know what has happened to my brain, but something has gone terribly awry with it, because, seriously, there are a thousand ways to go about selling just about anything you want to sell online. Over these last many months, how is it that I could not think up with a single solution to this?
I am devolving. Pretty soon, I will be communing with the bath sponge.
I would love your feedback about this new endeavor, except if it is mean. Play nice, or I will schluck out your eyes with a spork.
I am a participant in NaBloPoMo.
Labels: the metablogging
comments (18) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
The December Masthead's Early For No Good Reason
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
I have my new masthead up. If you do not see a black-and-white tree branch pattern at the top of the page, refresh your browser or restart your computer to make it happen.It is nice, no?
I am a participant in NaBloPoMo. Check out the upper right sidebar and vote for me in the 2008 Blogger's Choice Awards.
Labels: the metablogging
comments (17) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
When I Tell You To Read "Out Of Character", I Mean It
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Let us say that, when you are toodling around the internet on your computer, the internet category called Weblogs is like an ocean wave coming home to pound the beach that is your literate self. Over 19 million weblogs are all roiling around in the surf, and you are looking for one, just one, today that does not have three hundred crappy widgets slowing up your load time or instant music without an obvious stop button or, gawd forbid, a flash animation splash page to alert everyone around you that you are not working on that woefully out of date manual. That is all you want.Okay, no. You want more than that. You want them to be funny sometimes, because funny is good. And you want there to be some photographs, because it lends that degree of familiarity from afar, which in most contexts is creepy but is a sign of success on the internet. You want to feel like they're talking to you and not some impersonal mass like some news or corporately sponsored product review website.
You have plucked many a weblog out of the surf, turned it over, and found it left you cold. The weblog looked up at you and said something like I like toast, and you thought well, don't we all, and you threw that bland thing back. Well, I have the cure: Erin's Out of Character.
Her accounts of her remodeling travails are stellar. I cannot say for sure, because I just started reading her this morning, but if you start back in October and read forward, you should catch a good chunk of it.
Her dog, Jake, is supernatural. Or he can fly. Either way, he's alive.
And then, I am not kidding, I was just going to say that the only drawback was that she did not ship her sock zombies from her Etsy shop outside the United States, but I thought I would check to see if she had changed that, and she did, and now I have one coming to me up here in Canada! Erin just gets better and better. This time, by about $17.
I am a participant in NaBloPoMo. Check out the upper right sidebar and vote for me in the 2008 Blogger's Choice Awards.
Labels: the consumerism, the metablogging
comments (9) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
Katt Och Häst (or, as translated from the Swedish, "Cat And Horse")
I got all weird about having a vote-for-me post at the top of this website, so I'm putting this here to bury it a little. This is still kind of a vote-for-me post, because I am mentioning the voting thing (*cough* see upper right sidebar *cough*), but at least I am entertaining you with a horse-loving cat.(via Raymi)
I am a participant in NaBloPoMo. Check out the upper right sidebar and vote for me in the 2008 Blogger's Choice Awards.
Labels: the metablogging, the videos
comments (3) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
I've Been Nominated For The 2008 Blogger's Choice Awards
Friday, November 9, 2007
Look to the right. That's right. Up near the top of the sidebar there. See it? It should look something like this:I've been nominated for the
2008 Blogger's
Choice Awards!
Vote for me:
Best Blog of All Time
The Blogitzer
Best Humor Blog
Best Photography Blog
What? I haven't hit you over the head enough? Fine.
I've been nominated for the 2008 Blogger's Choice Awards! Oh, I know, the 2007 awards are barely cold yet, but that's how the Blogger's Choice Awards roll. At any rate, there is voting to be done, and you should go do it.
Why? Geez, are you ever high maintenance. You'll vote because you want to, of course. Not to say that of course you want to vote me. I mean, if you want to, you can vote for me, of course.
And now I'll stop stepping all over my clumsy tongue and clumsify it even further with a bottle of beer from the fridge (if my stomach doesn't do the big flu-induced refusal first).
Prost!
I am a participant in NaBloPoMo.
Labels: the metablogging
comments (9) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
November's Masthead Is Fashionably Early
Saturday, October 27, 2007
I simply could not wait for next month to roll around before putting up my November masthead, so here it is. From now until November 30th, you will be looking at hot rabbit ass. Mmm, bunny butt. If you are reading this through a feed reader, pop on over to check it out, and if you are here and it is not showing up, refresh this page so you can behold the rear view rabbit.And do you know what else? There is an article about this website at the Kansas City Star online. I feel all real special and stuff.
Labels: the metablogging
comments (23) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
#831: Like You Care
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Labels: the lists, the metablogging
comments (9) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
#820: The Great Mofo Delurk 2007 Blogroll
Friday, October 5, 2007
The Great Mofo Delurk 2007 was a raging success. At least, it was far more raging than I ever thought it would be. I can't speak for all of us (Sweetney and Jenandtonic), but I was bowled over by how many people jumped in and took part.I was so impressed with all of you that I (with Sweetney's urging) created The Great Mofo Delurk 2007 Blogroll and some extra badges. I created the list of participants from what I could glean from Technorati, so I am sure that it is incomplete. If you participated and cannot find yourself on the blogroll, please shoot me an e-mail with the link to the entry you wrote for the occasion, and I will add you.
If you participated in The Great Mofo Delurk 2007, you can use one of the following lovely badges for your website to declare your proud participation and send more traffic to its other participants. I have included the necessary code. Just copy the code for one of the badges and paste it into an entry or template where you want the badge displayed. Remember to retype the word "COLOUR" in the code below as the colour of the button you want to use. The available colours are: purple, red, pink, orange, grey, green, blue, and black.
The following badge is my favourite, because it includes the entire blogroll of The Great Mofo Delurk 2007 participants.
<div style="width:145px; height:200px; overflow:auto; color:#CCCCCC; padding:5px; border:2px solid #999999; background:#FFFFFF; font-size:11px line-height:15px;"><a href="http://surplus.schmutzie.com/2007/10/great-mofo-delurk.html"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/schmutzie_pickles/buttons/greatmofodelurk_COLOUR_125X32.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://rpc.blogrolling.com/display.php?r=e7838250501b1d50cc55c317fa6a6530"></script>
</div>
Labels: the metablogging
comments (20) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
#814: The Great Mofo Delurk 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
While twittering a couple of days ago, Sweetney, Jenandtonic, and I lamented the recent drop in comments we have each had on our respective websites, and it seems that we are not the only ones who have noticed this. I have been up and down this internet over the last few weeks and found that there seems to be a drop in comments everywhere.And I do mean everywhere. From small twenty-hits-a-day weblogs to ones that receive thousands of visitors before noon, people are falling silent when it comes to entering text into the small, white comment boxes, and quite frankly, no matter how many hits you get on any given day, it is a little disheartening to have your comments drop from three to one or from 500 to 250.
In a way, I am kind of glad that this is a widespread problem, because I was about to start checking my armpits (yep, I'm wearing deodorant) and my shoes (nope, no animal dung) and testing to see if I had been using my outside voice too much again (I don't think I have). So, it is not just me! And it is not just you!
It is the commenters, (which are also you and me), who have been falling down on the job. There has been a sharp rise in mofo lurkers around this here interweb, and they need a great big shove into the light of day, because it is not healthy for anyone to leave them, (which may also be us), hiding behind the bushes underneath our respective windows.
All of the above is why Sweetney, Jenandtonic, and I are bringing The Great Mofo Delurk 2007 to you on Wednesday, October 3rd. It is time that all you lurking mofos delurked, and we have given you six days to prepare yourselves (and ourselves, ahem). On October 3rd, delurk you mofos! Say hello! Share who you are! Put an end to your m*th*rf*ck*ng lurking and leave a comment!
We want to hear your voices in our comments, and we will love you mofo'n lurkers for it. We really will.
If you would like to participate in The Great Mofo Delurk 2007, feel free to use one of the following 135x135 buttons. Simply copy and paste the code below the buttons into an entry or your template and bring those mofos out of hiding next Wednesday. Remember to retype the word "colour" in the code below as the colour of the button you want to use. The available colours are: purple, red, pink, orange, grey, green, blue, and black.
Labels: the metablogging
comments (241) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·
#811: A Metal Helmet + Naked ≠ Funny. Who Knew?
Friday, September 21, 2007
- Today is the last day for my most fabulous guest bloggers. You must go send them internet love through the links above this entry before they're taken down tomorrow.
- I keep salt at my desk. It is not the glorious vegetarian and kosher Bacon Salt, but I muddle through.
Now that the important stuff is out of the way, I have a confession to make: my sense of humour does not always jive with other people's senses of humour. It also does not always swing dance or jitterbug. On occasion, it has even had its own personal, arhythmic drummer. In fact, sometimes my sense of humour has simply trod all over another person's dance number and left it for dead. Thankfully, my thirties have put me in a far more mature place that has me less likely to commit personally shameful acts of the funny. I think that is why I still have friends and a cubicle to call my own.
Do you think I am joking? I was the kid who thought it was funny to cut earthworms in half and swallow their wiggly ends whole like squirmy pills to the utter disgust of my Barbie-loving neighbours. The first time I did it, I laughed so hard that I fell over on the lawn and skinned my knee. The Barbie-loving neighbours went home with their freckled noses in the air and dorky little sun hats atop their sensitive heads.
My last major error in humour judgement occurred while I was dating my first post-Starcat boyfriend. Due to the fact that one of my new seven roommates had turned out to be a roofie-carrying date rapist, which is a whole other story unto itself, I ended up primarily staying at my boyfriend's place with his brother. It seemed to work out quite well. He dealt with the fact that I was a freak of nature who occasionally shot him with bolts of electricity while we slept (which is also a whole other story unto itself), and I dealt with the fact that he insisted on making me listen to the Thursday night small town radio polka hour with him, because nothing says party like hearing Stan Wolowic & The Polka Chips play "The Too Fat Polka".
As I was there so often, I came to think of the place as my second home. I slept, showered, and ate there, and I had my own set of keys. When I was sick with the flu, I spent three days on his living room floor alternating between ska music, daytime soaps, and vomit stops in the bathroom. As a result of this homey feeling, I thought nothing of hanging around the apartment naked for most of the few days that his brother was away on a trip.
One afternoon, while skipping university classes and wondering what I could do with all of my no money, I hung around naked and started playing with things around the apartment. My boyfriend's brother had this thing about being a spy and did some undercover work on the side, so he often had interesting gadgets lying around. The brother and I had spent one evening taking turns dodging around the apartment with sensors stuck inside our shirts that could only be seen with a special camera, and I was hoping that there was something like that I could fool around with.
I picked through the kitchen drawers and ran my fingers along the bookshelves, but nothing really jumped out as being any fun until I glanced up. The brother had a collection of old military helmets that he kept lined up on top of the bookshelves. Touching them was generally verboten, but, hell, he was not even in town, and what could it hurt? Besides, they were made of bloody heavy metal. It was not like I could break them.
I got up on a chair and lugged a Pickelhaube helmet down from its dusty display spot. It was about eighty years old, so the interior leather pieces that held it to a person's head looked well worn and kind of disgusting, but I was having a bad hair day and tossed the thing onto my head anyway. I went into the bathroom to have a look at myself.
There I stood in the mirror, completely naked but for my glasses and a Pickelhaube helmet. I looked awesome. I worked up a little soft shoe and jazz hands routine. I took a bath. I made rice and beans. If you know how heavy a Pickelhaube helmet is, then you are now fairly impressed with the strength of my neck to hold my head and that helmet up through all of that activity.
After cooking up some lunch, I sat down to watch television and lost track of the time. It just did not occur to me to either put on any clothes or to remove the helmet, so at around 5:30 p.m., when the boyfriend cracked the door to the apartment open, I was still so stupendously outfitted. I thought this was the most hilarious thing ever. I leapt up from the sofa and started in on my soft shoe/jazz hands routine that I had developed earlier so that I was already going great guns when he entered the living room. I shuffled around in a circle and wiggled my bum beneath that helmet's mighty spike. I shimmied my shoulders at him.
To polish off the number, I sang out an airy cha-cha-cha!, gave my jazz hands an extra shake, and wore the widest of grins. He did not mirror my enthusiasm. Instead, he stood completely still. His face went blank, and then it went very white.
What are you doing? he asked.
I'm doing a naked dance in a Pickelhaube helmet. Can't you tell? I threw out a few extra side kicks. I laughed.
Are you trying to be sexy?
No, I said. I'm being hilarious. See? This is funny. I pointed at the helmet's spike and then at my butt and jiggled around enough that the helmet jostled back and forth on my head.
That's not funny, he said.
It's not? I asked from underneath the helmet where it had fallen forward to rest on the bridge of my nose.
No, he said, it's not. Take it off.
Never had the words "take it off" been less sexy. I took off the helmet, went to the bedroom, and threw some clothes on.
Later, when I was replacing the helmet in its original spot, taking care to line up its edges with the dust marks beneath it, the silence in the room broke me. My boyfriend had not spoken a word to me since the incident, and I was sick of pussyfooting around what had happened.
Why aren't you talking to me? I asked.
Because I can't stop picturing you naked in that military helmet. It's wrong.
It's not wrong. It was funny, I insisted.
No. It wasn't. I don't think I can have sex with you now, he said while staring at the television.
Big loss. You were just making me so hot, I thought.
That's ridiculous, I said.
Then I'm ridiculous, he said.
Not surprisingly, our relationship did not weather the test of time, but it did teach me two very important life lessons: anyone who cannot appreciate the humour of my naked self jiggling while wearing a ridiculous Pickelhaube helmet is not fit for a life with me, and also, it is in my best interest to choose my audience wisely if I must jiggle my naked self while wearing a Pickelhaube helmet.
If only I had known that when I was a kid swallowing worms in the yard. I would have picked that kid with the perpetually dirty face down the street who laughed at fart jokes to be my target market.
Labels: the metablogging, the past
comments (6) ·
permalink ·
subscribe ·