Limes with Orange

Sorry for my delinquent posting of late. It's partly because I'm still kind of recovering from the sleep restriction therapy and the ensuing week long migraine. Then, to top it off, I got a migraine on the day of my doctor's appointment so that's been rescheduled for February. (Which is maybe just as well, since I can't really try this approach again until after my math students finish final exams at the end of the month.) But also partly because my online time has been spent gaming of late. I've realized that I only have so much time that I want to allot to online activities. So if I'm gaming, I'm not blogging and vice versa. (And this game has led to much drama on the forums, which is draining and just downright silly... it's just a game, people! But I digress...)

I also haven't been doing much paid posting of late. Partly because of my health and other commitments, partly because most of the opportunities don't interest me. But I just had to share this little piece of paid-posting irony: I didn't check for new opps yesterday because I'd slept particularly badly the night before. And guess what opp I missed out on...

Help Visitors Get a Good Night Sleep!
Discover the ultimate cure to insomnia, with this Sleep Deprivation CD

Are you kidding me?! Oh well. *sigh*

Labels: blogging, health

Tonight I start my first day of sleep restriction. This is the latest attempt to combat my chronic insomnia. My typical sleep pattern involves over an hour to get to sleep, then I sleep for 2-3 hours (if I get 4 hours in a row I consider it a victory), then I'm awake for a minimum of half an hour but usually more like 1-2 hours, then back to sleep, etc. So it takes me 12 hours to get a "full" night's sleep and I'm still exhausted. And that's with the help of medication and regardless of how tired I am when I go to bed.

Needless to say, I would like to be able to sleep through the night and be able to do it without meds. So I'm going to give this therapy a try, even though I'm dreading the first couple of weeks because I know I'm going to be incoherent at best and flaring and migraining at worst (at least I hope that's the worst case scenario). I probably won't be blogging during the initial stage of this treatment, unless I get the urge to chronicle my experience. If that does happen, be prepared for a certain level of incoherency for which I'll apologize in advance.

Wish me luck!

Labels: blogging, health

I figured that I should probably mention that I volunteered for the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers' $100 Film Festival Committee this year, because I've just realized that I won't be posting here much for the next few weeks. Our call for submissions is December 1, 2007 and we're madly trying to get the word out. Plus I'm running the film festival MySpace site, so I'm a wee bit busy with that. And on top of that, I'm trying to finish post-production on "Coda," the film that I'm hoping to enter into the festival. (Don't worry, I'm not on the selection jury... so I don't get to vote for my own film.) So I don't know how much time I'll find to post here when I'm online until after that big push is over. So I guess I'll see ya on the flip side.

Labels: blogging, film

My Lupus is currently flaring so I may or may not get around to updating this blog for a while. I have other things that will take priority in those brief moments that I have energy, so I'll only be updating here if my energy actually outlasts those other priorities.

Labels: blogging, health

The following blogs have now returned to their regularly scheduled programming: Weirdgrrl's Words, Inner Game Geek and Music Musings. I guess that means I should probably go and actually post something new over there.

Labels: blogging

For those of you trying to access my blogs on my weirdgrrl.ca domain: Weirdgrrl's Words, Inner Game Geek or Music Musings... you should know that they are temporarily down. This will also affect some images (and sound clips) that I use on this site but were uploaded to my domain before I got my Photobucket account.

I got a bunch of gobbledygook from Telus explaining what the heck is going on but I am none the wiser, I'll just choose to take comfort from the fact that they are working on it. FYI, my weirdgrrl.ca email addresses are down also, so if you're trying to contact me there you'll be outta luck. Your best bet for now is my personal email or Facebook. Hopefully, this will be resolved within a couple of days. Sorry for any inconvenience!

Labels: blogging

I have lots of news about cars and weddings and such, but right now I'm under a deadline to finish my feature length screenplay for the screenwriting course that I'm taking. So those posts will have to wait until after Friday. Plus I want photos to accompany aforementioned posts and I don't have my hot little hands on such photos yet. But I promise I'll get back to posting regularly by the end of this month at the latest.

I do have a couple of new posts over at Weirdgrrl's Words and plenty of posts over at Music Musings (but most of those are about Canadian Idol, so if you're not interested in that you might want to wait until the season is over before checking that blog out). Okay, that's it for my very vague update. More to follow next week.

Labels: blogging, odds and ends

I found this quiz over at Intermission at Work. You'd think that somebody with five blogs would know that she was addicted to blogging but I didn't actually think my number would be this high:

74%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Labels: blogging, quizzes

A couple of weeks ago, I received my first email offer from someone asking me to blog about their product in exchange for a sample. I had heard other bloggers mention these sorts of interchanges, but had never experienced it for myself. It's pretty cool actually, that someone out there thinks my blog is a good place to advertise their stuff. In the end, I wasn't interested in the product so I declined. But I now have another option: PayPerPost Direct.

So how does this work. I put this handy dandy little badge in my sidebar showing that I'm part of this program and if an advertiser is reading my blog and likes it enough to want me to blog about their service or product, they just click the aforementioned handy dandy little badge. And voila! I have a new chance to make money.

Of course, there are already other companies that offer similar services already out there, but they take a whopping chunk of change for the privilege, between 50-100% markup!! But PPP Direct only charges a 10% service fee and half of that is simply to pay the credit card or PayPal fees. That should make the advertisers happy which, hopefully, in turn makes me happy.

And I have to admit, I'm far more comfortable with the idea of working through an intermediary that I already know and trust than working directly with an advertiser that I don't know from Adam (many apologies to my friend Adam who must be so sick of that expression). Now I guess I just wait and see if it works!

Labels: blogging

"Did Bloggerwave make a Payment with a Fraudulent Bank Account or Credit Card?"

A fellow PayPerPost postie gave another paid blogging site a try and discovered that not all paid blogging sites are equal.

read more | digg story

Update May 27, 2007: Posted by the same blogger after finally getting some answers... "Bloggerwave Cleared by PayPal"

Labels: blogging

Remember my post about Cyberstalking? Well, ABC did NOT do justice to this story or our fellow blogger.

Kat was interviewed by ABC for this piece about cyberstalking. The final edit left a great deal to be desired. Kat is a strong woman who wants tough cyberstalking laws and is not afraid to speak out about her own situation. The ABC story implies that she is hiding and quaking in her boots, which is absolutely not true.

read more | digg story

And if you want to watch the oh-so-pathetic piece, here it is:

Labels: blogging, politics, rant

How do people with multiple blogs keep them all straight and up-to-date? A quick Google search only pointed me in the direction of Niche Empire Generator, a tool for managing multiple WordPress blogs. Not of huge help to me since I'm on Blogger. I also found Daily Blog Tips, which is helpful for other aspects of blogging. But I've decided that the Blogger dashboard is actually pretty useful for organization, which is why I've opted to stick with it as my blogging platform. But I will continue to look for someone who's written some great advice about organizing multiple blogs.

Labels: blogging

If you've been following my blog of late, you'll know that I just started three new niche blogs on my own domain and will eventually be switching "Limes with Orange" to that domain as well. I feel comfortable designing the blogs, I love writing the blogs but I am overwhelmed by promotional choices and social bookmarking options and don't know which ones work best. Which is why I'm glad that I stumbled upon (not to be confused with "Stumbleupon") Britopian.com, a marketing blog that explains quite a lot about social media. There's a lot of information to absorb, but it's very informative without being full of technical jargon, i.e. it's written in a way that makes sense to this layblogger. And the article about The Importance of Social Bookmarking will definitely be helpful in my decision making.

Labels: blogging

Yet another new blog, but this one involves a complete redesign of my business domain. The front page has a navigation menu directing you to the business site, but the majority of it is now devoted to Weirdgrrl's Words, a blog about writing, language and everything related to those topics. There are bound to be some glitches, some links that didn't get updated, etc. but I'll be ironing those out over the next week or so. I've decided that when Limes with Orange actually moves, it will be to a folder rather than the main page. Just because the Words blog is more relevant to the business and seems more appropriate to share the front page with the biz stuff.

Labels: blogging, language, writing

It seems that blog marketing is an internet trend that is growing at an exponential rate. And this trend seems to be quite controversial, sometimes with good reason. Not all paid blogging sites are equal, nor are all paid bloggers. But I've been with PayPerPost since November and think they're pretty darn good.

The four reasons I'm so happy over there: (1) I can make money without compromising my integrity, by only taking opportunities that suit my blog and giving my honest opinions about them; (2) I get a chance to discover new sites that are often still in beta, so I'm in on the ground floor; (3) I have learned so much about promoting my blog from the very helpful posties who visit the forums; and, last but certainly not least, (4) I've met some GREAT people through PayPerPost... other posties that I've never met in person but would actually consider friends. Win-win-win-win.

And yes, this post itself is sponsored but remember what I say in my disclosure policy: "The only thing that will ever be influenced by any compensation received is the topics I choose to write about. My words and opinions are my own and not for sale."

Labels: blogging, payperpost

I've also decided to start a music blog called Music Musings. Not to say that I won't still be talking about music here, but I want a place for those long posts about the interpretation of lyrics and so forth. Both this blog and Inner Game Geek are obviously still in their infancy, so they will be improved upon both in functionality and aesthetics. But it's the start of my grand reorganization plan. As for the details of that plan... well, those are on a need to know basis.

Labels: blogging, music

Because I know that most of my regular readers aren't all that interested in my geeky game posts, I've started a new blog called Inner Game Geek. I'll be gradually shifting some of my previous game posts over there as well as adding new posts about the games that I choose to waste my time on in the future. (If you're one of my few regular readers who also plays games, you might want to bookmark the new site.)

Labels: blogging, games

I just noticed that my "Fave this blog with Technorati" button was programmed to favourite one of my other blogs. I have no idea how this happened because I embedded this button before I even created the other blog. But for those of you who intended to favourite this blog instead, you might want to try again now that I've fixed the glitch. Thanks!

Labels: blogging

I've been tagged with the Thinking Blogger Award! Leigh, who tagged me, says that I'm both right and left brained. Which this quiz I took agrees with (I'd still like to know what happened to the other 2% of my brain… or maybe ignorance is bliss sometimes).

This award, however, has some very fun rules attached to it. They are:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs which make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the Thinking Blogger Award.


The choices are tough. Not because I can't think of several right off the top of my head, but I don't want to tag those poor people that I know get tagged all the time and may well feel obligated to do it even if they're all memed out. And then not everyone likes to participate in memes, but I'm taking a chance on a few here and I'll say up front that I won't be offended if they choose to opt out.

I'll start with Lattégirl (aka Terry). Her blog is eclectic, like mine, and peppered with musings, both big and small. Her love of language is obvious and I think it's very cool that she just translated a poem from French to English for one of her clients.

Next is Joana and her great book reviews. Reviewing books well without giving away too much is quite a balancing act, but Joana manages it very nicely thank you very much. Plus her blog has a choice of themes, depending on what you the reader prefer, which I think is too cool.

Now I'm not sure if Zorn does memes or not, but I would definitely say that "Don't Fear the Truth" is the blog of a thinking blogger, or technically thinking bloggers plural. So I would extend this award to all of that blog's authors.

Now we need a philosophical thinker to add to the bunch and I think Levanah is just the woman for the job.

Last but not least is a new blog by Karen that chronicles her thoughts about books, movies and life. It's called Winding Threads, isn't that a great title?

Labels: blogging, memes

One of our fellow bloggers will be on Good Morning America talking about cyberstalking this morning. She will be speaking out about her own experience with someone who has been stalking her for 5 years. Watch it. Read about it. Now let's figure out how to stop it.

read more | digg story

Labels: blogging

I've discovered another new site through the Blogger's Choice Awards, but this one has a bit of a sob story attached to it. The site is called "Anjos para Adocao" which translates to "Angels for Adoption." This blog was created by a woman who helps find homes for abandoned dogs and cats around São Paulo, Brazil. It's written in Portuguese, but the photos speak for themselves.

Up until yesterday, it had been nominated in the Best Animal Blog Category and was winning with 700 votes. Then it was banned. It was banned because it's in a poor community where none of the people have computers in their own homes so had to use public computers to vote, so all of those votes came from a very small number of IP addresses. Which looked like voting fraud.

Fortunately, the Blogger's Choice Awards created a new Foreign Language category and have reinstated the blog there... minus all of its previous votes. I think it's a good blog doing a great thing that deserves to get some attention. So I've voted for it and now I'm blogging about it in the hopes that my readers will be moved to vote for it, too.



Thanks to Renata for bringing this to my attention.

Labels: animals, blogging

Browsing through the Blogger's Choice Awards again (I've got new votes... yay!), I found that someone had nominated PostSecret. A friend of mine sent me a link to this blog a while back and I'd meant to blog about it but got sidetracked.

What is PostSecret? It's an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. Some of them are amusing, some of them are insightful, but what keeps me coming back are the ones that are frightening in their truth and beautiful in their pain. If you haven't visited this site before, I highly recommend it.

Unfortunately, the award categories weren't really made for a blog like this. If I were to invent a category for it, I think I would call it "Best Humanist Blog" or "Best Blog about Truth" but those aren't categories that people would typically think about or use. So it's in the Pop Culture category. Yes, yet another post for a "pop culture" blog.



In keeping with the spirit of viewing this as a pop culture blog, I've uploaded "Beauty from Pain" by Superchick to My Music Box for you to listen to while you explore. I've also decided to change the other songs to create a sort of theme of pain and secrets. So there's also Blue October's "Razorblade" sung by Zayra Alvarez and "Merry Go Round" by Athena Reich.

Labels: art and photography, blogging, music, pop culture

I don't know if you remember, but a while back I mentioned this great blog called Galactica Station. For those Battlestar Galactica fans who haven't browsed that blog yet, I highly recommend it. Especially with the long summer ahead and no new BSG for months. Galactica Station is the place to get your BSG fix.

Which is why I nominated it for Best Pop Culture blog in the Blogger's Choice Awards. And yes, I nominated it in a category that I'm already nominated in, but I really think it deserves the award more than I do. But there's a long way to go to get them noticed by the voting public. So here I am providing blatant advertising, wishing I had bribes to offer people to get them to vote (just kidding)!

So at the very least, check out Galactica Station. And if you want to go even further... vote!

Labels: battlestar galactica, blogging, pop culture, tv

...Register and Ye Shall Be Found...

I just registerd with a new blog directory called SpillBean.com. Not only does it have a simple, elegant design (which is a very nice thing even if not the most important thing), but it's also well organized and has a wide variety of categories. If, for some reason, you still don't find the category you need, you can simply request one. How easy is that?

Labels: blogging

Whilst browsing through the Blogger's Choice Awards, I discovered that Jane Espenson has a blog! And it's not just a this-is-what-happened-to-me-today sort of blog, it's Jane's screenwriting advice. (Mentally clapping my hands with glee.)

And I just realized that not everyone knows who I'm talking about. (Sad but true, I guess.) Well, Jane Espenson is a TV writer extraordinaire. A Joss Whedon crony who worked on Angel, Firefly and Buffy (she wrote two of my favourite Buffy episodes, granted I have many favourite episodes but these are definitely amongst them: Earshot and Life Serial), I've recently noticed her name on Battlestar Galactica episodes! (Dirty Hands was hers... the one where I said that the Chief was Savio-like in his glory; I'm rather fond of that line of mine and I'm rather fond of that episode of hers.)

Now I just saw something on her blog that makes me want to imitate a girl I went to elementary school who would get so excited when she knew the answer to something that she didn't just raise her hand but she slapped her other hand under her raised hand (right around armpit level) saying: "oh, oh, oh!" So what's making me want to behave in this ridiculous fashion? Jane has a short story in "Flirting with Pride & Prejudice: Fresh Perspectives on the Original Chick-Lit Masterpiece." Must! have! that! book!

Labels: battlestar galactica, blogging, buffy, pop culture, tv, writing

Hey, I've been nominated for the Blogger's Choice Awards. Now I just need some votes!









Given the competition that's out there, I don't actually expect to win in any of these categories. (It's an honour just being nominated, isn't that how the old chestnut goes?) But it would be nice to get enough votes so that it's not embarrassing. So please help out a weirdgrrl and vote. (Particularly in the Geek & Pop Culture categories... pretty please! )

P.S. I feel like I should now add a label for shameless self-promotion!

Labels: blogging, odds and ends, pop culture

Hey, my review of the Blue October concert has been posted on the Blue October Canada MySpace blog! You do need to be a friend of Blue October Canada to view the blog, so those of you without a MySpace account won't be able to access the link (no biggie... it's exactly as posted here). But those of you with MySpace accounts should be friends of Blue October Canada anyway, right?

Labels: blogging, music

I recently came across this article called: Hacking John McCain. For those of you who haven't heard, someone on Presidential hopeful John McCain's staff used a well known template to create his MySpace page. The template was designed by Newsvine Founder and CEO Mike Davidson. Davidson had made the template code freely available to anyone who wanted to use it, but asked that he be given credit when it was used, and told users to host their own image files.

According to the Tech Crunch article, John McCain's MySpace "Enhanced":

McCain's staff used his template, but didn't give Davidson credit. Worse, he says, they use images that are on his server, meaning he has to pay for the bandwidth used from page views on McCain's site. Davidson decided to play a small prank on the campaign this morning as retribution. Since he's in control of some of the images on the site, he replaced one that shows contact information with a statement:

"Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage…particularly marriage between two passionate females."

Payback's a b!tch, eh?

But it did get me thinking about image files and hotlinking, partly because I lost one of my hotlinked images last night when the site in question got redesigned. In my defence, the only times I've ever hotlinked to an image is when I've been linking to the page that the image was on. So I never really thought that was a problem. But I also didn't think about the fact that every time someone loaded any of my pages with that picture, I was using up someone else's bandwidth with no guarantee that the person visiting my site was going to end up visiting their site. Badly done, weirdgrrl, badly done.

Especially these days, with sites like YouTube and the zillions of photo hosting sites, there's really no excuse for hotlinking. So I'm going to gradually go back through three years worth of posts and find every hotlinked image and host them on my own server. And then I'm going to type 100 lines of:

I will never hotlink again
I will never hotlink again
I will never hotlink again
…

Labels: blogging, politics

You miss one day of blogging and your friend sends you this cartoon:


the computer demands a blog

Labels: blogging, humour

I just found this cool new widget while I was visiting The Bellclapper's Garden. See that box on the side? Well, I can now upload songs to it so my viewing audience can become a listening audience. (I seem to be having a glitch viewing it in Opera 9.10, but it seems to be fine in IE and Firefox. Anybody have Netscape and wanna let me know whether you can actually see the uploaded files in that browser? Same for Mac users... thanks muchly!)

Hope you enjoy "The Box" (oh my, that sounds kind of ominous, doesn't it?)

Labels: blogging, music

I've just been tagged by the Desert Island meme.

Skeet chose me as one of five blogger companions to be stranded on a desert island with. Unfortunately, I assume I can't choose Skeet to be one of mine… pity, there's a gal who knows how to get rid of bugs. And I'm thinking that deserted islands probably have bugs. Me no like bugs. Though Skeet did say that she would try to get the island wired and cabled so me so I could keep up with Battlestar Galactica. Now there's an idea that works for me. So who will I select to keep me company on my deserted island with satellite hook up?

1. Kat — I don't know if Kat does the meme thing, but I think every community needs to have someone who can keep things real. And nobody keeps things real as well as Kat does. Then there's the added sarcasm bonus. Life without a hefty dash of sarcasm is just plain dull. I don't much like dull.

2. Brett — Do you know why they don't send donkeys to college? Because nobody likes a smarta$$. Unless they're actually funny… which Brett happens to be. And if I'm gonna be stranded on a desert island, I'd better have someone who can make me laugh so hard that I spurt coconut milk through my nose. I don't know if Brett's a memer either (is that even a word?), but I'm taggin' him anyway.

3. Patrick — If we're gonna be on a deserted island, I assume there will be a lot of cooking by campfire. And I definitely want ghost stories around that campfire, so Patrick's the man for that.

4. Robyn — And speaking of cooking, I think it would be smart to invite along someone with a blog full of yummy recipes. (You should see her oh-so-easy mud pie recipe… my mouth is watering just thinking about it.)

5. Terry — I figure anyone who celebrates Alfred Hitchcock Day must be the kind of grrl I can have a good ole pop culture conversation with. And if we're stranded there for a year, that'll be a must. Pop culture stuff is oxygen to me.

As Skeet did before me, I'm promising solar-powered laptops with coconut-wireless connections to my fellow castaways. I mean, we ARE bloggers after all. I might be able to live without my Tim Horton's coffee (oooh… bad example… okay, Timmie's will be air dropping coffee onto the island, too)… let me try this again: I might be able to live without my car, but not my computer.

Labels: blogging, fun, memes

I'm not very good at asking for favours. Fortunately, there's this new site that makes it a whole lot easier. Zakle.com — do favours, get favours from anyone in the world.

How does it work? By providing a website that allows members to post requests for favours and offers of favours to which other members can respond. Individuals can earn Points when they grant favours and spend Points to obtain favours.

So I decided to sign up and see what happens. (Just a heads up… there's $2 verification fee that they don't explicitly disclose. If you've already verified with PayPal, you might expect that you're going to get that fee back after Zakle verifies you through PayPal… but you won't. Another registration note: make sure you enter your address exactly as it's listed on your PayPal account or the verification won't work.)

These are the offers I submitted:

Title: Métis Card - Genealogy Lookup
Details: Would you like to apply for your Métis card but don't have the documentation that you need? I have access to the Glenbow Museum Archives that has a vast amount of Métis resources for Western Canada. And I have professional experience in utilizing those resources. So let me help you get your card.

Title: Short Story Editing
Details: I am a professional writer and editor. I would be willing to edit and provide feedback on your short story, up to 3000 words in length.

Title: Review your website
Details: I have several blogs, one of which is bound to suit your website. I also have some background in website design. My offer is to review your website, applaud what's good, suggest things that could be better, and provide a permanent link to your site.

And these are my requests:

Title: A photograph of the Ashbel Woodward Museum
Details: The former home of Dr. Ashbel Woodward, a Civil War surgeon, was turned into a museum a few years back in Franklin, CT. My ancestors lived in the house next door (which may or may not still be standing). I would love to have a photograph of the Woodward home. And, if the Mumford home beside it is still standing, I would love a photo of that as well.

Title: Link to my Film Blog
Details: I've started a Filmmaker's Blog on MySpace (blog.myspace.com/weirdgrrl). If you have a blog with some decent traffic, I would love to have you review my blog and provide a permanent link.

Title: Film Editor Needed
Details: I am in the process of editing a short film. I have basic knowledge of Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects and I have my rough cut done. But this short film requires sci-fi effects like wormholes which are somewhat beyond me. I would love to sit in with an experienced editor while they finish my film. Estimated time: one day.

So I did the Zakle. And you can do the Zakle, too!

Labels: blogging, cool sites, film, genealogy, odds and ends, writing

I think I mentioned previously that I want to add a subdomain to my weirdgrrl.ca site and move my blog over there (I currently have a test site at weirdgrrl.ca/blog, but I prefer the cleaner look of the subdomain: blog.weirdgrrl.ca... so I won't be doing much over there until I have that set up). Well, since I also wanted to revamp the design of the blog, I started looking at various Blogger templates out there. And I started to notice that most of the templates I really liked were Wordpress templates. So I'm considering switching.

I'm starting with a test run. I created a little blog on the Wordpress free hosting site: Things That Make You Go Huh? Although apparently the ability to customize templates requires you to pay something or to be on your own domain. So I can't try out everything on this new blog. And unfortunately, I'm so used to Blogger that Wordpress is frustrating just because it's different.

But I'll just keep blogging some bits and pieces over there, to see if I get used to it. Hopefully, by the time I get my subdomain set up I'll have reached a decision.

Labels: blogging

I miss my mind the most.

Well, my film production workshop is finished and both my mind and body are pretty much like mush right now (except for the body parts that are stiff and aching... I think I prefer the mush). So updates and further blog posts will be made when my brain returns to its normal level of (dubious) coherency. But I have a finished film... yay!

(Hmm... showing enthusiasm when you're this tired is kind of like trying to smile after botox injections; the tepid result is hardly worth the effort.)

Labels: blogging, film

Well, it looks like my blog has just been reviewed by italk2much.com and, all in all, I have to say it was a fair review... even though I got the finger for my colours. Me, I love my colours but I am fully aware that my opinion is not shared by many. Don't much care... it's my blog.

But I agree that my template is boring. After my film workshop, I'm planning on changing my domain host so I can put a subdomain for my blog on my weirdgrrl site. At that point, I'm planning on revamping the template into something that will be infinitely funkier.

But I got a 3 out of 5 for "not suckin' serious ass" . Believe it or not, that seems to be a pretty decent rating for italk2much, so I'm actually quite happy with the review. Who knows, maybe I'll submit it for re-review after I upgrade everything... like they say on the site: strive for five.

Labels: blogging

Well, tonight is the Meet and Greet for my IN:Camera intensive film workshop. And when they say intensive, they really mean it. Starting tonight and ending on the evening of Sunday, February 25, we're into 10 hour days and then whatever the production days end up being... three production days in a row next week, with a different production each day. I'm already exhausted and we haven't even started yet. Needless to say, my blogging will be pretty spotty for the next week and a half. If I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I may post updates on my Film Blog about how the workshop is going... but I can't promise anything. Wish me luck!

Labels: blogging, film

As I've mentioned before, I've been picking up the occasional PayPerPost (PPP) opportunity and blogging about it. It seemed like a symbiotic relationship. I could choose to blog only about things I would want to blog about anyway, I got to discover new websites that I might not have discovered on my own, plus I made a little spending money while helping to advertise things that I thought were worth advertising.

No more. They've just done this whopping "upgrade" that is so glitchy that it's not even funny. I mean, there's Beta and then there's just not-even-remotely-ready-for-use. I spent the time to write an interesting and funny (I thought) post for something that intrigued me only to lose out on the opp because of a glitch that kept repeating until the opp was no longer available. And could I get any response about why this was happening? Of course not!

At the very, very least, PPP should have written a detailed post about the changes, the new features and how to use them, along with spelling out new requirements either as required by PPP or ones that can be requested by advertisers. And this should have happened BEFORE they launched this new glitchy version. (Can we say "common sense" boys and girls?!)

And as if the glitches weren't bad enough, advertisers can now insist that bloggers include a new "disclosure" badge (which is bullshit, not that I have ANY problem with disclosure but I already have a perfectly clear disclosure policy, thank you very much) and this new badge would create a pop up when your mouse rolls over it (I HATE pop ups) and include content that the blogger (i.e. me) has no control over. No fracking thanks!

Unless somebody sorts this crap out soon and dumps some of these obnoxious new ideas, any respect I might have had for PPP will have evaporated. They'll just be blatant, obnoxious advertisement brokers who don't give a shit about quality or integrity. Just proving that all the naysayers out there were right all along. So c'mon... get your act together guys!

Addendum: I wanted to give PPP the benefit of the doubt and went back to their site today and saw that there was something interesting that I wanted to post about, but now I'm getting a new glitch... some bullshit about my host url hostname not matching the selected blog. And I'm not the only one with this problem. WTF?!?! Now that's two fracking posts that I wasted my time writing.

Labels: blogging, payperpost, rant

(Obviously I've had musicals on the brain too much lately... I started to write "Money makes the world go around" as the title of this post and that made the song from Cabaret start noodling around in my brain and morphed my title into another line from that song. But don't worry; this post isn't actually about musicals.)

I came across this series of articles about the best sources of information for making money online. One of the ones that caught my eye was #3: using your blog to make money. Now I've already mentioned PayPerPost, but I didn't realize there are other sites out there like that. Unfortunately, none of the other sites mentioned in the article looked particularly promising, but I decided to do a little research on my own.

And then I found Blogsvertise. What I liked about them right away was what they said in their Rules:

"You do not have to necessarily endorse the advertiser's website products or services, just mention them in your blog. You can relate to in your own life, review the site, compliment or even complain about it, it is entirely up to you."

Well, I can do THAT!

Labels: blogging

As I think I mentioned previously, I'm looking at how to up my Google Page Rank a bit (and I confess, it's mainly because I recently lost out on a couple of interesting PayPerPost opportunities that required a PR of 4 or higher). So I was checking out various search engine optimization (SEO) companies and I landed on this Apogee Search Blog, which was actually kind of interesting in a geeky sort of way. So I started browsing around the site and came across this page about how it's an Ethical SEO and it guarantees to never use prohibited or questionable practices such as:

Mirror pages and sites
Throwaway or shadow domains
Cloaking
Doorway pages
Link farms
Improper redirects
Automatic submissions systems
Hidden or invisible links/text
Special browser software/toolbars
Paid search advertising arbitrage
Keyword stuffing
Spyware, adware or other scumware

While it was comforting to read that this firm doesn't use these practices, I found it rather horrifying to think that others do. I suppose if I were actually considering hiring an SEO, this would be very useful information to have. But since I'm just looking for simple, harmless promotion ideas… well, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Labels: blogging, payperpost

I just made the nerve-wracking move to the new Blogger (or, as the Globe & Mail Style Book would have you believe: nerve-racking). I was nervous about losing my customization, even though Blogger promised nothing would change (it was mostly right, but I was still a little bit right... a few minor things changed a teensy bit). But the lure of category labels was too strong. And when I logged on I discovered there were bunch of comments that needed moderation! I had no idea. (I feel so loved !) I guess it was definitely time to change. So here I am, a new Blogger for a new year.

Addendum: Freaking out now... my archive links don't work! 

Second Addendum: Okay, archives are still out there, but in the wrong place. Which is rather problematic since Google directs traffic to my monthly archives, not to the posts themselves. I've emailed Blogger, but of course it's a long weekend so god knows when they'll get around to fixing the glitch. I wish I'd waited to switch!!!!
(But if you're trying to find an archived month, just insert "archive/" between "wierdgrrl/" and the .html page name.
Example: "http://www3.telus.net/weirdgrrl/2006_12_01_archive.html"
becomes "http://www3.telus.net/weirdgrrl/archive/2006_12_01_archive.html".)

P.S. I don't like the compose screen... glitchy... reminds me of MySpace... arrgh!

P.P.S. I miss the publish page percentage indicator that would show you how much progress you've made when you publish posts. Now you just have to sit and wait and hope it's actually working. *sigh*

Third Addendum: Ahem... my bad. The archives were where they've always been, it was my template that got changed during the switch. It's fixed now. Um... er... yeah... guess I didn't need to make such a fuss, just having a bad day I guess.

Labels: blogging

As I mentioned previously, I recently started a Film Blog over at MySpace. I don't know why exactly I felt the need to separate those posts from the rest of the stuff I write about, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

But, Oh... My... God! MySpace has to be the glitchiest website around. Not a day has gone by that I haven't received at least one error message. Today, it's taken me two hours (2!) to attempt to post my latest entry. Apparently it posted my first draft twice and hasn't posted my edited entry at all. I am currently attempting to remove one of the drafts so I can then edit the other... attempting. *sigh*

I'm also still waiting to hear back from their tech support (what a joke) about a problem with a link to this website that MySpace somehow arbitrarily changed to a non-existent URL and—this is the "best" part—it won't let me access it to edit it! And when I emailed them a very specific help request about this very specific problem, do you wanna know tech support's response?

Hello,

Adding color, graphics, and sound to your profile page is easy and requires only a basic knowledge of HTML (the programming language used to create web pages on the Internet).

Simply go to "Edit Profile" and enter the desired HTML coding where appropriate. If you do not know HTML, you can reach out and make a new friend by asking someone who has color, graphics, and/or sound on their Profile page how they did it.

People on MySpace are friendly and always willing to help, so just ask! This is a great way to meet new people!

If this does not answer your question, please click:
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.contact

Thank you,
MySpace.com

So NOT helpful! I emailed them back:

I do know HTML. If you had bothered to read my question, you would know what my actual problem is:

(a) I entered the appropriate HTML code to create an active link to my website (http://www3.telus.net/weirdgrrl/) but somehow MySpace modified my link to something that doesn't exist (http://editprofile.myspace.com/www3.telus.net/weirdgrrl/); and

(b) I can no longer even get into the "Website" box of the Film Maker Details to edit it.

Please address the actual problems that I am encountering and don't just send me back to a very sparsely populated FAQ.

That was three weeks ago and not a peep from the folks at MySpace. Could someone please explain to me why that site is so fracking popular?

Labels: blogging, rant

As you may or may not have noticed, I've made a couple of additions to this blog:

1. I've recently started a MySpace Film Blog that has a link under "My Other Sites" (formerly "My Biz Site").

2. You can also now subscribe to Limes with Orange, either by entering your email address into the box above "Subscribe Me!" or by clicking the Feedblitz "email readers" button underneath that.

3. I've added a list of favourite links at the bottom of the sidebar on the right.

4. I am currently picking up the occasional PayPerPost opportunity that offers me compensation in exchange for what I write about certain products or sites. But rest assured, I never give less than my full and honest opinion. Which leads me to my final point...

5. I've also added a new Disclosure Policy.

I haven't made the leap to the new Blogger yet, though, since I'm concerned about losing my massive amounts of customization. I'm not sure if there will come a time when they force me over to the new system, but I'll deal with that when and if it happens. Think that about covers it for now.

Labels: blogging

There's this guy over at TechCrunch who seems to have made it his life's mission to bash this internet initiative called PayPerPost. I looked around his site to see what made him feel that his opinion is so much more valid than everyone else's. On the "About" page of the site it says:

"TechCrunch, founded on June 11, 2005, is a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies. In addition to new companies, we will profile existing companies that are making an impact (commercial and/or cultural) on the new web space. TechCrunch is edited by Michael Arrington, who also writes a companion blog, CrunchNotes."

Obsessively? Hmm... what a very interesting choice of words. Shall we have a chat with Dr. Freud about that?

Anyway, Arrington's most recent post is entitled: "PayPerPost Chronicles Their Amorality" where he bashes rockstartup.com, which records the birth of PayPerPost. Arrington goes on to refer to PayPerPost as an "ethically-challenged startup."

Reading his multitudinous previous posts on the subject, I gather that he objects to the fact that PayPerPost doesn't require people to disclose that they are receiving compensation for a particular post within the post itself, and yet he goes on to say it's "absurd" that PayPerPost recommends that every blogger that posts for them has a Disclosure Policy on their site.

Umm... let me get this straight, Arrington wants bloggers to disclose, but considers it absurd unless they do it in every single post. If you're giving your honest review about something (and your readership is aware that sometimes you get paid), should you really have to go out of your way to say—in that very post—that you're getting paid for your opinion in this particular case? Especially when it's simply an honest opinion, not an ad. (Arrington has ads all over his site which is highly distracting. I wonder if he actually agrees with every company that advertises there.)

And speaking of opinions, Arrrington is under the false assumption that "bloggers are required to only express positive comments" which is patently untrue. Some advertisers with PayPerPost do request positive comments, but the majority of them ask for neutral reviews. Plus, bloggers have the option of not blogging about something that they don't agree with. Apparently Arrington credits bloggers with little sense and even less intelligence. Wait a minute... isn’t he a blogger, too?

Labels: blogging, rant

I came across this blog with a post about "Cool musicians who blog." I would argue with their guidelines of "cool" but I like the concept of the list and might have to do something similar at some point with musicians that are cool by my definition (don't ask me what that is yet, but I'll come up with something). In the meantime, a few of the musicians on the aforementioned list:

Pete Townsend
Franz Ferdinand
Radiohead
David Byrne
Sleater-Kinney
Sarah Slean
The Barenaked Ladies
Dave Navarro

And now I'm off to Toronto for a week. If anything blog-worthy happens while I'm away, I'll be sure to mention it here when I come back. Ciao.

Labels: blogging, music, pop culture

I had a brief moment of enthusiasm after yesterday's post and added the Blogger Navbar and Comments features to my blog, as suggested by the "Promoting Your Blog" article. Unfortunately, the Site Search feature on the navbar is kinda glitchy (I've emailed Blogger about this and am awaiting a response).

But these upgrades started me thinking, again, about one feature that I really wish Blogger would add: Categories.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a list of categories such as: Music, Games, Writing, Poetry, etc.? That way, if you stumbled upon my blog searching for song clips for Hallelujah, you could peruse my other music posts and see if anything else strikes a chord (sorry, couldn't resist the pun). Or if you came here looking for hints for a particular game, you could check out my Games category and see if there are any other games that interest you.

I suggested the category feature to Blogger many months ago and still see no mention that they're mulling it over. Am I the only one suggesting this? Doesn't anyone else think this would be a marvelous addition? If I was still the in-your-face activist of yesteryear, I suppose I'd organize a campaign and everything. But I guess I've become lazy in my "old age," so I'll simply include a link to the Blogger Talk To Us page in case anyone wants to submit a feature suggestion.

Labels: blogging

I was just asked how many people read my blog. I checked the stats and found that I average 40 hits a day. So I started to wonder: is that average, mediocre, pathetic? A quick Google search found me this article:

Bloggers, Your Audience Awaits

According to the numbers presented there, an average A-list blogger gets at least 15,000 hits per day (holy shit!), the average B-list blogger gets at least 1,000 hits per day (gulp), the average C-list gets at least 150 hits per day (still pretty impressive), and the average up-and-coming blogger gets at least 50 hits per day (ooh, so close). Then there's the remaining 15 million active bloggers who average 3 hits per day (well, I've got them beat, anyway).

So I guess this leaves me wondering whether I want to figure out how to improve things so I can aim for a higher rating or just keep aimlessly writing about whatever pops into my head or not writing when I'm too busy or lazy. Well, since I'm feeling lazy right now, I'm thinking I'll stick with the latter. But maybe some day I'll muster up a little ambition for this wee blog of mine and try to surpass the level of "soon to be an up-and-coming blogger."

Oh, and while I'm mulling over all things blog, according to this Blogthings quiz (What kind of blogger are you?), I'm a Link Blogger: "Better to be entertaining and brief than longwinded and boring!"

Labels: blogging, quizzes

Had a quiet New Years with family in Medicine Hat and am just recovering from my traditional post-holiday migraine. Have a couple more "Christmas CD" entries to post when I have a chance. And I managed to completely miss out on blogging a couple of current event stories, both local (Enmax changes) and international (tsunami disaster).

At this point, I doubt I'll get around to blogging about the former. But I'll definitely get around to the latter, if only to try to answer my mother's question about the possibility of whether underwater nuclear testing (past or present) could have contributed to the earthquake that caused the tsunami. Have I mentioned that my mother is a conspiracy theorist? And not the only one to come up with this idea, if my initial Google search is anything to go by. At some point, I'll attempt to sort out the facts from the fiction... well, as much as that's possible for someone not privy to classified nuclear info. In the meantime, an interesting article on the Counter Punch website: Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Nuclear Testing. And on the more practical side of things, here's a link to the Canadian Red Cross. If you donate to the Canadian Red Cross Asia Earthquake & Tsunami Relief fund before Jan. 11, 2005 the Government of Canada will match your gift.

Okay, that's it for the time being. Hopefully, I'll be returning to my normal blogging habits now that the holidays are over. Ciao for now.

Labels: blogging

I think my blog is destined to be pretty boring until the end of November. I'm pretty much focusing on writing my NaNo novel to the exclusion of everything else. So unless something interesting comes up to me and hits me over the head, saying "write about me, dammit!" then I'm pretty much just going to be updating folks on the progress of the novel. Speaking of which, I've decided that I wouldn't mind having the apartment I described for one of my characters (minus the coffin, of course):

The first time she'd seen Skye's apartment had been a bit of a shock. The layout was identical to her own studio apartment, so she hadn't been prepared for how different it would look. In contrast to her own cheery apricot walls, Skye had painted hers a deep purple. Over the boring vertical blinds that covered the wall of windows facing the street, Skye had mounted drapes of black velvet. Wrought iron candle sconces, an ornate gilt framed oval mirror and a movie poster from the original Nosferatu adorned the walls. A fake fireplace (which actually had a TV in the opening that was hidden by an opaque fireplace screen when not in use) was the main focal point, with gargoyle statues on the mantle. Across from the fireplace was a moth eaten Art Deco sofa upholstered in an unexpected pink velvet. It stood in front of a medieval tapestry hung from the ceiling which acted as a divider to the bedroom area. When Meg had snuck a look behind the divider, she'd seen panels of black mosquito netting cascading down from a ceiling ring over the bed, draping the bed in a romantic canopy. Perhaps the most shocking piece of furniture was Skye's "bookcase" that was actually a coffin (Meg hoped it was a prop from a school play) leaning upright in the corner of the living room. A faux fur rug and several floor pillows in luxurious fabrics completed the look. When Meg compared it to her own conventional shabby chic apartment, she felt quite drab.

I can sympathize with Meg on that count. Aside from my orange entranceway, my apartment's feeling pretty drab by comparison. But interior decorating, like everything else in my life, will have to wait until after NaNo... *sigh*

NaNoWriMo Word Count: 8,744 down ~ 41,256 to go

Labels: blogging, decorating, writing