rose DesRochers Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

New Years Resolution QUESTION

This change has allowed me the pleasure to add more people to the blogroll, while finally deleting those folks who have actually quit blogging.

Why is it that I will write 2011 on my checks until, oh about February 17, when I inexplicably revert to 2010?

Anyway, let me tell you what I’ve already done for the new year: I’ve changed my blog. I remember reading on Rose’s blog about why you should avoid sidebar blogrolls, having to do with search engines. But that’s not why I moved all my links.

It actually has to do with Arthur posing the question about the protocol for eliminating retired blogs back in early November. This reminded me that I was still using my Blogger blog, which has a function that allows the blogs to post in chronological order, by most recent, something not available when I started my blog. As I wrote to Arthur, “This had the dual goal of reminding me to go visit someone’s blog, while not having to go there if they haven’t posted for a week AND see if they’ve REALLY stopped posting for good when they say they have…I still use my old blog to visit you and other folks, because, if WordPress has this feature, I haven’t discovered it.”

So suddenly, about a month later, it became obvious what I should do: make my old blog at www.rogerowengreen.blogspot.com my blogroll! And because I wasn’t worried about style points, I could put all the blogs on the left side, where the blogposts usually would go, giving those links more room to breathe; the blog is still there, BTW, just pushed down. Meanwhile, on the right side, I still have links to web pages. The division is imperfect – the left side has links to blogs from my friends Fred and Daniel that don’t seem to be on an RSS feed. Meanwhile, Johnny B’s completed blog about early Elton John music I’m keeping on the right side.

This change has allowed me the pleasure to add more people to the blogroll, while finally deleting those folks who have actually quit blogging. I’m still not crazy about my category choices -‘Eclectic Folks’? – but I can live with it.

So what have YOU planned for the new year?
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2011 is a prime number year. The last one was 2003; the next will be 2017.

My Pointless Twitter Encounter

We just don’t always treat each other fairly, and sometimes it is racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia or something else toxic.

I was tired from days of wedding celebrations. So, uncharacteristically, I went over to my Twitter feed and started reading, when I came across this:
Actually there is NO racism in America – and they have played that card one too many times – doesn’t mean a thing. with a couple of @s to a couple people. 8:13 AM

So I’m intrigued by this. Obviously, this is an ongoing conversation. I reply to her:
“There’s NO racism in America”? And who are “they” who “played that card once too often”? 8:18 AM

She responds:
They? Political Machine (including Media & Hollywood) – which you know this – so let’s stop the confused act 10:48 AM

Hey, this is no act. I didn’t know that racism was merely a creation of the powers that be:

So you’re saying racism is a media/Hollywood/political myth & doesn’t exist? This has not been my personal experience. 11:40 AM

A bit later, she replies:
So – YOU are saying – Challenges that ppl feel everyday – is RACISM? however does that track for you? Racism is a Political Term 6:24 PM

Ah, we ALL face challenges, ipso facto, there is no racism.
Humans treating other humans less well because of what, rather than who they are, that’s racism. Political term? OK. So what? 7:34 PM

Her next response annoyed me.
LOL – seriously? What Race is being treated less than humans? 7:41 PM

Well, I’ve spent too much time on this:
The old putting words in my mouth trick. never said what you suggested. I realize this is less than pointless. I retire. 7:55 PM

Her parting shot:
Putting words in your mouth? that is a trick honey- you need to go to a community where that would work 8:08 PM

Hmm. I suppose I was affected at the moment about something Rose wrote about discrimination, and probably even more so the story of a woman in a wheelchair who became all but invisible, and how she cleverly coped.

Also, last week, I was riding the bus, and a young teenager, presumably heading for school, was stopped by THREE Albany cop cars. All the folks on the bus were black, except for a couple of South Asians, and three of the black women assumed harassment of this young man, based on previous experiences with law enforcement. I never did know what the true story was in this case.

My point: we just don’t always treat each other fairly, and sometimes it IS racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, or something else particularly toxic. Is it all just some media agenda being played out? I’m thoroughly as unconvinced of that as I was unconvincing in changing my Twitter “buddy’s” mind.

Laborious Day

Just got my performance review this week, which went all right. I purloined a good portion of my self-evaluation from this blog. Seriously. It made it so much easier to write since I tend to dread it.

I saw this article 10 Things You Wish You Could Tell Your Boss, but are afraid to, lest you get fired. And in this economy, that’s a legitimate fear. At the end of the article, the author asked readers to throw in other pieces of advice.

For me, it is not to tell me I’m “empowered” to do something for which I have been given no resources whatsoever. Yes, there’s a particular job that I have in mind.

Also, to amplify one of the choices given, Don’t take credit for my work. You MAY say, “We designed this,” if I designed it, as we are part of a team. However, you may NOT say, “I designed this.” You will really tick me off if you do. This actually happened in my current job, with a previous boss. Her I did not like, but she’s long gone.

Song appropriate for the day by the Isley Brothers and the Average White Band.

Speaking of a piece of work, the late Vince Coletta was mentioned recently by two bloggers I know personally. First, Alan David Doane bemoans the fact that the very first book about an inker is someone who he (and many others) believe was one of the WORST working inkers in comicdom. Then Fred Hembeck is interviewed for TCJ, and he tells the story of DC Art Director Colletta dissing his work. Now, I’ve read this tale before; Fred might have even told me before. But there was one tasteless detail that I never knew before, or had long forgotten.

The late Rod Serling, of course, worked on the classic TV show the Twilight Zone. Gordon links to a lost Serling interview from 1970, the year I had the opportunity to (sort of) introduce him at an assembly at his high school alma mater. And Gordon even namechecks me in the intro! As I noted in the comments to the piece, it was painful to watch Serling fumble to light his cigarette then hear him say that those things were going to kill him; five years later, he proved to be right.

Finally, a mother is worried about her 16-year-old son’s infatuation with an older woman. Seems like a reasonable choice when it’s Betty White, who won Emmys in 1952 (as a co-producer, no less), in 2010, plus a few in between. If not the hardest working actress on TV, she’s certainly one of the longest working.

30-Day Challenge: Day 19 – Something That Made You Smile Today

“Good stuff. this is why i love reading blogs other than my full time career as a dentist.”

Spam can be a real PITA, as I know Rose and SamuraiFrog have written about recently. Even with comment moderation and/or the Akismet filter, I probably spend a couple of hours per week scanning my various blogs; among other things, I have to make sure that items in the spam folder are actually spam, as I have found legitimate comments there, usually from people in Asia, for some reason.

Still, when the day (or the week) is beating me up, when REAL comments are getting under my skin – not on this blog, but elsewhere – I have found some spam unintentionally hilarious. And where else can you receive such unfettered confirmation?

Review of the movie Salt: “A thoughtful opinion and ideas I will use on my website. You’ve obviously spent a lot of time on this. Thank you!”
A recent picture of me: “This is all very new to me and this article actually opened my eyes.Thanks for sharing with us your wisdom.” (That’s what my wisdom is for!)
Animal adjectives: “I am without a doubt thankful to you for providing us with this invaluable files. My spouse and I are in truth grateful, absolutely the material we needed.” (Why you and your wife would need a list of animal adjectives is beyond me, but I don’t judge.)
Animal adjectives: “Actually actually very good weblog publish which has received me considering. I by no means looked at this out of your stage of look at.”
Hiroshima: “I knew I was correct. My friend and I placed a bet about which web site was superior. I thought your webpage was much much better produced, but she believed this post on trendy style ideas was much much better. We rounded up 5 loved ones memebers who experienced not seen possibly web site prior to to study them every a lot more than. Majority chose your site. Thanks for maintaing an excellent website.” (I so hate to be the cause of strife with your friend.)
My favorite outfit : “I actually decided to produce a simple video about this, I would be pleased if you would possibly take a moment to look at it and perhaps leave a message about what you think, I left the video url in the “website” field, hopefully you can access it, thank you a lot.” (I am SO flattered, my red sneakers are flattered…)
Current grades: “Good stuff. this is why i love reading blogs other than my full time career as a dentist.” (Dentistry and blog reading go together like…)
My childhood picture: “Thank you for this lovely post, even if it took quite a long time to complete reading. (English is not my native tongue) May I ask where you got your sources from? Thank you!” (My source is my mother, thank you.)
Animal adjectives: “I hope you would not mind if I put up a part of this site on my univeristy blog?” (You go ahead and do that.)

Spam is unfortunately a part of Internet life. I’m trying to make the best of it, and when I can, laughter is my chosen tactic.

R is for Reboot

The revamping of this blog at the beginning of the month is NOT a reboot. It’s still the same person writing (me). It may be on WordPress rather than Blogger, but that’s like a show moving from one television network to another.

It must have been about 1996, give or take a year. I was working as a librarian, for the same company I work for now, but three locations ago, and I was having trouble with my computer. (Historical fact: I ALWAYS have trouble with my computers; when the IT people set a schedule for replacement, my difficulties almost always exceed their expectations. I like computers, but they don’t always like me.)

So I ask one of the techies if he could fix my computer, which had frozen up. He said, “Did you reboot it?”, and I said, “Huh?” Up until that very moment, I had never heard the term “reboot”. I thought he wanted me to kick it, and if necessary, kick it again, which I was willing to do, though I doubted its efficacy.

That was not what he meant; he meant for me to turn the computer off and then to restart it, thus reloading the operating system. Years of being trained by IT guys now informs me that I don’t even go see them until I can honestly say, “I rebooted it, and it still doesn’t work.” Later, I learned the sometimes magic of Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

Now the term reboot has evolved into another meaning: “A term that comes from computer usage. To reboot a computer is to start it up again after a computer crash. Hence, “reboot” has the connotation of starting a process over again.*

This take on “reboot” is particularly popular with popular culture, such as motion pictures and television shows. The 2009 Star Trek movie, going back to before Kirk, Spock et al were on the Enterprise is a popular example. The 2010 Russell Crowe version of Robin Hood has been called a reboot, though it’s been remade about 287 times. 2010’s Karate Kid, with Will Smith’s son Jaden as the Kid and Jackie Chan in the Pat Morita role is a recent example, as is the 2010 version of Nightmare on Elm Street, without Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. The 2010 fall TV schedule features Hawaii 5-0, a popular show over 30 years ago.

What is the difference between a remake and a reboot? I’m not quite sure.

I will opine that the revamping of this blog at the beginning of the month is NOT a reboot. It’s still the same person writing (me). It may be on WordPress rather than Blogger, but that’s like a show moving from one television network to another. I may now have my own URL, but doesn’t change much either.

In case you were wondering how this change came about:
Rose DesRochers, an “avid blogger, published poet and freelance writer” from Canada had a free blog hosting contest back in February. I wrote about it, and actually won six months of free service from VisionThisHosting.com. Shawn DesRochers, Rose’s husband, is the Web Hosting Administrator. I did nothing about it for a while, then probably made Shawn’s life miserable getting this site up.

Rose and Shawn have been going through some stuff recently, which I would not bring up except that Rose mentioned herself in her blog. Their 19-year-old daughter has just been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, which I’m sure affected not only Rose, but Shawn as well. Rose writes that, coincidentally, May is Borderline Personality Disorder Awareness Month.

So thanks, Rose, for the site. Shawn, thanks for your continued assistance. My good wishes to you both and for your daughter.
***
Oh, and happy birthday to my “baby” sister Marcia!

ABC Wednesday

* “reboot.” The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. 16 May. 2010. .