The internet is my homie

I’m sitting in front of my laptop live streaming the Apple press release about the iPad. I’m pretty sure I am not the only person on this coast doing this. But as I wait for Tech Crunch to reload with more information about the latest Apple product I can’t help but realize how technology has taken over my life.

Like many people, I’m addicted to the internet. It’s the best source of information and entertainment that I’ve ever held between my lap and palms, besides that other thing. I talk to all of my friends though this little box of happiness and hopefully I will be able to gain employment from it as well.

I think its exciting to be the first to know everything. There is no reason anyone should have to wait for information. Its’s truly at your fingertips, as they say. But with this boom in technology tis becoming everyone’s thing.

When I was younger R.Kelly had this song called ‘Homie LoverFriend.’ It was no the 12 Play album and I used to listen to it everyday on my way to private school in the 4th grade. The internet has become my Homie Lover Friend. We are close but not intimate. Friends but not best friends. Hopefully the internet returns my feelings.

An Unscheduled Hiatus

I tried really hard not to do a 2009 recap, like the rest of the world, and succeeded.

I even looked at 2010 as a new adventure, you know to have a positive outlook on the world. Well that only lasted about 5 days.

We always called Granddaddy Spoak I never really knew why.

I had a family emergency and had to fly down to the motherland to be with my family. My grandfather passed away at 84 years old. He lived a long and succesful life in Miami. He Fathered 13 children and was married for 57 years. He had a butt load of grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren. Needless to say we have a huge family.

My family is HUGE and LOUD. We mourn in the best way possible, through the consumption of food! I’ve tried to keep track of what I’ve eaten. You know it’s that whole, ‘new year new you’ junk. I’ve just given that up. It’s useless.

I hope my man is ok with being a chubby chaser.

Why wasn’t I notified?

I’ve seen many things in my life.

Most of them have been things that I’ve seen online.

Mostly because the interwebs are dirty and odd and fantastic.

The Precision.

The Art.

The Beauty.

Trivia Fail.

We got out little asses kicked in trivia @ The Bitter End last night and it still hurts!

They asked some of the most obscure questions I have ever heard of. For instance do you know where Champaign is? Yeah neither did we, which maybe why we couldn’t unscramble A-I-A-P-H-C-N-M-G. I spent at least a good 20 minutes working on that word scramble and got no where. Also, math in pub trivia? Really? I call foul. A) half the room is drunk B) with the consumption of alcohol the brain swells and is unable to fire as quickly as it normally would. Ok, I made that last bit up but you get the drift.

The funny part was, the trivia is graded by another group. Here was were my shame set in. So an old dorm mate of mine happens to be on the kick ass team of 10+. I think he purposely wanted to grade our papers to gloat, bastards. We had a measly team of 4. Although we are strong in heart & liver, we could not triumph over these mastodons of trivia.

I’ve decided that I will stick to trivia at Mad Dog In the Fog. It’s not like I ever win there anyway. On the plus side, when I lose I can drown my sorrows in a sauerkraut drenched sausage @ Rosemunde’s, YUM.

The kraut takes away the pain.

Welcome to the Borg.

The hot Florida sun runs deep in my veins, well at least it used to.

I think I’m finally getting used to this crazy, mild, below 70 degree weather. It only took me about 22 years, but I’m finally ok with this weather. It reminds me of the episode of Star Trek where Picard gets assimilated to the Borg.

I am finally one of the Borg. One of those people who I thought were crazy for going outside without a jacket in 65 degree weather. Someone who can’t wait for the fog to roll in. A hater of the sun…. ok, maybe thats going  a bit too far.

After the cold and crisp weather we have had here, I was not very happy to see the sun. I wanted the crisp air, cold nights, hell a reason to run the heater at the house. But alas, the sun was out in full effect. Friday was a high of 60 and a low of 55. This was ok only b/c it meant I could omit my jacket for that evenings festivities.

I hope this feeling goes away.

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t a left you…

…without a dope beat to step to!

Ok so better blog month was a bust. I’ll admit it. It’s cool, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’ve moved on to the next best thing.

Yes. I realize that you pretty much have no faith in me now, but that’s just too bad. You see this isn’t for you. This is for me. 100% for me and believe it or not I’m not able to say that very often.

I’m going to participate in the first marathon in Oakland in 25 years! Exciting no? Dammit get excited, b/c I am!

Well let me restore my faith to the faithless…. instead of trying to rally your support the first week without anything to show, I am rallying in week 3! Tee Hee!

I’ve been training for 3 weeks now and dammit I’m proud of myself. I’ve run the most I have EVER ran in my entire life and I did it all by my self! I found this great book called The Non Runner’s Marathon Trainer and it truly inspired me.

The book focuses on your physical state, ur mental state and everything in between. I read about 75% of it before I started running and it got me going.

I’ve never really been inspired to do something through words. It’s a new feeling for me. It’s forced me to motivate myself and never felt like I could do that before.

To make this hella long story short i will officially be keeping you up to dat, whomever ‘you’ are!

A domani I run 3 miles, Wednesday 4, Friday 3 & Sunday 7. No guts not glory.

#BtrBlogNov

I’m participating in this great idea from Cathy Larkin. I’m working diligently to make my blog better within just one month! She has affectionately called it Better Blog Month or #BtrBlogNov

This will require me to take part in a few exercises to get the brain juice flowing and hopefully to drive more traffic to my blog.

Goals:

• Refine my writing skills
• Increase amount of blog posts a week
• Define my audience

I hope to begin a conversation with my readers, so feel free to ask me some questions. I want to know who you are even if you just happen to stumble upon this bad boy! I need the support!

Cathy has been nice enough to create a great list of other bloggers that are participating in the challenge.

Stay tuned! Its going to be a busy month!

A Weekday Affair

This is one of my favorite wines. I affectionately call it….. The Rooster.

In the past year this wine has gone from $5.99 to $13.95 at my local supermarket. Highway robbery if you ask me!

I love this wine b/c its cheap of course, but it doesn’t taste cheap!

On the label is a majestic 47 pound rooster. I’m not really sure why they chose that as the mascot. Maybe b/c it stand out from the rest.

Rex-Goliath AKA The Rooster; is available in a Shiraz, Chardonnay (pictured above), Merlot, Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio, Zinfandel & a Cabernet Sauvignon.

Response: Don’t Hire Interns for Social Media

David Spinks wrote this great article that could either make or break my chances of breaking into the social scene.

I’ll give it to him, what he says is spot on and has really kept me away from ever going for an internship. Most of the stigmas revolve around interns being around to only do the grunt work of a company. Their availability is a bit shaky and in most instances, interns won’t be with the company long enough to actually develop an appropriate following that’s profitable for the company.

Maintaining a Social Media following is such a delicate entity; there definitely shouldn’t be an intern in charge of it. I would think, having a social media team to mold the presence, is key. But on the flip side, an intern is cheaper.

In a collaborative setting, having an intern is definitely useful. I’m pretty sure whomever is in charge is not into looking up every new social media network and setting up awesomecompany.socialmediawebsite.com everywhere under the moon.

The tedious and time-consuming should be placed on the intern’s lap. Under no circumstances should an intern be directly responsible for something that will aid or take away from business.

I would assume that building a network takes a network worth of people to create and keep up. It’s difficult to cultivate these types of entities on your own. Technically its a 24/7 job and people should respect that.

On the flip side you have someone who is psycho, like me. You call me at 2am to get a post out, I’m probably going to hop on my good foot and get it done. Why? B/c I’m psycho like that, I just told you.

If you are interning at company that literally has EVERYTHING you want, you will get it done. Matter a fact you would probably be so stoked that they even thought of you to get this done that you would stress out about it for a good 7 minutes before getting the post up.

I realized I’ve left a very important part out.

David Spinks is putting this up for debate. He is welcoming the comments of others and I love that. I came across this article through Twitter and that makes me smile!

Please feel free to enter the debate here.

Halloween

Based on my studies, Uhura had the shortest skirt in Star Trek. It’s so short, they had the poor woman wear spanks. You know those panties that cheerleaders wear? Yeah, not cool.

For Halloween I pay homage to Uhura, the token black woman of Star Trek. The length of my dress is longer than anything she ever wore on set.