I just felt like singing, I'll stop that now. As I'm sure nobody is able to forget, today is February 14th, so I'm gonna say...
Happy Valentine's Day to...
Those pathetic saps who find it romantic...
The masses who think it's dumb but end up with $100 or more in merchandise anyway...
Those people who will dress in black in protest, or because they like the color, or whatever...
The unlucky folks who must celebrate a birthday in the midst of hearts and candy and flowers...
Those ones who don't give a damn about the day either way, but can't escape the madness!
So there is my tribute to this overcommercialized, corny holiday... Isn't it just beautiful??
Monday, February 12, 2007
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Who would have guessed?
The Anna Nicole Smith autopsy was inconclusive but they say there was no evidence of drug use or foul play. It will probably be weeks before they actually know what killed her. The woman is a media spectacle even after she's dead. Amazing.
So I'm very glad I don't have to work till next Saturday. One of my residents threw a fit about a piece of pie, and the fight culminated in her calling me a pig and throwing the pie and the plate across the table and hitting one of my other residents in the arm, causing a skin tear. Yikes. We can't discipline them for behavior like that, we can't even yell at them. If we do, we can lose our jobs. So all we can do is remove the woman from the room (kicking and screaming I might add) and patch up the other woman's skin. Grr. If she was my kid, she would get a hand on her behind. Resident rights.... suck.
So I'm very glad I don't have to work till next Saturday. One of my residents threw a fit about a piece of pie, and the fight culminated in her calling me a pig and throwing the pie and the plate across the table and hitting one of my other residents in the arm, causing a skin tear. Yikes. We can't discipline them for behavior like that, we can't even yell at them. If we do, we can lose our jobs. So all we can do is remove the woman from the room (kicking and screaming I might add) and patch up the other woman's skin. Grr. If she was my kid, she would get a hand on her behind. Resident rights.... suck.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
What a long day...
I am so ready to quit my job at this moment. I can't wait until the weather gets better so my residents have a reason to be happier again. I hate being yelled at about the food. I didn't make the damned menu's, I just prepare the food and serve it to them. It's not my fault they don't like ham and bean stew. If I made the menu's, you know what they'd eat every day? Meat, and potatoes and gravy, and some kind of veggie, and cookies and cake. Not because it's easy. Because it's what they eat. They don't like soups, or funky dishes. They like what they lived on all their lives. So for most of them they want eggs and toast, or maybe oatmeal, in the morning, then meat and potatoes at both meals. And cookies and cake. Heaven forbid if you run out of cookies. I did today, and even though I had the gooiest caramel rolls fresh out of the oven everyone wanted a damn cookie. I ended up making a batch of cookies fifteen minutes before my shift was over. Grr. But at least I got to eat one. That made the whole ordeal worth it. Mmm, I love chocolate chip peanut butter cookies. Pure heaven.
Friday, February 9, 2007
What is that noise? Oh, it's coming from my headphones... cool...
I just love music, so when I hit the "next blog" button and had it blaring from my headphones, I just knew that this just had to be my final blog to post on, since I could keep the page up and have entertainment!
No seriously, it's a nifty looking blog. Throw The Fight is a band I've never heard of, but this ties in really well with our class discussion today and Wednesday. This is basically just a blog, with notes about the band's shows and new website developments. There are some links, but they are concerned with the band and not the outside world so much. Also, the postings are pretty short and lack that more grounded, focused criteria of a notebook.
Definitely, this site is for reputation building. Of course there's some info sharing, but very little self-expression except through the design of the template, and I think that's more of a collective, possibly agent-handled effort, but it's hard to say since I don't know how big this band is. They're big enough to be on Warped Tour, which my musically-hip sister tells me is a pretty big show. But anyway, that's off topic just a bit.
The style of this blog is different from most I've looked at. For starters, the beforementioned music is something I want to learn how to do, it's a great way to catch someone who's just browsing through blogs. Also, because of the way the template is set up, white text on a dark-red background, it is a bit hard to read but the postings are short so it's not such a big issue, like it would be with longer posts. Also on the sidebar is a "now-playing" feature that tells you what song is being blasted out of the speakers, and you can also play/pause/skip songs.
While the content is band-focused, it's not strictly music-related. While the posts mostly concern upcoming and past shows, there are a couple of postings that focus on award nominations, sort of a thanks-for-all-your-support type of thing. This ties back to the reputation building aspect of the blog. Other bands are very rarely mentioned, except when this band is performing a show with them, so there is no trash-talking.
The sidebar includes a calendar of events and an archive of older posts, along with ways to get on the band's mailing list and receive wireless alerts on a mobile phone. The title section provides links for other sites that the band is involved in, such as their MySpace page, and links to photos, videos, bios, and the like. One disadvantage I saw to the way their calendar was set up was that only the date and venue names, not the town the venues are in, is listed on the main page. One must click on the date and venue to see where it's located.
I do have to say this was my favorite blog of the three I blogged about, but that might just be the subject matter...
No seriously, it's a nifty looking blog. Throw The Fight is a band I've never heard of, but this ties in really well with our class discussion today and Wednesday. This is basically just a blog, with notes about the band's shows and new website developments. There are some links, but they are concerned with the band and not the outside world so much. Also, the postings are pretty short and lack that more grounded, focused criteria of a notebook.
Definitely, this site is for reputation building. Of course there's some info sharing, but very little self-expression except through the design of the template, and I think that's more of a collective, possibly agent-handled effort, but it's hard to say since I don't know how big this band is. They're big enough to be on Warped Tour, which my musically-hip sister tells me is a pretty big show. But anyway, that's off topic just a bit.
The style of this blog is different from most I've looked at. For starters, the beforementioned music is something I want to learn how to do, it's a great way to catch someone who's just browsing through blogs. Also, because of the way the template is set up, white text on a dark-red background, it is a bit hard to read but the postings are short so it's not such a big issue, like it would be with longer posts. Also on the sidebar is a "now-playing" feature that tells you what song is being blasted out of the speakers, and you can also play/pause/skip songs.
While the content is band-focused, it's not strictly music-related. While the posts mostly concern upcoming and past shows, there are a couple of postings that focus on award nominations, sort of a thanks-for-all-your-support type of thing. This ties back to the reputation building aspect of the blog. Other bands are very rarely mentioned, except when this band is performing a show with them, so there is no trash-talking.
The sidebar includes a calendar of events and an archive of older posts, along with ways to get on the band's mailing list and receive wireless alerts on a mobile phone. The title section provides links for other sites that the band is involved in, such as their MySpace page, and links to photos, videos, bios, and the like. One disadvantage I saw to the way their calendar was set up was that only the date and venue names, not the town the venues are in, is listed on the main page. One must click on the date and venue to see where it's located.
I do have to say this was my favorite blog of the three I blogged about, but that might just be the subject matter...
Oh, the organic life...
Here goes my second endeavor in the BloggingBlogs exercise. I found this blog, Vegetarian Organic Life by going to the "blogs of note" link on Blogger, since I was not having any luck finding anything through Google's blogsearch.
The blog is part of a bigger website completely focused on a way of life. The blog is the website developer's way of informing and/or ranting. Unlike most blogs, this one does not feature a sidebar of any kind. Instead, the purpose of the blog is basically in the URL; there is no blogroll or even an archive of previous blogs. You have to scroll down to find blog posts. The template is very basic, black-on-white text with images for each post.
This is definitely a filter. There are links in almost every post, and the writer mostly comments on the links, rather than on her life. The writer's opinion is very strong in a lot of her commentary, and even when she doesn't explicitly state how she feels about something she's posting, the opinion is still there. The topics she posts links to range from causes of obesity to the products chefs endorse to "greenwashing".
One could classify this as a pundit blog because the writer is seemingly an expert in her subject matter. It looks like she takes time to search for resources that are strong and credible, while fitting her opinions or giving her fuel for her rants against the exploitation of junk food and unhealthy lifestyles.
I think this blog is written both for an audience and for the writer. While the writer is finding and commenting on links, she is looking for her topics for herself, not so much for her audience (though the audience is important as well). One clue I had to this for-the-writer mindset is the lack of a blogroll that I mentioned earlier. Also, while there are one or two comments, sometimes three, on many of the postings, there does not seem to be a huge audience that she is writing for. Then again, there isn't a place to see how many views the blog has had, at least not that I could find, so it's hard to say how much readership it actually gets. Either way, I'm thinking that isn't the main focus for this, even with the filter setup. It's like a journal made of links.
The main goal of this blog seems to be to help build reputation, since it is part of a website and its focus is so strong. Self-expression shows in some of the commentary, as well as information sharing via links. So I guess you could say it's a mix of all three elements, with emphasis on reputation and info.
The blog is part of a bigger website completely focused on a way of life. The blog is the website developer's way of informing and/or ranting. Unlike most blogs, this one does not feature a sidebar of any kind. Instead, the purpose of the blog is basically in the URL; there is no blogroll or even an archive of previous blogs. You have to scroll down to find blog posts. The template is very basic, black-on-white text with images for each post.
This is definitely a filter. There are links in almost every post, and the writer mostly comments on the links, rather than on her life. The writer's opinion is very strong in a lot of her commentary, and even when she doesn't explicitly state how she feels about something she's posting, the opinion is still there. The topics she posts links to range from causes of obesity to the products chefs endorse to "greenwashing".
One could classify this as a pundit blog because the writer is seemingly an expert in her subject matter. It looks like she takes time to search for resources that are strong and credible, while fitting her opinions or giving her fuel for her rants against the exploitation of junk food and unhealthy lifestyles.
I think this blog is written both for an audience and for the writer. While the writer is finding and commenting on links, she is looking for her topics for herself, not so much for her audience (though the audience is important as well). One clue I had to this for-the-writer mindset is the lack of a blogroll that I mentioned earlier. Also, while there are one or two comments, sometimes three, on many of the postings, there does not seem to be a huge audience that she is writing for. Then again, there isn't a place to see how many views the blog has had, at least not that I could find, so it's hard to say how much readership it actually gets. Either way, I'm thinking that isn't the main focus for this, even with the filter setup. It's like a journal made of links.
The main goal of this blog seems to be to help build reputation, since it is part of a website and its focus is so strong. Self-expression shows in some of the commentary, as well as information sharing via links. So I guess you could say it's a mix of all three elements, with emphasis on reputation and info.
Blogging Blogs #1.. so original... why can't I be clever?!
Here is the link to the first blog I'm going to give deep, profound insight on.
Awful Announcers has been a blog since sometime in 2006. I found it by searching on blogsearch.google.com in hopes of finding a neat sports blog. This isn't quite what I'd planned on finding, but it's definitely intersting.
This site is, as quoted from the sidebar, "a sanctuary for those frustrated or fed up with awful announcers..." and it seems to focus on the commentators for sporting events, and the author's opinion of them. For the most part it is quite derogatory, but entertaining in the way it's written. I think that the blog does a good job of fulfilling its stated purpose.
I would have to say this blog is a combination of all three types specified by Blood. It contains plenty of the author's opinion, some short entries but quite a few longer, more focused pieces (a la notebook), and links to everything under the sun concerning sportcasters (from videos to articles to bios of the people he is dissing). I guess, though, if I had to categorize this into only one category, it would be a filter (but of course that is a very loose categorization).
As far as trying to choose a genre, I would put this somewhere between a sports blog, pundit blog, and hobby blog. The author is using this blog for self-expression and is building a reputation by giving his comments on the various sportscasters and the events they cover. The blog focuses completely on sports and sportcasting, which explains the "sports blog" and even the "hobby blog" categories. The author could also be viewed as an expert on the topic he is blogging about, since he gives a wealth of information and strong opinion. Even if he doesn't know what he's talking about, the tone of the blog makes the readers (or at least me) think he does.
This blog is definitely not a blog just for the writer. He is searching for, and from the comments I read, he is finding that audience. He's also using the blog for himself, but that is basically as a way to draw the audience. Even with the obvious, intentional slant, this blog would appeal to a wide audience since so many of us have seen a bumbled sportscast and we love to make fun of people, and read about people making fun of people. The writer keeps a humorous voice throughout his posts, mainly because he's writing to entertain, with less emphasis on information. He lets his videos and links provide the information; he provides his feedback.
As far as style, this is pretty clean-cut and easy to read, and for the most part images and videos are placed to catch the eye without distracting the reading in the middle of an idea, like I've seen on many blogs. The template is your basic black-text-on-white-background, and it's written in standard font. There are no startling color contrasts so it's easy on the eyes to stay at the page for large periods of time.
On the sidebar, it took me quite awhile to find the blogger's "other fun stuff" section, which is basically just a way of finding one's topics of interest quickly in all the posts by searching for keywords, or labels. His blogroll is extensive and features many sports fans.
Okay, on to blog #2...
Awful Announcers has been a blog since sometime in 2006. I found it by searching on blogsearch.google.com in hopes of finding a neat sports blog. This isn't quite what I'd planned on finding, but it's definitely intersting.
This site is, as quoted from the sidebar, "a sanctuary for those frustrated or fed up with awful announcers..." and it seems to focus on the commentators for sporting events, and the author's opinion of them. For the most part it is quite derogatory, but entertaining in the way it's written. I think that the blog does a good job of fulfilling its stated purpose.
I would have to say this blog is a combination of all three types specified by Blood. It contains plenty of the author's opinion, some short entries but quite a few longer, more focused pieces (a la notebook), and links to everything under the sun concerning sportcasters (from videos to articles to bios of the people he is dissing). I guess, though, if I had to categorize this into only one category, it would be a filter (but of course that is a very loose categorization).
As far as trying to choose a genre, I would put this somewhere between a sports blog, pundit blog, and hobby blog. The author is using this blog for self-expression and is building a reputation by giving his comments on the various sportscasters and the events they cover. The blog focuses completely on sports and sportcasting, which explains the "sports blog" and even the "hobby blog" categories. The author could also be viewed as an expert on the topic he is blogging about, since he gives a wealth of information and strong opinion. Even if he doesn't know what he's talking about, the tone of the blog makes the readers (or at least me) think he does.
This blog is definitely not a blog just for the writer. He is searching for, and from the comments I read, he is finding that audience. He's also using the blog for himself, but that is basically as a way to draw the audience. Even with the obvious, intentional slant, this blog would appeal to a wide audience since so many of us have seen a bumbled sportscast and we love to make fun of people, and read about people making fun of people. The writer keeps a humorous voice throughout his posts, mainly because he's writing to entertain, with less emphasis on information. He lets his videos and links provide the information; he provides his feedback.
As far as style, this is pretty clean-cut and easy to read, and for the most part images and videos are placed to catch the eye without distracting the reading in the middle of an idea, like I've seen on many blogs. The template is your basic black-text-on-white-background, and it's written in standard font. There are no startling color contrasts so it's easy on the eyes to stay at the page for large periods of time.
On the sidebar, it took me quite awhile to find the blogger's "other fun stuff" section, which is basically just a way of finding one's topics of interest quickly in all the posts by searching for keywords, or labels. His blogroll is extensive and features many sports fans.
Okay, on to blog #2...
Playboy bunnies
So sad to hear about Anna Nicole Smith. Usually I don't follow stuff like this, but damn she was young! I heard they are going to do an autopsy today sometime, so then the world can know what really killed her... yippee.
Okay, I'm done with that now.
Okay, I'm done with that now.
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