Open for Business

So after about a year of kicking the idea around with CawfeeMate, and with Magenta as my seasoned business advisor, I’ve finally started selling my wares to my adoring public on Etsy! The shop has been up and running for about 2 weeks and I’ve already had a couple of special orders; a former co-worker commissioned a puppy sweater like one I made for Rufus and her friend commissioned a pair of fingerless gloves. I’ve also created a Facebook page to promote the business, so people can see other stuff I’ve made and get ideas for what they may want.

It Can Get Better

A few weeks ago, a friend updated his Facebook status to say:

“I am so sick of all the ‘stop the hate. Together’ and associated ‘it gets better’ bullshit. Enough with the pussification of america. How about ‘sometimes it sucks’ and ‘stick up for youself’ and ‘don’t be a coward’ hate and bullying are a lot older than any of us and cannot be stopped. Teach independence, not cowardice”.

Naturally, I was outraged. A few weeks later, I posted a link to Unicorn Booty’s article on the suicide of Jamie Hubley with the comment “he shoulda just manned up, right” and his response was:

“Well, he did want to be a unicorn. Self cutting? Suicide blogs? Where’s mom and dad? Sad, yes, but necessary, no. I was the only out gay kid in HS and I got out and graduated in 3 years rather than taking a swan dive off a bridge. My point is, there are options other than suicide. Now it seems almost fashionable, which, in my opinion, only increases the level of cowardice of the act”.

again, I was outraged...but a little less so... See, on one hand he’s right. Where were this kid’s parents? Teachers? Didn’t his doctor/pediatrician notice the kid was cutting himself?

That said, I continued with the outrage…

What're You Sellin'?

I absolutely love posting pics of my FO’s on Facebook. It’s incredibly gratifying when my FB friends treat everything I post like the most awesome thing they’ve ever seen and pepper the pics with comments dripping in praise; It’s a total ego boost and I fully intend to keep posting as long as they continue to oooh and aaah.

Might I Have a Word?

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve become sort-of addicted to Words With Friends. I say sort-of, because despite the fact that I have eleven games going, with people from almost every facet of my life*, I think it’s a pretty healthy addiction.

When I was a kid, we had Family Game night, once every few weeks (and after dinner on major holidays). Often it was either Trivial Pursuit or Uno, but every once in a while it’d be Scrabble. Looking back, our games probably weren’t high scoring ones; I think we all wanted to put down a “good” word more than we wanted to maximize our points. I know that, for me, it was all about showing off my vocabulary. Winning was a happy accident and fifteen point words were the norm. It’s only now, almost twenty years later, that I realize that other people (read: everyone else who plays the game) are actually playing to win and the best way to do that is to get the most points for each word they put down. Yeah, I know, this seems elementary, but I never put the two things together until CawfeeMate, Breen Lantern and Magenta Sequins started laying down forty and fifty point words; doubling or tripling my score and beating me by one hundred and fifty points or more. CawfeeMate was nice enough to explain to me that while DJIN is a fun word, unless it’s on a double or triple word multiplier, it’s not worth putting on the board.

So, I learned strategy:

1. always save your S’s
2. build off the beginning or end of another word to get double the points
3.  sometimes it’s better to put down a 3 point word on this turn and let your opponent open up the path to the double word or triple letter multiplier
4.  if you have to swap out letters, it’s not worth swapping less than 5 (see #1)
5. get rid of Qs, Js, Xs and Zs as soon as you can

I also learned how frustrating electronic scrabble is:

1. QI, JO and XI have to be the most frustrating two letter words on the planet; almost nobody knows what they mean, but everyone uses them to unload those pesky letters that are otherwise impossible to use later in the game.
2. The “random distribution” of letters is frequently debatable; I just went through a two week drought where, in almost every game I was playing, I never had fewer that either five vowels or five consonants and at least two sets of duped letters
3. there are no two letter words that start with either the C or V
4. I have no idea what dictionary the game uses, but I’d love to know how it defines words like JANE, TURFY, and RIAL.
5. Some people cheat using other iPhone apps; those people never get a rematch.

All in all, though, I’m loving this game. I like being able to chat with people I don’t get to interact with, otherwise; it’s also makes a nice diversion from knitting straight through my daily commute to and from work and from work itself (where i can't knit). It’s also nice to know that even though certain players continue to kick my ass with 75 point words I’ve never seen, I can occasionally beat them (even if it is only one game out of every ten we play).

send me an invite, but be warned: now that i've got a strategy i'm a little harder to beat...until i get stuck with three I's  a Q, Z, J & X again...
*High School classmates, former co-workers from my 1st Mall Job, current co-workers, Blog buddies, Facebook Friends, actual friends, and even friends & co-workers of CawfeeMate

Yup, Just Like Madonna

That’s right, bitches: We* are back.

We’re back and, like a certain gap-toothed-aging popstar, we’ve re-invented ourselves; like the tattoos which CawfeeGuy has adorning his legs, we have risen from the ashes and been rebirthed.

We’re back with a whole new look to the blog** and a whole new attitude about blogging.

Who's On Third

this whole Facebook thing is oddly addictive.

first i David was intrigued with finding the guys i he went to high school with (for those who don't know, i David went to an all boys catholic school). Granted, the ones i he found i he was neither terribly fond of nor friendly with, but it was nice, still, to see how they held up to the sands of time. pretty well, as a matter of fact (but, then, it has only been 15 years).

then it was the cornucopia of "applications" which sucked me him in; zombies and vampires and race cars; snowball fights and drinks and quizzes galore. the more people you sucked in, the more "unlockables" you got. the more unlockables...well i he has no idea what happens next, because after a month i David threw up his his hands and got rid of 90% of the nonsense apps which were constantly begging his his attention. he David no longer send out requests nor accept them, just so's you know...

next i David found/was found by a couple of people from grammar school (most notably, the girl who he David had a crush on for most of my his pre-adolescence). here's where it got more interesting. see, most of these people i've he's not seen since 1990 and it's amazing how much people can change in 19 years. Just like the HS guys, finding people with whom i he shared K thru 8th grade became somewhat of a hobby...like Pokeman or Magic: the Gathering...gotta collect 'em all. but, like with the guys from HS, the conversation tends to peter out after "hey! long time no see! what've you been up to"?

my David's newest Facebook "obsession", if you will, is updating my his status...constantly. everytime a thought pops into my his head, it winds up being texted to Facebook, to update my his status. or song lyrics; much like Twitter, i he's very fond of statusing song lyrics. the problem is that status updates are in the 3rd person and such language is highly addictive and incredibly irritating to anyone listening/reading because of its inherent pomposity.

if you're reading this, you've probably noticed.

please accept my David's humblest apologies. i'm he's working on a cure.

"David was born in the wagon of a traveling show, his mama used to dance for the money they'd throw. Papa would do whatever he could. Preach a little gospel, sell a couple bottles of Dr. Good"~ status update 1/21/2009 @ 1:28pm