life according to me

Category: Snarking & Snipping

Dear Assurance Plus: Gee, Thanks.
Today is the first day of NaBloPoMo. That means I will be posting every day this month. Um…that isn’t too unusual for me, is it? So why did I join? Why not? Regardless, here we are and I’m ready to go, which must mean I’m a NaBloPoMo-Ho. Or something.

Each day this month, I’ll post a letter to someone whom I believe needs to hear what I have to say. Okay, so I get it that unless they read this, they won’t “hear” it, but still. At least it will get it off my chest, right?

November 1, 2007

Assurance Plus, LLC

3644 E. McDowell Road, Suite 114

Phoenix, AZ 85008

To Whom it May Concern:

I’ve been wanting to contact you for quite some time, but have restrained myself, knowing that if I waited for the end of my year’s contract with you, I’d be able to express myself more articulately without spewing venomous verbiage which you absolutely deserve.

I’ve learned a great deal from my experience with your interesting scam company about how not to invest money like a complete moron when considering a Home-Based Business. I now know that as much as I consider myself to be an optimist, and at times, someone who is willing to take a calculated risk, one might just call me gullible a total loser. I wouldn’t disagree with that conclusion at this point, and I have you to thank for my new found knowledge and intense skepticism regarding anyone who even acts like they’re going to say there’s really such a thing as a free lunch. In fact, I have a list prepared of what I’ve learned from my experience with you, and will take this opportunity to caution everyone else share my conclusions:
1. I can be an affiliate of Amazon all by myself if I choose. In fact, I believe I am at this point even if I’ve never earned one penny as one of their affiliates. Although I’ve been an avid customer of Amazon for years, I never was interested in doing anything other than purchasing books, so I never considered looking into what being an affiliate involved. I was busy with my own career, and didn’t have time to even wonder. If I hadn’t been conned by your scam, I wouldn’t know what an affiliate was, and that many, many Internet based businesses offer that option to interested parties AT NO CHARGE. So stupid me.
2. It doesn’t cost $5,000 to build a website and host that site for a year. It doesn’t even come close to that. Especially one as lame as the one you “customized” for me. (Insert laughter here.) Oh, I forgot. I wasn’t charged $5,000 to build the site and host it. Excuse me! If I remember correctly (I don’t feel like getting out the cheesy notebook you sent which is printed in every font imaginable and how much are you paying how many people to put such a pathetic “resource” together?) Erm…if I remember correctly, the site you built and the hosting would only cost $299. I believe that is quite reasonable. The remainder of the charge was for directing “targeted traffic to my site.” I now know that your method of “driving targeted traffic to my site” is a bunch of shit, and so is your lovely company. If you hadn’t sold me a total scam, I’d never have known any of this. I’m so thankful.
3. You can only “make money in your sleep” if you’re Warren Buffett. Or Bill Gates. Or Martha Stewart, or Oprah. Okay, so there are some others, but still. I would not be one of those people who make money in my sleep. But like me, lots of people are interested in working from home because they have children, or health issues, or are just fed up with living to work and having it suck the life out of their blood and bones. So I have your slick scam company to thank for confirming what I already knew about not being able to make money in my sleep, and allowing me to do extensive amounts of research after the fact on home-based businesses and free lance jobs. Thanks so much for that opportunity. It comes so rarely in life.
4. Taking surveys on line is an amazing waste of time, and another scam. It was fun while I was involved in it last winter for a couple of weeks. But all it really did is send you to my doorstep, cause me to accumulate thousands of junk emails, received unwanted products in the mail that I had to call and cancel (which were pretty pricey) and get amazingly clever snail mail about being part of an uber secret sect of humans who have all the secrets for earning unlimited wealth. I did finally get to be a Nielson family and throw my two cents into the pot about what’s on television and whether we actually watch it. So thanks for that. But wait, if the surveys led you to me, then maybe I should be thanking the survey companies…
5. Putting up stats on the “targeted traffic” can be easily concocted. And amazingly, the stats for said “targeted traffic” just happen to be carefully geared to driving the amount of “targeted traffic” to the site that you said you’d guarantee in a year’s time — about 20 people a day. Woot! Everyone get out your party suits, and get ready to rhumba. You can have some kind of a par-tay with 20 unsuspecting clickers who most likely laughed their asses off when they saw that “portal” to Amazon and thought, “Whose lame idea is this?” when all they really had to do is just go to Amazon. Well, that would be if the visitors indicated in the stats were in fact, real people, instead of someone sitting at a computer and getting paid to click….But I’m sure you weren’t doing that, right? Nah…..So thanks for helping me learn all of that as well.
6. Being the completely vindictive person that I am, I could have actually used this opportunity after I learned so much, to make something of it. Maybe. But I’d have to be a barracuda to pull that off, and I’m just not wired that way. It did occur to me that if I did try to make something of it, I’d only be making money for you. And because you already had made so much money from stupid me when I simply gave it to you, I felt that you would be satisfied with what you already had. So that sad “portal to my wealth” with “targeted traffic” ready to spend money and who will earn me money even if they don’t spend any money, has just been sitting there for about 10 months now, earning you nothing more.
In conclusion, I’d also like to thank you for giving me back $1,000 when I suggested all of the above to you on the phone that day. It’s only a drop in the bucket, but still, it’s $1,000, and even though it’s my money, and you really didn’t do anything, I’m still grateful.

Good luck to you and your parasitic organization. I hope that locusts swarm in and around your immediate vicinity and that you are plagued with destructive spam and hard drive destroying worms you have success in educating other people sooner than you’ve educated me about how not to make money in my sleep with a home-based business being an affiliate of a company I could be an affiliate of if I wanted without spending money.

I am forever grateful.

Sincerely,

Me.

p.s. And I have two of my own sites, now, too. So I guess I have you to thank for learning about how to do that, too. Sort of.
November 1, 2007
Robosapien Spares Bloggers
Over the past few months since I’ve developed an interest in blogging, I’ve begun to notice other’s reactions to the idea of blogging in general. Several weeks ago, someone mentioned to me that “blog” is one of the “most annoying words” connected with the Internet. I get it. The word is annoying, hence, bloggers are annoying. I’ve encountered a person here or there who will inquire at a get together,”What exactly is a ‘blog?’” hesitantly, trying to feign interest after they’ve learned that “blogging” is what I have been doing since leaving my job. The conversation goes like this…

“Hey, how have you been?

“Great, thanks. Good to see you,” I reply.

“How is work going? What school are you at again?”

“I don’t work any longer. I quit a few months ago.”

“Is everything okay? What are you doing instead?” the person inquires because no one sane would give up their job for no reason.

“I write quite a bit each day.”

“Really. What do you write?”

“Personal essays and other pieces. I’m just getting back into the habit of it after several years of not being able to find time the time. I’m really enjoying it.”

“Oh,” blink, blink…

Another person approaches us. “She has a blog. You know. On the Internet.”

“Oh,” the first person repeats, and looks uncomfortable, like I might grab my wallet and throw a photo accordion of my 13 children at her. I’m tempted, but I wouldn’t do that to my kids even if I had 13.

She and others are most likely thinking, how sad that she has come to this, wasting her time on the Internet all day. Doing nothing. One individual reacted to my writing, struggling to read what I’d written, and succumbed to muttering the words aloud as one might tackle a treatise on an Analysis of Glucose Cycles in Mammals Indigenous to the North American Piedmont and uttered in confusion, “What kind of writing….is…this? Exactly…?” I completely understoond her reaction and was sure it must be the very stylized syntax of sentences. like. this. Or, btw—wtf, yanno? Perhaps a Bwahahahahaha or a snort. Or two. Huh? = )

Ahh, the frustration of one’s writing being in the hands of an audience it wasn’t intended for. Not exactly a novel dilemma, is it? I say this knowing that writers have always struggled with how their work is received. Anything that requires another’s interpretation is subject to the same risk. I do believe, however, that a person should have an idea about a piece of writing well before getting involved with it. But maybe that’s just me. I’ve lost the source, but I remember reading a particular author who believed his readers “write his books.” Said differently, any reader brings a massive amount of information, experience, and of course, at times, ignorance to a particular reading. With that, a book is understood in an infinite number of unique ways. That perspective either allows the reader to enjoy the book, or to question why it was even considered as something which might be enjoyed. Not everyone will appreciate every type of writing. I certainly don’t.

I believe it is important to note that those of us who choose to write in this very public way, do so for a variety of reasons. I also believe that as much as it is enjoyable to have others read what I write, not everyone will appreciate all of it. Some may not like any of it. Is audience appreciation always the reason for our writing?

I write because I want to. Because I need to. Because I can. Although my mother has kept personal journals for more than 25 years, to my knowledge, no one else in my family has been interested in writing. Just more proof that I must have fallen off the turnip truck. I can’t say that a teacher in my past had anything to do with motivating me to write because very few of them assigned writing — let alone taught the craft of writing. No, I was never even forced to write the venerable Five Paragraph Essay. Ahem. And we know how many of those are published annually.

Most likely, reading has influenced my need to write, as well as a well-developed ability to observe and remember nearly everything I see. Each author has a new perspective, a different voice, a way of allowing me to see through their thoughts. With that information, words and stories of my own evolve. As much as I enjoy writing my thoughts and observations, that is all they are. The way I choose to write them is exactly that: a choice. One that I value.

Yesterday while I was perusing others’ blogs, I came across one that featured a book review. The point of the review was clear: People like myself are amateurs. The business of writing is not something we are good at. In fact, people like myself are to blame for destroying the foundations of society, and card-carrying readers of “drivel” who will hardly be lining up “to read Shakespeare.” It was stated quite plainly that writers such as myself are only about “monkey business” and that all those who count themselves as “professionals” should work to find solutions allowing “those with talent to flourish.” I do have a suggestion: Write something others would enjoy reading. Fairly basic. Writing a few sentences about writer’s block doesn’t quite cut it, though.

So let me get this straight. I’m a professional if I write about education because I was employed as an educator. But if I choose to write about my life, my observations, my opinions, my ideas—which all belong to me, are connected to me, and referenced with that which is relevant to said life, observations, opinions, and ideas—I’m an amateur? And I need to stop this “monkey business” so the “professionals” can get a word in edgewise? Interesting.

I have to confess that reading the post, some of the comments, and comments made at amazon got the best of me. I haven’t been that worked up about anything for months. Embarrassing, actually when I consider all of the very important issues I should be worked up about. But I recognized what was causing my irritation. It all seemed so like the junior high students I had worked with for many years. Smug, egocentric, cliqueish. Very much a case of, “Hello? I’ve done the seat time required for the label I’m applying to myself, and while I’m at it, I’m going to pass judgment on you, on your admirers, and hell, our quickly disintegrating society in general because:
1. Bloggers exist.
2. Bloggers attract attention.
3. The attention is distracting others from noticing those who are more deserving.
4. Like me (The Professional).
5. Society is falling apart because no one reads Shakespeare.
6. Or gets in line to buy Shakespeare.
7. Because they’re bloggers.
8. Or readers of blogs.
9. Bottom dwellers.
10. Destroyers of the English Language.
William Faulkner said,

“Read, read, read. Read everything— trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the masters. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.”

Well said, Bill, even though I never really enjoyed reading your writing when I was in college. Mind you, I know you’re called one of our best writers, and that you were A Professional, but I just didn’t “get” your style. Maybe I was too young to truly understand considering the experience I approached your writing with—or lack thereof. Did you actually write Sanctuary for college sophomores? You’re in good company, because Will Shakespeare isn’t my cuppa tea either. Was he A Professional? If I remember correctly, he had some issues with written English. But who am I to bring that to anyone’s attention. I’m only an amateur.

One who is contributing to the downfall of society one post at a time.

What will become of us all? Will we drown in technobabble? I doubt it. We’ve continued to survive legalese and eduspeak. We are engaged in trying to survive Dub-Yah.

But Monkey Business still abounds. Damn technology.
July 26, 2007
No Palm Trees — Just Reality TV

I know you are sick and tired of hearing about how seriously no whoop-tee-doo great it is to live in Paradise: endless days of grey blue skies and overcast sunny weather; squawking birds and lawn mowers waking me up and the crack of dawn palm trees rustling gently in the dank air warm breeze; and the cold and murky glistening blue Pacific at my doorstep whenever my friends drag me kicking and screaming I wish to go for a dip, or sit on the beach to completely wreck my skin relax.

But isn’t it better than having me blather about Search Engine Optimization? Or monetizing my blog? (Yes, I know it says that at the end of my posts, but I didn’t put it there, and I’m seriously not going to try and take it off now that my blog is working fairly well) Or how to increase traffic to my blog? Who cares? W-H-O?

It reminds me of someone who has heard that they can make great money if they open a restaurant. They don’t know how to cook, they aren’t especially great at creating ambience, they may not even enjoy food that much. But hell, they’re going to get people to think they want to eat there anyway. They’ll do absolutely anything to get people to think they need to eat there — even if there’s nothing to eat. Even if there isn’t a menu. At least with Hell’s Kitchen you get a show.

Speaking of Hell’s Kitchen, we’ve been rotting our brains with quite a few summer TV shows I’ve been meaning to bring it up from time to time, but my self-indulgence always gets in the way. Although I’ve got my opinions on whether the shows are actually worth watching, one can get quite the education on the various ways the f-word can be used syntactically. That’s fairly entertaining coming from Gordon Ramsay. I like the way his mouth is scratched out when he’s ripping someone a new sphincter. Why bother watching? Because I don’t like the shopping channel? Or re-runs. Because we watch them together — en famille. *sigh* What a concept, huh? The RT isn’t tied to the sofa or anything, so occasionally he drifts upstairs with his iP-OD. Or the MoH will grab his laptop so he can look at Arctic Basket Weaving stats, or Hungarian Handball updates. Numbers, remember? He’s gotta see those numbers or he gets pretty cranky.

I get the shows we watch mixed up. Not just the nights they’re on, but the people who are in the shows. Somehow, I thought Adrian who was recently booted off The Next Food Network Star was the chef from San Diego who’s really on Top Chef — Brian. And don’t get me started on the issue of why I am challenged to know exactly WHICH episode of Top Chef I should record from the 89 that are shown in one day. Gimmeabreak. Of the three cooking shows, at least it seems some of the individuals on Top Chef can actually cook — the real reason I like the shows. I keep hoping they’ll really show cooking. Stupid me. And I can tolerate most of the contestants — well except Hung who is completely and arrogantly obnoxious, reminding my of the less than tolerable Marcel, the runner up of last year’s competition. They have got to tell the contestants to act like this, right? They can’t possibly be that insufferable all on their own. And can he cook without putting foam on something? It truly looks like the remnants of my dog’s yack, and who would want that on their plate? Blech. What I’m not good at tolerating are this guy and this woman. They’re so wishy-washy with their comments. So…sanctimonious. But I love the fact that Anthony Bourdain did a guest blogger spot and agreed with me about Hung and Marcel. Smart man. Okay, so maybe he isn’t quite agreeing with me, but I wrote it before I read that he thought it, so, close. He also had some interesting advice that I found quite useful…A little humility; a willingness to accommodate what people are likely to enjoy and appreciate, instead of pursuing that which honors only his own perceived genius, would be a good adjustment.

A man after my own heart. Ahem…revisit paragraph two above.

Speaking of “perceived genius,” I’ve had some trouble with The Next Food Network Star show from the beginning. So why am I still watching it? Amy’s from San Diego, and I guess I’m rooting for the home team. Plus, she actually knows how to cook. What completely pisses me off is that it seems they’re not really interested in that. She uses vocabulary that it too challenging, or uses correct terminology for her equipment, or isn’t baring an ubsurd grin and dropping food down her cleavage. She refers to herself as “The Gourmet Next Door,” and I guess that won’t go over well with Wall Mart shoppers. As for the show, there’s too much drama, and we are continuously reminded that The Food Network is about food. Oh, okay. I forgot.

Can TV execs get a serious clue that not everyone in the TV audience is stupid? Those of you who completely avoid TV — yes, I know you think the rest of us are stupid, and I was like you one upon a time — but you need to get over it, okay? I’m glad you think television is mindless drivel and I agree with you about 95% of the time. Now, what was I saying? Nothing important, I know…

I know the execs conduct their perfunctory market analysis crap and that drives everything, but a TV show where a grin is worth more than knowledge or experience? Really? Oh. I forgot about news anchor folks. Yah. Shit then. Sign me right up. I’m there. I want to be one of those people on CNBC in the morning who talk about stocks, trading, and the economy. They look like they have fun arguing about all of it. I love it. And I could do a fairly great job of faking it. I’d just need to occasionally mention things like “leading market indicator,” “hedge fund,” European Market,” and “Consumer Index” or something like that. At least someone would fix my hair for me every day and pat makeup on my face. Okay. That rant is over. Back to reality TV. Are you still there?

The show I actually enjoy is So You Think You Can Dance.

It takes skill to move your body like that. And your face. They have to learn their routines in five hours. Five. Okay, you might be able to convince me that making something edible from vending machine items is also very difficult, but save it, okay? Because I can make meals with crap I find in my refrigerator. But that’s a post for my food blog. When I watch this show, I think about how much our society does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to encourage or support the arts in public school. If someone learns to paint, or dance, or sing, it usually isn’t because of the public school system. You’ll occasionally hear someone who has managed to gain some attention or a bit of fame thank a particular teacher for their support and influence, but that isn’t because of the public school system. No. It’s because of the passion and dedication of that particular teacher. That one person who spots a kid and just knows there’s something special about her — before someone else gets their claws on her and tells her success is all about getting into the corporate world — whether she wants to or not. Whether she’s good at it or not. Whether that world wants a kid who isn’t interested in, nor particularly inclined toward Technology, Science, or Math. I’m not going to say those areas of study aren’t important — they just aren’t important to everyone. Shoving a kid into a program full of Science and Math when he just wants to dance is like cramming a square peg in a round hole. It’s painful, and it doesn’t work. If you can actually pull it off, the individual suffers forever. Our schools do it every single day. Unfortunately, so do parents. Ah…rant number two?

I love to watch people dance. It makes me want to dance. To sway and move with the music. To have dancer’s legs and muscles — but maybe not their aches and pains. To leap and spin and wonder how it would feel to be tossed from another’s arms and land exactly as I should. Except the guy would need a hydraulic lift for me. And the strains of Tschaikowsky’s “Swan Lake” wouldn’t exactly work as I landed on the stage in a lump. I love the costumes, those high-heeled dancing shoes, and all that heaving and sweating they do. It’s so much more difficult than getting on a stage to sing.

And it’s definitely more difficult than sitting at home on the couch watching people who can’t sing…well, not singing.

But maybe not quite a difficult as reading to the bottom of this page today, right? I do appreciate you and promise to work on my humility.

July 17, 2007
Tax Day & the Haves and Have Nots

Since waking at 3am today, I’ve read three days worth of our local paper, April’s edition of O, and done a great job of not reading the book I’m supposed to be reading. As a result, I’ve been preoccupied by something that used to happen frequently when I was part of the working world; things and issues of the day connected. No matter what I read, or what conversation I had, at some point, ideas converged whether they were supposed to or not. You know, the lights are on and someone is finally home. The point is, it happens rarely now. My brain has relaxed and now gets to think about what it wants, so it meanders everywhere, taking in often unrelated pieces of information that could be useful, but will most likely not synthesize into earth shattering points of lucidity.

You wouldn’t think that reading pieces about the Imus fallout — some better than others — Internet spawned narcissism, “Who pays what on TAX DAY,” or a pathetic letter to the editor of O grousing about “class privilege” regarding the actions of women who will do anything to conceive a child, would have anything to do with one another, but they must. I can feel the telltale signs of defensive belligerence on low burn right now, so after reading the post in Wonderland or Not today, I’ve decided that the only way to sort it out is to write. Not complain, or snark, or whine. Just express myself about something that has been on my mind for a very long time. This would be an excellent place to stop reading if you don’t want to delve into my dark side. (more…)

April 16, 2007