Hey, What Are You Still Doing Here?

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Didn't you know I moved to a new blog six months ago?

Well, erm, it's only been a few days. My new blog is at maktaaq.com and my new RSS feed is here.

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Ţiganii noștrii fără bani

Monday, October 22, 2007

This photo has been making the rounds among the Romanian diaspora for months. I got it from my sister, who got it from a distant cousin on my cousin's side.

It shows some Romanian gypsies on the Black Sea coast. *Alleged* gypsies - I can never completely tell the gypsies apart from the ethnic Romanians, unless it's a gypsy woman shuffling about with her huge, colourful, dirty skirt.

Furthermore, in this picture, it's the gypsies with money. The Romanian title means "Our gypsies without money." I.e. the ones who make their wives and kids beg for money, or squeeze old folks out of wonderful Romanian antiques to sell at German flea markets. Not that ethnic Romanians are any better, it's just that the crappy ethnic Romanians aren't all that exciting to look at, with their tiny cellphones and their hip hop bad ass attitude.

Check out the jewellry on these dudes*. I wouldn't mess with them. I would, however, tell their kids to scram when I am in a cafe trying to drink.

*Click on the photo for a bigger view.

Labels: Romania

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Top 25 Blogging Peeves

Thursday, October 18, 2007

1. Long paragraphs.

2. No spaces between paragraphs: it's different when paragraphs have only a single space between them in books or newspapers, on a computer screen, it's as bad as long paragraphs.

3. Blogger commenting: why should everyone have a Blogger profile? I want to go directly to their blog!

4. Truncated feeds: I don't always have time to go to a blog to check the full version. It gets especially bad when I have to play catch-up with a million posts - I usually never bother reading everything.

5. Long posts: I am guilty of this.

6. Posting more than once a day: though I read a few local and specialized blogs every day, I hardly can keep up with others and I end up skimming for something that interests me. When it's a personal blog, I'd rather be reading everything and really getting a feeling for the author's life. Actually, I really love my once-a-weekers - I can even forgive them if they write long posts.

7. More after the jump: no! I usually read over my morning cereal. I can't put down my spoon, click, then pick up spoon. I ain't no multitasker, stop asking me to work so much.

8. Links without comments: I want to know why you want me to go there.

9. More than two columns: I can't concentrate. I am also additionally fussy in that I prefer my sidebars on the right, but that's just going into crazy territory, I know.

10. Posts without titles: someone told me my posts should all have titles. It's made me think about what exactly I write about and makes me keep to one topic. If I have more than one idea, I can make two blog posts.

11. Good blogs that disappear: I still lament the passing of Baboon Ass. With so many inane dead blogs that cling to the internet like pond scum, at least the good ones could remain un-deleted, like rafts of hazelnut wafers among the pond scum.

12. Tiny (or huge) writing.

13. Exciting blogs that peter out after five posts: local museum blogs are pretty bad about this. I get excited that I'll be learning about the history of, say, Coalmont, BC, then nothing!

14. Exciting blogs that spiral out of control because they don't understand blogging: again, in my profession, organizations make blogs that sound more like marketing tools, with rehashed press releases. I can read those elsewhere; I prefer to go behind the scenes, meet the people and find out about the job.

15. No email: so what happens if I am too shy to write a comment to you?

16. Bloggers who don't answer their comments: sometimes someone has five comments, some of them questions...which seem to hover there, all lonely, for all eternity. I really appreciate reading someone who responds, even to thank their commenters. Hey, we're bloggers, not rock stars.

17. Unfeedable comments: sometimes I want to read the truth about enzyte comments but I don't want to have to keep returning to the blog to see the updates. I love getting them in Bloglines. Of course, almost all blogs are guilty of this infraction, but with Haloscan and the Metroblogging Vancouver site, you can get your blog posts and comments too.

18. Comments that turn off after a while: what if I want to comment on your long-ago post on 19th Century gorilla-shaped tschochkes? Huh? What, after November 23, 2004, everything that can be said about gorilla tschochkes has been said? What if ground-breaking research has unearthed new gorilla tschochke revelations?

19. Image-stealing: I don't care that much about Mickey Mouse, but when it's just some kid down the street, please ask her before you use her photo, even if the Creative Commons license says "Exploit me."

20. Serif fonts: these belong on the printed page, not the computer screen.

21. Marketing requests made of bloggers: please don't send me requests to blog about your movie...send me a copy first and I might change my mind. I like horror movies and all, by the way, but I draw the line at Hostel, Saw and their ilk. Seriously though, no one reads this blog except a few people who like naked mole rats. I am flattered that you would think I am popular.

22. Spam/Trolls: delete please.

23. Teen accessories: music, moving pictures, stars that follow your cursor around, abbreviations, etc. The "Next Blog" feature on Blogger is what usually brings you to these sites.

24. Status updates: Happens in blogging for beginners, aka Facebook. Usually appears as "Jimbo is Julie ate my corndog." Or "Madeleine is Up at the crack of dawn." I, and others like me, will judge you on your grammar and capitalization.

25. YouTube: I hate it when I have to click that play thing. Almost as bad as something that starts up as soon as you visit the page.

Yes, I am guilty of many of these. I promise to blog about what I do like next.

Updates:

19. Image-stealing: When I wrote this, I was thinking of the Dallas girl who was made fun of in a Virgin Australia commercial. I don't care if the images are free - surely no one just takes free samples at a supermarket without acknowledging the free sample food giver-outer? I think it's just nice to make a human connection, to thank them for their image, and to let them know where it'll go.

21. Marketing requests made of bloggers: I am not famous. I somehow got into a horror movie niche, over which I am thrilled, but these poor kids making films are trying the blog route of promotion. It kind of died down after Snakes on a Plane failed. Not saying I am not flattered, but I was taken aback.

I had no idea how to even rate these films, and some of them sounded gory, which I actually don't like (unless it's quick, like in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre - I hate scenes that linger on people screaming).

Recently I also got something to promote a local charitable event. But, while I want to be a good citizen, I have no idea how someone who bumbles about like I do, can even seriously write about this. I think those of you who read this blog aren't here because I am saying anything worthwhile or new; you're here because you're my friends and want to humour me. The one or two of you who may not know me, I think I just haven't rambled enough lately on about how much I hate Republicans or how I think vampire fiction sucks. I may do so and then you'll stop reading. You think now that I am all about hamsters and Belgian comics.

24. Status updates: I like status updates, but I like them written properly. Sometimes they're hard to read. This peeve should read "Grammatically weird status updates."

25. YouTube: I just don't like to be told "You gotta see this!" then have to sit through 6 minutes or even 2 minutes of waiting for what I gotta see. Most times it's not worth it.

So, do any of you have pet peeves?