Velveteen Mind

Corey Haim and the Great Time Suck

The miracle of free time.  Give me a handful of hours to do with as I wish and I will immediately sacrifice them to the internet gods, let me tell you.  How time flies when you are totally wasting it.

Social networking sites have never really interested me before, but this weekend I tried out cre8buzz.com and actually had a pretty good time poking around.  Thanks be to Sara for the buzz on this one, by the way.

Taken from their "About" page, here's the lowdown on cre8buzz:

We built Cre8buzz with one question in mind: How do we get EVERYONE more…

• More exposure
• More visitors
• More views
• More friends
• More followers
• More comments
• More feedback

How do we help people cre8 a buzz of their own?

And that has, so far, been the real fun of it--  building your own little community, your custom profile, and building your own buzz...  with a little help from your friends, that is.  I don't know what it is about that site, but the majority of my blogging community has made its way over there, which is actually fairly interesting.  What's different about this networking site versus others?  Honestly, I couldn't tell you, but whatever it is, it's working so far.

Actually, maybe it's the competition to become the #1 buzz ranked member?  I'm at #18 overall right now...  meanwhile Suburban Oblivion has been totally hogging the top spot.  I'll let ya'll know when I overtake her.  ;)

Aaaahhhhh, but I'm more about community than that!  Which brings me to my next time suck of the weekend:  Twitter.  Yes, I finally succumbed to the temptation that is Twitter.  I wanted something else to add to my cre8buzz profile to make it more personal, so I thought I'd give it a shot. 

However, since I wanted to add the Google Share feature so that I could show off my friends' work but couldn't get it to show up correctly, I found a compromise in Twitter.  Rather than just featuring my own Twitters, I posted a sidebar widget featuring my Twitters, along with those of my blogging circles.  Pretty nifty, actually.  Let me know if you want to be included (or don't, for that matter) and I'll get right on it.

By the way, one of my most recent Twitters was earlier this evening when I realized that it was time to finally catch an episode of The Two Coreys on A&E.  How did I not hear about this show before this weekend?  Is my Corey Haim radar that old that it didn't pick up his presence on TV again after all these years?

Seriously, who here had a crush on Corey Haim when you were little?  (cont'd...)

Of Rubber Ducks and Ladybug Picnics

Stolen rubber duck debates and podcasts are two things I'm not very familiar with at this point in my blogging experience.   However, I am very familiar with the Queen of Shake-Shake and do basically whatever she commands, so I obeyed and listened to her interview on the Motherhood Uncensored podcast this morning.  The podcast was last night, but I'm just that slow. 

Along with Queen Heather, Kristen interviewed Lawyer Mama and Her Bad Mother.   Fantastic sites and fabulous bloggers.  However, I don't remember her mentioning the Queen's URL, which would have totally irked me, given my control freak issues with receiving credit for every iota of energy I expel into the universe.   But that's just me and Heather probably didn't even notice.  She's cool like dat.

*edited to note that Kristen did pimp their blogs, it just got cut off.  I had a feeling that was what happened, based on the choppy beginning, but I didn't bother to be thorough about it when I posted this.  My hide would still be chapped, though, and I would insist on being the star of the show next time.  Just for the record.  :) I kid.  I kid.*

Do check the podcast out, as it's an interesting discussion on parenting ethics, blah blah blah.  Here's what I really liked about it:

She played "Rubber Duckie" by Ernie from Sesame Street at the end of the show!  Given my last post on children's shows (and transvestites, sure), it will come as no surprise that I love that song.  It should have, then, come as no surprise to me that Pants would come running in saying, "My see!  My see!"  Time to hit YouTube.

How did we get by before this video archive of all things immediately vital to my immediate viewing pleasure came along?

You can check out classic Ernie singing Rubber Duckie on your own (and I highly recommend it), but today I'm going to share with you the following treasure that popped up in the Related videos sidebar and simply made my whole day better.  If this doesn't make you smile, then I'm not sure that we can be friends anymore.  I love it.

The Ladybugs' Picnic from Sesame Street

   

Now I have to get back to my massive to-do list for today.  Seriously, how many of you have returned these damn red Thomas the Tank Engine poison toys, yet?  I swear, I don't have time for this.  And I just love the fact that the red trains were always the ones we gave to Cheeks to play with (and chew on, by the way).  I mean, come on!

Introducing the pseudo-Photoshop-ish Capitalist Wiz!

I finally decided to tackle it head-on.  You know what I'm talking about.  Photoshop.

Except, I still can't afford Photoshop.  So, I guess you could say I decided to tackle it sideways-on.  Sort of snuck up beside it and gave it a little nudge.  Rang the Photoshop doorbell and ran around the corner to hide and laugh when it opened the door and I wasn't there ready to fork over my gajillions of dollars.

There's lots of stuff I want to do with Photoshop, but for a while now I've been admiring myself and my tag-line writing skills and wanted to make a coffee mug at cafepress.com using my tag-line "Relish the Velveteen.  Revel in the Threadbare."   Except I didn't have any programs that could do either PNG files or transparent backgrounds.  So it wasn't happening for me.

Then I started getting comments on my Plain Jane Mom guest post, saying (jokingly) that I should make shirts using the post's title "My Label Maker Is Broken This Week" and my Photoshop-itch started bugging me again.  And then I started getting actual real bona fide requests for the shirts.  Wow!  How much fun would that be...  if.  I.  had.  Photoshop.

Which I don't.  Did I mention that?  Did I mention it costs a million dollars?

So I started complaining to everyone.  Anyone that would listen.  And as it turns out, I was complaining to all the right people.  First of all, the Queen of Shake-Shake offered to do the designs for me.  Her Highness Herself, deigning to command her computer to spit out designs for me!  Yea!  I just hope she doesn't mind control freaks who obsess over the details...

Then Domestic Chicky offered to help.  She of the magic fingers that are currently wielding the sewing needle on the much-anticipated apron project for my totally empty eBay store I've been mentioning since February or March.  Somewhere in there, she became a whiz at computer graphics.  Damn.  I can't sew a button or CGI a button, so, well, damn. 

Unfortunately, I need her to stop talking aprons and start mailing aprons, so she pointed me in the direction of a non-Photoshop program that could do what I wanted.  One that doesn't cost a spajillion dollars.  One that comes with a free trial and everything.  One that has video tutorials aimed at kindergartners, apparently.  Because I don't have time for this crap.

And it worked.  It totally worked.  I downloaded the program yesterday afternoon, and a few hours later, I had my shirt designs!  Fortunately for me, cafepress gives you the exact DPI and resolution (is that the same thing?) and all that other mysterious stuff,  so all I had to do was set up my "work space" and plug in my text.  Viola!  I'm a pseudo-Photoshop-ish wiz!!!

Soooooo, without further ado, I introduce to you my newest online store:

All Things Velveteen

 

Okay, I only have two or three designs right now, but I have lots of options for those designs, and who doesn't like choices?

And you know what?  If the only people that buy anything are me and the Queen...  I'll still be damn happy with myself for finally tackling this computer graphics-ish thing.  Now I can make a coffee mug for every occasion!  Shirts with every bit o' blather I spew!  Woo hoo!

By the way, while you are in the shopping mood, here are a couple of other blogging fashion designers for the blogging set:

• i am bossy
• Suburban Oblivion
• IzzyMom
• Play Clothes
• Vodkarella

By the way, if you are in more of a thinkin' mood than a shopping mood, do check out Heather's post on the pros and cons of breaking your label maker when it comes to your children.  I wanted to talk about that more, but have blogged fifteen ways to Sunday away from the real work I'm supposed to be doing today.  Break your label maker, indeed.

 

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We're having some technical difficulties.

First of all, please don't hit your "unsubscribe" button today!  I fixed a glitch in my feed, so please bear with me as I know you are getting some duplicate posts today (and only today) in your feedreader and email subscriptions as a result of the fix.  Something about synching atom vs. RSS.  Who knows.  Anyway, hopefully things will go more smoothly after this fix, meaning it should update more quickly or something.  If you have any problems, please let me know, but you shouldn't, so I don't want to scare off any of my new Wordless Wednesday visitors. 

Everyone subscribe today!  If you already have subscribed, add me to your Technorati Favorites (look how easy, the link is to the right)!  Add me to your blogroll!  Something!  Really, I could use the morale boost due to...

Technical difficulty #2:  I am swamped with work and my boys seem to have chosen this moment to come down with something that looks suspiciously like a cold.  This is a result of my trying to be a good mom and taking them to two playgroups in one week.  Such bad timing, too, because we have VIP access to the summer fair tomorrow!  Ya'll know I lurves me some cotton candy and grubby carnies.  Technical difficulties, indeed. 

I just don't think I have the patience for constant toddler whining and crying-baby-holding today.   I hate it for them, love them to pieces and want to make them feel better, but ya'll, I have so much to do today!!!

You know that feeling when you know you are about to lose it?  When you can feel the "oh my gawd, I need to get outta here" coming on?  When you see no end in sight?   When it's not even noon?  Not that it matters, because this shift never ends.

I have yet to find the "unsubscribe" button for sick days. 

Hijackers, Fools, and David Duchovny

After accusing Sara at Suburban Oblivion of hijacking my post this morning, I figured I'd better knock this one out before I head to bed in a minute.  For those of you that read my virtual b*tch slap in Sara's comments, I really was kidding because I knew she was going to post before me.  In fact, she started writing her post as I was still telling her about my theories.  Yeah, she's just that serious.  Crazy mad blogging skills, while I'm still prattling away on IM.  For those of you that haven't read Suburban Oblivion today, here's the story.

Heather at TopBlogMag emailed her writers asking for us to participate in a little contest called Blogging to Fame.  In short, it's a most-votes-wins popularity contest in which the blogs and bloggers with the most votes win cash prizes.  I'd love to go into more detail, but, well, the details are sort of sketchy.  To say the least.

Heather was nice enough to offer to share the prize money if TopBlogMag should win, and since I'm all for free money, I logged onto the site, even registered, and started poking around to find out more about it. 

The first thing that struck me was all of the typos and grammar mistakes.  (Suburban Oblivion readers, these red flags are going to seem familiar to you because they are the same ones I told Sara about and which she totally stole!  Damn you, Saraaaaaa!  Picture me waving my fist in the air in futility.)  English seemed to be the author's third language, at best.  There was a distinct absence of the article "the" all over the damn place.  Now, I don't have any problem with poorly translated blogs, but, seriously, if you want me to believe that you are going to give away tens of  thousands of dollars in cash and prizes, please use words like "the" and "a" every now and then.

The time frame of when the contest starts and ends was vague at best.

Where the money is coming from was, well, uh, it seemed to be a secret.  The origin blog stated that they would prefer not to reveal the sponsors right now but to rest assured that it was going to be "big."  Hmmmm.  Okay.  Fine.

Based on all that, I decided to not participate, despite wanting to throw some votes TopBlogMag's way.  Then this morning we got another email from Heather about it.  Knowing that Sara would have gotten the same email, I IM'd her and asked what she thought of the whole thing. 

Since she's not a "whoring out your blog for votes" kind of girl, she hadn't even looked at the site, yet.  In fact, it took some hounding on my part and a distinctly funny "I'm having a hard time working up a giveadamn" on Sara's before I could even get her to look at the site. 

Then I had her hooked and started turning her mind all skeptical-like.   We were all Mulder and Scully:  The truth is out there... and we were going to find it.

If you want to check out some more red flags that Sara and I unearthed, check out her post Blogging to Fame?  Not likely.  Otherwise, here are my theories:

1. This is a legitmate contest that's just not fully formed yet and from which I will never see a penny.
2. This is a half-assed contest that is not fully formed, never will be fully formed, and will just taper off with some lame excuses for why it didn't work.  Probably blaming us for not contributing enough in the end.
3. This is a social experiment to see how far our vanity and narcissism will take us.  Just what will we do when promised fame and fortune?  How much will we whore ourselves out?
4. This is a phishing scheme.  I did register, after all, and for all I know they are hacking into my accounts right now.  One of the questions was actually "name to make the check out to in case you win," as though this might be the last time they hear from you, despite the whole requirement that you fly out to their awards ceremony, etc. etc.

Suburban Oblivion says this is all a link-baiting scheme.  I didn't know what link baiting was, but she explains it very well.  I imagine this could be both link-baiting and legitimate, but, whatever.

On the off-chance that this is a legitimate contest, by all means, head on over to TopBlogMag and click Heather's links and vote!  I don't intend to nominate myself at this point, but who knows, I may come to my senses...

Speaking of coming to my senses, I've gotta say again that I'm glad Sara posted her totally-stolen-content post first (wink, Sara).  The reason?  Had I not read hers before I wrote mine, I would have absentmindedly linked to the Blogging to Fame website.  Yep, I would have fallen into the link-baiting trap set somewhere in the remote regions of India, waiting for naive little bloggers like me to stumble right on in and snap!  She's a great Scully to my Mulder, in that case.  Or is she Mulder?  Whatever.  David Duchovny is incredibly attractive to me and absolutely cracks me up in Return to Me, so any reason to post pictures of him.  Le sigh.

Or, again, this could be totally legitimate.  This contest could be the real thing.  Or, I should say, "Contest on Internet could be real thing."  What do you think? 

***Check out Sara's post for Tuesday morning, Small Update on Blog to Fame, for a comment she received from the blogger behind Blogging to Fame and apparently one of her supporters.  It makes as much sense as, you guessed it, the contest itself.  It's definitely worth reading, though.  I gotta say it again...  I want to believe, but...