Idle Ramblings on Super Bowl Sunday

It's cold, wet and rainy -- and it's Super Bowl Sunday.

For those of you on the other side of the pond(s) who have never heard of the Super Bowl, it is a BIG DEAL championship football (the one with pads and helmets) game in the U.S. It's estimated that 100 million TV viewers will tune in to watch all or a portion of the game or half-time show.

For non-football fans, the biggest draw is the half-time show and the half-time commercials. These commercials cost advertisers some 3 million dollars for a 30 second ad. We can't see the ads in Canada (unless on a satellite direct feed) so I'll have to wait for them to be released later. Still, I may tune into the half-time show just to watch Bruce Springsteen do his twelve minute set. Otherwise, I'll give it a pass.

My Ramblings

• New blog to check out: A Literary Cocktail
  
  You won't be sorry. It's well-written, witty and about -- well -- you'll see.


• A year ago today, I blogged F is for Family or Faking It.
  
  It's interesting to look back and see what I was thinking/writing about in the past. This is something I've seen Tamarika of Mining Nuggets do. I may do it more often. (Oh where, oh where is a good editor when you need one? No matter how carefully I think I've edited, I always notice the mistakes after I hit the publish button.)
  
  
• While checking my stats yesterday, I saw that a few people ended up at my little rant about Suzanne Somers and anti-aging by Googling, "FaceMaster, best prices". I think it's pretty funny, but I'm sure they weren't amused.


• As suggested by Kay, I'm awarding a Van Gogh's Ear to some bloggers I feel are deserving:
  
  - Imelda at Greenish Lady
  - Joy at Babble On
  - Charlie at Berry Blog
  
  
  Who knew it was so easy to give awards to people! Feel free to pass it on.
  


• A belated Gung Hay Fat Choy! - It's the Year of the Ox
  I was sick and in bed on Chinese New Year, so didn't go out and celebrate. If my grandmother were alive, she would have told me this was not an auspicious start to the year. I was just as wont to have ignored it altogether, but thought it a tad rude not to wish others good fortune. We shall see how the rest of the year unfolds.

That's all for now.

My first award

Kay from Kay's Thinking Cap was kind enough to give me this Van Goh's Ear Award:

I rather like the notion of Van Goh's Ear -- the whole slightly mad, creative artist thing. Although in my case, I think of the Madwoman of Chaillot.

According to the originator of the award at the Idaho Photo blog:

We are all artists in are own way be it art, photography, writing, philosophy, comedy, blogging and we all go a little crazy sometimes. But if you ever feel so crazy to cut off your ear and give it to a prostitute "Seek Help"!

So, many thanks to Kay, one of my two followers. :D

New Look

I've finally changed to a 3-column layout.

I've been meaning to try it for some time, but the previous customizations seemed too time-consuming and I was too lazy. The other day, I found a quick, easy customization using Blogger's "Layout" functionality. The instructions are clear and simple, and for those of you who are intimidated by tech talk, you don't need to understand html.

If you've always wanted a 3-column blog, try it. It's at Three Column Blogger and has fixes for the more popular Blogger templates.

Choice between writing and a million dollar site

I have an unexpected "work at home day" today, so I've been trying to make the most of it by taking forays into the blogosphere in between my real (making money for vacations) work.

Along the way, I came across some interesting sites.

The first one came via the Sunday Scribblings prompt this week and smtwngrl's post on her blog,

- Writing: My Life
- that led me to a post on her sidebar about Daylight Savings Time
- that came from a writing prompt on

*First 50 Words*
Somehow, today's prompt of "Arrogance" was irresistible and I had to jump right in with my own response.

Ever in need of creative inspiration, I have duly bookmarked the site.

The second site that I've bookmarked (but I'm not sure will be a keeper) came via a post on The Boomer Chronicles about a new site called wowOwow.

WowOwow launched this past weekend on International Women's Day. According to a New York Times article, it's supposed to be a site by and for women "of a certain age" (meaning over forty). The five founding members (Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Mary Wells, Joni Evans, Peggy Noonan) have recruited other high-profile media and showbiz names, including Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Marlo Thomas and Judith Martin (aka Miss Manners) to be regular contributors.

According to Ms Evans, in her welcome article,

WowOwow is a party — disguised as a website — where we meet for coffee (in our robes) and for cocktails (without any makeup) and even in the middle of the night (someone’s always up!). Here, we can talk to our readers, invite the most interesting guests, share experiences, tell tales out of school, exchange gossip and news — and make some of our own.

You can read the entire piece here.

From looking around the site, I'm not exactly sure how it relates to me. Nothing in the first batch of articles said anything new, revealing or all that interesting to me as an older woman.

Maybe, as Ms Evans said, it is just "a party disguised as a website" -- not something I'd be terribly interested in reading on a regular basis.

If I want celebrity gossip, I can find that elsewhere. Likewise, fashion opinions by the rich and famous and/or coverage of American politics.

By the way, the NY Times article states the founders put one million dollars into the startup of the site. I hope they get beyond the party image. Better yet, leave it for frat boys and sorority houses.

For now, I've bookmarked wowOwow and will be checking in to see how it evolves. But for my money, I haven't found anything to beat Ronni Bennett's, Time Goes By as an intelligent voice for older women (and men).

I give up. No more image in header.

Blogger problems - a rant

Aaaargh! I still cannot get my header image to look the way I want it to look.

I like to use the Minima Stretch template because it allows both posts and photos to "stretch" larger or smaller to fit whatever width of the window (i.e you don't get the right side of the page cut-off and have to use a scroll bar along the bottom of the page to view the rest of it). Just a personal preference of mine. Since the problem with the header images, I thought I'd make it easier by just changing to a template that was easier to fix. The header looked fine, but then I found that with a different (fixed width) template the wider photos I have on individual posts got cropped off. So,I've gone back to the original template and come up with a work-around that I'm not entirely happy with, but will have to suffice for now.

I know I complained about this the other day, but it really bugs me.

After reading the help discussion forums, it seems Blogger made a change in the way images load to custom headers. It has caused a lot of folks to have problems with their previously functioning header banners. It's another case of Blogger messing around with stuff that isn't broken and not caring about what the actual users of the service think. Just take a look at one of the many recent threads about the header issue and you'll see the frustration of other Blogger users.

This all just pushes me a little further along the road to switching platforms.

My Blog - Top Ten + 1

Sorry to those on feeds for so many edits. :(

I've recently been going through my old blog posts and trying to update their tags and labels. It's been a rather onerous task.

When I started blogging in November 2005, I had no idea what or how tags and labels worked, so I didn't label anything. Big mistake. I ended up with a long list of post titles, some of which were less than enlightening (what the heck did I talk about in Odds 'n Sods on a Sunday?). Thus, in order to gain some semblance of order to my posts, I decided that it's worth the effort to label them properly. This has meant going back and actually re-reading what I've written over the last two years.

It's been a bit of an eye-opener. I barely remember some of the posts, yet others are as fresh in my memory as if I wrote them yesterday. I'm not done yet, but a few posts jumped out at me more than others. I've come to realize that the totality of all my posts really does capture who I am as a person.

Naturally, I like some posts better than others and some are near and dear to me for personal reasons. I've decided to list my top ten blog posts (at least for now). I think it also shows my evolution as a blogger. When I get a chance, I think I'll add them to my sidebar. They'll probably tell you much more about me than any "About" page.

So, in chronological order, the top ten about who I am:

• To blog or not blog - November 2005
  - My opening post.


• What's wrong with a bit of idealism? - November 2005
  - Wherein Ell ponders philosophical questions.


• One of These Days - February 2006
  - Just because . . .


• Sunday Breakfast - February 2006
  - A rant about cellphones, parents and family.


• Elderblogger - March 2006
  - Wherein Ell comes to terms with the word 'elders'.


• Father's Hands - April 2006
  - Prompted by an old photo.


• An homage to favourite bloggers - May 2006
  - My inspirations. Some have disappeared into the ether that is the blogosphere, but others have taken their place.


• Home Alone - March 2007
  - Random thoughts about blogging and bloggers.


• Of Trophy Wives and Silicone - July 2007
  - This is a reprint of something I wrote in 2001 (unrevised), but which I think still applies.


• Guest Blogging - August 2007
  - Here's the direct link to my guest blog at Time Goes By.


• Sunday Scribblings: A Rome Walk - November 2007
  - Because I love traveling, photos and writing.

I couldn't resist sneaking in an extra post. Guess which one. :-)

Blog and Template changes

I have spent the better part of this evening trying to add an image to my blog header. It should have been easy. But it wasn't.

I wanted to use the same picture that I used on Word Press. On WP it was very easy and it even had a built-in crop feature, so I didn't have to re-size the image before uploading it.

I followed Blogger's edit feature, which seemed simple enough, but it wouldn't center the image properly. After I tried everything I could think of, I looked at Blogger's "Help" section. Well, it appears that I'm not the only person with this problem. They've been trying to fix the situation for a few days now and while their so-called fix helped some, it made the situation worse for others. Take a look at the help group discussion titled My Headers are messed up!

I took the advice of one of the people in the discussion thread and changed the html on my template so it looks better, but it still isn't quite right. I'll take another look at it tomorrow and see if it's worth keeping.

Change of venue

I've been considering migrating this blog from Blogger to another platform. This is, in part, prompted by Blogger/Google's recent change in their comments link and trackback system.

I'm considering Wordpress, Movable Type and Typepad.

My main criteria:

- Easy to import my current blogs to the new site
- Flexibility and ease of use
- Free or inexpensive

My thoughts so far:

I set up a new site on Wordpress and imported my x365 project over to see how it works. The import process was quite painless and I like the look of their templates.

I also like the look of Typepad, but don't know too much about it.

I think Movable Type is more than I need.

I'd be happy to hear any opinions regarding the above platforms and any advice or suggestions. Or should I just stick it out with Blogger?

Odds 'n Sods on a Frosty Friday Morning

She's back!!
Wooohooo! I just had to say it. Ronni Bennett is back today at Time Goes By.

This morning, I clicked on TGB to read more comments about her departure. The last few mornings on TGB, there has been only a brief post about the latest story at the Elder Story Telling Place. Today, there was an actual TGB post. At first, I thought it might be a guest blogger. But no, the first few lines sounded like Ronni. I quickly scrolled down to the by-line and there it was, "posted by Ronni Bennett". She's written a lovely, heartfelt post about her feelings and decisions over the last few days.

I was always hopeful she'd be back in some form or other, but wasn't sure when or where. I'm so very glad she's back now. We can never have too many voices speaking out about injustices and the important human issues we face today. The comments on her blog this week, show just how far-reaching one voice can be.

Christmas Shopping
Well, I've put off thinking about it for as long as I can. The calendar tells me that I have just over two weeks to get ready for Christmas.

Since it's my day off and I have access to wheels today, I'm heading out for my first round of shopping. If all goes well, I'll get most of it done today. Experience has taught me that I'll either whiz through and accomplish a lot, or I'll come home tired and defeated. I may need to make the the liquor store my last stop of the day. Come to think of it, wine works as both celebration and remedy, doesn't it?

College Newsletter
My annual nursing class newsletter arrived by email yesterday and I'm glad I made the time to submit something this year (I talked about it in a previous post). I've only skimmed it, so far. I look forward to sitting down with a glass of wine and reading it at leisure. This year, twenty-seven have submitted updates. Not bad for a class of only thirty-odd.

Ronni: In appreciation . . .

It's been a couple of days now and I'm slowly coming to terms with Ronni Bennett's decision to shut down her blog, Time Goes By. It was a shock to me and many of her devoted readers. The last time I looked, there were over 100 comments to her "resignation" post.

And 'shock' is the right word. I couldn't believe it. Even as I read Ronni's entire post explaining her reasons, I couldn't quite wrap my brain around the idea that she wouldn't be posting at TGB anymore. I guess I had come to expect that she would always be there, expressing my precise thoughts and feelings about aging, health care and other important societal issues much more coherently than I ever could.

When I started blogging two years ago, her site and voice was one of the first that made me sit up and shout, "Yes!!" Finally, here was someone willing to write about a segment of the population that society wants to ignore.

She taught me a lot. I thought I was pretty unbiased and unprejudiced in my view of aging. Yet in reading TGB, I found I was as guilty as the next person in the use of lazy language to describe elders. Ronni showed how our use of language can and does perpetuate stereotypes of old people and I'm doing my best to break old habits. She's written about practically every aspect of aging, from health care to housing to finances; and railed against society's fixation and obsession with youth.

She wrote with conviction, clarity and passion with just the right touch of humour and the occasional caustic bite.

On a personal note - and she probably won't even remember this - she helped a novice blogger learn the hows and whys of blogrolls and atom feeds.

I began writing this post with the title "Say It Isn't So", somehow thinking that it was all a bad dream and Ronni didn't really shut down TGB. Now that I've had some time to think about it more rationally, I realize that she has more than enough reasons to retire her blog now, and that it's only selfishness on my part to expect her to continue. I really do understand why she feels like closing the doors.

So this post has become "In Appreciation . . ." for Ronni's four plus years of blogging, her dedication to causes and issues that need addressing, her mentorship of countless fledging bloggers, and her brilliant writing.

I'll miss Time Goes By, but I think we'll still hear from Ronni Bennett. She'll be fighting the good fight somewhere else, hopefully back in the blogosphere where we'll read her again.

Websurfing finds

On my Sunday hopscotch through the blogosphere, I stumbled upon some new gems and rediscovered a couple that had been languishing unread amongst my soon-to-be-pruned bookmarks. I thought I'd share them with you.

Older, but no wiser
I haven't visited this blog for ages, but now remember why I bookmarked it. I'm accustomed to reading personal and introspective blogs from women, but Andy's was the first I found from a middle-aged man. He has been blogging since 2003.

Serendipity Luminescent
Interesting photos from an old acquaintance I met on a forum years ago. It's so long since I checked his blog that this one (Serendipity) is a re-direct from the original which he stopped in June 2006.

Woolgathering
Elizabeth Perry is an artist and author living in Pittsburgh, PA. and Woolgathering is where she posts her daily sketchbook and notes. It's a glimpse into daily life through the eyes of an artist. She also does a fair number of watercolours –one of my favourite mediums. This one is going onto my bloglist.

She also links to some of her other projects, the most interesting being:

Museum Drawing Project of which she explains:
From October 1, 2006, through June 30, 2007, my plan was to visit the public spaces of the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, every day the museums were open. I drew something in a small sketchbook in response to each day's experience, and posted that drawing here, with short written reflection or response. Anyone was welcome to visit and comment. I was particularly interested in exploring what happens when my work moves from private (small sketchbook) to public (website) as it is experienced by an audience both in public (museum spaces) and in private (computer screen).

A Walk In My Shoes
Darlene posts beautiful, sometimes whimsical photos accompanied by poems, observations and commentary about life.

National Blog Posting Month (or NaBloPoMo)
Taken from the idea behind NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), the goal of NaBloPoMo is to post daily on your blog through the month of November. Yep, all thirty days. I'm too late for this year, but if I can remember, I may try this in 2008.

Gipsy Life
I found Gipsy Life from a link on Out of the Cube
and what caught my eye on first scanning was a mention of Vancouver. On further exploration, I found out she has applied for immigration to Canada to fulfill her long time dream of living in Vancouver. Beyond that, she is a wonderful writer. Her honesty, clarity and ability to share her hopes, dreams and fears is rather breathtaking.

And lastly,

Out of the Cube
I can't remember how I stumbled onto this site by Verna Wilder. All I recall is that I read her post, It's A Choice and felt it embodied so much of my own life philosophy that I bookmarked her site. (BTW, I found both Gipsy Life and Woolgathering through links on Out of the Cube.)


Hope you enjoy these as much as I have.

A change of heart

Not that long ago, I questioned how well we can actually know the people we read on the internet; whether it's from discussion forums, blogs or comments in response to posts. I was wary of believing that people are truly as they present themselves online.

In this post, I even went so far as saying,

We all make assumptions about people based on what they present to the outside world, and in the case of the interweb, how they write and respond in discussion forums, blogs, and comments. I start wondering if they'd be people I'd really like to meet face to face, whether I'd like them, whether they'd like me. The more I think about it the more I believe there aren't that many I'd want to meet in person. That's not to say I don't like or am not interested in the people I've met online; it's just that I'm not sure meeting them in reality would mesh with my assumptions, if that makes sense. Although, it might make for some interesting experiences.

I had mixed feelings.

Since then, I've been mulling it over in my mind and come to a couple of realizations: One is that people who post exclusively on message boards and discussion forums are hard to get to "know"; and second, bloggers are different; it seems like I personally know the bloggers I read regularly.

Recently, I came across a couple of blog posts that helped clarify my thinking.

One is Ronni Bennet's article about meeting a blogging friend.

As I mentioned last week, meeting online friends in person always feels like seeing an old friend. And so it was with Millie on Friday. There is no getting-to-know-you time because we already know each other better than non-bloggers would probably understand.

We spoke about how we spend more time with our online friends than with our local friends (whom we might see only occasionally) through reading one another’s blogs, discussing what we’ve written in comments, exchanging email and sometimes talking on the phone. There is fodder here, I think, for someone’s doctoral thesis one day. This is a new kind of relationship that transcends the pen pals of our childhood probably because of the immediacy we did not have with snailmail and the camaraderie that develops among those bloggers who hang out in the same blogs.

It's a different kind of friendship – but a friendship just the same.

There are some bloggers with whom I feel a great affinity. They are, by and large, those who aren't afraid to put everything out there, the good and the bad. They allow readers to see and feel through their eyes and hearts, and they express their opinions without the ever-present self-censoring that occurs in face to face encounters.

The other article is from Marty of TravelinOma's Library. It gave me a eureka moment. She said precisely how I'd been feeling lately, but unable to articulate.

In her post, Looking In, she contends that when you read someone's writing, you get to know the inner person first. Whereas normally, we get to know people from judging the outside first, sometimes never getting to know the real inner person.

I get to know an author from the inside out. I make friends in real life from the outside in. When I read what someone has written, I feel like I'm inside their head. If I connect with their descriptions, characters, humor or wit, they become some of my best friends. I've often been surprised to see a photo, or interview and find out what these friends look like. To know them so well, and then discover that they're old, or bald, or in a wheelchair, or whatever, is somehow sweet to me. I think, "So this is what the outside of you looks like."

Both Marty and Ronni made me realize that, in many respects, I know the bloggers I read regularly more intimately than many of my day to day friends. Conversely, readers of my blogs probably know me better than some of my everyday friends.

There's a freedom in writing that lends itself to openness and candor. There are things I've written on the pomegranate tiger that I wouldn't discuss with my friends, simply because I don't think they'd be interested. Yet they're things that are important to me. In doing so, I've found other like-minded folks or at least people who have an opinion on what I think from time to time.

So, I guess I've had a change of heart and wouldn't be so averse to meeting someone I know from the internet.

Couldn't have said it better . . .

Sometimes other people capture what I think and feel better and more eloquently than I ever could in my own convoluted words.

So, to borrow from others:

The Paris Hilton fiasco:
- From Waiter Rant; We'll Always Have Paris

Importance of the internet and blogs:
- From Time Goes By; Your Little First Amendment Machine

An homage to my favourite bloggers

I often feel in awe of the wonderful bloggers out there. The clarity, honesty and excellence of their words make me feel totally inadequate. I think, how did she do that; how did she make me laugh so hard, cry, get angry, rethink my position?

So here are just a few thoughts about some of my favourite blog writers. I won’t name names, so you can all imagine that I’m talking about you – because I am:

- A's individual blogs are precise photo captions. You wonder how she can capture the essence of how you feel in her words. Each picture-phrase is a vivid snapshot. It’s like watching a kaleidoscopic slideshow, never knowing what’s coming next, but with the assurance that it’s going to be insightful or funny – and definitely wonderful.


- B's words flow in an unending stream of colourful descriptors and run-on sentences. The funny thing is that her run-on sentences don’t seem run-on at all. Phrases and descriptions ripple along, sometimes gently, sometimes caught in an eddy of overlapping ideas as if deciding whether to pool and expand there, eventually overflowing and pushed on by the relentless pressure of new ideas. Sometimes the stream is more like a torrent - words tumbling over each other, burbling and bubbling, rushing to some invisible gush of an ending. Her writing makes me smile.


- C's writing is self-assured. The ideas complex, yet clear. No shilly-shallying about where she stands on issues. It’s easy to heed her rally cry. She’s smart enough not to take herself too seriously.


- D is both ingenious and ingenuous. You never know what you’re going to get - staccato angry delivery or heartfelt musings. I sometimes imagine meeting her in person and know she’ll be exactly as she portrays herself in her words.


- The warm, earnest sharing of E's journey through life makes me feel a bit like a voyeur. The honesty is startling and inspiring at the same time.


- F's stories about her family are gentle, whimsical and funny. Reading her blogs, make me feel like I’m sitting at her kitchen table having a chat over a cup of coffee.


- G comes across as someone you’d never like to get angry. His words are sharp, big-city, no-holds-barred scathing rants at the less than worthy. Not necessarily someone I’d like to meet, but his writing is brilliant.

I've been spending the last hour looking for bloggers that are within at least a decade of my own age. Why, you might ask.

Generally, I like the internet because there's a certain anonymity when it comes to age. You can learn a lot about people without the prejudice of age. I have absolutely no problems conversing with younger people and enjoy the vitality and enthusiasm, but sometimes it's good to hear from those with similar life experiences or who have gone through the same life passages.

It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I finally resorted to clicking on similar interests of things I thought might actually return some people close to my age. I went through favourite movies that I thought would appeal to an older demographic - no luck. I went through books the same way - no luck. I went through music and, voila, hit upon Gordon Lightfoot! (I also found a lot of Canadians, but that's okay.) I followed a few more links and lo and behold, people my age. One blogger was even kind enough to list a bunch of these folks as a 'sub-group' of links.

Now, I just need to work my way through and follow the links where they may lead. After only two days blogging, all I can think is, "Why didn't I think of doing this before?" It's so much easier than maintaining and updating a website.