Why I will not selectively remove you from my ticker and why YOU are responsible for YOUR OWN security on Facebook.

So here’s the thing. The new Facebook. We love it (TIMELINES ARE AWESOME!!) and we hate it (new news feed? Sucks ass).

And then there’s the ticker. Oh, the ticker. People seem to be REALLY REALLY upset about the ticker. But here’s the thing, all that stuff that people are seeing, they are seeing because of the privacy settings YOU and YOUR FRIENDS have set up. If you comment on an update that was posted as “public” (or “friends of friends”), everybody can see it (or everybody you are friends with) in the ticker, on the wall itself, on your wall, it’s… you know… PUBLIC. If you post on a status that was marked as “private” or “friends only” then nobody can see it but you and your friends. It won’t show up in the ticker or anywhere else except on that person’s status update.

Here:

Facebook says that the new News Feed and the ticker do not affect your privacy settings. Ticker will only display information that you’re already able to see anywhere else on Facebook. Facebook does say, however, that if you start seeing stories that you haven’t noticed before, it’s likely because “ticker makes things easier to discover. It doesn’t mean that privacy around Facebook has changed.”

To control who sees your posts in the News Feed and ticker, be sure you use the privacy control in the Update Status box. Also remember that the comment privacy is tied to the privacy of the post: If you comment on someone’s public post, your comment is thereby also public.(source)

And I love all of my facebook friends, ALL OF YOU. DEARLY. A LOT. But I will not respond to this request:

Do me a favor: please hover over my name here, wait for the box to load and then hover over the “Subscribe” link. Then uncheck the “Comments and Likes” option. I would rather my comments on friends’ posts not be made public. Thanks!

Repost, if you don’t want your EVERY MOVE posted on the right for everyone to see! I’ll do the same for you if you want; just click “like.”

Because all that stuff? It’s stuff I can see just by clicking on your profile! It’s been there ALL ALONG, it’s just more convenient to see it now because it takes one less click and is streamed right there on the right. It’s not showing anything I couldn’t see already!

I highly suggest you take a second to check your privacy settings and have it set “friends” if you don’t want people’s comments on YOUR POSTS to be public or show up in the ticker. The thing that bugs me the most is that I’ve seen people with PUBLIC Facebook profiles ask me to do this. I JUST… WHAT!?

Instead of asking ME to censor you, take the time to do it yourself and if you don’t want your comments to show up publicly, don’t post comments on people’s status updates that are public.

This to me is common sense but at the end of the day, follow this common rule: Don’t post ANYTHING online that you wouldn’t want the entire world (and everybody on facebook) to read.

My Case for Torrents.

So here’s the thing. I download torrents. I mean, I’m pretty sure that everybody has done this at some point but after reading a comment thread the other day where people were basically condeming every person that has ever downloaded a torrent straight to the 11th ring of Hell (the one where you are forced to listed to that horrible Friday song on repeat at full volume FOR ETERNITY) I wanted to say something. Problem is, I can’t remember where I saw it so instead I’m going to justify myself to all of you who probably do it too. Because I’m pretty sure most of my readers are soleless geeks.

The main point that people were making is the fact that you are “pulling money out of the pockets” that create the content. Now, they were specifically mentioning actors and I was like yeah, because poor Charlie Sheen was only making 1.5 million dollars per episode. I bet he is really feelin’ it in the pocket book. Poor guy…

Granted they don’t all make that much but even those cute little brats from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody make $20,000 each per episode. So at 28 eisoded in the second season they each earned $560,000. This doesn’t include endorsement deals, books, ETC!

And don’t even get me started on what movie stars make. It’s obscene. Seriously.

ANYWAY! I’m not as concerened about the actors as I am about all “the little people” that work on set, catering, wardrobe, you get the idea. I do think that THEY are the ones that people should be more concerned about.

Lets veer off that tangent and back to the topic.

My main arguement is this: I DO pay for all these shows. We pay for cable, including HBO and all that jazz. We pay for movies that we really love (plus the outrageous ticket prices to see them in the theatres usually once a week) and know we will watch over and over, pay for Netflix, pay for Hulu+ we pay and pay and pay. And it’s awesome that most major networks offer some kind of online viewing option and that’s great if you happen to have an internet connection available. But what if you don’t?

Once you remove the internet equation your choices become limited. You can rent Movies from iTunes for $5.00 each or you can pay $3.00 PER TV EPISODE to buy them. Or you can pay for the DVD or Bluray and hope it comes with a digital copy (again, we do this with movies we love) but other than that, on a phone or tablet you really don’t have any other options.

So I download them.

Honestly, it seems really silly to pay $5.00 to iTunes JUST to watch something on the go. Especially when the same movie is available from RedBox for $1.00 to watch at home. The pricing is ridiculous. If you want me to pay for it don’t try to stab me in the pocketbook with a dull knife in the process.

If there was a service out there that let me download a season of a show for $10.00 or LESS I’d consider it but even that is pushing it. $50.00+ is STUPID. BE REALISTIC.

Just for the record, I ONLY download TV and Movies. I got a Nook for Mother’s Day and I’ve paid for every single book I’ve read. I just can’t get behind NOT paying at LEAST once for something. With TV shows and movies, I’ve either paid via cable subscription or in a theater so I don’t feel bad not paying a SECOND time. Same thing applies to music. I buy all of it.

So what do you think? Do you break the bank just to catch up on your favorite TV show? What do you think would be a “fair” price to rent movies or TV shows to watch on a mobile devise?

Pinetiquette.

икони на светциI’m writing this as a sort of guide for people that use pinterest. And by guide I mean, I want you all to fix these things that bug the shit out of me. If you don’t have a pinterest account, YOU SHOULD GO GET ONE. I have invites so leave a comment and I can send you one.

I really love the site. I’ve already tried several recipes and got a lot of inspiration for Cassidy’s room makeover in the few short months I’ve been obssessed using it. It’s such a great tool to organize those bookmarks that seem to get lost in the shuffle as we surf the massive web. Plus, I love getting to see the things my friends have pinned. Different girls all of them, but cool to see how many things we ALL love.

There are a few pet peeves I have though and I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen these two things happen and it annoys the creativity right out of me.

#1 – If you are going to pin something, pin the individual web page for THAT recipe, craft idea, etc. So many times I see it where instead of linking to an individual blog post containing the recipe for something, people copy/paste what they see at the top of the page. That’s fine if the blogger never blogs again, but once that item is pushed off the main page of the blog, now I have to go searching for it.

Example!

I made these really awesome pink lamonade cupcakes the other day which I found on pinterest. The problem is that when it was originally pinned, the blogger had just published the recipe so the pinner just had to copy/paste the blog’s main URL. But the blogger has blogged many times since then so instead of the pinterest picture linking back to the actual recipe page, it links back to the main blog. So now I have to go to the blog, find the search bar, enter the recipe name, find the post and click. I know it’s not THAT much work but if you are looking for good cupcake recipes and you have to do this on EVERY CUPCAKE RECIPE PIN YOU CLICK it can get old fast.

Even worse, several times I’ve gone to click on a pin and it just links back to a picture! No blog post, no article, no recipe, just an image of some awesome thing I want to know more about! FRUSTRATING!

Solution: Make sure that when you submit your pin, that you are linking it back to the ACTUAL blog page. Just click the title of post, copy and paste the URL of that post, submit! Easy! Also, if you’ve had to search like I said above, rather than repinning, create a new pin with the correct linkage.

#2 – Image theft is OUT OF CONTROL. Like, when I see my photos floating around out there being repinned and linking back to a tumblr (NOT the individual POST, but the tumblr’s MAIN PAGE {SEE #1 OMG}) it does get annoying. Now my awesome image is getting attributed to some random girl on tumblr that looks like she just makes it a habit to steal photos and repost them WITH NO ATTRIBUTION EVEN THOUGH RIGHT THERE ON MY FLICKR PAGE I REQUIRE IT.

I’ve seen this happen SO MUCH to Melanie

Six of the below pictures are her’s. One links back to a blog post with no attribution to her, one links back to a blog’s main page so I have no way of knowing if she’s attributed (SEE #1 ABOVE!!), one links back to a failblog WIN (the main page, OF COURSE SEE NUMBER MOTHERFUCKING ONE) where people in the comments who recognize her link to her flickr page, one links back to some random photo sharing site and TWO actually link back to Melanie’s flickr account.

I understand that we can’t ALWAYS find the original artist to attibute but some people don’t bother trying at all. This is also why, as a general rule, I don’t link back to tumblr blogs. Most tumblr blogs that I’ve come across make no point of attributing the original so I have no desire to then promote the blogger in some way.

*steps off soapbox*

For the most part, Pinterest really is just all around a completely awesome site. Right now I’m off to search it for something yummy to make my coworkers for a Monday Morning Treat. Don’t let these two things discourage you from using it!

(Just don’t commit either of these crimes or I will have to hunt you down and pretend I don’t like you for like five minutes.)

And I am angry.

I get annoyed when absent bloggers apologize for not having written in awhile. Like they OWE you an explanation. Dude, you have a life, live it and don’t feel like you need to explain it to ANYBODY.

But I’ve totally done it before.

Because I’m all about the hypocrisy.

So here we go.

I haven’t written because I CAN’T. When I sit to write it’s because something funny has struck me and I feel like EVERYBODY NEEDS TO KNOW THIS RIGHT NOW. I’m not an every-day-I-need-to-tell-you-all-the-mundane-shit-I-did type of blogger. Which is odd because I am an every-day-I-need-to-tell-you-all-the-mundane-shit-I-did blog READER. I need to know that your cat threw up today after you fed it real tuna because I am voyeuristic and… well, nosy.

I listen to conversations in restaurants ALL THE TIME. I can’t help it, you people talk LOUDLY about SHIT THAT SHOULD NOT BE SAID IN A RESTAURANT. I’ll turn to Ben like, “Did you just hear what that lady said!?” And he’s like, “Dude, stop being crazy.” Seriously though, if you don’t want the entire restaurant to realize you’re there with your lover and not your husband, LEARN TO WHISPER.

So anyway, when I sit down to write it has to be something I feel like I NEED to say and when I CAN’T say what I NEED to say you get halfass attempts like that last blog post. It actually hurts my brain to read it. I can’t believe that some of you got through it and then COMMENTED. YOU PEOPLE ARE SAINTS.

And then my dad is like WHY AREN’T YOU BLOGGING!? YOU’RE OUT OF THE WILL!

And then when Ben starts to notice and because he knows me so well he doesn’t say “So I noticed you haven’t blogged lately.” He says, “What are you not saying that you need to say that’s causing you not to blog?” DAMN THAT MAN AND HIS KNOWING ME SO WELL.

This question inevitably leads me to verbal diarrhea that lasts for 20 minutes. I take a deep breath to start and then it all flows out in one really long, never ending sentence and as it’s happening I can feel the tension and the stress and the fuzzy feeling pouring out of me and afterwards I want to light a cigarette and ask him if it was as good for him as it was for me.

It’s never as good for him as it is for me.

So here it goes, the reason I haven’t been able to blog. The reason that every time I sit to write it turns into a 4000 word long rant and most of them are a variation of the work ‘fuck’.

I am ANGRY.

I am SO ANGRY.

I am so angry at Cassidy’s father for abandoning her just when she’s getting to that point in her life when she NEEDS strong male influences.

I am SO ANGRY that I dropped her off on a Friday in February and pulled her dad aside and explained to him that she’s having some abandonment issues (some deaths in the family affected her more than she even now realizes) and that he NEEDS to be PRESENT in her life right now. She is in counseling and she NEEDS to know that she has her family around to support her and for whatever reason YOUR presence in her life is SO important to her and she REALLY NEEDS you to be there right now.

And then he drove off, put her to bed that night and LEFT. HE LEFT HER THERE. For a week. He chose THAT DAY to break up with his girlfriend of NINE YEARS who Cassidy LOVES AND ADORES and LEFT HER THERE for Mary to pick up the pieces and deal with it.

I am ANGRY that her (now ex) step-mom finally had to explain what was going on TWO DAYS AFTER HE NEVER CAME HOME and her first response was, “I’m never going to get to see you again, am I?” You guys, just writing that sentence literally causes a surge of adrenaline to pump into my heart, I am SO ANGRY.

I am ANGRY that against my better judgment, I let her go down there a few weeks later and he LIED TO ME telling me that she had her own room in a HOME to sleep in and instead, he was living at his automotive shop and left her alone in the dark on a couch and when she woke up THERE WAS A STRANGE MAN IN THE ROOM asleep on the other couch. And she was SCARED and had to PRETEND to be asleep, SCARED. ALONE. WITH A STRANGE MAN.

I am SO ANGRY at him for deciding to leave his beautiful, caring, loving girlfriend that my daughter thought of as her second mother to date a FUCKING PROSTITUTE.

And no, I don’t mean like I’m catty and calling some girl a whore because she looked at my boyfriend the wrong way. I mean, the girl he is dating is an ACTUAL prostitute with online ads like (following links are NSFW) this and this and this.

I am ANGRY that all I had to do to find these sites was google his prostitute girlfriend’s phone number.

I am ANGRY that I now have a file on my computer full of images like this so that when we eventually have to go back to court I’ll have them handy.

I am ANGRY that my daughter can easily find these pictures online. That THIS is the girl he’s chosen to bring around my daughter and sees absolutely NOTHING wrong with what she did/does and thinks that she’s a perfectly acceptable role model!

I am ANGRY that he hasn’t bothered to contact her in TWO MONTHS (except the one time that SHE called HIM) because apparently he’s too busy with his prostitute. And that every time she calls and leaves him a voicemail message she knows will never get returned, I have to watch the sadness she tries to hide in her big beautiful blue eyes.

I AM SO ANGRY that I had to explain to my TWELVE YEAR OLD DAUGHTER what a prostitute is because that was the only way to explain to her why “Roxy” is NOT an okay person to be around.

I AM ANGRY that my daughter is hurting. She’s struggling. She’s depressed and sad and putting on a really good show but she’s hurting. She’s lying about SILLY stuff and befriending girls that push her around and she doesn’t even realize that the reasons she’s doing this is because she’s in pain. She hurts and she doesn’t even realize it. And Ben and I are trying REALLY HARD to help her understand but, of course, we’re the ‘bad guys’. We’re the rule makers, the enforcers, the ones that have to pick up all the little pieces that HER FATHER has broken off of her and slowly piece her back together. We glue two on, he knocks three off.

I am SO ANGRY how unfair it is that she has to go through this. That I have to go through this. That Ben has to go through this.

I get angry when people tell me “Well, one day she’ll get it. She’ll see what kind of person he really is.” Like that’s supposed to be some kind of comforting thought. Like the fact that one day she’s going to wake up and realize that it’s not that he doesn’t care NOW, it’s that your dad NEVER CARED about you. How the fuck is that supposed to make me feel better? I just smile and nod and try to breathe past the knot that forms in my throat and fight back the tears that my broken heart sends welling up to my eyes.

Mostly, I am angry that I don’t know how to fix this. There is no book to read, no website to look at, no person that can sit you down and give you all the answers. I have no control over this, over him, over what it’s doing to her.

I have no answers.

And I am angry.

This post had no other point than to be whiny and let you all know that sometimes being a responsible adult sucks balls.

I have been BUSY at work. In all caps and bolded. I can’t get into specifics because I don’t do Work Talk here for obvious reasons but just know, BUSY.

I can NOT miss work right now. Simply, CAN NOT. Not an option.

So Monday I woke up and was like I AM GOING TO ROCK THIS DAY! On the way to work I plan out my work out, dinner plans, I AM GOING TO OWN IT. Work is BUSY and I feel like an hour after I get there it’s time to go home and WHERE DID THIS DAY GO? Then on the way home I noticed that I was like, REALLY tired. By the time I got home I just felt mentally and physically just DONE with the day. I got home at 3:30 sat down on the couch to relax for a few minutes… and woke up when Ben got home at 7:30. WHAT THE? I ended up going to bed right after Cassidy did at 9:00 and slept like a rock.

Then Tuesday was pretty much a repeat of Tuesday. Cassidy ended up hanging out at a friend’s house after school and ate dinner there, I went home right after work and slept. I figured maybe I was in for a really bad period and my system was just trying to warn me to rest up for the WILD RIDE AHEAD.

But no.

Wednesday when I woke up I felt like, just every single cell in my body wanted me to get back into bed. I was exhausted. I guzzled a bunch of orange juice on the way out the door hoping the sugar rush would keep me alert enough for the commute to work. Once again though, I got to work and BUSY! NO TIME TO THINK ABOUT BEING TIRED JUST WORK AND BE BUSY AND… then one of my coworkers was like, “Dude, why are you so red? You look like crap.” I brushed it off till I ran to the bathroom and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror while washing my hands. I was red! THE HECK!?

Then it dawned on my just how horrible I really felt. I thought my throat was sore because I’d been talking so much at work but I realized that it was probably just because my throat was SORE. BECAUSE I AM SICK! I was too busy to realize how sick I was!

Turns out I have a fever pushing 102 degrees. Awesome. I CAN NOT miss work right now. CAN NOT.

I’ve been popping Tylenol like mad to keep the fever down. No need to go to the doctor because other than a slightly sore throat and just a bit of congestion, I have no other symptoms and the fever goes down to about 99.5ish with the medicine.

I’m just… I’m not a good sick person. And I am REALLY not good with fevers. They suck the energy out of me like crazy. But I went to work, and I’ll go in tomorrow. And Saturday I have to take Cassidy to an all day band competition in San Jose and then possibly on Sunday I’ll have time for this “rest” stuff that everybody is telling me to get.

Anyway, this post had no other point than to be whiny and let you all know that sometimes being a responsible adult sucks balls.

The End.

It takes a village. And a facebook group. And a twitter feed.

I’ve had this post jumbling around in my head for quite some time but never really wrote it because often times when I try to say things like this I end up coming across as a loudmouthed asshole but I feel like SAYING IT is more important than how a few (probably guilty) people will interpret it.

So anyway…

I remember when Cassidy was born I didn’t have the luxury of 100s of online friends helping me through all the stuff that was happening. When she was born, google was still a small little site run out of a garage. Message boards were still crap and chat rooms were full of horny fat me trolling for little girls. So when Cassidy got thrush at two weeks old, I didn’t have twitter or facebook to turn to for questions and support. I went to the ER at 2:00AM freaked out because she screamed every time I tried to feed her. It only took 4 hours to get an answer, a tube of lotion, and a pat on the head.

When she got roseola when she was 8 months old I didn’t have a forum of moms to go to for stories or support and encouragement. I asked my mom, my mother-in-law, and three of her grandmas who all gave me the same answer and told me to stop being a worry wart.

When I got food poisoning and was told to stop breastfeeding till it passed and she would never start back up again and felt like a COMPLETE FAILURE even though I had managed to make it 10 months, I didn’t have an online “shoulder to cry on”.

And really? Lately, I’m almost happy for all of that. Because I feel like more and more I see JUDGMENT when what I hope to see is SUPPORT.

Heaven forbid a woman say she isn’t going to breastfeed, or that she’s going to breastfeed till the child is a toddler, or has a birth plan that includes an epidural, or chooses a home birth, or chooses to try and let her baby “cry it out”, or wears her baby 24/7, or lets the child sleep in bed with them, or wants to cloth diaper, YOU GET THE IDEA. It seems that no matter WHAT you choose to do, there is another mother (or even NON-parent) out there that thinks you are wrong and is going to loudly tell you how you aren’t doing it right. And I’m just TIRED of it.

TIRED OF IT.

Tired of reading tweets that liken crying it out to ABUSE. Tired of facebook updates that say women that choose c-sections are stupid and lazy. Tired of hearing women say they feel like BAD PARENTS because of the things that other women are saying to them about their choices.

So here’s the thing. HAVE an opinion. I encourage that! But please, PLEASE don’t be catty jackasses when you are handing out that information and be aware that it’s JUST an opinion. Just because you believe that something is right for YOU does not mean it is right for EVERYBODY. I am very pro-breastfeeding. I believe that it’s best for mom and baby to do it for as long as you possibly can but there have been plenty of times that I’ve encouraged and supported new moms that have chosen to bottle feed… for whatever reason. Because it’s not okay for me to EVER make another parent feel bad for a decision they have made about their own child.¹

I feel like we have this amazing opportunity to be a helpful community, a safety net, a backbone of support for each other from all over the world. We can support, encourage, nurture and help each other on this REALLY HARD journey of parenthood and we’d all be so much better off if we could remember that and one simple thing: respect each other. Period.

Remember at the other end of that tweet or forum post or status update is a fellow parent that is tired, frustrated, confused, scared, WORN OUT and they need support, not judgment.

/steps down off soapbox.