There’s a chapter in the middle of the book called “The Wizard in the Tree”, where one character is telling his sister a story about a wizard who, having spent a lot of time alone, meets a beautiful woman who he tells all of his secrets to. The woman betrays the wizard and uses his magic to lock him in a tree before going out into the world to flaunt her new powers until they are faded and useless. In the end, the woman becomes old and the wizard gains immortality as he becomes one with the tree, spreading his root and seed as far as nature would take him. In the end, the brother ends the story by saying, “Though if he were given the chance to do it all over again, he likely would have been more careful with his secrets.”

Somehow, I read this chapter and instantly thought of social media. Today, (sometimes regrettably) everyone has a voice. We have to power to broadcast our praises and contempt about everything worldwide. It’s like being gifted with a new magic that is quickly fading into uselessness the more that we abuse it, just like the powers given to the woman in the story.

I was amazed at the amount of uproar that occurred yesterday when Netflix announced their plans to split into two companies. My Twitter timeline was full of complaints and negativity asking “How dare Netflix do this?” “How stupid must they be?” I wonder if Netflix (and other companies that have been on the receiving end of a barrage of social media hate speech) feels like the old wizard from the story – that maybe it would be better, at times, to keep ones cards facedown and not let those who we think are our supporters in on the secret plans?

I’ve seen (and been a part of) this too often: a company releases a statement outlining new plans, or a new technology or a new service that, in their business model, is quite productive. As soon as it reaches the ignorant masses, ::boom!:: a tidal waves of tweets and Facebook statuses and blog posts spreading the story, commenting on how the company should have done it, poking holes in their ideas. In the case of Netflix/Qwikster, we’ve already tarnished the brand of something that we’ve never even seen or used. Not only that, but, again, the rowdy masses have painted consumers as a whole as “whiny”, “ungrateful”, “quick to judge” spouting heads who will never be satisfied by anything. Who are we to expect companies to take what we say to heart when we’re aiming at the jugular with everything we say?

However, by the end of the story, the wizard gains immortality through the prison that he is placed in. He becomes one with the tree and his leaves and acorns spread far and wide, spouting new tress that the wizard is a part of. Netflix, George Bush, Apple, Lil’ Wayne – the more trash you talk about them, the more pages you’re adding to their chapter in history books. If you’re not remembered, you never existed, right? Moreover, the more hype you give something, negative or otherwise, the more likely it is to grow and affect other people.

Maybe I’m thinking too hard, and letting my disappointment in society get the best of me…Either way, it’s something to think about.

Am I actually taking American Apparel’s side on something? This feels dirty.

This was totally off my radar, but American Apparel ran a contest called “The Next Big Thing”, looking for a plus (12-14, I guess) sized model to launch their new extended sizes. (Side note: So what size were all these heffalumps shopping at AA wearing before? I can’t right now…)

Nancy Upton, a Dallas-based blogger took offense to American Apparel’s ad, which used cringe-worthy words terms “bootyful” and “extra wiggle room”. As a spoof, she did a stylish photoshoot eating turkeys and pies and bathing in Ranch dressing and submitted them to the content. Surprisingly, she won the most votes, but AA is having the last laugh by calling her out on basically mocking the whole contest and is picking someone else as the winner.

Normally, I too take offense with everything that American Apparel does. They take self-hate to new levels with their fashions that scream “I didn’t eat for a week to fit into these clothes”. But, I’m willing to look at this whole “The Next Big Thing” from their point of view and see that they are actually trying to market to the big girls, and not just mock them. Of course, I hate terms like “bootylicious” too, but they also used “curvaceous”, which I approve of. More telling, though, was the sentence, “If you think you’ve got what it takes to be the next XLent model, send us photos of you and your junk to back it up.” I’m not sure how Dalton could take offense after reading this corny attempt at marketing. American Apparel is so off-base with this sentence that you can’t help but feel bad for them, for the team of Sidekick-donning teenagers from Iowa that must have written this campaign. They weren’t trying to be offensive – they’re obviously too dense for that.

As a big girl, I found Dalton’s photoshoot unnecessary and a bit gross. I’m always ready to pick up the torch and join an angry mob against campaigns that deal with pushing poor self-image on girls, but I really think that American Apparel was trying to find a cute plus-sized girl to model their ugly clothes. Nothing more.

I doubt that Dalton’s stunt will register on the radar for long. She’s just another hyper-sensitive snowflake in the cacophonous blizzard of unfocused sound and fury.

A close pal of mine does web consulting for nonprofits and small local businesses in Boston. Being the fanatic that she is, she’s been loading Drupal sites on hair salons and local shops with no or low-tech staff and limited resources. Here’s a snippet from a recent conversation of ours:

Me: So you’ve been creating Drupal sites for all these places?

Her: Yeah. It’s free, it’s easy and it’s highly customizable. It’s perfect.

Me: What does Laquisha down at the hair salon know about Drupal? She’s too busy doing braids to configure a module! You would have done better giving her a WordPress or a Tumblr.

For some tech folks, there is a true disconnect between what’s easy for us and what’s a burden for the customer. I don’t even think that it’s something that web consultants do intentionally (at least, I hope they don’t). I see it every day – a company or consultant sells “better” tech to a customer because they are convinced that the ROI is greater than the learning curve involved with learning the new interface.

I gave my gal pal a tidbit rule about when it’s OK to sell someone Drupal, and when to just give them a simple Tumblr page.

If your client has a dedicated tech team/web developer AND wants a fully customizable page layout AND needs to be able to have multiple user types with different permissions à Drupal

If your client has a dedicated tech team/web developer AND wants a fully customizable page layout AND will only have one or a few users with the same permissions adding content –> Self-hosted WordPress

If your client knows a bit about the Internet and has a basic grasp on HTML AND is ok with using a simple web template AND will only have one or a few users with the same permissions adding content –> Free version of WordPress

If your client’s knowledge of the Internet ends at Facebook/simple Myspace AND is ok with using a simple web template AND will be using their site to post photos, videos and small text entries –> Posterous or Tumblr

If your only needs a simple site to use for advertising that won’t be updated often but needs to have photos and text –> about.me

Hope this helps.

When the planes hit, I was in history class (I think). We were told to go to classroom with a TV in it for a newscast. The teachers told us that something happened in New York, that two planes had hit the World Trade Center and that it was pretty serious. As we watched the footage, a few kids freaked out, but it didn’t hit home for us until someone reported that the Pentagon had been hit. Some of my classmates had family that worked in that area, and, since cell phones weren’t common then, we had no way of contacting them. Then, local news began talking about efforts to protect our local World Trade Center building. My reaction? “::pause:: There’s a WTC in Baltimore? Downtown?!” Instant panic. I remember a shared sense of helplessness – that there was nothing that any of us could do, not only because of our age, but because our teachers wouldn’t let us leave the room.

After a few hours of watching the same footage over and over again, they dismissed school and told us to head home instantly. Easier said than done, since the MTA was shutting down all service downtown to protect people from a potential attack on our WTC building. When I called my mom, who worked for the Social Security Administration building at the time, from a payphone before I left (yes, I said payphone), she said that her building was evacuated as well. Since there was no way that I was going to make it home via public transportation, she picked me up from downtown, ironically near the SSA building (since it was the most deserted area of town).

The details of all that, however, are not what stand out in my mind about 9/11. What I remember most is the warm, thick air of a still warm September day, a breeze that came from nowhere and blew up my narrow street, the orange sky and sitting outside on my porch with my neighbors speculating and retelling our stories of the day. There was a sense of “being in this together” that was nice, in an odd way.

In the words of @craftbeercellar, “#nothelping”.

Christians and women have the worst marketing ideas, I swear. This one really takes the cake in foolish, off-target strategy. ::shaking head::

Chick Beer is, obviously, a beer for chicks. But…why do we need it? And why would any respectful beer shop sell it? The hot pink and glitter-gasm that is their website states that Chick Beer is for ladies because:

• “Chick won’t weigh you down.  It has just 97 calories and 3.5 carbs per bottle!
• Chick’s flavor is more soft and smooth, and less bitter.
• Chick is lightly carbonated, for less of that bloaty feeling.”

As soon as you use the word “bloaty”, I’m done. That’s a tampon word, and should never be used to describe anything fun.

This abomination of glam goes on:

Chick Beer finally gives women a beer choice that suits their tastes and their style. The bottle is designed to reflect the beautiful shape of a woman in a little black dress.  The six-pack looks like you are carrying your beer in a hip stylish, purse.  Chick’s unique reflective bottle blings you up!  It’s fun, fabulous, and female!

Really? A bottle shaped like a chicks’ body? Way to empower the big girls, right? And the six pack container looks like  purse? Great, except the women who are dense and vapid enough to buy this beer don’t carry their own beer for fear that they’ll chip their polish, so you’ve made a purse shaped beer container for some college frat boy to have to carry. ::thumbs up:: And, no thanks. I don’t want bedazzled beer. Weirdos…

My favorite tidbit of info that shows that no real research could have gone into this project was on their “The Chick Story” page:

The taste leans toward the smoothness of malt over the dry bitterness of hops.  It’s the taste that women prefer.  You’re going to love it.

These ladies must not have met some of my beer drinking gal pals. @LHRodriguez loves hoppy beers and calls my preference for Belgians and Hefeweizens “weak”. On St. Patty’s day, my girls are drinking Guinness. We’re “beer snobs”, looking for new flavors, new craft breweries, and showing boys that we can drink (and outdrink) the best of them. So I’m guessing that Chick Beer is for….who?

Maybe it’s for ladies who show up at bars in little dresses and stilettos and sip on Bud Light Lime all night. Or maybe the chicks that I see at the market on Saturdays filling their carts with Moscato in plastic mini bottles. The kind of chicks who enjoyed “The Notebook” and only drink beer because the bartender can’t make a good Fuzzy Navel. As the Chick Beer website states, “Since when is Chick a bad thing?” (Answer: never, but these ladies can’t be serious.)

Me and my gal pals, I think we’ll stick with Pretty Things instead. “Stay pretty and drink real beer.”

Gamers were promised a land where we can play games with plots that are affected by the decisions that we make. A true immersive gaming experience. Sadly, I’m still waiting for the big one – the game that will set the standard for all decision making games and blow us all out of the water.

A bit of a warning – I may come off like a whiny gamer kid right now, but I’m ok with that.

We picked up Deus Ex: Human Revolution last weekend for the PS3. My fiancé suggested it because it looks awesome and was getting a bit of buzz. After getting it home, we dove into a gorgeous futuristic world, interesting story line and a great character. I understood that I had to get Praxis points to upgrade my character, and that I earned points by being generally kickbutt. However, I was given two options for kicking butt – I could either go on a killing spree in rooms filled with guards or I could crawl through vents and hack secret doors to avoid detection. I took the stealthy route, only to get to the first boss too weak to beat him. Imagine going through Final Fantasy 7 not realizing that you were going to have to defeat the face of evil at the end, and getting to Sephiroth at level 70, too weak to do anything but start the whole game over again. Now, of course, it didn’t take me days to get to that first boss, but come on. Why give players the option to set their character up to fail? I spent the few Praxis points I had on mental upgrades to hack my way to a boss that was faster, stronger and had better aim than I had. I was not ready! So…I returned the game for store credit. I refuse to let a game make me make a fool of myself. (Plus, any game that uses “square” as the default action button is ridiculous.)

On the other hand, there’s LA Noire, a game that pretended to have an extensive decision-based plot but was really just an ok game in “Game of the Year” clothing. I was so stressed out going through it, worried that any missed clues or facial cues could potentially affect the outcome of golden boy Cole Phelps. However, no matter how great I was doing, or how many wife stranglers I released back to the streets, it didn’t matter. Cole was going to screw that lounge singer and take his tumble from glory. Even worse, I would realize that all of the interrogation I did on those murder cases meant nothing, because that one creepy dude killed all those ladies and framed everyone else. And, the icing on the “Screw Your Expectations” cake – no matter what you do, Cole Phelps is going to kill himself at the end. I finished that game feeling empty, questioning why I even bothered. This reaction shocked me, especially after experiencing the same type of loss at the end of Red Dead Redemption. However, the difference, for me, is that I never felt that I was supposed to try to do anything to stop John Marsden from getting killed that day. It was supposed to happen because I was a part of a story that I was playing. On the other hand, I was made to feel that I could save Phelp’s soul through my stellar police work, which was never true.

I will admit that I haven’t experienced any other decision driven gaming plots. I’d love some suggestions, since we have a bit of downtime until the new Modern Warfare and Saints Row 3 are released. All I can say, for now, is that I’m disappointed in how decision based video game plots either manipulate gamers into believing they have more control than they really do, or drop you into a situation too real to be a game, where your ignorance can cost you in the long run. If only there was a happy medium…

"no floating babies or women allowed!" by kleemo on flickr

This has been a long time coming…

Yesterday, @blackmansvw and I were in the Stop and Shop when we spied a woman holding her baby. Nothing abnormal, until we noticed that she had her boob out and was breastfeeding her kid as she walked through the market, as if that were a normal, acceptable thing to do. I was mind blown. What was she thinking? Why didn’t anyone stop her?

I’ve held my tongue for a while on this, but something has to be said. When did birthing a child make it acceptable to overshare your motherhood with everyone, whether they care or not? If I have to move to the next car on the train to make room for another poorly managed double stroller, or have to step to the other side of a busy downtown street so that some idiot can walk with their barely tottering two-year old, or see another suckling boob in public, I’m going to go bananas. Having a baby does not make you exempt from common sense (although it gets you a closer parking space at the market, which is so bogus) and, no, I don’t think that anything that you and your kid are doing is cute. So put your boob back in your shirt, pick your kid up and get out of the way of productive human beings, who don’t have to be amused by the fact that you did something that almost every woman on Earth can do.

But it doesn’t stop there. I’ve had to hide people’s Facebook feeds and unfollow folks on Twitter to protect my sanity from the onslaught of belly photos, sonograms, status messages about food cravings and labor countdowns. I’ve had to hide from the constant updates on just how cute their new kid is, just how awesome or unawesome motherhood is, and awkward questions “just for moms out there”. I thought that watching “Teen Mom” was the best form of passive birth control, but oh man, after being forced to experience pregnancy through Facebook, I may never have a baby.

Look, don’t get me wrong. I know where these moms are coming from. Right now, I’m planning my wedding, and I have to restrain myself from posting photos of wedding dresses and statuses of excitement as new developments occur. But I know that, honestly, all of my Facebook friends don’t care. Instead, I send private messages, DMs and text messages to my loved ones. Or ::gasp:: I talk to them on the phone. I understand that I’m not a special snowflake for getting married, but this new generation of moms believe that having babies entitles them to a place in some spotlight. I just don’t get it.

As usual, there’s no logical conclusion to this rant. I will continue to build myself a fort of protection from new moms and maybe having babies will go back to being something that people just did, and not something that women feel that they should be rewarded for. ::shrug::

Apparently, JCPenney thinks that it’s ok to sell shirts like this to little girls:

“I’m too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me.”

Is that ok?

Apparently, it must be. I mean, “Who has time for homework when there’s a new Justin Bieber album out?”

Riiight…

So this is either a really pathetic ploy by JCPenney, an ever-decaying brand, to stay relevant, or this is actually what’s selling these days.

Regardless, it’s not ok to implant this kind of thinking into the minds of our little girls, or to allow them to spread this toxic thinking to their peers. Are parents buying this crap for their children? Really?

“I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me”

↓

“I’m too pretty to do anything, like work or support myself or have my own thoughts, so I won’t try to get good grades because I want to be popular.”

↓

 “I’m too pretty to do anything in college besides go to parties and get chased by boys so I’ll waste my parents money and ruin my credit by dropping out or barely graduating with a useless degree in fashion.”

↓ 

“I’m too pretty for a stable relationship or productive life because I have to rely on other people to do everything for me so I whore myself out for rent and groceries.”

↓ 

“I’m too pretty…wait. I’m not pretty anymore. I’m a coke bloated 30 year old with no tread left on the tires and the reading comprehension and penmanship of a fifth grader. Crap.”

 (The path from vapid tween to twenty-something whore in a flow chart. I like charts.)

@alwillis loves to keep reminding the world of my quote from a few years back – “Self hate isn’t sexy”…especially when you know better. Spoon feeding self-hate to children – well, that’s just unacceptable.

I’m not really one for these online petition things, but Change.org has one set up to let JCPenney’s CEO know that this is not cool. Not cool at all.

Mothers – hug your daughters. Please.

I was still in elementary school when “recycling” became a buzzword. Conserve water. Recycle to keep the water clean. Clean up the beaches and parks. “The power is YOURS!”

Sounded like a lot of work for what seemed like…well…nothing.
(Of course, that was the selfish American in me…)

The power of having to walk in another person’s shoes can change someone’s perspectives forever.

I live in Quincy, MA. About a few months ago, a major pipe bringing water to Boston sprung a leak and started dumping about eight million gallons of water per hour into the Charles River. Pretty much instantly, the governor declared a state of emergency and issued a “boil-water” order for Boston and dozens of other communities. Mine was one of them.

Just like that, I was in the shoes of people all over the world who wake up to this situation every day. No clean water, no answers, and no relief. Instant panic? Oh yes.

For three days, my household, along with 2 million people in 700,000 households across Massachusetts, lived without clean water. To wash dishes, we had to boil water and use bleach. Because of the mass hysteria, bottled water was scarce. Cooking was limited, and carry-out wasn’t an option because a lot of restaurants were closed. Daily tasks like brushing my teeth and bathing became time-consuming and emotionally taxing as my frustration and hopelessness began to kick in. Was this ever going to end? Did the higher-ups even care and were they ever going to fix this?

A few days later, it did end. There was relief, and everything went back to normal. The hysteria died down, the restaurants (and Starbucks, thank God!) re-opened and life resumed its normal level of comfort.

Sadly, though, for people all over the world, there is no relief. There’s no one to wave the magic wand of progress and sanitation over their situations and make clean water appear. Organizations like UNICEF, Global Water and charity: water are working to help bring clean water and purification systems to developing countries and areas, but they need your help.

I feel like this is an unfinished post, but I guess that that’s because this is an unfinished story. Until every person can wake up, get some clean water, wash up, make breakfast and go about their day, this book can’t be closed. Clean water is like clean air: it’s a free and required part of every human beings right. There is no reason why anyone should be denied it. Communities all over the world need our help. It’s time for us to step outside of ourselves and help!

What can you do? Well, here’s a start: You can donate money to UNICEF online here. It costs less than a penny to give one water purification tablet to a family in need of clean water. Imagine what your donations can do!

October is just around the corner, which means that it’s time for a month long sprint of giving to raise money for UNICEF! This year, instead of hosting my own fundraiser, I’m looking to connect with people in the Boston/Mass. area to reach as many people as possible with the hopes that we can reach my modest goal of $240!

Why $240? Well with only $240, UNICEF can:

• Immunize 344 chidren against polio for life
• Provide more that 30,000 tablets to purify water for kids to drink
• Go towards funding for other great projects in rural areas all over the world

That’s a lot for less than half the cost of an iPad, huh?

UNICEF is a great organization that changes the lives of children in need all over the world every day! Let’s help them help others by participating in Trick or Tweet Boston 2010!

How can you help?

There are several ways that you can help us help others.

1) If you are hosting an event or a tweetup in the month of October, you can motivate your attendees to donate either at the event or online at http://inside.unicefusa.org/goto/trickortweet4unicef.We’ll add you to our Trick-or-Tweetup Tour online, and promote the heck out of your event! Just shoot me an email at rakiesha.chase@gmail.com.

2) If you are at an event that’s participating in the Trick-or-Tweetup Tour, you can donate to UNICEF there, or use the online donation page.

3) You can stay home and relax, but still donate at http://inside.unicefusa.org/goto/trickortweet4unicef. Don’t forget to tweet about it, using the link and the hashtag #totweetboston!

Without you, we can’t make our goal. Thanks in advance!