Now I know my ACBs
One typo? $0.
Spelling the name of your own network wrong twice in one newsletter? Priceless.
September 18, 2008
August 18, 2008
IM overload
Random company Stysen is creating the B01 i-Knock, a USB companion who knocks itself on the head to notify you about incoming IMs. And, to ensure you wind up knocking yourself in the head as well, it talks and makes sounds to match your emoticons.
Fucking genius.
August 01, 2008
Mosaic of me
Between travel and the pisser of my blog crash, I fell two weeks behind on checking fave blogs. I'm sorta caught up now. Anyway, there's a cool meme happening on my blogroll; Maria captured the instructions and creating this was easy. And it's pretty.
1. My first name.
2. My favorite style of food.
3. My high school.
4. My favorite color.
5. My celebrity crush.
6. Favorite drink.
7. Dream vacation.
8. Favorite dessert.
9. What I want to be when I grow up.
10. What I love most in life.
11. One word to describe me.
12. My Grandmother’s first name.
Note on #5 - I searched Christian Bale and this rendering pulled up as Jason Bateman (his character is Patrick Bateman in American Psycho). But this works for me.
Erin (the trendsetter) and Francis made one. How about you?
July 17, 2008
I love the cowboys.
Blog blogging is a cheap excuse to avoid original writing. Hey, I'm busy. But at least I'm not cheesy on the outside like some people.
July 15, 2008
Doctor Horrible!
A murder would be nice, of course... but don’t let him make you his mare.
In a word, awesome.
Act 1 of Doctor Horrible's blog is out today, July 15.
July 11, 2008
Instant gratification
I went down to a local AT&T store this morning a little after 10. I counted about 30 people on line and they were also coming in behind me. Shortly after I walked up, the man in front of me yelled out loudly and suddenly (tourrets came to mind), “Do they have more phones?!?” to no one in particular.
Two women at the head of the line turned and explained they did, but only the 8 gig models, and probably only enough for the first few people in the line. One of them said the AT&T employees were coming out every 30 mins or so to provide updates. The women said they’d been there since 7am. I figured I’d wait for the next update.
Five or six people dropped out of the line, including the random shouter who left with a grunt.
A few minutes later an employee came out to tell us they were down to just a couple of phones, but they may have just received a shipment (deliveries can be so confusing). He promised to come back and update us soon. In the meantime, he said, another local AT&T store had just run out, but the nearest Apple store had “tons,” but there were also several hundred people already on line.
At this point 7 or 8 more people dropped off the line....
July 08, 2008
A Friday buy?
I'm getting very mixed feedback from the voice inside my head. Oh, friends and the media, too. My Blackberry is crying. Will there actually be a long line in Sterling, VA?
July 07, 2008
Dance, pipe cleaner, dance!
Use your keyboard, or mouse over the letters on screen, to choose your music and to make this little fuzzy stickman go! Note: Using the keyboard allows you to synch with the music and for him to display more rhythm, which is important for his ego.
July 06, 2008
Typophobia
I’m a horrendous mobile keyboardist, unable to text message without a series of typos. I prefer quality typing of course, but the keys of my Blackberry are small and my nails are very long, which is, by the way, fine for full-sized keyboards.
Sadly, my friends and colleagues consistently point out the typos, which is unnecessary and very annoying. They all suck.
June 30, 2008
Foursome
From my feeds, tweets and emails today, several blog-worthy bits:
- Arrested Development the movie! Yes, go buy the DVDs now.
- Tastespotting.com Share and browse pictures of food. Tasty - and I finally have an excuse for snapping shots at restaurants.
- Dr. Horrible Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion. Hello, July 15!
- MyGallons.com For those of you who will be sitting home all summer, pre-purchase gas at today’s prices and avoid increases, they say…
June 12, 2008
A milestone?
This month marks the two-year anniversary of this blog. Yay, Randomly Snarky!
Or, um, yay, me!
June 08, 2008
Plaxo? No, plax you.
Damon, I don't know you yet Plaxo is letting me know it's your birthday this week. Are we separated by two degrees or three? More? To be honest, I do not care about your birthday but hope you have a good day just the same.
Plaxo, why do you spam me so? Your site claims I'll stay in touch with the people I care about. Yet, you spam my inbox with updates on strangers. It's a crappy experience.
Your email did push me to your Website, though, and I couldn't help but notice the distinct lack of female presence on your management team page. Coincidence? Probably not.
June 01, 2008
Schmap!
One of my shots of Frankfurt airport from last summer's voyage around the world was selected for the German interactive map guide, Schmap.
Sehr kühl.
May 29, 2008
Untwittered
After a long pause I decided to try Twitter again today. It was one tweet too many.
I got in later and will give it a week to take hold. Or not.
May 27, 2008
The four horsemen... or a meme
Jason says the consequences of not completing this meme include scurvy. I prefer to avoid random bleeding. Besides, this fashions a re-entry post after the long weekend.
Four Jobs I’ve Had
- Weekend waitress at my mom's catering company while in high school
- Office manager at a hearing aid center. Hey, it was Florida.
- Records coordinator. Yay microfiche.
- A startup called Vices & Virtues in the mid-90s. Booyah!
Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over
- Ever After; A Knights Tale; The Matrix; Clueless
Four Places I’ve Lived
- Morris Plains, NJ
- Ocala, FL
- Silver Springs, FL
- Reston, VA
Four TV Shows I Like
- Supernatural; Psych; Reno: 911; LOST
Four Favorite Foods
- Spinach calzone (hold the sauce)
- Mashed potatoes
- Plain old Hershey's chocolate
- Red onion and cucumber salad
Four Places I’d Rather Be
- Bar Harbor, ME
- Dublin, Ireland
- Flying a plane
- Ormond Beach, FL
Four People I’m Tagging
- Nancie; Devesh; Sally; James
May 13, 2008
Competitive typing
Need a new office distraction? Of course you do. Check out TypeRacer.
I haven't joined a race yet, but it looks fun. In an i-geeky way.
April 23, 2008
It's in the cards
I sent a coworker a Hipster Card today. Not this one. Hipster's collection is a mix of cute, subtle and lowbrow attempts at humor. On a quick browse I found a healthy collection of retro-themed cards perfectly tailored for the people I know. Yes, many of my friends are odd. And your point is?
(Please pardon Hipster's French.)
April 17, 2008
Fun with Fangs
Hi, my name is Suzie and I'm a vampire.
Virtually, of course. No gothic vampirism interests here. Heh.
The Vampires app on Facebook (and Bebo!) serves as a great stress reliever. Seriously - a feed here, a bite there, it's a calming distraction. All in 10 minutes or less.
My colleagues and friends who aren't in the game can laugh all they want; I'll just keep biting them until they cave.
March 10, 2008
Ficlets is a winner.
We never doubted its cool factor, and now Ficlets has won a award at SxSW. Nice. I really need to adjust my "to do" list and get back to authoring stories.
March 04, 2008
Hot, hotter, hottest?
So, a random plug for a new app we launched this week, pixnay.com.
Ever play “who’d-you-rather”? That's pixnay.
February 06, 2008
Wipe out!
Guess I need to blog more often. Rather than clearing out my spam comments tonight, I deleted a whole page (20+) of live/good comments. My apologies to the deleted! I'm bummed I killed the great thread on memes... blah.
November 20, 2007
Linkin' and peevin'
The LinkedIn tips that circulated today had some great points. Most of which I have yet to fully embrace - like bringing my profile details to 100%.
I love LinkedIn as a professional tool, but the article made me think of pet peeves I've developed since I joined, including:
* Blind linking. Try me again on MySpace.
* Random requests for recommendations. Were we in a meeting or something once?
* Feeling obligated to recommend someone just because they asked.
* Copying other people's profile text. Blah.
* Request a recommendation, receive one, and not thank the author. (!)
* Update your profile and request recommendations... then pretend you're not job hunting. (FYI, we're all talking about you now.)
* Sorry, let's go back a step: You asked -- thank me them for chrissakes.
* Now that you can add a photo, how about choosing one sans the skullcap, freakish blurring or 20-foot view?
Hm. Did I miss any?
October 01, 2007
$32,333,446-ish
Google's CEO stuffed his piggy bank by selling ~52K shares of stock last week. Nice.
September 27, 2007
Missing the darkness
Last year at this time we (the office) were obsessed with the M&M dark puzzle. Mars candy, we need a new game. Oh, and btw, I hate your "M&M inside" campaign.
September 09, 2007
iPod touch... me babe
I was never tempted to be an early adopter of the iPhone but the iPod touch may be a different story. I was even tempted to preorder but I'll wait and see. The desire to pay monthly broadband access fees is a question mark. Not sure I care that much.
Yeah, right.
Well, at least I quoted Jim Morrison rather than a more obvious headline.
September 02, 2007
NASA + Wikipedia
Starved. Stomped. Radiated. Poisoned.
NASA's descriptive comparison of cockroaches to PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons - genesis on Earth?), lured me in. But I was surprised when I clicked to read about PAHs and NASA sent me to Wikipedia. Seriously?
Latest updaters on the wiki's entry include a legit chem-geek and anonymous IPs from Colorado and Amsterdam.
July 09, 2007
Tanknorati... again
Technorati is wonky again. I clicked over tonight and I've lost two authority points, back down to 18 from 20, when it should have been more like 22 to begin with. While relatively insignificant, I know people who check - and often share - their rank on a daily basis. And here I am bitching about missing sites. Stop the madness!
July 06, 2007
Zombie apocalypse
When the zombies eventually attack, my odds for survival are almost 50/50:
Regardless, I'll apparently blog before joining the brain-munchers:
(Nice way to drive traffic to your commercial site, Mingle2. App-trickery!)
June 21, 2007
Who's knocked up??
My hometown movie theater has a really creative and funny staff.
The alternatives to that statement are clear here:
I dug how this buzzed around my personal email network Wednesday after its appearance in the local paper.
June 18, 2007
Tanknorati?
Has Technorati stalled? Per the site itself, a couple of new blogs linked here over the past few weeks, but my ranking authority remains stuck at 19. Hm?
June 14, 2007
Someone's got talent
Love the two ‘Britain's Got Talent’ videos that made the rounds yesterday: A cutie pie with amazing pitch and a regular bloke who's an opera savant.
Let's sing-song together: "Their show's better than oooour show."
April 09, 2007
Jaiku, haiku, shmaiku
I came acrosss Jaiku today and recommend it as a place to check out. Yes, another social media site. Dare I say it? Jaiku appears much smarter and more engaging than current pop-flavor, Twitter.
Love the story behind the name: ...the posts on Jaiku resemble Japanese haikus. A haiku is a short poem about the moment that a person is living through even as they are writing it down...
March 13, 2007
Ficlets Goodness
Great. My ex-husband is the most popular and most active on Ficlets.com. Oh, they don't mean the man himself? Sweet.
It's Ficlets-Fest at the office. Stories are written, links are shared, sequels and prequels are building. Good feedback is coming in from SXSW, too.
March 08, 2007
Monkeys make horrible spouses
Ficlets.com is making lots of people at work proud, me included.
Tonight my stories are listed in Most Active and Most Popular.
Shut up with that new launch, limited traffic jibberish. Hrmph.
March 06, 2007
I am evil
How evil are you? Curious if everyone received similar results, I retook the quiz using not-really-me answers. Turns out the alternate me is "angelic." Bitch.
February 20, 2007
Holy panelology!
Comics Alliance is one of three sites we're in the process of launching. Soon there will be a full array of comic bookness: Superheroes, indies, Vertigo, self-published comics, minicomics and other sub-genres I've never heard of. (For example, are minicomics short arcs or wee books?)
The enthusiasm of our two leads and their band of contributors is freakishly contagious. For example, this blog entry.
One of the leads is trying to geek me out via the new Stephen King series. Very slick.
February 07, 2007
The wayback machine
A friend and former colleague sent me tripping back to the mid-90s tonight.
Groovy.
January 31, 2007
Firecracker Suzie
Checking out Clusty again and tested Suzie. A top result new to me on this particular little ego search was Suzie Hot Sauce.
They do specialize in hot sauce but neither owner is a Suzie. I also didn't find a Suzie brand of hot sauce.
One Suzie connection: Their crazy little logo is exactly how I feel before my morning coffee.
January 23, 2007
Two degrees of Kevin Bacon
My team co-produced the SixDegrees network on AIM Pages, so I think that puts me at most, two degrees away from Kevin. Okay, maybe three.
Very cool, turning a college drinking game into a philanthropic effort, Mr. Bacon.
January 21, 2007
This is your brain on dogs...
You said it, Bucky.
I created an AIM Page for Conan today. Oddly, this has been on my to-do list for a while.
January 08, 2007
What's all the cuss about?
While making a half-assed attempt to deepen my engagement with StumbleUpon, I found a parent-friendly Wikipedia page, Films that most frequently use the word "fuck."
While I don't care which movies made the (verbal) f-count, the display of graphs tracking the total Fs -- particularly the breakdown of Fs per minute -- tickled me.
January 03, 2007
Baroness Suzie the Undamaged
How many shots of Jägermeister does it take to envision the Peculiar Aristocratic Title generator?
Indeed, I am undamaged.
December 12, 2006
Go elf yourself!
Holiday viral fun: OfficeMax gives us dancing elves who look as familiar as you make them. The guy at the right is a sample elf.
Repeat after me: Go elf yourself!
(Do you think the sample elves fancy themselves as Internet stars?)
December 10, 2006
Tagging and what not
Recently I've been playing with MyBlogLog and StumbleUpon.
MyBlogLog didn't impress me at first but I'm warming to them as they evolve. Tonight I added their new MySpace widget to my page to give it a try.
StumbleUpon is fun, but based on the volume of traffic it drives to my site, still lacks depth. Seed it, people!
Now if I could just get people to leave more comments than emails.
Not that I mind emails but comments spark public dialogues. I owe Nancie a post on this topic, actually.
November 13, 2006
Morning people are weird.
Well, I'm back from my so-called weekend unplug. I didn't sign onto the computer at all but did have a mobile phone attached to my ear. I had a great time just the same.
Tuesday kicks off with a 5am call. My inner clock rejects the notion of waking up so early. I generally stay up until 1am and sleep to 6:30-7am. Yes, six hours of sleep should work regardless of when it happens, but it doesn't translate like that for me.
Why so early? There's some great stuff going on with AIM Pages. Can't wait to share.
October 25, 2006
Smells like social spirit
The theme of the week continues. Today I activated Catster and checked out iLike.
iLike works with iTunes and as a stand-alone to capture musical interests and match users based on the data. The site also creates publishable widgets and (my favorite) recommends free 'similar' mp3 downloads to sample.
Catster is a fun niche. Establishing presence for Conan was a warm and pleasant experience. Setup was less than 15 minutes and Conan received friend invites and "treats" throughout his first day.
iLike profile: http://alpha1.ilike.com/user/suzie_a
(I finally found a use for the eye photo!)
Conan's Catster page: http://www.catster.com/pet_page.php?i=410685
October 24, 2006
Talking with Nancie today about social spaces and realized I forgot to mention my Facebook presence (minimal) yesterday: http://www.facebook.com/p/Suzie_Austin/500594067
October 23, 2006
Social spaces
Here's a current list of social sites where I have presence to varying degrees. There are a few not listed because I have yet to activate the registrations, including: Dogster/Catster, Dandelife and WetPaint. That's my AIM WeeMee to the right.
AIM Pages: http://www.aimpages.com/suzieaim/
MySpace: http://myspace.com/suzieaim
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/suzieaustin
Netscape: http://www.netscape.com/member/suzie/
del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/suzieaim
StumbledUpon: http://suzieaim.stumbleupon.com/about/
I'm also registered at HotSoup, an issue networking site which launched last week. I've only poked around once post-launch and the site was too buggy to really explore.October 10, 2006
Death Watch '06
NBC Universal has been developing a network of interesting Web sites under the Bravo and USA banners. Characters Welcome launched a while back, Brilliant But Cancelled and OutZone are more recent. All three sites feature blogs and boards and aim to engage visitors in online social interaction.
Death Watch '06 is a subset of Brilliant and is dedicated to predicting which new shows of the season will crash and burn, and in what order they'll do it. I haven't registered to actively participate but the meter and commentary are fun to read.
As much as I aimed to check out the full breadth of the new TV season, Death Watch reminds me that I've missed a lot of the shows. This might not be a bad thing.
September 28, 2006
Darkness didn't prevail
I beat the darkness and found all 50 of the movie titles. Mostly without cheating. I did get a few hints for the last couple: The dark door, woman with children and the bug in a jar. The woman was difficult - the other two were too easy for hints - doh.
Definitely one of the best viral links to ever hit my IMs and email.
September 25, 2006
Seven Web 2.0 Virtues
An interesting list from Ted Leonsis to ponder about Web 2.0. Based, of course, on the seven virtues:
- Be generous
- Share
- Be polite
- Be open
- Listen
- Respect individuals
- Diligence wins
September 07, 2006
Shutterfly going public
A somewhat dated press release but just caught it today on a random listserv:
June 29, 2006--Shutterfly, an Internet-based social expression and personal publishing service, today announced the filing of a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering of its common stock. All of the shares of common stock in the offering are being offered by Shutterfly.
Social expression and personal publishing? Online photo storage, printing, sharing and a variety of isn't-that-sweet merchandise that you can buy online 'customized' with your photos.
August 04, 2006
AOL is losing its inhibitions
I grabbed this post's title from Blogging Stocks. Lots and lots of media buzz over the last couple of days as the company announced its shift to an ad-based revenue strategy, dropping the membership fee for all but the handful of users who still use AOL as their connection to the Web.
Big cheers for the new direction!
Tags: Blogging Stocks, Social Media, AOL
July 19, 2006
Woohoo! Pictures
Testing out a new Beta with pictures from a Bar Harbor trip in 2004.
June 26, 2006
two pings today
Two social sites emailed marketing verbiage today -- one with updates (Ning) and one just launching, People Aggregator from Broadband Mechanics (peopleaggregator.net).
No opinion on Ning yet - clicked in, clicked out. It was clean though - liked that.
PeopleAggregator is interesting. What's old is new again - the desktop, post-registration, feels very mid-90s. Very easy to move around and figure out what to do.
I'll play with both more post vacation (aka mid-July)
tags: social media, community, PeopleAggregator, Ning
June 25, 2006
aim pages
I'm admittedly biased, but I'm loving AIM Pages -- still in Beta and it's already fairly flexible and easy to use, and the improvements are continuous... this week's better than last week, etc.
my AIM Page -- aimpages.com/suzieaim
tags: AIM Pages