Facebook Friends: Gotta Catch 'Em All!

I recently cracked the 500 friend plateau on Facebook. That’s right, I am a Facebook Tool. 500 ‘friends’? Is that even possible?

These are friends numbers 157 and 369

500 acquaintances? Sure. 500 people I’m amicable with? Certainly. Friends? Uhh…yea, I don’t think so. While Facebook has certainly proven to be a useful weapon against friendship deterioration due to distance and/or lost time, it’s also developed into this bizarre web-based society that creates social links purely through passing handshakes or shared benches at the airport. If you have over 200 ‘friends’ on Facebook, you are guilty of this. I don’t care how much of a socialite you consider yourself.

Alas, a tragedy struck me sometime today: I dropped back down to 499 amigos. How did I react? The only natural way a 20-something raised in the age of information would…I frantically began searching through my friends list trying to figure out who the hell was missing. I even went as far as clicking on my closer friends’ lists and trying to make a comparison of possible missing faces.

At some point I stopped and realized this is fucking retarded. Firstly, if I can’t realize they are missing, it probably means they won’t be missed. Secondly, IT’S A GODDAMN WEBSITE ADVERTISING A PERSON’S ABILITY TO STALK THE PEOPLE THEY’VE MET AND SHITTY INTERNET GAMES FEATURING UZIS AND COWS (and this wonderful website which you should totally endorse by becoming a fan!) There is really only one logical reason why we all seem to fall victim to this nonsensical waste of time, and I’ve discovered what’s to blame.

Pokemon.

Holy. Shit. What happened to the good ole' days of just 151 of the lil bastards?

That’s right, Pocket Monsters, that insanely popular franchise with increasing numbers of elementally aligned pets who’s sole purpose is to be caught and made to war with each other (it’s Mike Vick’s favorite game!). Somehow, watching that little number above your friends list gradually climb upward fills that little gap in your life leftover from hours chasing Mewtwo through that damn cave. All we need to make this shit complete is a fucking lightning bolt to erupt from my best friend’s head.

It could happen.

FIN DE SEMAINE AVEC POESIE DES PERLES

Aujourd’hui vendredi donc ce soir début du week end.
Cette semaine sera passée très très vite. Avec son petit lot de surprises…

Tout d’abord, j’apprends en début de semaine qu’il y a une brocante le 22 de ce mois à Cergy Préfecture (10min à pied de mon domicile !!!). J’ai envoyé mon bulletin de participation hier. Je dois attendre la confirmation d’inscription. Mais pour le coup, je me suis inscrit en tant que particulier car en plus d’avoir des articles d’occasions de l’entreprise dont je veux me débarrasser, j’ai des livres, vêtements de bébé à vendre. Je croise les doigts pour que, ce dimanche 22, le soleil soit au rendez-vous et le froid pas trop fort.

Pour continuer dans mes découvertes, j’ai constaté que j’ai failli avoir une nouvelle commande sur le site de la boutique (www.poesie-des-perles.fr). Je ne sais pas pourquoi la personne n’est pas allée au bout de sa commande. Mais quand vous avez une remarque ou un souci lors de votre visite ou commande, n’hésitez pas à me contacter. Il ne faut vraiment pas hésiter, je pourrais très certainement vous aider et c’est vrai que si vous préférez une conversation téléphonique qu’un e-mail, appelez-moi (01.34.25.80.64 ou 06.25.89.82.88). Je suis à votre écoute.
Du coup, je me suis permis d’envoyer un e-mail à cette personne pour connaître la cause de son abandon de commande. J’attends un retour.

Enfin, dimanche dernier, j’ai passé une partie de mon après-midi à parler bijoux et créations avec une créatrice de bijoux fantaisies. Nous ne sommes pas trop éloigné l’une de l’autre (elle dans le 78, moi dans le 95). Nous avons partagé nos trucs et astuces et nos bons plans. J’étais très absorbée par cette passionnante conversation et j’en ai totalement oublié où j’étais (chez moi entre autres) et l’heure qu’il était. Heureusement que mon mari m’a tenu informé…

Moi et les perles, c’est une passion dévorante dont je pourrai parler pendant des heures !!

@ Bientôt pour un autre article et reste à l’écoute de vos commentaires et remarques ou encouragements.

Julie de POESIE DES PERLES
www.poesie-des-perles.fr

Pesquisa alerta empresas para uso de rede social pela mídia

Além de clientes, funcionários e consumidores, as empresas também devem considerar que a mídia brasileira está na rede social e não apenas para fins pessoais.

Em média, 67% dos profissionais da área, em diversos setores e tipos de mídia, usam as redes sociais com objetivos profissionais e pessoais, destaca uma pesquisa realizada pela agência S2 Comunicação nesta quarta-feira (4/11) .

À medida que as empresas atentarem para este fato, passarão a se preocupar com o que dizem nas redes sociais”, afirma José Luiz Schiavoni, diretor-presidente da S2 e atual presidente da rede internacional de agências independentes Public Relations Global Network.

A pesquisa, que envolveu uma amostra de 900 jornalistas preparada pelo estatístico Alisson Salvador, com base no mailing de 50 mil profissionais da empresa Maxpress, mostra que os jornalistas estão usando as redes sociais para trabalhar, fazer pautas, ouvir pessoas e consumidores. “Daqui para frente, os jornalistas tendem a usar o que é discutido nas redes sociais e incorporar em suas reportagens”, ressalta Schiavoni.

Pela experiência do executivo, as empresas ainda não atentaram para o fato de que os diálogos e as opiniões presentes nas redes sociais têm sido usados como material de trabalho pelos jornalistas. “Superamos a fase de monitorar e agora temos de interagir”, conclui.

De acordo com o estudo, o uso da mídia social apenas para fins profissionais ainda é baixo e varia de 8,42% entre jornalistas das regiões Norte, Nordeste e Centro-Oeste, a uma média de 12,01% pelos profissionais do Estado de São Paulo, enquanto o uso profissional e pessoal das redes sociais é de 72% e 52,3%, nestas regiões, respectivamente.
Fontes de informação
O Orkut, do Google, mostrou ser uma grande fonte de informação para os jornalistas, sendo mencionado por mais de 40% dos entrevistados, chegando a quase 60% nas regiões Norte, Nordeste e Centro-Oeste. O microblog Twitter é o segundo recurso mais utilizado por uma média de 33% dos jornalistas brasileiros – 22,49% nas regiões Norte, Nordeste e Centro-Oeste e 43,97% no Estado de São Paulo.

Em terceiro lugar, a rede social Facebook é citada como fonte por uma média de 8,08% dos profissionais (de4,97% na região Sul a 11,49% em São Paulo).

Nesta primeira pesquisa, a qualidade do uso das redes sociais pela imprensa não chegou a ser analisada, mas segundo Schiavoni, a S2 prepara-se para realizar uma análise mais profunda sobre o tema no início de 2010.

Fonte: IDGNow

Trying to not be a pig

I got the H1N1 vaccine today, compliments of my employer.  I still fall within the infant – 24-year-old range, so I’m legally accepted by the government to receive it.  Not really being one to do the whole flu vaccine thing on a yearly basis (did it once, don’t remember the outcome) I was hesitant to do it this time.  So what did I do?  Like any good kid from Gen-Y, I put it to my Facebook friends to help me decide.

Fortunately, my good pal Matt Siuba, medical pro extraordinaire, came to the rescue, in addition to others, with a resounding ‘yes’ to the Swine Flu vaccine.  His medical explanation beat out Nico’s ‘you won’t be able to have kids’ argument.  My arms is barely sore and I have yet to experience any flu-like symptoms.

Check back in with me as the flu season really kicks off.  We’ll see how it goes.

*Note on the title: Apparently in Southern Indiana, getting the swine flu is referred to as being a pig.  ’Looks like Josiah is a pig.’  Ha, love you kids.

This is why you smell fat

A servicey tipster posted a few baconey links on my Facebook page. To be clear, I do like bacon, just as long as I don’t have to actually think about it. Once I get that image in my head — rust coloured-strips lacing a grimy pan, I remember how for a few minutes after they’re done frying they look like someone spit on them. But whatever, it’s still all right on a biscuit or something.

Anyway, since the tipster’s links included some simple instructions (“Now you have to blog about it – we’ve provided sex, food, alcohol, and bacon-related links. Irresistible.”) and I’m nothing if not a blog-whore (sadly, not as lucrative as real-life whoring), here we go!

Why stop there? Why not also fry eggs off her bellybutton? Commenter “rose” also made a good point:

Thinkgeek additionally features a bacon martini (because an olive isn’t salty enough?), bacon mints (self-defeating), bacon ice cream, bacon cheesecake, bacon toothpicks, and a rather fetching bacon scarf.

On thefrisky.com, there’s this:

I thought cooking breakfast came after sex. Like, waaay after. Not during. But far be it from me to impose my heteroporcine mores on the rest of you.

 

 

To me, a man smelling like bacon would not turn me on. I would think he worked at Denny’s or something.

-Michelle

 

 

 

 

Again, via Thinkgeek: white America’s clinically depressed, greasy answer to Vegemite: Baconnaise?

And…bacon salt?

 

 

Is it made of bacon or is it made for bacon? Does this even matter?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And just for the KNT house (the debate sorority), here’s a picture of Francis Bacon [via Luminarium.org]:

The blogger at Bacon Is My Anti-Drug is not gonna be happy about this, which is not good for me either. I need all the friends I can get.

and when you write

Don’t be a babbling brook.

Image via Wikipedia“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” ~Matthew 6:7

Substitute the word pray with write and think about it. In a world of message boards where people babble on like pagans, shouldn’t we keep our messages succinct?

Maybe the folks who created Twitter had the right idea.

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Managing Anxiety (Part 4)

Control TMA (Too much activity) and electronic over-stimulation

This seems to be getting harder and harder. As a closet tech nerd and sociophile, I love my Facebook, Twitter and blogging. My iPhone keeps me constantly connected and therefore constantly distracted too. Along with that I also subscribe to many other blogs and news feeds, so there is always new information at my fingertips. But I know I need to disconnect and take a rest from time to time. Therefore I have technology fasts every few months for a day. TMA can actually make you less productive, less attentive to whats actually going on in front of you and cause more stress and anxiety.

Fo me I need to be more disciplined in my use of technology. to not be enslaved to them and use them for good. Graham Stantons article on twitter is a cracker (read it). I also need to shut myself down from electronic stimulation earlier in the night. I heard somewhere that the blue light coming from screens keeps you awake, and therefore you should stop looking at them an hour or two before heading to bed.

Have fun

Sounds simple and for some it is. I think for me, this is true. I like to have fun, and be silly from time to time. People who are always serious are boring, sorry you just are. Having fun is good for you. It relaxes you and helps deal with anxiety.

If you struggle to have fun regularly, make an effort to do so.  Work out what you have fun doing, and try to do that more often than you do now.

Keep reflecting on how the truths of the gospel speak into your particular situation

It is always good to be reminding yourself of God’s love, grace and providence in your life. Different situations provide different challenges but the Gospel speaks to all in every situation. My personal experience is that the more I am aware and dependent on God they less worried, stress and anxious I am.

Seek professional help if you need it

As people in leadership, ministers often feel they need to have it all together, that they aren’t allowed to show weakness. But if you are struggling with stress, anxiety or other similar problems, don’t be proud, instead seek professional help.

This is the last post in the series, I hope you have benefited as I have.

Other Posts:

• Introduction
• Stress
• Symptoms
• Bible
• Managing Anxiety 1
• Managing Anxiety 2
• Managing Anxiety 3