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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
Kate Bosworth – Crazed elf or standard issue alien?
Surprisingly, I’m not usually a “Hollywood hater” – I love film and really don’t care who they cast in the roles, be it lovely Nikki Blonski or Nicole Kidman (aka human hanger) – sure I’m a little biased, but overall I’m in it for the story and let Hollywood make its own decisions.
Kate Bosworth is in the new Kevin Spacey film “21″ – everyone over 30 already knows the story, the young’uns probably don’t because there is an interview over at Yahoo’s new Shine website interviewing her and she makes this huge deal out of Kevin Spacey telling her “Didja know it’s a true story?” And she’s all, “No, way Kevin!”
Riveting interview, I highly recommend it. Then they talk about how gambling is splurging…does Kate ever splurge? I didn’t wait to hear the answer, but by this picture, I’d guess she does something perhaps rhyming with splurge…
Kate Bosworth, movie beauty…this picture is a hot, hot mess (and I do not use that term lightly because it’s not my slang to own.) If I put my hair up and saw chunks coming out in the mirror…I wouldn’t leave the house without fixing it. Her ear is all tipped down like a puppy dog.
I’m not generally big into judging, I promise. But I’m reading the Yahoo site and they’re telling me how lovely and beautiful this woman is. To look like that and have all these positive messages being hurled at you…must be nice.
I want to wake up in the morning and go to websites that say how beautiful I am.
We all deserve one of those, don’t you think? That would be nice to have fan sites for each and every one of us, and when we visit a picture of us (our favorite one) pops up and has a review on whatever it is we’ve been doing lately. Peppered into the text would be adjectives like “lovely” “beautiful” “amazing” “genius” “handsome” “phenominal” – that would be a good way to start the day.
On the bright side I do understand that to look amazing on film you have to be narrower than normal. Unless you’re a guy, then you have to look like one day you could grow into the gas station owner from the original movie version of “The Hills Have Eyes.” Chicks dig the mechanic look, methinks.
Journalists working more according to PRWeek/PR Newswire
The 2008 PRWeek/PR Newswire Media Survey is out and the results are in!
As a blogger, I’m not surprised.
The survey polled 1,231 journalists including newspaper and magazine journalists, television, radio and online reporters, and bloggers. – From WebProNews
I have no idea how many journalists there are in the US, so I’m not sure if that number is statistically significant, but hey, it’s a relatively big number so I’m in on the findings.
When asked the most important part of their work, 91 percent said “Make my publication successful by creating appealing content for its audiences” as the top priority, ahead of “Educate and inform the masses,” “Break news,” and “Chronicle events as they happen.” The findings indicate a higher level of commercial awareness among journalists. – From WebProNews
It reminds me of the artists who don’t want to deal with the business side. You know the ones, who want to just be left alone for the “art.” The thing is, even the richest artists don’t make art in obscurity and leave it in the attic…they want it to be seen, they just don’t want to be the ones to deal with that part.
Journalists (the ones I’ve met, which I could count on one hand) are the same way. They feel that writing is an art. All writers think writing is an art, and it’s highly contested the same way as visual art is. Some people think only fiction is art, some think only poetry is art, but by and large no one looks at the New York Times, sighs, and thinks about how artistic it is.
It’s totally consumable, and worse, the archives of work aren’t kept on shelves in the library, but only in the back room in stacks that have to be requested.
Now journalists feel they’re working more and have to be all in tune with the commercial side of the industry. I’m sure they aren’t really happy about that, but I think they should be.
Journalists, for the most part, feel that blogging is somehow “beneath them” and that the whole citizen journalist thing is a joke. But these journalists have serious credibility – I mean, they’re journalists for goodness sake! They could lead the charge and shape the way.
If only they weren’t so turned off by commercial concerns. If only the journalists could be okay with the concept that being commercial isn’t a bad thing. Because you don’t go into journalism to write about current events for free and store your notebooks in an attic.
It’s the most commercial form of writing out there. It’s the only writing specifically designed to be sold, repeatedly. If only they would just take a deep breath and revel in making such a good choice in college instead of wishing they could live in some romantic obscurity with the only fame being a byline and possibly an autobiography down the road.
More excerpts and key findings can be found at Reuters.com
Tags: pr newswire, prweek, journalist survey, journalists working more, journalists vs bloggers, citizen broadcasting
Would you sell your kids?
The pictures of your kids, that is.
With Jennifer Lopez selling photos of her newborn twins for $6 Million Dollars to People Magazine, the New York Post predicts that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s bundles of joy will fetch a whopping $10 Million. – From the Cleveland Leader
On the surface, this seems like easy money, right?
What happens if one of the BrAngelina babies (sorry to be blunt here) isn’t quite right? What if the baby has a birth defect that could not be seen on the ultrasound?
I don’t mean to seem unkind or wish anything on anyone, but the facts remain childbirth is fraught with challenges and suprises…and I’m pretty sure that with ten million dollars and a contract, if some poor unfortunate nurse drops one of those lovely twins we’ll see it in the paper the next day or splashed across the full color cover of the next magazine issue.
I’m not so sure I think that’s okay. A couple needs time to assimilate childbirth. Pictures right out of the womb is such a creepy concept. Even if nothing goes wrong, does Angelina think this is going to be like when she goes to the drive-thru of other countries and orders up a child to bring home?
Maybe it doesn’t matter when you have a nanny and can sleep through the night *laugh*
What do you think about selling celebrity baby photos while the babies are still in utero?
Tags: aneglina jolie, brad pitt, celebrity baby photos, celebrity ethics
Non-Toxic Networking Launches!
I am so excited.
I’ve been working on a book for the last umpteen months and it’s finally launch day. I just finished a seminar for a great group of Virtual Assistants over at VAnetworking.com called “Network like a Rock Star!” I love VAs because they really take to fun seminars like ducks to water.
In case you were unsure, I don’t do well with an ultra-professional crowd. I’m funny, and fun, and smile a lot…so the buttoned up thing with no laughter isn’t my bag.
I haven’t done a seminar in a while, and had only ramped up the launch with one pre-launch interview with Erika over at Cyber Savvy (if you’d like to listen, it was the February 13th show) so wasn’t sure if it really was like riding a bike…you know…never forgetting and all. It is.
They enjoyed themselves, they asked questions…it was good!
So my apologies for the blatant self promotion but this is what I did all day.
Feel free to visit the Non-Toxic Networking site and download a 15 page excerpt – or even buy the digital download copy of the book. Your call!
There is also an affiliate program for anyone interested.
Oh, and I’m looking to do interviews and provide fun, informative information about how to not network badly anymore. Or how to network well, your call. (Yes, I realize it’s the same thing…) Shoot me an email if you’d like an entertaining guest for your podcast, Internet radio show, or other fun medium.
Thanks for reading!
The real joy of Easter
Second only to Christmas, Easter teaches us about powerful marketing messages and selling crap to the masses.
If you have a business of your own, Easter can teach you a lot about how you’re selling your product, who you’re selling your product to, and how your product sells.
For example:
My kids don’t eat candy, as a rule. I mean, we’re not zealots about it, but when my kids want a treat they ask for a carrot. Carrots are very sweet and they are happy with them. But Easter…well…grammas from both families can’t shove chocolate into the babies fast enough.
The baskets do have bags of Goldfish crackers (baked, not fried! *laugh*) in them as well as books, but the M&M egg and the chocolate bunny…that’s a lot of chocolate for the kids. Add to that when we go over to the other family today there will be bowls of assorted chocolates all around the house (my grammas aren’t as good at childproofing as my husband’s family) and my kids see this as a contest.
How many pieces of chocolate can I eat at once…leaving a wake of destruction and foil pieces trailing behind me…
The winner, of course, gets sick *laugh*
But my little raw foodists have a field day on Easter. Because somewhere along the way families were convinced that chocolate was *the* Easter present. I wouldn’t be surprised if more chocolate was purchased on Easter than Valentine’s Day.
Maybe not. More people have “sweeties” than “kiddies” and really only kids get baskets filled with chocolate.
(from Google News) …sales of chocolate were expected to be $318 million the week leading to Easter, second to Valentine’s Day, according to Business Wire.
That’s a lot of chocolate. Especially since this is an overtly religious holiday that even non-religious people participate in. Why? Sheer peer pressure. You don’t want your kids to not get a basket from the Easter Bunny when the kids next door and down the street got one.
Now that’s marketing.
Buy chocolate or your kids won’t love you anymore and you’ll break them.
I wonder how the religious folks think Jesus would feel about Easter. It’s not like Christmas where you can explain away the gifts as “what the wise men would do.” I don’t think there was a chocolate gorge-fest or easter egg-hunt in the bible after Jesus was found to be missing from the rock.
Maybe watching reruns of CSI might be more appropriate. Wondering if the shroud of Tourin could be put into evidence when it happened.
Okay, I’m going back to watching my kids mainline chocolate. Enjoy your Easter, everyone!
photo credit: daveparker
My daughter’s broken ankle
It’s a very sad day in our house, my friends.
My adorable, feisty, two year old has a broken ankle.
Yesterday about 11am(ish) she was fighting with her sister over a hat. Her sister (3 years old) yanked, and Abby stepped forward to regain her balance and landed on one of the big kid-sized legos and fell.
And screamed.
My god, she screamed.
I held her until she wanted down, I figured she was in pain from stepping on the corner of a lego (I tell you from personal experience, that hurts!) but later that day and into the evening, she still couldn’t put any pressure on her foot.
Hoping it would go away overnight Randy and I decided we’d let her sleep and if she still couldn’t walk on it in the morning we would take her into Urgent Care (the place in between a doctor’s office and an emergency room.)
Come morning, she still screamed when she put weight on it, but when we felt the foot, ankle, shin, and knee…she didn’t flinch or cry out at all. We were so confused and didn’t know what the problem was.
So I put her in the carseat and off we went to Urgent Care. We waited about an hour and then she got x-rays. Have I ever mentioned how paranoid x-rays make me? I’m there with this big led apron on, and they put a little led blanket on Abby and took the pictures.
Abby was such a trooper through the whole thing.
While we waited for the x-rays to come back, Dr. Nick came in and explained that children are very sensitive to pain and he thought that was probably what was happening. I was torn between praying for something to be wrong so I wasn’t a crazy overprotective mother, and hoping that there was nothing wrong because I’d rather be crazy and overprotective than for something to be wrong with my little girl.
Dr. Nick left, the nurse came in to give her some Motrin, and we waited for the results.
Then Dr. Nick called me out (Abby had fallen asleep by this time) and I looked at the x-rays with him on his computer screen. He showed me where her hairline fracture was and explained that when she put her weight on it there was axis pressure and that caused her mucho pain, but also explained why messing with her foot and ankle didn’t cause pain.
She got a temporary cast, and I have to take her into the doctor to get a real cast in the next day or so.
She will have the real cast on for about 4 weeks.
Needless to say I’m going to have to do things that can be done on the laptop, because the girls can’t entertain each other while Abby has a cast on her leg. Too dangerous.
Dr. Nick likened it to having a crack in the windshield. It doesn’t affect a whole lot and will heal in time (unlike a windshield) – but if something else happened, the bone could shatter or splinter in the spot that has the fracture.
My poor baby.
So if I don’t return emails promptly, or seem to not be around, you’ll know why. I have to go be a good mommy for the next 4 weeks. (But I can still update the blog from the laptop! Yea!)
On the bright side, they burned the x-ray images to a CD, so I can take them with me to her orthopedic physician. No waiting for things to be transferred, etc. Plus I can photoshop little red circles on them to show you where the break is.
Why am I involved with Podcamp?
The idea of an unconference is alluring, sure…I mean it’s like finding out you can attend a magical tea party with Alice in Wonderland for goodness sake.
But, I don’t know if you have noticed this…I’m not a big podcaster. I don’t edit my audio even when I do podcast – it’s the reason I’m so fond of BlogTalkRadio – if you have to be live, there is an excuse for all the foibles and faux pas that you make while on the air. It’s part of the magic of broadcasting, instead of being seen as not being “polished” enough.
But really, I’m a writer. A blogger to be more precise, since I don’t sit around spewing out poetry or sci-fi all day. Yes I wrote a book, but it’s a business book on networking (something I’m profoundly good at, in case you were wondering) not really something that a true writer would write.
It is entirely possible I harbor some unhealthy stereotypes when it comes to writers. My apologies if you are a writer and see my explanation as unkind or less than accurate. It isn’t intentional, it’s just…I think of a writer and I think of someone holed up in a cubby-hole of an office slaving over and pining for and being suicidal for their art.
I don’t think of me writing a book on how you can make more connections with other human beings by talking to them in the right way as being a “real” writer. I think it makes me an author, yes…but not a writer. A business book doesn’t feel artistic or deep or meaningful. Sure it will help people, oh there is no doubt of that, but indoor plumbing helps people too, that doesn’t make it art.
Back to podcasting. There are people making money podcasting, I mean enough money to support a family and everything. That is good times. I have never made a dime from podcasting, nor have I tried. It seems a little silly considering I even know someone that has a business specializing in podcast advertising. But still, I hesitate.
There are people having deep thoughts all over people’s speakers all over the world. There are social networkers and early adopters of all shapes and sizes participating in a dialogue about web trends almost every moment of the day somewhere.
Honestly, what do I have to say that is any different from what is out there now? Maybe a show on networking…but really…a one trick pony show is no fun. Is it? I wouldn’t think someone would want to listen to networking tips every single week.
Unless it was a “get your week started right” Monday morning kind of thing – but then that requires me to be awake and talking on Monday morning. Not so difficult, since I’m up at 7:15am CST every weekday, but it’s those darn toddlers of mine. They don’t like being quiet for extended (read: two minutes) periods of time.
So, it could be time constraints or familial obligations that keep me from podcasting. On the other hand, maybe it’s because I’m so entrenched in reading online that audio never seems that alluring. I listen to music in the background most of the day, and it is in the background. I may not even be sure what song I’m listening to at any given time, but I can always tell you what I’m reading.
So I think I need to rethink the whole Podcamp experience. Am I looking to meet the smart kids and finally get a chance to hang out with them? If that’s the case, isn’t going a little inauthentic?
I’m on the fence about attending, participating, and even speaking (which I have an opportunity to do in June) – what do I have to share with podcasters that holds any real and true value for them? What do I say? Do as I say, not as I do?
That would be very, very not okay.
Mood: Confused and thoughtful. (Yep, I totally just put a mood on my blog, I’m so 1998!!)
Technorati Tags: podcamp dc, podcamp ohio, unconference, who should attend podcamp
photo credit: philcampbell
Pretty Woman – don’t you love it when they finally let her shop?
Is anyone else reading the updates on Ashley?
The prostitute that was with Elliot Spitzer (for those of you that don’t care…which may be most of you…) has now received an offer for a million dollars to pose naked in Hustler.
Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt said he’s willing to pay the prostitute, identified by the New York Times as Ashley Alexandra Dupre, $1 million to pose naked. Dupre, 22, may rake in $2 million more by selling her story to a magazine, said Lucianne Goldberg, the former book agent who passed taped conversations between Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky to reporters.“A million dollars is more than what she would make as a call girl,” Flynt said in an interview from Los Angeles after he made the offer March 14. “She’s quite attractive. Maybe Spitzer wasn’t paying too much after all.”
She also has that $2m offer from the magazine to sell her story.
How much are they going to pay the writer that actually writes that story? Certainly not two million dollars.
And really, what’s the story? “Well I got this phone call and met this guy…I thought he looked familiar but I prefer Animal Planet so wasn’t sure if I knew who he was…but I had that feeling.” (not really a quote, fyi) Now a writer is going to turn that (aka spin it) into a real story that elicits real feelings from real readers.
At least Ms. Ashley doesn’t have to worry about getting her music out to the world. Three million dollars should buy some serious production and self publishing.
If she even needs it.
She may get an offer from a music producer for all we know. Then she can have everything she wants, plus be able to live off of the interest for the rest of her life. (If she has a good financial advisor, and I’m sure she’s gotten many calls from financial advisors over the last week.)
So now she can have her album produced as well as shop wherever she wants. If she’s actually any good, she might even end up with a real career.
Whodathunkit.
I hope she does the talk show circuit. I want a chance to listen to her talk and figure out if she’s really just a lucky hooker or if she’s a master marketer that figured out what she had the minute she walked into that hotel room and saw the Governor of New York with a twinkle in his eye.
