C’est moi

Your result for How geeky are you?…

Cool Introvert

46% Geeky, 80% Cranial and 57% Introverted!

You scored 46% Geeky, 80% Cranial and 57% Introverted! Brilliant! This is so very exciting because you have managed to maintain your intelligence yet steer clear of the path to geekiness. You are the rarest of the rare, not many people score in this category. I don’t know if you realize the delicate balance between smarts and geekiness, yet you have overcome!!

You most likely have a strong passion for reading or some other hobby you can cultivate on your own, and this can be a wonderful creative outlet. Make sure you take the time to develop strong interpersonal relationships as they may not come as easily to you, though they are vital for a fulfilling life. It takes much effort to mantain them at times, but their benefits far outweight their draw backs.

I truly hope you enjoyed the test as much as I enjoyed making it! I always welcome email comments/suggestions! Thanks for taking it!

Take How geeky are you? at HelloQuizzy

ROG

Why I Blog

Someone asked me to give him an example of a piece I wrote that I thought kept me sane. I replied:
It’s not that I have a particular piece I’m talking about. It’s the exercise of writing something every day. Sometimes, it’s just an Internet meme, but even that allows me to put my personal stamp on it. Moreover, I must have been doing something right on my blog [here], because the local paper invited me to write on THEIR blog.
Moreover, I’ve become such an “expert” on it that giving some advice to a business blogger, and I attended a conference in Chicago, where a colleague and I talked about Starting Your SBDC Blog (based on our experience doing THIS blog.

All I know is that, before the blog, I wanted to write and didn’t because I lacked discipline to write something that, likely, no one would see; the public nature of the blog forces me to post to it (or actually them) regularly.
***
When they recalibrated SiteMeter, they said I’d get more page views. While the number of hits has remained about the same, the number of average views per visit jumped from about 1.4 to about 2.4. Every once in a while, I look to see what articles are bringing folks to the blog. This piece on the October 4, 1987 snowstorm – 21 years ago this week – has been big the past month. My rant about the Beatles butchers has also been popular recently.
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I went to some SEO – search engine optimization – site recently, put in my URL, and this is what it recommended:
Keyword Suggestion
Searches / month
sarah palin 668,160
sarah palin nude 35,340
sarah palin pictures 23,370
sarah palin photos 22,440
sarah palin pics 15,540
sarah palin bikini 15,390
sarah palin naked 9,540
sarah palin speech 8,670
sarah palin children 6,330
sarah palin legs 6,910
sarah palin vogue 5,760
sarah palin swimsuit 4,500
pictures of sarah palin 4,440
sarah palin bio 4,410
sarah palin miss alaska 4,320

Now, while it’s true that I’ve talked about Sarah Palin, even before she was picked as Vice-Presidential candidate, and showed pictures of her, albeit not in a bikini, I never talked about Sarah Palin being naked. And I wrote about so many topics OTHER than Sarah Palin. I do wish I knew exactly how SEO worked.
ROG

QUESTION: Political paraphrenalia

Today’s question is pretty straightforward. Do you you display bumper stickers, lawn signs or buttons touting the candidates you support?

Bumper stickers: no, my wife doesn’t like them, and I do see her point. Those Kerry/Edwards stickers that I STILL see on the backs of vehicles are quaint, and perhaps even gives the driver the sense of some political cover, but we just don’t do that.

Lawn signs: our neighbors who are politically involved locally always have lawn signs. Though they too are Democrats, they are usually NOT for the candidates I support. The only time I know I displayed one is when my friend Judy, who I’ve known at least since 1974, ran for the school board. BTW, she won.

Buttons: I like to collect political buttons. I might wear one for a day here and there, when I’m likely to be in a non-hostile crowd, but not generally. there was a button, though, that I wore almost daily for about a year. It was green and white and all it said was Choose Peace. I wore it from September 2002 to about September 2003, then sporadically thereafter. I got both a lot of compliments (mostly peace signs and smiles) and a lot of complaints (something about “supporting our troops”, if memory serves). I’ll have to dig it out and wear it again.

ROG

Roger Answers Your Questions, Spryglet

Our next contestant I know personally:
Hey Roger!

I’ve been thinking about something for a couple of days now, and I thought you might be a good person to bounce this musing off of (perhaps you’ve already addressed the topic on your blog and a simple re-direct will do the trick!).

Recently, I’ve been mulling over the question of blogging vs letter writing. Naturally, they are not mutually exclusive activities and there is no reason one can’t do both. That said, there are only so many hours in the day.

Now, you are an amazingly consistent blogger. But I was wondering, how are you in the letter writing department? Has that changed a lot since you began blogging?

As you know, Socks and I started a modest blog to highlight some of our adventures as we relocated from NYC to Las Vegas. Recently, the blog has sort of morphed into “Las Vegas sites and curiosities” (as seen through our eyes). When we write the blog, we definitely have our friends back east in mind as the intended audience. (And as an aside, I keep a personal hand written journal in which I try to record the day’s events, even if only in list form. That’s for personal use). But I find that my letter writing has decreased significantly. And now, I am slowly realizing that I miss it. True, I would often find myself cutting and pasting portions of one letter to another. But I always tried to make sure that it was personalized.

Anyway, I was wondering your thoughts on the topic.

That aside, I also miss seeing you if only at the holidays (MidWinter, MidSummer, etc.). And I do miss being back east. Being in Nevada is strange. However I think this will be one of the first elections in which my vote in the presidential elections will actually mean something. Although there have been exceptions, New York has rarely gone Republican. Nevada is up for grabs.

Anyway, I just wanted to seize the moment and say HI!

I hope that all is well with you, Carol & Lydia.

Stay well.

Spryglet

Spryg-

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I was a prolific letter writer. Influenced undoubtedly by some author’s letters, I even copied, using something called carbon paper, some of the letters I wrote. During the same period, I started keeping journals. Many got destroyed in the flooded basement of the apartment building I lived in a decade ago, but a few survived, which has allowed me to write some of that specific FantaCo stuff, as well as relive painful affairs of the heart.

My letter writing started to diminish a little in the 1990s, especially when I first got e-mail, and shrank even further upon the birth of my child. In fact, it is the blogs where most of my non-work writing takes place. But it hasn’t supplanted letter-writing, because my letter-writing was already on the wane.

I should also note that I’m jealous as hell of you. New York is a mortal lock for Obama. Frankly, I’m disturbed by the fact that polling has determined whether candidates even bother in some locations. McCain, though, has been running ads nationally on ABC’s World News.

My best to Socks.
ROG

A Cornucopia of Stuff

The good news here is that after six weeks of having her teeth wired shut, my wife Carol can now open her mouth. This doesn’t mean she can have steak, but she can have soft foods such as scrambled eggs. After a month and a half of not using one’s jaw, one must relearn to use it.
One problem is that she cannot yet open her mouth sufficiently to use her toothbrush, something she was REALLY looking forward to. Fortunately, her clever husband, quite possibly inspired by this workshop, suggested that Carol use a smaller toothbrush, and as it turned out, we had a couple replacement brushes for Lydia that Carol could use.
***
One of my sisters works for Wachovia bank – well, she did until there WAS no Wachovia. Like just about everyone dealing with a bank, she didn’t originally work for the former giant, but rather First Union out of Charlotte, NC, where my mother also used to work. But First Union got taken over up by Wachovia and now Wachovia is owned by Citicorp. It reminds me of fish in the food chain being swallowing up ever larger creatures. In any case, she still has a job, for now.
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While my retiring Democratic Congressman, Mike McNulty , voted for the bailout, the frosh Congresswoman from the area, Kirsten Gillibrand , voted no. So did Maurice Hinchey, a liberal Dem from my old district, whose state Assembly campaign I supported in 1974. And of course, Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who’s been marginalized a lot this year, but is often correct. Someone sent me this alternative proposal; we’ll see if THAT passes.
Seriously, they’ll be some sort of deal soon, if only because there is no credit available for businesses large or small.
***
The Veep debate is tonight, and it ought to generate real interest, mostly to see if Sarah Palin will self-destruct. Based on her performances in the Alaska gubernatorial debates, excerpts of which can be found here, she may fare better than most people think. On the other hand, check out this link. After the 50 seconds of the Today show description of Tina Fey channeling Palin, you will watch a side-by-side comparison of Palin and Fey. As SamuraiFrog asked: “You know what the difference is between Tina Fey and a pit bull with lipstick? Tina Fey didn’t have to keep looking down at her notes.”
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Bill Moyers’ interview with Andrew J. Bacevich on his book “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism”, which is “one in a series called the ‘American Empire Project.’ Several noted scholars and writers are examine American aspirations at home and abroad, looking for ways to foster democracy without succumbing to imperial ambitions.”
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Because you need to know: an Internet Memes timeline.
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That’s all I’ve got, but I’d be curious to get your reaction to my piece Is getting people interested in politics REALLY a good idea?

ROG

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