Word to the Social Media Wise

I recently signed up for a YouTube account to upload videos – as opposed to signing up so I can argue in comment threads. Upon registration, YouTube suggested some other people to follow based on my gmail. Which is cool if it’s my bff Sarah, who’d selected on “Let others find my channel if they have my email address.” But there were way more people who’d selected this than I cared to know. I now know 1) their age, 2) their username (see my blog about usernames), 3) what they watch when they’re logged in, and 4) what they’ve said. In one case, I saw a comment one of them made on a video. And it wasn’t like “lol that kitteh was too cute!” More like his opinion was dumb. And now I know it.

Wow, the Paiges Have Internet Presence(s)

I visited Platial.com to update my map in leiu of updating my blog…I’ve missed some important blogging the past month or so. (But it’s ok, I’ve been calling my mom more to actually TELL her about my life.)

…And I discovered plaitial.com/paiges. She’s in Oregon and emo. Not me. Then it hit me: I’m on the Internet, and you and I know that. But you don’t necessarily know which Paige is me. I do, and I ignore those other ones because I like to live in a world where I am the ONLY Paige (especially with the I as in iiii.com). I am THE Paige. I’ve met two who call themselves Paige. The first one I could only muster a “Hey, you” to and the second one I ran into at the Georgetown lacrosse camp. I didn’t need to say anything to her, just check, dodge, and keep running.

I thought maybe I should use this outlet to narrow down reality of Paiges (with an I) for the folks who read this: my Internet usernames relating to my real name are UberPaige, Paige356 and sometimes pcrasmus. Nothing else. And if you know of one, let’s have an email, not a retort blog post, ‘k? The other names out there are by impostors. So there you have it.

My Boyfriend’s Blog

My boyfriend Michael has lots to say. He sounds like he knows all about cars, chemistry (organic, biological and molecular), obscure musical groups and the musicians’ career paths, the video game industry including the computer processing and rendering aspects of the user interface experience… Did I sound like I know what I’m talking about with that phrase? Because I don’t. I just listen to Michael talk about this stuff on and on and on…sometimes, I try to get him to be quiet by distracting him, sometimes I’m smart and have him solve a problem for me while he’s in the mood for ‘being right’, and other times I dead-pan say to him “Why don’t you blog about it?” I figure there’s a wider audience out there on the Internets.

As far as girlfriends go, I’m pretty presumptive. For example, a subscription to Gourmet magazine implies Michael will cook me fancy dinners (even if I signed him up with a free trial when I spent >$50 at Sur la Table). And that the extra BMW key obviously belongs to me.

So when Michael told me he was doing “social media” for JIEDDO back in May because he already knew how, first I laughed, then I demanded to see his blog. He still didn’t have one. He hadn’t even accepted my LinkedIn request. To his credit, he had registered a Tumblr account but only wrote one post. And he’d kill me if I linked to it here because he wanted it to be his foray into serious self-publishing. I introduced him to another professional writer and all the guy would say about the post was: “he reeks of writer.” Yes, that’s about it…reeking.

These things left me with problematic ingredients: talkative boyfriend, deaf ears, my meddling tendencies, and our potential combined. About a week ago, I had a eureka moment after telling my coworkers during a social media presentation about this Twitter account called ShitMyDadSays. Later, Michael and I were at our favorite sushi restaurant in Old Town and I was further berating him on having no web presence. That night, I solved all the problems here when I created a blog on his behalf. Oh, and you can follow him(me) on Twitter, too.

“and the Rebirth of Unitasking”

There has been much ado about the results of this recent Stanford study that exposed folks who claim that they can ‘multitask’ at work not only can’t, but their overall quality goes down when they try. I completely agree.

A new employee emailed me while he was in the conference room doing in-processing paperwork. He asked a completely unrelated question and I responded back with “aren’t you paying attention in there?!” When he responded he could multitask with a :) at the end of his email, I shot back a link describing the study. Cute? Maybe. Multitasking? No. The result? I noticed he forgot to sign in the signature block.

I have a love-hate relationship with managing my tasks and due-outs. I like Franklin Covey’s guidance that there’s urgent things and then there’s important things; anything can be urgent if you let others set your priorities but only a few things are actually important. But ‘highly successful’ people are mum when it comes to emails and phonecalls in a role like mine where you’re the responder as much as you are the originator.

My second “real” boss taught me the concept of triage: if it’s from him, respond right away. If it’s from or CCs his boss, don’t mess anything up. People at all levels ping you for the status as if all you had to do was ‘just add water’ to the CC chain. You can have your information three ways: fast, detailed and accurate but you can only pick two at a time. And giving email updates to updates should be last on anyone’s to-do list if they’re really collaborating.

I propose a social contract of the work environment to salute the rebirth of unitasking: I’ll try to tell you my time frame for a quality response if I can’t get back to you within 48 hours. If you don’t hear back from me that day, assume I’m working on it and have aptly prioritized it to be done asap. I’ll expect the same. If it’s important and urgent, we’ll collaborate immediately.

Weekend Wrap-Up

I took it easy on Saturday and hung out in my PJs doing admin stuff on my blog and websites. Still on the kale kick and wanting a home-cookin flavor to permeate my mouth (and apartment air), I called my dad for the steps of this simple Southern recipe:

1. Cover the bottom of a pan with 1/2 in. strips of bacon and render  (stove on medium)
2. Pile on kale that has been torn off the stems (unless you can wait for 2 hours of cook time)
3. Pour 2 cups of water and bring to a boil
4. Add hot sauce and stir

Cover and serve when it looks like this (about 10 minutes later):

Freshly-cracked pepper is best for kale and bacon.

Saturday night we went out with friends to the Continental Bar & Billiards in Ballston. Good times were had by all, especially the ladies because we beat the boys with an average high score in ski-ball, hoops and even shuffleboard.

On Sunday, I went with the West Point Society on a winery tour in Loudon County. There were only about 5 alums and 30 tagalongs like Michael and me. We got going around 10 am and kicked the day off with mimosas and lox bagels. First stop was Barrel Oak winery in Loudon County. We had 17 tastings before lunchtime and used our good sense of judgment to invest in about seven bottles of the nectar of the gods. After a tour of where the fermentation action happens,  we picnic’d on the patio with a nice view of foothills and fought all urges to nod off.

Then the group boarded the bus and drove on to another winery in Middleburg. I have nothing of note for the second establishment except the workers were understanding enough not to have us arrested for drinking wine on their property that we brought from Barrel Oak.

I took lots of video with my new camera but incidentally forgot to actually get any pictures. Maybe – just maybe – I’ll find some time to learn how to edit video so it’s not just boring scenes you’d rather see on HDTV.

This weekend is looking to be slow…a mineral rights seminar on Saturday and of course playing with the bunnies and updating my Facebook with pictures of them in their new digs.

Fw: Favorite

Here is the Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

The winners are:
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2.. Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
12. Karmageddon: It’s when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes, and it’s a serious bummer.
13. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you
14. Glibido: All talk and no action.
15. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
16. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web. ;-)
17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
18. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

Part II The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.
And the winners are:

1. coffee, n. the person upon whom one coughs.
2. flabbergasted, adj. appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. abdicate, v. to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach..
4. esplanade, v. to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. willy-nilly, adj. impotent.
6. negligent, adj. absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. lymph, v. to walk with a lisp.
8. gargoyle, n. olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. flatulence, n. emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. balderdash, n. a rapidly receding hairline. ;-)
11. testicle, n. a humorous question on an exam.
12. rectitude, n. the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. pokemon, n. a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. oyster, n. a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism, n. the belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. circumvent, n. an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men. :-o