The Real Reason I Love Social Media

In 140 characters or fewer, this is why I love social media:

@themediaishirin Helping laid off media employees find new work 140 characters at a time. Email us at mediaishiring@gmail.com

Reasons why this is awesome:

1) A 140 character resume as a serious way to find a new job? Hells yeah. You can't get more FIO than that, unless the world is reduced to communicating via meaningful glances or tongue clicks.

2) The name is really themediaishiring. But the dude either mistyped and left off the "g" or that was too long a username. Does he sweat it? Nope--in the awesome world of social media stuff like that just doesn't matter.

In traditional communications there are all kinds of rules: you have to have a journalism degree; you have to proof and edit and proof again--mistakes are forbidden; you have to use correct punctuation; you have to use italics and footnotes with subscripts and all that kind of stuff.

But in "new" media? Fuck that shit. Forget the "g" on the end of your name? Makes it more authentic. Italics? So old-school. Typos? Whatever--everyone knows bloggers are so busy furiously expressing themselves that they can't be bothered with editing or proofing. And don't even think of hiring someone to edit for you--that's a big no-no; again with the authenticity.

And times like now, when I started a post but have to be somewhere in 5 minutes so don't have time to think of a snappy ending--no matter.

Not.Feeling.It.

I don't know what's up with me--I'm just not feeling like blogging lately. Maybe because nothing interesting is happening lately? Or because I hate winter? I'm not feeling bad or anything--unlike my poor sister Cassie--just not very inspired to write anything interesting.

So I'm wracking my brains trying to think of something interesting and still coming up dry.

I'm trying to read several books right now--Amy Tan's Saving Fish From Drowning (it's good but apparently not that riveting, judging by the fact that I've been trying to read it for like a month now and am only on page 143); Elizabeth Buchan's Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman (again, ok but not great--but it is the prequel of a better book, Wives Behaving Badly) and another library book so uninspiring I can't even remember the name and am too lazy to go get it from the kitchen, where it's waiting to go back to the library since I've only read about 20 pages in the 3 weeks I've had it.

Wow--I'm boring myself just writing this so instead of continuing the torture for both of us, let's go to some commercial breaks.

Blythe: I can't decide if this is cute or just downright freaky:


Watching it again, I think I might have to go with freaky.

Kiddles: This is 90% hilarious and 10% emotional abuse against a child. Watch this and tell me you don't think the girl got the beat-down immediately following the taping of this video.



Am I imagining it or is the mom sort of sobbing at the end of the video?

Stuff Black People Like

Geez, I am slacking off about writing in here lately. Any blogging time I have seems to go to Mizz Information, since that blog actually gets read now, believe it or not. I started that blog last February and it had 18 page views that month; last month it was up to 496 page views. Twice in the past month I've had people interview me for print articles about social media and social networking--it cracks me up that it's possible to be an "expert" on Facebook and Twitter.

But I digress...

Ok, we all know a) how obsessed I am with Stuff People Like and b) how obsessed I am with black culture.

I don't know why it didn't occur to me to search for it sooner, but the other day I suddenly wondered "I wonder if there's Stuff Black People Like?" I Googled it and of course there is Stuff Black People Like. The first one I clicked was hilarious. I particularly liked Matching from Head to Toe and Beyond and Hair Styles. Then I clicked on "about" and realized the guy who writes it is white. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but somehow a white guy writing about what black people like just doesn't work as well as a black guy writing about what black people like. So I continued my search and found my new obsession: Cobb.

I will let you read and enjoy it at your leisure--and don't forget the comments! My favorite comment?

"I can't get enough of hot sauce. I put hot sauce on everything...even ice cream and pussy!"

Crickets
I'm just fresh out of things to blog about tonight, but didn't want to let a whole week pass without something going on here. So here's a liddle kiddle vid:


I wonder why there are so few Kiddle fans out there in cyber-world. There are tons of Blythe fans on Facebook and Blythe videos on YouTube.

Cassie, we need to get right on this and rectify this situation, don't you think?

Beauty Favorites

I know all of you have always thought "If Maggie is dumb enough to pay $500 for Botox she must spend a fortune on other makeup and beauty products." Actually, not true. True, I have tried many expensive products, but for the most part, over the years I have ruled out most of them in favor of cheap products that work just as well or better.

Ok--get your pens and paper out because I'm about to save you the trouble of trying a bunch of expensive products yourself and tell you what works.:

1) Avon ANEW ADVANCED All-In-One MAX SPF 15 UVA/UVB Lotion. It is light, doesn't make you break out, and contains glycolic acid and retinol, which correct sun damage and prevent further damage. Avon sells it for $16.50, but it frequently goes on sale. Also--and this applies for all these products--I always check ebay first because sometimes you can get the same product, brand new in the box--for way less on ebay. In this case it doesn't matter as much because it's pretty cheap from Avon, but it never hurts to check ebay first. With Avon products though, ebay usually isn't the best choice because you have to pay shipping and you don't if you buy Avon through your local Avon lady.

2) Dr. Perricone Neuropeptide eye cream. Ok, I'm already contradicting my thing about only buying cheap products--this retails for $195. But wait! The first time I bought it--and this is my gift to you--I got it from QVC because they have a "30 day or bottom of the bottle" guarantee. Meaning, you can buy it, pump it all into another container and return the empty bottle for a full refund. Before you damn me to hell, let me add that over the years I've bought a LOT from QVC, so I figure I'm entitled to a one-time free gift of some eye cream. I wouldn't do it more than once--come on, even I have a conscience. But all of you haven't used up your chance yet, so I forgive you in advance for doing it this one time. Anyway, if you don't want to go to hell over a bottle of eye cream, you can get it on ebay for anywhere from $20-$50, new and sealed. That's where I bought it after I realized I couldn't live without it after the free QVC trial. It works so well it's actually worth $195 and, if ebay didn't exist, I'd have to pay $195 for it because I haven't found another eye cream I like as much. Avon has a few that are also good, but in general, anything too creamy just makes the puffy bags under my eyes worse. Yes, even creams or gels that say they're specifically for getting rid of puffy eye bags.

3) Genie Instant Line Smoother. Ok, if you don't want to do the QVC try-and-return with the Perricone eye cream, you should definitely do it with this because this is a product that truly requires a try before you buy. I bought it wanting to just try it, and figured I'd be returning it because I doubted it actually worked. I have to say that, aside from Botox, this is the only other thing that honestly makes a visible difference--granted for puffy eyes, though, not wrinkles. If they invented the injectible equivalent of this I would do it, but sadly, it's the cosmetic equivalent of Cinderella's glass shoe--transforms when it's on, but once you wash it off, your eye bags are back. I would buy it from QVC the first time to make sure you like it, then look for it on ebay for less. Unfortunately, you can't find it for a lot less than the QVC price of $29.95, but it's always worth a look.

I should back up and say that I use this Genie line smoother for my eye bags--not for all over my face. I swear to GOD it works like a miracle--it honestly either fixes the bags completely or at least makes them 75% better. Even Patrick admits that it works.

Whew, this is tiring--guess I have a lot to say about beauty products. How about I leave it at this and next time cover face cleanser, night lotion and acne medicines? Then I will move on to cosmetics. Gives you something to look forward to and gives me at least 2 no-brainer blog posts.

Spawn of FIO

Mimi (aka Wednesday--my preferred name for her) was going to a birthday party today. I asked what she wanted to get the girl for a present. Her answer?

"I'll just give her some cash."

She insisted that buying a gift card is a waste of money--you have to pay $3 or whatever to activate it.

Clearly, she's inherited the FIO gene from me--or, I should say, the gene formerly known as FIO and now known as "Green."

• Why put a lot of thought into picking a gift; after all, who is better qualified to pick the perfect gift: the gift giver or the recipient? That's a lazy and inconsiderate way of thinking about it, right? Wrong! That's the green way of looking at it. Do you really want to saddle the gift recipient with not only a gift he/she won't use (wasting resources) but with the carbon footprint that unwanted gift left in its wake: the driving to the store, the manufacturing of the product, the lights in the store, etc? Of course not.


• Sure a gift card is neatly packaged and does, after all, contain the word "gift." But A) it costs more than its cash equivalent and B) it adds unnecessary waste to the planet. First there's the cardboard wrapper, then the nasty plastic card itself--destined for the landfill as soon as the recipient uses it. Cash might be tacky, but there is no wasted packaging when you hand someone a $20. And you saved yourself $8--the $3 you would have had to spend to activate the card and the $5 more than $20 you would have had to spend because Visa or AmEx gift cards only come in increments of $25.

In the end, though, I insisted Wednesday give the girl a gift card, not cash, so I did leave the carbon footprint to the store and back, spent $25 instead of $20 (plus $3 to activate it)--and the supermarket cashier felt the need to put the cardboard-sheathed plastic card inside not just one but TWO plastic bags--a small one inside a bigger one, even though the only thing the bigger one contained was a bottle of Diet Pepsi and a pack of gum.

What would a BPE have done in this situation? On one hand, no self-respecting BPE would ever have their kid show up at a party with anything less than a Martha Stewart-esque wrapped gift with matching bow and card. Then again, don't BPE get bonus points for being green?

Eco=FIO

After much deliberation, I still haven't come up with a comprehensive list of resolutions for 2009, so I'm settling on just one: this year I'm going to become more "green."

The beauty of the green lifestyle is that much of it is just a way to turn what is really a bunch of fuck it off (FIO) ways into something admirable and PC. If you think if it, doing what's right for the environment is, in many cases, just the same as being cheap and/or lazy.

Examples:

1) Gift wrapping. Only enviro-haters who want the earth to turn into a fireball buy fancy paper that's sole purpose is to envelop a gift already boxed or otherwise packaged for a few minutes until it's disdainfully ripped off and thrown in the trash. The eco-friendly way to wrap a gift is to use newspaper or, better yet, just hand it to the recipient unwrapped and explain to him or her that you're being eco-friendly and forgoing wrapping paper. You will score bonus points for being green, and will have saved yourself not only the expense of wrapping paper, bows, tape and a gift tag, but the chore of actually wrapping the gift.

2) Holiday or Greeting Cards. So you forgot to send a friend a birthday card, or didn't feel like shelling out upwards of $25 for cards (who am I kidding--most people purchase custom-crafted holiday cards that cost several dollars each; the sky is the limit because, after all, Christmas only comes once a year!)? Should you feel like a rude, forgetful slacker? No! You should feel like an eco-hero, because you saved not only the money for the cards and postage, but the trees that would have had to die for that card and of course the carbon footprint that card would have left on the planet: the gas for the mail truck, the machines that process mail--it all adds up, you know. Instead, you can just send an email saying happy birthday (or holiday, or whatever)-I just saved a tree in your honor by not sending you a card.

3) Personal grooming.Showering: wastes water and necessitates the purchase of shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and whatever other accoutrements you personally like to add to your shower or bath experience. Deodorant costs money and contains harmful, cancer-causing aluminum and is encased in earth-killing plastic. God forbid you use the aerosol kind--don't even get me started on the carbon footprint and health hazard that is aerosol anything. Ditto toothpaste. Instead of wasting time, money and effort showering and grooming daily, limit showers to once or twice a week (hey, Europeans do it so it must be great), skip the surfectant-laden shampoo and other cleanser and buy a big slab of eco-soap that does double duty as shampoo and body wash. Skip toothpaste--baking soda on a finger is good enough and saves the landfills from being filled with used toothbrushes and empty toothpaste tubes. And so on--basically the dirtier you are, the closer to the earth you are, right?

Ok, actually, after writing #3 I realized that there's no way I can ever go green--I am way too vain and lazy to ever become an eco-vigilante of that magnitude. I'll stick to not wrapping gifts or sending cards and exploring the world of luxury organic grooming products from my friend's online store, Organically Happy. I do admit that I have recently tried two eco products and was pleasantly surprised that they turned out to be better than their chemical-laden equivalents: Filthy Farmgirl Royal Almond handmade soap and SensAtia Grapefruit & Avocado Body Balm.

Well, here's to another year of living the FIO life and loving it!

*Moral of this post: don't write a blog post while you're watching TV; I've already had two people point out typos and/or grammar mistakes in this post.

FIO Movie Recap 2008

Didn't get to the movie theater 50 times in 2008 like I did? Fear not--here are my reviews so you can plan your Netflix queue accordingly.

In an effort to stay true to this blog's FIO theme, I'm dispensing with any (ok, almost any) commentary and sticking to two categories: sucked or rocked. All caps means it REALLY rocked or sucked.

First Sunday--sadly, sucked
Cloverfield--rocked
Untraceable--rocked
The Eye--sucked
Step Up 2 the Streets--rocked
The Bank Job--rocked
Horton Hears a Who--sucked (can't compete with original)
Meet the Browns--don't really remember but I'm going with rocked
21--ROCKED
Flawless--can't really remember but I seem to remember it was good, so rocked
The Ruins--sucked so bad it rocked
88 Minutes--rocked
Forgetting Sarah Marshall--ROCKED
Deception--ROCKED
Baby Mama--ROCKED
Iron Man--rocked (Patrick would put that in all caps; it was his best movie of 2008)
The Strangers--ROCKED
Sex and the City--rocked
Zohan--rocked
Kung Fu Panda--rocked
The Happening--didn't totally suck but didn't really rock either
The Incredible Hulk--rocked
Wanted--rocked
Hancock--rocked, even though it got horrible reviews
The Dark Knight--ROCKED. Heath Ledger BETTER get the Oscar for it.
Step Brothers--ROCKED. Mimi's favorite movie ever--except for Baby Mama.
American Teen--SUCKED. This was the WORST movie of 2008. How do you make a documentary about teen angst boring? Well, this person did.
The Pineapple Express--ROCKED HARD. Started a heated dispute between Patrick and I; I SWEAR in the preview one guy says "It smells like pot's vagina." Patrick maintains he's saying "God's vagina." I'm sticking with pot's vagina, even though in reality he does say God's vagina, because pot's vagina is funnier.
Tropic Thunder--ROCKED
Death Race--ROCKED
Traitor--ROCKED
Burn After Reading--rocked
The Family That Preys--rocked
Lakeview Terrace--rocked (although verging on sucked)
Body of Lies--rocked
Righteous Kill--ROCKED
Semi Pro--SUCKED. Not funny at all; total disappointment.
Street Kings--ROCKED
Vantage Point--rocked
Transporter 3--basically sucked
Twilight--sorry, but SUCKED
Quantum of Solace--ROCKED. Too violent my ASS--it was awesome.
Four Christmases--ROCKED
What Happens in Vegas--ROCKED
The Day the Earth Stood Still--sucked
Benjamin Button--rocked (notice that isn't all caps; it wasn't that great and was VERY LONG)

Best movie of 2008? I'm going with Righteous Kill. How can you top De Niro and Pacino together?