Ok, I give up! This blog is for now officially for tech bashing.
My gripe today... Yahoo!
What makes companies so big and mighty that they think you shouldn't be able to contact them, even when its clear they've messed up?
I pay them for a premium Yahoo! mail account which gives me a couple of email addresses, plus lets me download mail from other providers (you know all the stuff gmail gives you for free) but more importantly all those forwarding address that come into my account, I can reply and it appears from the address that I was emailed to.
So, I wanted to set up a new outgoing address today, so I can reply using a different address than my @yahoo.com address... but alas, their server hangs, in fact, Internet explorer tells me that their server doesn't even exist... this happens every time, no matter what I try.
Whats worse is I click on "Help" and all i can find is "Ask this question on Yahoo! answers" or stupid answers like, "make sure you're connected to the internet." - yeah because some other user is going to know why i can't add a second premium email address.
Well too bad, if I haven't got it fixed by the time i have to renew my subscription, that, as they say, is that.
UPDATE: now I get this right after login...
This is such a beautiful, beautiful post on marriage, friendship and partnership.
I can't believe I only just shelled out for the previous model, and they come and bring out this HD dream. I hate you archos.
http://www.archos.com/products/imt/archos_5/index.html?country=global&lang=en
Check out this magnificent post over at BitchBuzz! Just look at the magazine cover! Just look at it!
Demons exist, alright. Even if only in our minds.
A mind full of memories is like a minefield of memories.
That first brutality we never expected and didn’t know why it had come, the first loss of a friend we thought would be ours forever, that first humiliation at school, taunts of our peers or teachers, the first betrayal of love by our parents, or our best friend, or the person we thought was our “soul mate.” All of these shocks to our system, bring each of us our own singular demons.
And when we squelched these memories, we hope we’ve squelched our demons, too.
But, they’re just burrowing underground. Until something– a chance remark by our spouse, a careless cold glance by a co-worker– makes our psyches jump back, accidentally stepping on the wrong buried recollection, and it explodes our insides.
That’s when the demons come out and feed. No matter how strong we get, how valiantly we’re aware and work to defeat them, they’re always there.
On the days we’re strongest, they stay hungry, huddled and small, thwarted and disappointed. But, in our weakest hours– when the one we love doesn’t smile at us, when the words we wrote, the deeds we accomplished, weren’t good enough; when our bodies feel enfeebled by stress, or sadness, or lack of sleep, or hunger, or disappointment, or fear, those are the hours that make our demons sing their strident, discordant, gleefully wicked song.
They sing that that line on our face is not just a line, but the end of our youth, the end of our life. Or that the work we’re trying to accomplish will never be accomplished, because we’re failures, really. Or that our spouse’s seeming distance from us signifies the end of the love we’ve shared. Or even that the son or daughter whom we love desperately, who’s has his or her own demons is not doing well, and that’s our fault, too, because we’re such a useless parent.
On and on and on those demons serenade us these despairs and many more, louder and louder, until we can’t hear anything but their song. And then, finally, we believe in it.
We believe the five pounds we’ve gained that won’t come off looks like thirty, the stories we write, the music we make, the work we produce, are as worthless as we are; our friends don’t care about us anymore, the world we wish existed never will (and in many ways, that’s our fault, too), and the family we love is stuck with us, all the while, they’re wishing desperately that we were better, smarter, skinnier, prettier, more handsome, younger, more successful, more loving, more perfect, more Not Us.
Some of us become so used to the presence of demons, so secure in the misery they bring, that we don’t feel quite comfortable, quite ‘ourselves,’ somehow, unless we’re surrounded by them. Those are the ones of us who hang onto the backstabbing ‘best friend’, or the ‘lover’ who abuses us, or the boss who cheats us, because all three of these, we tell ourselves, “need us.”
And they do need us. They need us to feed on, just like our demons do. And we let them feed, because like the demons we created in our heads, we allow those people to lurk about and suck out our souls.
Sometimes all it takes is just one angel– just one, to help us fight. A kind word, a note of encouragement, a short praise, a smile. They all help keep the demons from winning, don’t they? We can even find our own angels inside ourselves, too, there beside the demons, who help keep those devils shrunk, through exercise, healthy food, meditation or prayer.
But there’s always that day, that one damned day, when angels of any kind allude us. That’s the day when we feel that we’d do almost anything to obliterate them, take that one drink, swallow that one pill, in the hopes of sleeping that one sleep we wish would last forever, in order to keep the demons away.
Yet, they continue to jab at us and jab at us, until we’re the ones hungry, huddled and small, and they are the ones soaring with triumph, their searing heat stoking the flames of despair, higher and higher until we are burned and consumed.
They can never go. Because they are always a part of us.
...And how was your week?
I am honored to call you both my friends.
Here's to you on your special day.
Aloha,
xoxo
Hi folks!
Just wanted to let you know that as of 3am this morning, BitchBuzz is LIIIIIIVE!!!!
While this is just sort of the bare bones of the design and functionality of the site, I'm still very, very proud of it.
It’s good to be back. My garden, after weeks of neglect, is once again blooming. Having a garden is just like having a life. You have to attend to it every so often, pull out the weeds, expose it to more sunshine and nourishment where needed, in order for it to flourish. I also had a remarkable visit around my growing VOX neighbourhood. It was impossible to leave comments everywhere, but I so enjoyed reading about everyone’s activities, seeing all the photos and artwork, hearing the music and musing over the poetry and stories. I’ve said it before ---what an extraordinary group of people, what a wealth of talent we have at our fingertips every day. It sure beats reality TV by a long ways.
Here’s something else I discovered whilst reading. Generations X and Y will save not only humanity, but the planet Earth itself. They are politically-involved and astute, they’re compassionate and global-thinking, they are street-smart and tech-savvy, environmentally-focused, entrepreneurial and optimistic. They have endless imaginations and boundless enthusiasm. They embrace their lives and their loves. They’re not easily defeated by the state of the world the way we’ve older generations have left it, either. I’m really, really thankful that we Baby Boomers didn’t completely screw things up for them. And let’s face it--- we’ve sure come close.
I don’t know what happened to many of us after we hit 40. We suddenly stopped worrying about our legacy to the younger generations, and instead focused on not getting wrinkles. We focus on our weight and our portfolios and not at all on our children and what they might be missing from their lives-- our leadership, our support, our encouragement and most of all, our respect for who they are and who they want to become. There is that portion of us who are that selfish and self-absorbed. The word “parenting” to many of us is a verb no different than “networking,” “exercising,” “investing.” We expect our children to be reflections of our achievements, rather than individuals with needs and dreams of their own.
Then there’s the group of us who sit around in metaphorical rockers and shawls, worn-out, remembering our youth and our one ‘big claim’ to immortality---Woodstock---wondering what happened to it all. That portion of us sighs and says, “We were so young,” as though having any values at all besides a longing for long-term health care and social security benefits, is naïve foolishness that disappears with the onset of menopause and swelling prostate glands.
What a picture we present to young people of their future ---shallowness or uselessness. No wonder so many of them feel anxious or depressed. And instead of addressing what they’re feeling, we quickly and remorselessly diagnose them---ADHD, bi-polar, social-anxiety disorder, etc. etc. Then we medicate them and continue with our heads in the sand, just waiting to die, hoping it will be quick and painless.
We let Gen X and Gen Y down. A good portion of us stopped worrying about wars when it would no longer be us specifically who had to stand in the way of the bullets.
I remember asking my husband about the invasion on Iraq, “Where are the musicians this time around? How come they’re not protesting?”
It was a fair question, I thought. Some of the same musicians from the 60’s and 70’s were still commanding huge audiences, so why were they not rallying as they’d done back then?
His to the point response made me cringe, “Volunteer army, Clear Channel.”
And even though the older generation retain most of the financial power in the world, we’re the ones whinging the most about rising fuel costs and real estate busts. Yet did we do anything to prevent either? Or were we as myopic as ever? Did we ever take the younger generations seriously as they protested and tried to educate us on what we were doing to the environment and to the economy? And ultimately, to them?
Furthermore, if I hear one more old fart professor bleat on about how hooked up Gen Y is to technology and how adversely it’s affecting his university classroom, I think I’ll hit him over the head with my new laptop that I’m just now figuring out how to use.
What alternatives have we left our young people? Where else can they find answers to their questions? They’ve come to us in the past and we haven’t helped them. So they‘re seeking guidance elsewhere, using technological advances as they should be used, for the most part—for the greater good. Oh, there are exceptions. There is the occasional young sociopath who wants to use YouTube to record the beating of a classmate. But the youth I encounter on a daily basis through VOX and through interacting with my own children is seeking knowledge and/or creating their art through the internet. They, like my unattended garden, are finding their own way to grow, but with just a little encouragement from us, they’d be able to thrive.
And those of us older folk who acknowledge them and embrace them, not only for what they are doing, what they are trying to accomplish, and for what they can teach us, are earning their respect. Yes, that’s right- earning it. (Read this blog to see what I mean.)
Youth asks us, with open hearts and open minds, to be both their mentors and their friends, and I for one, am eternally grateful to be invited to do so. Because like this man, this man, and this woman, (all admittedly over fifty) there still exists a portion of us of ‘a certain age’ who will go to our graves believing that idealism is not just for the young.
The flame of a visionary never flickers with time. In fact, it burns taller and steadier the closer it gets to the candle’s end.
(This post is dedicated to all my Gen X and Y neighbours, my sons, and my writers at Harlots Sauce Radio.)
On this very day, exactly two years ago, I started this blog.
And, I have to say, aside from marrying Iain and moving over to London, joining VOX and creating CupCate.com was the best decision I have ever made.
Without this blog, and without supportive, fabulous, good looking neighbors and readers like you - I don't know where I'd be.
Thank you so much for all of your support and for continuing to read and comment post after post.
You guys are so awesome, and have no idea how much you all mean to me!
Tonight I shall rub pink frosting all over my body and chug vodka in your honor.
In the quality weekly magazine that is Grazia this week is a debate over whether Sienna was in the wrong to begin an affair with married man Balthazar (isn't that the best name you've ever heard?) Getty. Two women put across their arguments for and against Sienna (including the wonderful Barbara Ellen) but I feel some things were left unsaid. Whilst Ellen makes the good point that Sienna has done no wrong (she was not in a relationship whilst cavorting with Balthazar) and that really it should be Balthazar that faces the abuse the other columnist comments that Sienna is in fact letting down all of womankind. I believe the word 'sisterhood' is used.
I have to say that my main issues with Sienna/Balthazar gate are,
1) How can you be so dumb as to have an affair in the public eye? Regardless of whether Sienna wants to claim it was an invasion of her privacy she LOVES the pap attention most of the time. Can't have your cake and eat it!
2) Oh another high profile man Sienna? How original.
I realise that many of you will argue you about whether Sienna actually does love the pap attention. But as someone that regularly trawls through paparazzi images, it's rarely a day went by whilst Sienna was with Rhys when they were not papped outside their 'North London home.' She is not an especially good actor, she is very attractive although continually argues against being a model so can't really hold that up in her defence, and she also wears nice clothes. Occasionally. Again, this cannot come to her defense as she regularly tries to distance herself from her Boho roots and who wouldn't have nice clothes if they had a stylist and endless wardrobe?
All of this considered, Sienna is essentially only famous because she sells magazines. People like to see what she is up to whether it be dating Jude, prancing around in an oversized Moroccan belt or partying in LA with Rhys. Which brings me nicely on to my second point...
Siens (ha) originally emerged in to our celeb-filled lives due to her relationship with the ever-receding hairline Jude Law. (Whilst we're on the subject of Law, is Siens attempting to be the male version of him? poor acting career - tick, series of relationships - tick, high profile affair?! - TICK!) She appeared to be very much in love with Law who foolishly ended the relationship by having an affair with his child's Nanny. This was awful and the whole world seemed to be in Camp Sienna shaking their heads at Law for being such a dumb-ass.
Next Sienna was rumoured to be linked with Daniel Craig amongst others before dating super-cool Rhys Ifans. Now although Rhys Ifans may seem like an unusual choice to boost Sienna's career, Ifans is a strong holder of the cool card and generally accepted as a cool, chilled out guy. He is the life and soul of a party (I imagine) and loved by the awfully-named Primrose Hill set. Kate Moss initially hated Sienna for going out with Rhys knowing that she would mess the poor Welshman around. Rhys made Sienna cool again, he made her seem like she might be fun and not at all uptight. He essentially got rid of her jolly-hockey-sticks image and replaced it with a cool-girl with a pint card.
Clearly she had to mess this up because she was "too selfish to settle down". And the rest, well, you know the rest. If I were Sienna, I would be planning my next move very, very carefully. Time for acting lessons perhaps? An over publicised bit of charity work?
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