K is for Twitter is Awesome - #AtoZChallenge #PhotoaDayApril

There once was a Kobold named Grembleschmidt.

Grembleschmidt (Image from Wowwiki.com

We shall call him Gremble.

Gremble lived under the stairs.

The stairs. No, that's not Gremble... pay attention. Gremble is a KOBOLD. That's Guinness. He's just fat.

He also loved Pickles, because who doesn't, right? But the Pickles he loved was actually a cat...

who didn't much appreciate the loving. Why? Well because Gremble loved to write Haiku and Pickles never could get those things right... 

Really, who can?

Plus, Gremble was kind of smelly (sad, but true).

Then one day Pickles was hanging out on Twitter and saw a nice (if a bit nutty) lady tweeting about Haiku. One click later and he found a blog post about Haiku and giving away a prize! (True story, just click the link. Do it. Really.)

So Pickles wrote a Haiku...

Twitter is awesome.

Really and for true. Just look!

I learned to Haiku!

And Gremble and Pickles lived happily ever after, under the stairs.

____________________________________

The moral of the story...

So there I was on Twitter and I end up in a conversation with @Jillsmo and @therobotmommy about Haiku... I'm not even sure what it was about really, but there was also mention of kittens and stomping. Something about a blog post.

As you know, I'm doing the A to Z Challenge and mused, aloud (if you will) that I needed to blog about K and Stairs (today's photo challenge). 

Seriously... one thing led to another and suddenly there was a Kobold. It was determined that every Haiku was only made better with Pickles. The kobold lived under the stairs and his love for Pickles was not returned. Names for the kobold were suggested, and @Larwe gave me a link to an entire discussion board thread on "Good Kobold Names". 

Oh, and then there was this video

And THAT folks, is why I love Twitter so much. 

My Ode to @BulldogBackup

After several years of backing up my computer about once a year maybe periodically, I decided to look into an online, automatic backup system. I stumbled across @BulldogBackup on Twitter and after checking out their website I signed up.

I am so glad that I did. Not only have they always been great to work with, but my computer died this week, taking my hard drive and thousands of pictures, songs, documents, history and dozens of other irreplaceable things with it. I tried to access the hard drive with my new computer... dead.

I would have hated to lose this picture
and about 12,000 or more like it. 

I cannot stress to you how important it is to get an online backup if you have digital pictures or other things on your computer that you wouldn't want to lose. In fact, earlier this week someone I follow on Twitter was very upset for just that reason - all her children's baby pictures were gone because her hard drive died.

I can already hear your excuses...

It's expensive... not really, Bulldog has very reasonable prices. Are your children's pictures worth $6.14 a month? Or $63.27 per year? I think so. And that's for unlimited space. Yes, you crazy picture-taking fool, unlimited.

It's hard to use... no, not at all. Yes, the initial backup took awhile, but the system allows you to throttle your upload and you can pause it if you need to and let it run overnight. Set up was a breeze and once you tell it what to back up, it automatically backs up new files and new revisions to existing documents. It even stores older versions. My system was backed up to right before it died - I didn't lose anything except the things I didn't tell it to backup (like my desktop - doh)

I backup on disk... that's great, but what if (God Forbid) your house were to burn down? Not only would your computer be gone, so would your backups. I think this thought alone was enough to convince me.

And the best part, their customer service is great. I was having problems today with restoring my files, so I emailed them. I got a response back almost immediately. They were very patient and helpful, and ultimately we got my issue resolved with very little hassle.

So seriously, get off your duff and get an online backup service. Do it now, don't wait until you have a problem. Some day you'll be so very thankful that you did it. I recommend Bulldog Backup.

Note: I'm not getting, or expecting, any perks for this post. It really is a great service, and deserves a "shout out" :)

I'm Famous Now!

Earlier this week my boss asked me to copy three change orders for him. I gave the originals and the copies back to him. He calls me three minutes later...

"I think there was a mistake, I don't have a copy of all of these change orders"

"Do you have six pieces of paper?" I asked.

"Yes."

"..."

"Can you go look on the copy machine?"

"Sure..."

Later he comes back and tells me he was mistaken, he had them all. I refrain from making any comment.

That night I relay the story to my husband who says "Behind every good man is a woman rolling her eyes."

So I Tweeted it... LOL and so far that tweet has been mentioned in three blogs! How funny is that? Even funnier that they didn't even know where it originated from.

First there was @BuildingMoxie's Blog: Behind Every Great Man Stands a Woman Rolling Her Eyes . . . Yes, Thanks @MrsPickle_ for One Great Title

Then I finally made it onto @RubySpikes weekly Top 10 post (it took a little lobbying): This Week in Tweets: Three Times as Nice

And then today I stumble over @ExtremelyAvg's blog: Tweeting is Easy

I love Twitter :)

Humorous Blogger Award

My dear friend Matt Conlon has awarded me the Humorous Blogger Award. He's such a sweetheart! His blog is funny and I love his IT cartoons. You should check it out.

The requirements are that I tell what impact humor has had on my life, and I must award the Cat's Ass to another blogger who I feel deserves it.

Humor has had a huge impact on my life. If you've met me, or even just know me online, you'll probably soon figure out that while I love to laugh, I enjoy making others laugh even more. I use humor to help me deal with difficult issues in my life and to help others with problems in theirs. Someone once said that if you're going to laugh about it later, you may as well laugh about it now. Life is ironic. It's funny. It's ruled by Murphy's Law, and long ago I determined that I would try to work with Murphy's Law and not against it. 

I've cracked jokes at funeral homes,while getting chemo and during the long hours of labor. I've made others laugh when I thought my world was ending, and brought laughter to times ruled by tears. Most times, I am the butt of my own jokes. That's who I am, that's how I deal with life.

There are several humorous blogs I follow...

This is not that Blog one of my favorites. Midget Man of Steel is another. I always enjoy Little Animation and Sarcasm 101. And there's the wildly popular Bloggess. Just to name a few.

However the blogger I have chosen to pass this award on to is my friend Tim, aka 12threefour. I love his writing style - super sarcastic and often completely off the wall. He never fails to make me laugh. Tim has also been a good Tweep and he is much appreciated by me. You should go check out his blog at http://www.12threefour.com/. 

Thanks Tim. And thank you again Matt :)

Twitter won't interfere with your work, and other lies

Once upon a time, not really all that long ago, personal computers were created. They were at once similar and vastly different than the computer - or perhaps mobile device - you're reading this on today. These were the dark days, before there was an Internet. Almost hard to believe, huh? Back then the closest thing there was to the Internet was something called a Bulletin Board System (BBS) which was run by a SYSOP (System Operator). Yes, they were dark days indeed.

Then came AOL. Chatrooms! We could converse with people from all over, it was incredible!

Fast forward to the dawn of Facebook. (Let's just skip over.. uh what was it? Oh, MySpace). Finally a way for lazy people to keep in touch with family and friends from all over. Not to mention build virtual farms and slay virtual thugs. And a place to share photos, or be tagged in photos, that you'd really rather your mom didn't see...

Holy cow, your mom is on Facebook! And.. shit.. so is your dad. 

Then businesses started to show up on Facebook. Who follows businesses on Facebook? Pfff.. wait... they offer cool stuff? OK, I'm in.

Why yes, I do want to be the Featured Oreo Fan of the week...

Best Buy? Let's bash on them publically! Oh hey, they actually repond. Wow.

Then came Twitter. What the heck is a Tweeter? Your mom isn't there. Neither is your dad. But @ShitMyDadSays is... and he was so popular he wrote a book.

I have a copy. So does your dad, who we all know rarely says anything worth publishing. Oh well.

Twitter. Mini-blogging. Who the heck wants that? How booooooring. Hey wait... there are some pretty cool people on there. Ok, I'll try it. Hey... this isn't so bad. I got tech support from my phone company - holy cow! Maybe there's something to this.

And so it begins. You've discovered Twitter and suddenly it's like you found the back door to a secret club full of really cool people. Even for a complete geek it can initially be intimidating, and then someone follows you. Eventually they retweet you. You're hooked. Got to get to 100 followers. Then 200. Then 500.

Your mom asks you about Twitter. You tell her there's a monthly fee. She's not interested. Yes!

Then you tell your boss that your company should totally be on Twitter. "What's a Twit?" he asks. You try to explain. You try again. You give up and ask him to trust you. He tells you to go ahead, but don't let it interfere with your other work. You assure him it won't. We all know that was a lie. That's ok, you're not alone.

Welcome to the Age of Twitter. If you're lucky, you'll meet some great folks who will support you, entertain you, help you, tutor you and ultimately make you wish that you all lived on the same block.