peaces

If you’re keeping up with my YT videos then you’ve probably seen this BlogTV Comedy Spoof collab video we did with a bunch of other YouTubers. I’m posting the link in case you missed it. This is the kind of project that makes me wish for better editing software and a more powerful computer. Yes, it’s time for both. I’ll get there.

Even if you’re keeping up with my YT channel, you still may not have seen the following video by vanillawave4peace (I call her Niller, as in ‘nilla). She, PBX and I had breakfast with one of our favorite YouTubers last week: SHAYCARL. He was in Los Angeles for business and was able to squeeze a few free hours to visit with us. So you know, he’s as charismatic, personable and intelligent as his online personality.

The following video is Niller’s concept. PBX and I helped with production but that’s about it. Niller edited the entire thing herself. It’s really good - and so funny! You can watch it here but if you have a YouTube account, please click the link to leave her a comment on the video. She would love that! This stuff isn’t easy. And she made it look really easy.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH: MY SHAYCARL LEFTOVERS

or watch it here.

Okay, let’s try this again. Last week I announced that I was going to be live on BlogTV.  I posted that announcement everywhere - my blog, my aol journal, twitter, youtube.  I even tacked a few flyers on lampposts by my house.

I took a quick dip in the pool and dried off, relaxed and ready to go live when BlogTV decided to punk out.  I got emails and IMs about “I can’t get in!!” and “It won’t load.”

I know.  Same happened for me.  It just wasn’t in the cards.  We bagged it and went to stickam instead. It was fun but I’m still determined to make my BlogTV show work.

So I’m taking the plunge again and I’ve scheduled another LIVE SHOW - THURSDAY at 8PM PDT (11PM EDT).

I’d love to see you there!  You don’t have to be a member and you won’t have to get on camera.  You have the option to chat via text.  But you wouldn’t even have to do that.  You can be a creeper-lurker like many who’ve come before.

If you’re interested in knowing about spur-of-the-moment, and other scheduled shows, you can click this link to go to my page now, create a user-name and click SUBSCRIBE.

You can also get alerts if you FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER.

QUESTION: If you are interested in seeing a show, what’s the best day and time for you? Please remember to be specific about your time zone.  (I may turn this question into a poll in the near future.)

Thanks all. Hope to see you live in BlogTV!

Is it sad that I want all my blogging friends to start vlogging?  Don’t you guys-n-gals know how much fun we’re having?  I can hardly stand it!  C’mon, pleeeeeez.

Donna’s doing it! Right Donna?  I’m linking to her blog.  From there, you can check out her YouTube channel.  She’s already done two vlogs and getting warmed up.  I’m LOVING IT!

PBX is even vlogging!  She started a blog ages ago and updates it regularly - every four months or so. (ahem)  But so far, this vlogging thing is a hit with her.  And she’s good at it.  Not to mention, her daughter, who already has over 30 subscribers on her new channel.  She’s really good at this stuff.  Go vanillawave4peace!

Come on … who’s next?  Heather? Becky? Shelli? Gigi?  OK, the last one was a long-shot, I know. But hey, a girl can dream can’t she?

Coming up: Live video shows!  Oh yeahhhh!!  A place where you don’t have to be on camera but you can interact with the host and guests in the room, via text chat.  We’re having so much fun, it’s exhilarating and exhausting! I’ll keep you posted.

Did I mention the fun I’m having in pockets of YouTube communities? Some of us follow each other on Twitter. Some are Facebooking and MySpacing. And some have come to my blog (hi YouTubers).

My MySpace comments section was receiving too many very large images that warped the alignment of my page. They were also filled with blinkies and other pimped out bling. Because of them, my page was slower to load than usual. MySpace is slow and bogged down as it is. So I disabled the html feature a long time ago.

So, my new friend RavenSinger sent this one to me. It belongs here more than that other place anyway. Thanks Raven. So far it’s been quite an exotic week.

We skated at the beach two days in a row. I’m sore and tired but I feel blessed to be in this town. There’s nothing like the beach on a weekday evening - especially a foggy/cloudy day. We practically had the bike path to ourselves.

Then we stopped for a fresh smoothie at our favorite new place over there. Playa del Rey is becoming my new favorite area around here.

I’ve been a long time user of Bloglines as my RSS feed reader. I’ve relied on Bloglines to keep track of my favorite blogs and their new posts. It’s a great service that helps me organize my daily or weekly reads. But because it’s so easy to add a subscription (RSS feed) I’ve begun to use it as somewhat of a catch-all storage bin. When I see a blog or an individual post that I think I might want to reference later, I click subscribe and move on.

So you can imagine the piles of subscriptions just sitting there, in this bin. I’ve lost track of so many bloggers over the years. One of the things I’ve been trying to do this year is be a better friend and check blogs on a more regular basis. Now with other social sites like Facebook, Twitter and my recent dive into YouTube, it’s even more challenging to stay connected to those who aren’t making use of these great sites.

So…

Some of you might have noticed that I recently subscribed to your blog via email alerts. Thank you, first of all, for offering email subscriptions. I am way more likely to click an email link and read/comment on a post than I am to open my feed reader and click through piles of blogs for more than ten minutes. If I get a single email with your post, it’s not as overwhelming as feeling the pressure to sort through piles of backed-up entries on an external site.

I just can’t be trusted to remember to look in my feed reader. I’m that scatterbrained - sometimes. A whole day can go by and I might even have had moments of boredom. Still, the end of the day will arrive and I’ll be like, dammit, I didn’t read blogs today! But thanks to Twitter, I know what Charles Trippy had for dinner. No offense to Trippy but there’s a serious imbalance there.

So if you have a blog please let me know how I can subscribe to the email alert. Some of you don’t have that option on your sidebar - maybe because you haven’t set it up. No worries. But if you’d like to email your post to me, as it’s posted, please do that. Better yet, let’s follow each other on Twitter and you can tweet the link to your new post each time. Otherwise, be patient and go easy on me. I have you in my feed reader. I just may forget to open the storage bin.

Peace & Love All

Donna from Along The Way left this great comment in a recent Peaces entry abut Best Survivor Season EVER:

We should go on Survivor and form an alliance. I’ll learn how to start a fire BEFORE we go and you can learn to catch fish with your bare hands. When we get back we will have some kick a$$ blog entries. Bet I’ll have readers then! Even if I was voted off first, lol!

I love it!  Makes me wonder why folks don’t learn how to start fire and catch fish before they get to the island!  Especially these “die hard” fans and folks who submit applications every single season.

I think there should be a new season of Survivor filled with contestants who HAVE NEVER SEEN THE SHOW.  They’d have to go by what they’ve heard or not heard.  I mean, come on, how fun would that be???  Like the first Survivor all over again — but with some knowledge of the whole idea of reality tv.  Even if it’s unconscious knowledge.  It’s out there.  (Fuck. I’m brilliant!)

As for the last part of her comment about having some readers of her blog - it really blows my mind how some blogs are at the top of the hits-list and how others are like silent goldmines.  I’ve known Donna as a blogger for almost five years.  We’d lost touch as many of us switched from the small pond of AOL Journals to the vast oceans of the world wide blogosphere.  Many got swallowed up and it’s not been the same.

But when Donna found me again, I was thrilled (thanks Donna).  Her new(ish) blog is personal, honest, inviting and funny.  I wish every mother would take note of Donna’s love for her grown kids.  And OMG the dogs! You’ve got to see the video of her Yorkie trying to walk by her bigger dog (golden retriever maybe?) — The big dog couldn’t care any less about the little guy who is talking up a storm.  So funny and cute!  Such a Yorkie thing.

Ok, enough. I’ll let you see for yourself.  Give her a visit and let her know we’re reading.  I would hate to see her give up just because she thinks no one’s around.  It’s not our fault she can’t read her blog stats!  (love you Donna)

Along The Way - Donna’s Blog

Some of you have seen the little box in my sidebar that answers the question: What Am I Doing?  Many of you know what that is.  Some of you don’t.  Hell, I didn’t know what it was for the longest time.

Twitter is basically a microblogging site that allows you to post updates in 140 characters or less.  That’s it.

When I was first introduced to Twitter, I went blindly and created an account as instructed.  I posted my first tweet (that’s what they’re called, probably because it sounds a lot better than twit.)  Then I just kind of sat there, waiting for something to happen.  Unsurprisingly, nothing happened.

Then I searched for other tweeters in my email address book.  I found two and followed one.  Then I saw a fellow blogger’s update on her sidebar. I followed her.  For a while, there were just a few of us.

Suddenly - and I mean suddenly, as if it was the very next day, there were loads of third-party applications that helped me make sense of Twitter.

Then just last week I found an interesting social media guru and clicked to follow him.  A moment later I received an email saying he was following me.  And a moment after that, I received another email congratulating me on being his 1,000th follower and that he had recently promised to feature his 1,000th in his blog.  He did - along with all 999 others -  the guy goes crazy with linkage! It’s awesome.

And now, there’s no going back. I’m addicted.

I’ve made use of the third-party sites to help streamline some things (and of course, I’m still learning).  Like, making tiny url’s to announce a new blog post or interesting online article, and tweeting photo links from my phone.  Yes, I can tweet from the road.  I can tweet a picture of traffic, an accident, a beautiful rose garden or a picture of the actual suit worn by Robert Downey Jr. in the movie IRONMAN.

The other great thing is I can reply to others and vice versa.  Once that starts, there’s potentially no end.

Thanks to Twitter and those I follow, I’m keeping up with news, politics, learning more about social media and finding new music to enjoy. And seriously, that’s just today - and it’s all right there, in one place.

So come join the fun. Or at least check it out.  After you create an account, be sure to go to settings and allow all replies — that way if someone you’re not already following replies to one of your tweets, you’ll get to see it and have the option to follow and/or reply back.  Yay for community.

Useful Info

Replies in Twitter begin with the @ symbol.  So if you were to send something to me from your account on twitter.com, you would put this before your text: @freeepeace

You can tweet from the twitter.com site, IM, phone or any of the 3rd party applications like a browser toolbar or desktop tool. Whichever works best for you.

There are many options for website/blog widgets (like the one in my sidebar). Choose and customize yours.

There’s (of course) a facebook application too.

Helpful Links

Follow me on Twitter 

Create Tiny URLs from Firefox

Upload pictures using twitpic 

Follow any Twitter conversation with Quotably

Awesome video: Twitter In Plain Language 

I’ll post more useful info / helpful links as time goes on.

If you have a favorite link or application, or just want to share twitter stories, leave them in the comments. I’d love for this post to be an ongoing Twitter resource.

Whaddya say?  Do you twitter?

I was suddenly struck down by some bronchial thing Wednesday night. Well, more like Thursday morning.  It was about 12:45 AM.  We were watching Will & Grace and mid-laugh, I burst into a spastic coughing fit that sent me gagging over the toilet. I know. Nice huh?

My chest and lungs were convulsing.  I just couldn’t pull myself together.  No warning. No idea what caused it.  I had to take some heavy-duty cough syrup that knocked me out cold.  I barely sat up on Thursday morning and the whole scenario started again from the beginning.

Because of this I missed a whole day of work.  Dammit.

I didn’t start to breathe normally till Friday night.  I still have an intermittent cough so I’m not out of the woods yet.

Today, it was blazing hot again.  Strange actually.  We had record-breaking hot temps two weekends ago.  I’m not talking about a degree or two.  We broke records by ten and twelve degrees in some areas.  It was brutal.  But last weekend it was in the 60s (if that) all weekend.  Kinda cold for this time of year.  Well, here we are at 90+ degree weather for another weekend.  Is this going to be an every-other-weekend deal?

I heard some areas got more snow yesterday.  Seriously, that’s craziness.

We’re looking at air conditioners.  Anyone know of an A/C that will fit into a lateral sliding window?  It’d be great to find one that’s tall and thin.  Just asking.

There’s a small film crew in our house again.  Pick-us from the same film we worked on a month ago.  Just getting shots we didn’t get.  Still, it’s turning into an all-night shoot again.  Geez guys, come one already.  Piper can only do so many takes of the same shot.

No worries.  It’s the nature of the beast.  I’m excited to see what they come up with.
Anyone know anything about Squidoo.com?  Just curious.

I discovered Noggin today, a Facebook application that I could get addicted to.  It’s similar to Boggle. I’m a huge Boggle lover. Huge.  I usually go out of my way to find games similar to Boggle but this one just jumped out at me.  You play againt other Facebook members. So fun, frustrating and addicting.

Other online Boggle-like games I totally love: 

Babble -It’s a 5×5 grid with letters.  You have 24 hours to get every single possible word in the grid.  Very fun.  There’s a chat and people will give you hints if you get stuck.  You can play for free for 14 days and get all the clues you’d get if you paid.  After 14 days you’re encouraged to pay 15 bucks for a lifetime membership.  It basically keeps the site running.  We love it.  It’s a relaxed way to play a word puzzle game.

WordSplay - the successor to WEBoggle - Another great boggle-type of word game.  Options of 4×4 or 5×5 grid.  You can play as an individual or team.  3 minutes to type all the words you can possibly find.  If you get stuck and slow down, click on the grid to spin the tray to get another view - a great feature!

I guess I’ve covered a lot (too much) in one entry.

Perfect timing:  THAT’S A WRAP!  The film crew is packing up.

It’s the week of tags I guess.  I was tagged on YouTube and here in the blogosphere.  In this game I was tagged by Heather. Yay.  I know it can get old but I love things that promote interaction with the community and bringing people together.  Or just having one-way conversations with myself.  Same thing sometimes.

Okay, here we go…

Here are the rules

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So here are my 7 random and/or weird things:

7. Since taking my nosering out for a film shoot I have not - and probably will not - put it back in.

6. Before becoming a dog walker I was afraid of dogs.

5. I’m deathly afraid of balloons.

4. When my hand is held flat, my pinkie finger doesn’t touch my ring finger.

3. I’ve grown one inch taller and one whole shoe size in the last three years.

2. I’m more afraid of mosquitoes than black widow spiders.

1. I’m a big-time consumer at heart - like, if I had a lot of money I’d buy the best of the best electronics (camcorder, didi-cam, pda/cell phone, computer, game consoles, flat screen tv, etc.)

And the 7 people I tag:

Robbie   -  Gigi  -  Becky  -  Lori  -  Amy  -  Ginger  -  Donna   -  PBX

If you haven’t heard, that’s my new mantra. I’m spreading the word.

For the past few weeks I’ve been watching kids young enough to be my biological children take the world by storm on YouTube. They are YouTube partners - professional vloggers, if you will. They have die-hard fans and hard-core marketing skillz. Most of this based solely on their age.

I’d been thinking I was born in the wrong era. I love the online social network atmosphere. I can’t help it. It moves me. It inspires me. It sickens me.

All this time I’ve been worried that I don’t fit in, that I’m too old to participate in these communities, that there isn’t a place for me and others my age. That is until yesterday when I was randomly led to this woman’s channel I had never seen before. She’s fun and vibrant. She has a pretty big following. She is a YouTube partner. The only difference between her and these others: she’s (self-proclaimed) old, and proud of it! (between you and me, she still has a few young years left in her)

While I won’t officially qualify for old status until May 23rd at approximately 9:46am PDT, I am embracing the title early to get the ball rolling.

So no more filters on the wrinkles. No more denying the gravitational pull of extra skin around the chin. No more obscurely placed furniture to hide flab.

That doesn’t mean I’m letting myself go. On the contrary. This is about owning the sexy that comes with age: maturity, intelligence, wisdom, knowledge. THAT’S HOTT!

So if forty is old then OLD IS THE NEW HOTT!

NOTE: There will be a video to follow, but I just came from the dentist and I still can’t form words correctly. I’m old. Not stupid.

UPDATE:  Here’s the video!