I met Susan Niebur for the first time at BlogHer’09 in Chicago, but I already knew who she was – blogger, mom, planetary scientist, and cancer survivor. When Susan was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) – the least common and most deadly form of the disease – in 2007, fellow bloggers rallied around, forming Team Whymommy to support her in her battle against it. She won…that time. She had a recurrence of the cancer […]
Who’s ready for Election Day? I have an election-related post scheduled for Monday, but couldn’t wait till then to get on topic. For starters, which side of the red/blue divide do you fall on? You Are 35% Conservative, 65% Liberal Social Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal Personal Responsibility: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Fiscal Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Defense and Crime: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal How Liberal Or Conservative Are […]
Whatnot, just ’cause: I’m still over here waving my purple banner for Alzheimer’s – my Memory Walk is next Saturday, October 23 – but can’t forget that October is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Given the abundance of pink ribbons on all sorts of products in the stores right now, I’m sure you can’t forget it either. But think before you pink – some of the companies that practice “cause marketing” this month are actually […]
This essay was originally written for the now-shuttered Los Angeles Moms Blog in the spring of 2009. After a little editing, I submitted it to TheSmartlyLA, and it was recently posted there – but it’s never appeared here until now. It seems surprising that anyone would be surprised by the death of an elderly person – did I mention she was eighty-five? – and yet, her death did surprise everyone. As her youngest son said […]
I keep forgetting to tell y’all that I’m a contributor to TheSmartlyLA. It’s part of a new group of regionally organized writing sites (plus one “geo-neutral” one for writers outside those localities, and a forthcoming “anonymous” site), and its focus is the writing. I’m posting there twice a month. My first couple of pieces for TheSmartlyLA were based heavily on posts I’d done over here, but this recent one is all-new: She turned up in […]
Last Weekend (movie) Reviews: Twofer at the Theater Iron Man 2Action/Drama, 2010Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth PaltrowDirector: Jon Favreau While “origin stories” are interesting, I’ve found that when it comes to certain movie franchises, I like the sequels more. We know how the hero became who he (or she) is, and now we can just watch them do their thing. This is especially gratifying when the hero is facing a strong and equally intriguing nemesis […]
Scroll on down past the links for the Silliness of the Week! It shouldn’t take you too long to get there, since I’m a little light on linkage this Friday. It happens when I get behind on my blog-reading, which has definitely been the case this week (and it may be next week as well)! Posting in general may be lighter than usual next week, period, since I’ll be focused on preparing posts and doing […]
Would you consider auto-responding to blog comments? Sharing this post from Blogher.com sparked a brief Twitter conversation with Dawn (links to my “shared items” from Google Reader are automatically tweeted): TooFondOfBooks: @florinda_3rs interesting article abt auto-responders. I think non-bloggers might feel invaded, less likely to visit/comment again (IMO) what do YOU think of it? florinda_3rs: @TooFondOfBooks Part of me likes it, part of me might be unnerved if I got one. I think I prefer […]
I missed the tweet originally, but my friend Mike fixed that situation with a DM: Mjfrig: Pamie linked to your blog. You’re famous! 🙂 Wait, what? A quick Twitter search turned up what he was talking about: pamelaribon: Photographic proof I was at Nerd Fest. (And this girl does have a name like a beautiful nemesis.) http://tinyurl.com/34tu5st #LATFOB Never underestimate the power of the linkage, folks – or of Twitter, for that matter. Oh, and […]
I couldn’t come up with a Question of the Week this week, so I thought I’d tell you about something else we did this past weekend. Mini Movie Review: Date Night We saw Date Night last Sunday (in the afternoon, actually – ). The basic plot was kind of ridiculous, in my opinion. Unless a movie is clearly meant to be make-believe, I’m starting to lose patience with movies that have realistic trappings but premises […]
Question of the Week: Is Facebook becoming the new AOL? I have a pretty limited Facebook presence, but I know plenty of people spend nearly all of their online time there, and it seems to be getting easier to do that. Your friends and family are there, so you can keep in touch with each other via status updates, and comments on those updates can lead to actual conversation (of a sort). You can keep […]
Question of the Week: How much attention do you give to your blog stats – and do you talk about them? Earlier this week, book bloggers were invited to participate (anonymously!) in a survey concerning blogger/publisher relations that asks some questions about blog statistics – not just about your numbers, but about your willingness to divulge them. From what I’ve seen, some of us will provide them only on request, and some of us will […]
