Chalk Therapy

This post was originally published on Medium and more of my work can be found over there @karenfayeth.

Salud!

Green Solo cup. I fill you up.

Happy Superbowl Sunday, ya’ll.







Ok, ok. There was only lemonade in the cup. And we were celebrating a friend’s birthday with the game on in the far background.


I’ve been inspired by red solo cups for years. This cheery green one just begged to be photographed.


Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth. Taken with my iPhone4s using the Hipstamatic app.


These Spammers Are Getting Pithy

Today, as part of my regular blog maintenance, I went into my spam catcher widget and took a look at what’s been caught.

I look it over because occasionally I’ll find a comment that shouldn’t have been marked as spam, so I like to check.

Usually it’s the normal stuff: Cheap Rolex! Pen!s enlargement! Xanex, cheap and easy!

To be expected, I suppose.

But today, I’ve noticed a bit of a change. An advancement.

Those comment spammers are getting smarter.

Here’s a sample of some of the actual comments caught in my spam queue. These completely cracked me up today. I’ve added what I’d respond if I was the sort of person who baited trolls:

“How do i delete everything on my laptop?”

Why, is the laptop stolen? Let me know when you find out.

“Why is my browser redirecting search results to fake search engines?”

: shrug : Sounds like user error to me.

“Whoever wrote this, you know how to make a good artcile.”

Why thank you! I think. Wait, what’s an artcile?

“The genius store called, they’re rnuinng out of you.”

Flattery will get you EVERYWHERE. Ok, that got my attention.

“And I thguhot I was the sensible one. Thanks for setting me straight.”

Good thing you’re not the spelling one.

“Please teach the rest of these internet hloiogans how to write and research!”

If only I could, darlin’, if only I could.

“Information is power and now I’m a !@#$ing dcitator.”

And what does that make me? I’m GOD baybee!

“I came, I read this atricle, I conquered.”

YEAH you did! Raaawwr!

“Free knowledge like this doesn’t just help, it pomrtoe democracy. Thank you.”

Wait. Can you both be a dictator and promote democracy?

“This free sharing of inforamotin seems too good to be true. Like communism.”

Wait, wait, wait. Are we a dictatorship, a democracy or communists? This is getting very confusing.

“Wham bam thank you, ma’am, my questions are anserwed!”

Buddy, this is not that kind of blog. Take your wham bam somewhere else.

“Boom shkalaaka boom boom, problem solved.”

Ok, maybe this is the kind of blog that boom shaka boom booms…hard to know.

“This piece was coengt, well-written, and pithy.”

Your comment, however, was not. Besides, who uses pithy anymore? And is coengt supposed to be cogent? Inquiring minds need to know.

“Brilliance for free; your parents must be a sweetharet and a certified genius.”

Why you gotta bring my parents into this?

“You put the lime in the ccoount and drink the article up.”

Best. Comment. Ever. In the history of this blog. All other commenters, take heed. This is the apex of comment glory!

You drink this article RIGHT up! That’s right you do! Drink it in!

“Great hammer of Thor, that is powerfully helfupl!”

Glorious right boot of Wonder Woman, you’re welcome!

“I could watch Schnidelr’s List and still be happy after reading this.”

Now THAT’s a compliment! Well done, commenter.

“I hate my life but at least this makes it berablae.”

My powers are stronger than even I suspected…..

“Four score and seven minutes ago, I read a sweet article. Lol thakns”

Ok, that’s kind of charming.

“With the bases loaded you struck us out with that awnser!”

A baseball metaphor *always* works with me….

“I bow down humbly in the presence of such gearnetss”

I am a benevolent God. Mostly.


Whew! Good stuff. Made it kind of hard to delete all those spam posts. Charm and wit will always win me over. Too bad they are still trolly trolls who live under mossy internet bridges.

And that means I still did what I had to do. Bye!





On A Mission

At the end of last week, my Big Boss (the boss who begat boss who begat boss) gave a presentation to us troops. An “All Hands” is what they call these events. “Quarterly state of the department” and stuff like that.

We have a new Very Big Boss and so Big Boss had just given him an overview of who and what we are about. The All Hands was scheduled so that Big Boss could show us what he presented. This was so we could, you know, live up to all of his promises.

As part of the presentation, Big Boss unveiled our new mission statement.

I hate mission statements. I really do.

But to his credit, Big Boss was able to take our former three paragraph run on sentence and bring it to a few lines. The lines still say meaningless things, but it’s at least easier to read.

So thinking about mission statements and writing mission statements and the sort of language mission statements use, I figured there had to be someone out there who created an online mission statement generator.

I was right. Many are actually serious affairs, trying to genuinely help business people crank out something useful. I didn’t want that. Then I stumbled across this Mission Statement Generator. It uses a slot machine interface.

Now we’re speaking my language.

First pull:

We probably should be hindering a high level of employee dignity by dedication to bribery discarding all principles.

Oooh. Bribery. I do like the idea of a mission statement that fully owns up to the magic of kickbacks in the business environment.

But then again, Mr Sarbanes and Mr Oxley to tend to frown upon such things.

Time to pull the lever again:

We are committed to providing unquestionable investor return with quality products and integrity of the highest integrity.

Ah yes, investor return always a popular phrase. And throwing quality and integrity in there….good stuff. Integrity with integrity? Sure!

Pull three:

We are dedicated to challenging world-class dynamic metamorphosis by expansion through personal goals at the highest level.

Ok, now we’re talking. “World class”…a full bag of yes! Metamorphosis! Good, good. Expansion? Who can argue with that? We’re getting close, but I think we can do better.

Last pull:

We are committed to generating the full range of our staff development with expansion through added value from the lowest level.

Ok, that’s just downright scary. I think our actual mission statement says something almost exactly like that.

Creepy when comedy blurs the line into reality.

: shudder :




Image from the fabulous Rob Cottingham and his Noise to Signal cartoons. This particular panel couldn’t be more perfect! Used under a creative commons license.


Round and Round

And the wheel goes round and round.
And the flame in our souls will never burn out.

– From “The Wheel” by Rosanne Cash

Round and round
What comes around goes around
I’ll tell you why

– From Round and Round, performed by Ratt


Yeah a little wide divergence in my choice of artists, but I’m trying to make a point.

A little hard to make a point in the middle of a blog post about round, eh?

Ba-dum-dum-*crash*

The point is, this concept of circular, round, spherical, wheel of fortune, karma, changing seasons, the big wheel keeps on turning is something that has intrigued artists, poets, philosophers and musicians for centuries.

So when yesterday’s Theme Thursday listed this week’s theme as round, well…I knew I’d surely have something to say about that.

Yup. Something deep. Meaningful. Profound.

Unh-huh.

Sure enough.

Profound.

Meaningful.

Insightful.

Right here. On this very blog.

Only…I got nothing.

I mean, I have ideas. A round of drinks, a round of golf, singing in rounds, that epic wheel of fate spinning round, the wheels on the bus go round and round, I ate too much and now I feel round, the earth is flat, no it’s round.

Sure. Plenty of ideas but nothing to say.

The minute hand travels around the clock. Hours days weeks months years pass by. It’s Friday again, the winter of my week. Time to look back on what I did, what I didn’t do and find a way to go dormant over the weekend. I need energy to fight the dragons when the wheel clicks ’round and it’s Monday again.

For the moment, the best I have to say about the word round is that it happens to be the shape of the cookie I’m about to ingest. While I munch, I will think about the meaning of life and the role chocolate chips have played in history.







Photo by kasey albano and used royalty free from stock.xchng.