If you missed the January issue of Good Times Magazine, check out our Rubber Side Down article Short Ride, Take it Easy. We have a regular column that appears monthly.
You can pick up an issue at the beginning of the month in a variety of places around town including Barnes & Noble, Hastings, Buffalo Wild Wings, Jason’s Deli, The Hemingway, Swensen’s, IHOP, Murray’s Deli, Strawberry Fields, Chili’s, Abuelo’s, The Garlic Press, Dos Amigos, and Blockbuster-just to name a few.
You hear about someone that “He’s a legend in his own mind” and you think in your mind “He doesn’t have a clue”. So admittedly, we suspect we really don’t have a clue, but in our minds we have reason to celebrate.
This very post you are reading is our 100th post! Yippee!!!! For a couple of kids who, most of the time, don’t know their head from a hole in the ground and certainly didn’t have any concept of how big the blogosphere really is when we started this blogging adventure, we figure we’re doing pretty good–for us anyway.
We started this thing in May06 with the idea of blogging about motorcycling and some of that we have done. But we have also evolved to include all kinds of other stuff. Notice we changed our tag line to read “an eclectic mix of motorcycling, media, mania or whatever suits our fancy”, which is really just code for “we have no idea where we are going with this deal, so let’s make up something that sounds intriguing”.
None the less, while other bloggers might be posting 3-4 times a day, we figure 100 posts in 9 months is good for us and sufficient reason to celebrate. And who better to celebrate with than our faithful an loyal readers who gave us a reason to keep on blogging in the first place.
I guess really what we have learned from this deal is that blogging is like most other things in life. If you just put yourself out there instead of trying to make it perfect first, you get alot further and discover some unexpected gifts along the way. In short, just start and let the creative process take you wherever you are supposed to go. It’s more fun that way.
Aside from celebrating our 100th post here at PigletPaper, we also have other news to share. Ronn has learned that his style is the nifty tips, tricks and cool stuff that he finds, so he is now authoring another blog called BeatnikBiker. Lisa, on the other hand, has learned her niche is the philosophical, life analogy kind of posts, so she is authoring another blog site called LifeWonderments. As the creative process has led us to branch out, PigletPaper will continue to evolve. We don’t know how or when, we just know we like it and we are keeping it.
And finally, we decided that we are really glad life is a process and not an event. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t get the opportunity to open so many presents that life delivers to our doorstep, sometimes in ugly wrapping paper, but always one day at a time.
I am a list maker. Or at least I try to be.
It is a habit that I am sure I picked up from my mom. She was always SO organized. She had working lists for all sorts of stuff. And boy, could she get things done! She seemed to always have whatever list she was working off of with her and easily accessible. A detail that sometimes escapes me. But that is where a new service from Gubb shows promise to me.
Gubb, a free service, appeals to my ‘inner geek’. Not only because it is web based but also due to the way in which you are able to utilize the service.
So what is it about Gubb that makes it worth mentioning here you ask? Well let me tell you. And thank you for asking, by the way!
Gubb (did I mention that it is free) allows you to create your list on the web. Which is not new or different. What distinguishes Gubb from other online list services is it’s accessibility, which is a function of each list that you create.
Each list that you create has it’s own email address. This allows you, or other’s if you wish, to add to your list as well as retrieve it. And with an SMS capable cell phone (one that can send and receive text messages) you can perform these same functions.
That means that the next time you make it to the grocery store only to discover you have left your list at home, you don’t have to try to remember what was on your list, only to arrive back home to find that you forgot the main ingredient of your planned culinary masterpiece. You simply whip out your trusty cell phone and text ‘get’ to the contact email of your list and, voilà , you get your list, as well as maintain a little of your sanity.
Sounds like fun, huh?
Enjoy!
Gubb.net [via Lifehacker]
Looking for a fun weekend project for the kids or grandkids? Or maybe even for yourself or the ‘grownups’? (Added because I am pretty sure that Lisa is dying to try this.)
This is the type of project that was much more common before the arrival of X-boxes and Playstations. So perhaps the ‘nostalgia’ effect is in play here. (Does that date me?)
Surf over to Paper Robots 1999 where you can find photographs, blueprints and instructions for building all kinds of paper robots. As well as accessories to go along with them. Some which are even of the ‘Star Wars’ variety.
Enjoy your inner child!
Paper Robots 1999 [via Lifehacker]
Another client testimonial….
Click here to read it!
Not to say that you would have a lot of old wine bottles laying around. But in case you do…
Try this project for turning old wine bottles into ‘chalk art’. I think it would work especially well (as shown in the demo) on odd shaped bottles.
Enjoy!
Chalk It Up! [Curbly via Lifehacker]
Have you ever wished that you could change cell phone providers but were stuck waiting for your current contract to run out? And doesn’t it seem to happen when you are about 4 to 6 months into a 24 month commitment? If so, you may want to check out Celltradeusa.com, where you might be able to find someone that is interested in assuming your current contract.
The folks at Celltradeusa state that they work with all the US carriers that require a signed contract. And they also state that the service providers are happy to assist you in transfer your contract responsibility to someone else.
And by the way, you can use the service on the other end as well. That is, to pick up a plan that someone else may not want anymore.
See the Celltradeusa site for more details.
Read an interesting article today one of my sis-friends sent to me. The article is called The Captioning of America and is about the editorial trend toward less content and more captions and sound bites. Being a fellow “wordsmither†myself, I found the distinction they draw between captions and sound bites to be rather interesting.
…captions aim to reveal, while slogans and sound bites tend to conceal.
Apparently, we are all getting to busy to read anything of length so the media’s response to this is less and less content. Which is all fine and well when we are talking about captions- that funny commentary accompanying a picture of a cat in sunglasses. But when we talk about sound bites, that’s sort of scary. Are we not demanding the media get to the point and thereby effectively giving them permission to tell us what they want us to hear?
To the average American, content itself is becoming obsolete. The world is increasingly just an index of what’s in it, conversation a distant derivative of things someone heard that someone read that someone said.
I mean really, how many times do we see people create controversy in response to a slogan or sound bite that is so brief it is out of context? All because we demand brevity. And how many times, have we done that? I am certainly guilty as charged, feeling like I get bombarded with so much information on a daily basis that it is a survival mechanism just to be able to filter thru it. When I get an email, for example, if it is very long, it automatically gets filed in the “Read Later†box, which most of the time doesn’t ever get read until my attention is called to it. Sometimes, I feel like I could spend my whole day just checking email. Unfortunately, that doesn’t pay very well.
So herein lies a problem. Where is the balance point between getting information in context and being able to digest it? Has the media not crossed an invisible line? And have we not crossed an invisible line on the other side of the spectrum? Do we not have somewhat of a “chicken and the egg†scenario here? Is this a classic case of the media’s response to our demands-demands that only when they are met we realize that is not really what we meant? Or is out-of context brevity the media’s extortion of our demands? Perhaps this is just merely the media’s attempt to compete for our attention in an over-cluttered, over-stimulated world?
I don’t really know, but perhaps the problem is even more fundamental than that. With all of the brilliant minds in this world, we might have quite simply just over-flooded the minds of consumers with too many choices. But whose responsibility does it become to adjust to this reality? Should we get better at filtering or should the media get better at filtering for us?
I don’t know. Perhaps a mind more brilliant than mine can put this all in context for me. But, I just can’t bring my commentary to a close without sharing the best part of the article with you.
A proposed replacement for the SAT, a test that assesses broader creative skills allegedly more predictive of college success, includes a section on caption writing. Brilliant idea. Writing funny captions for cartoons or photos calls on a wide variety of skills, among them the ability to read facial expressions, infer a situation’s emotional content, and express it in plausible, colloquial language that makes folks laugh out loud. These are far more useful life skills than correctly answering questions about a short essay on papaya production.
Maybe, just maybe, the problem is we are educating our nation on theories with not enough balance spent in practicum experiencing the application of those theories in the real world?
Maybe the problem is more complex than just one issue?
Your thoughts?
You may have noticed that Piglet Paper is undergoing some minor cosmetic surgery. Last night, we were doing upgrades and inadvertently lost some content and a few comments, namely just my Captioning America post. If you didn’t get a chance to read it and you really want me to rewrite it I will. Otherwise, I will probably just chalk it up.
So, as it is always the challenges that are measure of our growth, we know we are growing because neither one of us flipped out. And we have chosen to use this as an opportunity to do some of that minor cosmetic surgery that was probably long overdue anyway. So you will continue to see changes as we tweek and move. If there is a change in particular that you really like, please let us know.
One thing you will notice already is that we have added a section for Other Motorcycle Blogs. Hope you enjoy surfing others’ blogs. We sure do!
I don’t know if you saw this past Monday’s Midland Reporter-Telegram, but our little blog was included with all the other local blogs. Yeah! So we would like to promote other local blogs, too. Look for another section on Other West Texas Blogs in the not too distant future.
Peace. Happiness. Prosperity.
~Lisa & Ronn
Being a member of Motorcycle Bloggers International, we wanted to pass on this PSA about the upcoming Riders Choice Awards. If you are a fellow rider, we encourage you to follow the link and enter your own nominations.
Thanks!
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Riders Choice Awards - nominations are now openAre you tired of awards handed out by industry insiders? We are. Motorcycle Bloggers International (an association of, you guessed it, riders who blog about motorcycling) decided it was time that the riding public have a chance to express their opinions. So we created the Riders Choice awards. This is your opportunity to nominate and vote for your choices for the best and worst in the motorcycling world for 2006.
There are various categories for events, actions by a person or group and new products. Some examples:
- A rider’s dream - The dream ride, tour or event that given enough time and money you most want to experience.
- Object of lust - The production motorcycle of any model year that is desired above all others.
- Thumbs up - The person or organization who during 2006, made the most significant contribution to motorcycling.
- Best new in 2006 every day motorcycle - The production motorcycle most suited to commuting that was first delivered to dealers in 2006.
- What were they thinking? - The new in 2006 concept or production motorcycle, related product or other idea that is the worst idea of 2006.
Head on over to www.mbiweb.org to see all the categories, view nominations already entered and submit your nominations. Join us in letting the industry know what we, the riders, think. While you are there, sign up for an email reminder notice that will be sent when voting for the awards begins in February.
Help us make this awards program a success. Nominate and vote.
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