I have a sinus infection…again! But thanks to facebook one of my very informed and well meaning friends just told me about a product I can use to kick this infection to the curb. Here’s the process:

1. I tweet about my misery via my facebook and twitter account
2. Friends leave well wishing comments and condolences
3. One friend in particular recommends a product she’s had awesome experience
4. I jump on Google to find the product, read ingredients, instructions, other customer reviews, and get a price.
5. I search engine where to find it in the REAL world.

while I was checking out all the specs for this amazing nasal flushing product I read one of the best reviews ever. I mean, this guy was fantastic! Funny, lyrical, illustrative…just a joy to read. He even wrote a haiku about an instant brownie mix! Freakin awesome.

God I love the Internet.

Producing regular content is a lotta fun…and a nice challenge…and sometimes a GODDAMN PAIN IN THE ASS!

*deep breath* phew! okay. lemme esplain…
See, I love creating content. Producing content that you folks want to and/or enjoy seeing is a interesting and welcome challenge. Learnin a whole lotta good stuff here. What bugs me is the finishing, uploading, and maximizing part…all the crap I gotta do to make sure it all gets out there and loads and has got all the tags and shit that takes forEVER and I’ve already just spent 2 hours making some decent stuff. Here’s the breakdown.

Joy: Recording a fun vid for youtube.
Challenge: Timing it just right
Pain in The Ass: uploading it for 1 to 2 hours each time :P

Joy: Writing an inspired and witty blog post for wordpress
Challenge: formatting in an nice readable way.
Pain in the Ass: getting photos, finding links, adding tags, categories and THEN publishing it…phew!

Joy: Taking a random self portrait for flickr.
Challenge: making adjustments in photoshop
Pain in the Ass: adding color changes, filters, getting rid of bullshit, sizing, saving and THEN uploading to flickr to then add titles, descriptions, tags, and send it to my groups.

Joy: Feedback and suggestions from REAL friends and new interesting people.
Challenge: working the lovely constructive criticism I get from you folks into my processes in a timely manner.
Pain in the Ass: spam, skeazy internet stalkers, and poopy comments.

Joy: Meeting new people virtually and in the “real” world.
Challenge: finding those new people on facebook so I can add their “friendship”.
Pain in the Ass: not hearing from some of them for weeks…*sigh*

Joy: sharing stuff from the REAL world
Challenge: linking stuff from the REAL world to the virtual world
Pain in the Ass: lighting…

Joy: The Internet (”that muppets video made my day!”)
Challenge: The Internet (”um…what’s the code for bullet lists again?”)
Pain in the Ass: The Internet (”oh no you did NOT just go down Internet!!!”)

Joy: ideas from my ever creative brain.
Challenge: producing from my ever creative brain.
Pain in the Ass: making sense of my ever creative brain.

Really though I am not stopping. It is ultimately too much fun and super interesting. Besides your continued feedback makes it all worth it in the end so I get back to drawing table again.

I bet you are super web savvy. I bet you’ve got a nice little collection of web profiles and accounts. You know just what is going on with them and how they all fit together. If your online persona was a painting what would it look like? The Mona Lisa perhaps? Well, mine would probably resemble a Jackson Pollack…only with bright pink shades. I am all over the web but it’s not entirely clear who the hell I am at this point. It’s a little crazy.

Here’s the current breakdown:

Web Profiles and Pages:

• 5 (?) Gmail Accounts – um….how do I justify all these…meh…I’ll do that later!
  3 Twitter Accounts – oh Twitter…I’m trying to get into you…but it’s such a challenge being a twit!

• 2 Wordpress Websites – 365daygirl is doing well, my other “girl” blog however gets slammed with spam.
• 2 Myspace Accounts – I don’t go on MS anymore…too creepy.
• 2 Facebook Profiles – one in married name (I’m divorced) the other in super fancy new name!
• 2 Yahoo Mail Accounts – 1 is spam. the other…was an a whim.
• 2 Youtube Channels – one is personal the other is all for YOU! :)
• 1 Digg Account – I really like DIGG…I just don’t ever use it.
• 1 Flickr Account – this has gone through 3 “username” transformations…I’m so wacky.
• 1 Yelp Account – great site that hardly any one in my state uses…*sigh*
• 1 This Next Account – another great site that I need to update
• 1 Shop Style Account – it’s like playing dress up…but it takes me hours to “play” with it!

My “Friends”…Real and Virtual:

• Facebook: 137 – I have more “guy” friends than “girl” friends which bugs me a little…even though I really like boys and a few in particular :)
• Flickr:49 – a handful are real professional friends, the rest are just cool people that take photos I drool over
• Wordpress: a bunch of friends have left comments. I’ve been bookmarked by some new people, but I don’t really know how many people are reading.
• Twitter – 300 something on “catthegirlguru”, and just a handful on 365daygirl since I have done much “tweeting”.
• Youtube – like 2 friends? 3 if I count myself from the personal account. lol
• Yelp – 15 friends…most of them from out of state.

  I could go on and on with this…but I’d rather hear about your webness :)
  So, whatchoo got goin on in your web universe? Is it working for you? Or do you try not to think about it all?

I have a question for you web users out there: How much does your use of your devices and your web profiles to express your interesting little self COMPARE to how much you use all that to screw around?

Folks be forewarned – I am one opinionated little missy but I say this all out of LOVE: *steps onto soapbox

Ahem.
Being in this here Information Age is a real challenge. An exciting one mind you – at least depending on how you look at it. I think those of us that are thriving within it know just how to rock the social media. Everyone else may just be cluttering up the net with virtual chatter. People we love too! It’s so freakin sad sometimes! I know it bums me out when I read more about a friend’s Farmville status reports then their actual life! Let me be a little voice of sense and reason here okay? Just because you are awesome at growing pixelated vegetables doesn’t mean all your friends care to know… each and every time you get a new sprout or rutabaga spouts up from the virtual ground. Does Oprah rock at Farmville? Hell. If. I. Know! Thankfully she doesn’t share those precious little updates with her fans on her web profiles.

I know I’m gettin on my high horse here but I just find it ridiculous reading about stuff that DON’T MEAN SHIT! So instead let me tell you how you can share somethin REAL and how it’s really not all that hard.

Things to Post: Links
This is the easiest type of content to post and it can still be unique to you. So go ahead and post links to all sorts of great stuff:
*Movies
*Events
*Clothing
*Toys
*Software
*Music

Things to Post: YOU-ness
You can also share the unique and weird stuff about YOU:
*Your wacky philosophies
*Your silly adventures
*Even your wisdom
*I suggest postin little 1 to 2 line blurbs in most things and then spilling all the juicy details in a big wordy blog post. NOTE: formatting things with headers and bolded text is FANTASTIC.

Things to Post: Comment Lovin
Share the love okay? Tell your friends you are thinking about them or compliment them or somethin. Believe me they need to know and it’s just super nice and cool.
*Wall Comments
*Blog Comments
*Share a link just for them
*Refer some cool resource
*Tell them their photos are cute and you want to see more
LOVE LOVE LOVE!
SHARE SHARE SHARE!

And THROW SOME MUD ON THE WALL. Do not get all preciously perfectionist about it. Otherwise you won’t learn anything and nothing will progress into something truly valuable. Chances are you won’t say, post, or upload the most perfect thing at first. But you will learn if you practice and allow yourself to get some golden feedback :)

Take me for example. I’ve decided to put my goofy ass out there and produce content at the most basic freakin level possible with this whole project.
*I’ve uploaded the most amateur photos from my sorry ass little webcam.
*I wrote my first blog posts on the generic little wordpress template EVERYONE starts with.
*And I’ve posted my videos with the lamest lighting I have available – including the creepy blue glow of my laptop.

All with the intent to show you fabulous people what this whole journey starts out like. And I have learned every step of the way and produce better content each time! Half the time it’s from people that are just wanting to be helpful and lend their expertise:
“Can I show you how to not take Myspace photos?” -says Anomaly Boy who is a genius with Photoshop.

Let me get back to Oprah here – she’s nearly Queen of the Universe right? Her first Twitter post was all in caps and Shaq had to be the well meaning jerkface to tell her that she was SHOUTING on the web. Maybe a tad embarrassing but INSTANTLY fixable. Just by pressing a button.

So Here’s Your ACTION List:
1. Do.
2. Screw Up.
3. Learn!
4. Make something Prettier next time!

Or you could be one of those fortunate souls that produces something brilliant your first try and everyone wants more more more!

Either way it’s easy as pie :)

Okay I’ll get off my soapbox here and get back to work.

Fashion obsessed girls, I have a question for you:
Do you dress fashion forward or do you dress feminine?
What’s the difference you ask?
Well one is more for yourself and to impress other women (Fashion Forward) and the other is dressing more to attract men (Feminine). So I suppose the real question girls is: Do you dress for men or do you dress for women?. Here’s another breakdown for you:

Fashion Forward is:
*dynamic
*bold
*cutting edge
*androgynous
*sexy in a high fashion model way ala “my cheekbones and clavicle bones can slice you in two!”
Think: Mary Kate Olsen (you know with her slouchy coolness and morbid hotness)

Feminine is of course:
*body hugging
*form fitting
*flirty
*pretty or cute
*sexy in a playboy bunny way ala “here’s my boobs, betcha wanna play with em!”
Think: Kim Kardashian (ever noticed that girls ass? it’s devestating! I’m sure it’s given J-Lo a marathon run for her money!)

Personally I veer slightly more towards men because I enjoy flirty with them and accentuating my femininity. But I also have a very strong creative streak that allows me to get all creative and experimental.

I promised to post links from my video so here they are for you girls!
Fashion/Makeup Links for the Ladies!
*Fashion: Veni Caprice: store on Etsy where I got my awesome revolver hoodie dresses.
*Makeup: < href="http://www.youtube.com/user/SarahVictor">Sarah Victor: does really fun and super informative makeup tutorials on youtube. You can also check out her facebook fan page (I just became a fan myself!).

Spread the social media joy and tell your girlfriends to look, read, or watch 365 Day Girl and I’ll post more girly goodness for you!

Pardon my stink. I forgot to put on deodorant after I got up and attended to Five Thousand Things At Once. Hey it happens. I’m not the smelliest of girls though so I didn’t notice until I cleaned out my purse and found a roll-on from Avon. Always good to put backup stuff in your purse girls!

Anyway…you ever notice how every Simpson’s episode starts out with one story for about a minute and then blossoms into this completely different story for the rest of the show? It goes from Apples to NOT oranges but politically ambitions sea urchins or something not naturally related?

I love that! So yeah, my deodorant has no natural connection to this post :) Other than it’s a mundane REALITY thing that I do often forget when I get wrapped up in being on the web or social networking. Cause hey! I don’t have to smell good while leaving a comment on your facebook profile! haha!

Anyway, today I gotta get back to my working reality. To like pay bills and shit. It’s been a frantic sort of week back and forth the web and my social life in the real world. Time to work so I can actually pay for all that stink pretty my underarms need and my real life friends appreciate me wearing :)

got some new vids up on my youtube channel: “girlgurutv” in case you are interested.

and leave a comment if you feel so inspired. even just to say “hello”. in fact if you leave just one word, ANY word in the comment box I will totally freak out with happiness and comment back to you and thank the bejeezies out of you on here or whereever :)