Mar 29, 2011
Moving!
Hey all, I have moved over to my new URL at zchamu.com. This blog won't be updated any longer, but all the content has moved over there as well as all new awesomeness that's getting added. See you there!
Jan 14, 2011
Out With The Old.
At night I still have dreams about that mall, about that store. It was such a part of my youth that it’s actually burned in to my brain. I still distinctly remember walking up to the entrance and going through the big double doors. Straight ahead and a little to the left was the Womens and Girls clothing section, where I’d scour for hours to find clothes and try them on in the cramped, rickety changing rooms with pins on the floor. If you walked down the aisle to the back corner, you reached the toy section where I would inspect the Barbies and determine which one was the best value for money. In the other corner near the mall entrance there was a restaurant, I think it was called the Skillet, even though I never knew what that word meant. I still remember sliding in to the wooden booths and eating the hottest, crispiest french fries and golden triangles of fish, served by women who called me Dear. Next to the skillet was the pet section where I bought my first – and many subsequent replacement – guppies and neons and goldfish.
Read the rest of this post at my new home.... zchamu.com
Dec 7, 2010
The Ottawa Stroller Saga
Hey. Remember this?
Well, it's rearing its ugly head again.
A woman with a baby in a stroller ws ordered off the bus back in to the snow in order to make room for a wheelchair.
I've ranted about this at both the Bad Moms Club and at Care2.
Because I feel strongly about this.
This isn't just a "usability" issue.
This is a fairness issue.
This is our society penalizing people for daring to procreate. Because if you have a kid, don't you dare let that kid inconvenience me in any way, you selfish, irritating mother.
Yes, of course, people who use public transit or any other service where space is limited should take that in to consideration and prepare appropriately. Smaller strollers. Babywear. Plan to travel at less busy times if you can.
But failure to use a small collapsible stroller, or to wear your child in a sling, or to dare to travel at rush hour, shouldn't mean ejection from public transit. The fact that it does mean that is extremely troubling.
We're picking on the smallest and weakest in our society. Kids. Stay outta my way, kid. You're only welcome if you don't inconvenience me. Or anyone. Go away.
Stop it.
Can we just have a little common sense and courtesy here?
Seriously.
Strollers aren't the devil. Neither are mothers. Stop treating them as if they are.
Well, it's rearing its ugly head again.
A woman with a baby in a stroller ws ordered off the bus back in to the snow in order to make room for a wheelchair.
I've ranted about this at both the Bad Moms Club and at Care2.
Because I feel strongly about this.
This isn't just a "usability" issue.
This is a fairness issue.
This is our society penalizing people for daring to procreate. Because if you have a kid, don't you dare let that kid inconvenience me in any way, you selfish, irritating mother.
Yes, of course, people who use public transit or any other service where space is limited should take that in to consideration and prepare appropriately. Smaller strollers. Babywear. Plan to travel at less busy times if you can.
But failure to use a small collapsible stroller, or to wear your child in a sling, or to dare to travel at rush hour, shouldn't mean ejection from public transit. The fact that it does mean that is extremely troubling.
We're picking on the smallest and weakest in our society. Kids. Stay outta my way, kid. You're only welcome if you don't inconvenience me. Or anyone. Go away.
Stop it.
Can we just have a little common sense and courtesy here?
Seriously.
Strollers aren't the devil. Neither are mothers. Stop treating them as if they are.
Nov 25, 2010
It figures.
It took me 16 months to agree to this vacation. A vacation without the baby.
I mean, I've been away from her before for overnights, but most of those times she's been left with Daddy, and when my daughter's with Daddy it's almost like being with Mama, he knows her moods and her quirks and her routines and she loves Daddy like she loves Mama, so when she's with Daddy I don't worry, I just miss her. And the one time Daddy wasn't there and she was with Grandma, I was less than an hour away via car and I could get there, get there easily if anything untoward happened, which it wouldn't, but if it did I could totally get there, Mama's right here.
But this time, this time we were going to be far away, a 5 hour plane trip, and I can't get there at the drop of a hat, and besides, my brain says, we're a family, why are we not taking family vacations? Because she's a toddler and a vacation with a toddler really isn't a vacation, it's the same routine and necessities of life, just in a different place, so we'd be paying $200 a night to do exactly the same thing we do at home, and we're grownups and we need a vacation, especially me who has not in fact slept an entire night for over two years. So I knew I needed the vacation but I didn't want to go, I didn't want to go so far away, and I stalled and stalled and stalled and hummed and hawed and put it off until my husband put his foot down and I finally agreed. But oh, I miss her, and it doesn't feel natural to me to be so far away from my baby, but off we went, and it is good for us, and soul affirming, and relaxing, and it's reminding us that we're adults, and we actually like each other and got married for a reason, reasons we sometimes forget when we're knee deep in Elmo and diapers, and this vacation is just what we needed, except.
Except, my beautiful daughter caught a cold last week, and the night before we got on the plane I woke up at midnight with a sore throat and chuckled to myself as I thought are you fucking kidding me, and then I willed myself to pretend I was healthy, I am not getting sick, I am not getting sick, I am not getting sick, and then I woke up that morning without a sore throat and felt triumphant, my mind over matter hippie mojo worked. And then we got on a plane and we flew to Vegas and we were at an expensive dinner with expensive food and expensive wine and my nose started running and it hasn't stopped. I'm sick. Plain sick. In Vegas. And so we go for gourmet dinners I can't taste, and for walks along the Strip to buy kleenex and non-pseudoephedrine-containing-drugs, and we return to the hotel room midday for naps not out of luxury but out of necessity.
And all I can say to that is?
Doesn't it just figure.
I mean, I've been away from her before for overnights, but most of those times she's been left with Daddy, and when my daughter's with Daddy it's almost like being with Mama, he knows her moods and her quirks and her routines and she loves Daddy like she loves Mama, so when she's with Daddy I don't worry, I just miss her. And the one time Daddy wasn't there and she was with Grandma, I was less than an hour away via car and I could get there, get there easily if anything untoward happened, which it wouldn't, but if it did I could totally get there, Mama's right here.
But this time, this time we were going to be far away, a 5 hour plane trip, and I can't get there at the drop of a hat, and besides, my brain says, we're a family, why are we not taking family vacations? Because she's a toddler and a vacation with a toddler really isn't a vacation, it's the same routine and necessities of life, just in a different place, so we'd be paying $200 a night to do exactly the same thing we do at home, and we're grownups and we need a vacation, especially me who has not in fact slept an entire night for over two years. So I knew I needed the vacation but I didn't want to go, I didn't want to go so far away, and I stalled and stalled and stalled and hummed and hawed and put it off until my husband put his foot down and I finally agreed. But oh, I miss her, and it doesn't feel natural to me to be so far away from my baby, but off we went, and it is good for us, and soul affirming, and relaxing, and it's reminding us that we're adults, and we actually like each other and got married for a reason, reasons we sometimes forget when we're knee deep in Elmo and diapers, and this vacation is just what we needed, except.
Except, my beautiful daughter caught a cold last week, and the night before we got on the plane I woke up at midnight with a sore throat and chuckled to myself as I thought are you fucking kidding me, and then I willed myself to pretend I was healthy, I am not getting sick, I am not getting sick, I am not getting sick, and then I woke up that morning without a sore throat and felt triumphant, my mind over matter hippie mojo worked. And then we got on a plane and we flew to Vegas and we were at an expensive dinner with expensive food and expensive wine and my nose started running and it hasn't stopped. I'm sick. Plain sick. In Vegas. And so we go for gourmet dinners I can't taste, and for walks along the Strip to buy kleenex and non-pseudoephedrine-containing-drugs, and we return to the hotel room midday for naps not out of luxury but out of necessity.
And all I can say to that is?
Doesn't it just figure.
Nov 12, 2010
Syndication!
Awesome news - I've been syndicated over at BlogHer! My post from last week, The Great Unsubscribe of 2010, is now available there. Check it out!
Nov 10, 2010
Amazon and moral codes.
There's a pedophilia guide for sale on Amazon.
Today, many, many people heard about it. And many, many people complained to Amazon, Amazon responded by refusing to pull the book and stating that they believe that to refuse to sell material they feel is objectionable is censorship.
And therefore the book stays available on Amazon.
And I?
Call absolute bullshit. To claim "censorship" is nothing but a cop-out.
Amazon is not a government body.
Amazon is not telling anyone what they can and cannot say.
Amazon flatters itself by saying it is capable of censoring anything at all.
Amazon is simply a vehicle between the creator (writer/publisher/whatever) of a book, and the reader of the book. It is a method for the book to reach the reader.
For Amazon to not carry that book, or any book, is not censorship.
Censorship is when you are told that you cannot express your opinion, or you will face consequences.
By not selling a specific book, Amazon is not saying the book cannot be written, that the opinions stated therein must not be stated. That would be censoring it. By refusing to carry a book, it's not suppressing anyone's freedom of speech. The book would be available elsewhere, after all.
By refusing to carry it, Amazon would, however, be saying we don't allow our services to be used as the stage to peddle evil. It would be taking a stand. It would be drawing a line in the sand of what kind of company it wants to be - a company with a moral code, or a company without one.
Instead, Amazon is holding its nose and hiding behind a claim of not wanting to "censor" a book to avoid taking a stand against pedophilia.
Censorship my ass.
Here's the reality.
This is a how-to manual for pedophiles. For people who sexually abuse children.
And it's easily available on Amazon.com for the low low price of $4.79.
For $4.79, Amazon is selling its soul. And it's a guarantee: By this book being available, children will directly, directly be harmed.
I realize this will hurt me more than it hurts Amazon, but I have no other alternative. I cannot support a company with no moral code. I cannot support a company that cannot take a stand and see how horribly wrong it is to say it's ok for anyone to use our service to offer up anything, anything at all, for sale.
I am terminating my affiliate relationship with Amazon, removing all my Amazon affiliate ads and will not be purchasing from Amazon again.
Because fundamentally, a company that thinks it's A-OK to profit from the sales of how-to guides for pedophiles is not a company that will be getting my money.
Today, many, many people heard about it. And many, many people complained to Amazon, Amazon responded by refusing to pull the book and stating that they believe that to refuse to sell material they feel is objectionable is censorship.
And therefore the book stays available on Amazon.
And I?
Call absolute bullshit. To claim "censorship" is nothing but a cop-out.
Amazon is not a government body.
Amazon is not telling anyone what they can and cannot say.
Amazon flatters itself by saying it is capable of censoring anything at all.
Amazon is simply a vehicle between the creator (writer/publisher/whatever) of a book, and the reader of the book. It is a method for the book to reach the reader.
For Amazon to not carry that book, or any book, is not censorship.
Censorship is when you are told that you cannot express your opinion, or you will face consequences.
By not selling a specific book, Amazon is not saying the book cannot be written, that the opinions stated therein must not be stated. That would be censoring it. By refusing to carry a book, it's not suppressing anyone's freedom of speech. The book would be available elsewhere, after all.
By refusing to carry it, Amazon would, however, be saying we don't allow our services to be used as the stage to peddle evil. It would be taking a stand. It would be drawing a line in the sand of what kind of company it wants to be - a company with a moral code, or a company without one.
Instead, Amazon is holding its nose and hiding behind a claim of not wanting to "censor" a book to avoid taking a stand against pedophilia.
Censorship my ass.
Here's the reality.
This is a how-to manual for pedophiles. For people who sexually abuse children.
And it's easily available on Amazon.com for the low low price of $4.79.
For $4.79, Amazon is selling its soul. And it's a guarantee: By this book being available, children will directly, directly be harmed.
I realize this will hurt me more than it hurts Amazon, but I have no other alternative. I cannot support a company with no moral code. I cannot support a company that cannot take a stand and see how horribly wrong it is to say it's ok for anyone to use our service to offer up anything, anything at all, for sale.
I am terminating my affiliate relationship with Amazon, removing all my Amazon affiliate ads and will not be purchasing from Amazon again.
Because fundamentally, a company that thinks it's A-OK to profit from the sales of how-to guides for pedophiles is not a company that will be getting my money.
Nov 5, 2010
The Great Unsubscribe of 2010
My inbox overflowed.
Every single day. Emails. Emails. Insane amounts of emails. My inbox was crazy. All of my inboxes were packed. I have 7 inboxes that I actively use, and all of them were crazy, with my primary account being the craziest of all. And were these emails from friends, family, business contacts? No. These emails were from marketers trying to sell me things. And it was all my own fault.
I was an email whore. I gave my email address to everyone. Every time I bought anything online, or signed up for anything, that company started sending me email. And really, who can blame them? I gave them permission, after all. The companies added up, and so did the emails, and soon everything got lost in the avalanche. For years, I have been losing important emails in the mess of "50% off everything!" and "Come check out our new fall line!" and everything else.
Yesterday alone I received over 130 emails. And most of those I didn't even bother to open. They weren't important to me. Most received a cursory scan of the subject line. Maybe 20% got loaded in to my preview screen. And a fraction of those actually got fully read. That's less than 10 emails that actually mattered. Yet I had to scroll up and down through the muck and mess to get to them. I was spending time actively ignoring things that didn't matter in order to try and sift through to find the things that did.
This is my time. My precious time that I don't have enough of. And this is my email. Your conduit in to me. That's not respectful. It's not useful.
So today, I spent an hour of my time unsubscribing from everything. Everything. All of it. If it had an unsubscribe button on the email (meaning it was from a company or organization of some kind), I clicked it. Gone. GONE. And oh, the power. No more email from YOU. No more email from YOU. You're gonna have to work a little harder to get my dollars next time, friends.
Will I miss out on some new offers, some exciting sales, some great discounts? Probably. And, GOOD. Getting notifications of things I never knew I needed was contributing greatly to my consumption. And consumption is just bad. (Sorry, economic stimulus types.) It's bad for my wallet, it's bad for my house and its limited storage space, it's bad for the environment.
But more importantly, doing this is going to give me back my focus. I was giving all of these marketing folks for seemingly every single company in the world access to my eyeballs for free. Chuh. *rolls said eyes*. No more.
It's going to take a few weeks, probably, to get rid of everything. Every day some emails will still trickle in, and every day I'm going to unsubscribe from them. I want my inbox to become more purposeful, more sacred. I want it to hold important information, one-to-one information. I've never ever liked the phone, so email is my method of choice for communication, and it was getting drowned through my own doing. No more. My inbox should not overwhelm and drive me crazy. It should energize and inspire, at least to the extent that everyone in my inbox should want to talk to me, ME, not a faceless "valued customer".
And oh, the liberation. I feel 10 pounds lighter.
How much email do you get? Have you ever thought about downsizing your inbox? Why or why not?
Every single day. Emails. Emails. Insane amounts of emails. My inbox was crazy. All of my inboxes were packed. I have 7 inboxes that I actively use, and all of them were crazy, with my primary account being the craziest of all. And were these emails from friends, family, business contacts? No. These emails were from marketers trying to sell me things. And it was all my own fault.
I was an email whore. I gave my email address to everyone. Every time I bought anything online, or signed up for anything, that company started sending me email. And really, who can blame them? I gave them permission, after all. The companies added up, and so did the emails, and soon everything got lost in the avalanche. For years, I have been losing important emails in the mess of "50% off everything!" and "Come check out our new fall line!" and everything else.
Yesterday alone I received over 130 emails. And most of those I didn't even bother to open. They weren't important to me. Most received a cursory scan of the subject line. Maybe 20% got loaded in to my preview screen. And a fraction of those actually got fully read. That's less than 10 emails that actually mattered. Yet I had to scroll up and down through the muck and mess to get to them. I was spending time actively ignoring things that didn't matter in order to try and sift through to find the things that did.
This is my time. My precious time that I don't have enough of. And this is my email. Your conduit in to me. That's not respectful. It's not useful.
So today, I spent an hour of my time unsubscribing from everything. Everything. All of it. If it had an unsubscribe button on the email (meaning it was from a company or organization of some kind), I clicked it. Gone. GONE. And oh, the power. No more email from YOU. No more email from YOU. You're gonna have to work a little harder to get my dollars next time, friends.
Will I miss out on some new offers, some exciting sales, some great discounts? Probably. And, GOOD. Getting notifications of things I never knew I needed was contributing greatly to my consumption. And consumption is just bad. (Sorry, economic stimulus types.) It's bad for my wallet, it's bad for my house and its limited storage space, it's bad for the environment.
But more importantly, doing this is going to give me back my focus. I was giving all of these marketing folks for seemingly every single company in the world access to my eyeballs for free. Chuh. *rolls said eyes*. No more.
It's going to take a few weeks, probably, to get rid of everything. Every day some emails will still trickle in, and every day I'm going to unsubscribe from them. I want my inbox to become more purposeful, more sacred. I want it to hold important information, one-to-one information. I've never ever liked the phone, so email is my method of choice for communication, and it was getting drowned through my own doing. No more. My inbox should not overwhelm and drive me crazy. It should energize and inspire, at least to the extent that everyone in my inbox should want to talk to me, ME, not a faceless "valued customer".
And oh, the liberation. I feel 10 pounds lighter.
How much email do you get? Have you ever thought about downsizing your inbox? Why or why not?
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