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Would It Be Funny Or Would It Be Cruel…
Posted by Colleen on Feb 28, 2009 in Good times, Picture Post
…if I turned on the facet?
Or just a little bit of both? Ledger’s all grown up now!
Jimmy Kimmel Knows How to Set a Cli… Up!
No, not that C-word. The other one that means basically the same thing. But in the midst of Day 5 of job hunting in Raleigh, NC, it made me giggle. Oh hell, it would have made me giggle regardless:
Birth-entines’ Day, Part 2
So as previously noted, on Saturday night, Jay & I had a belated Birth-entines’ Day celebration. I thought we were going to Outback the entire time and before I left NY, may or may not have had a slight hissy fit over going there (give me a break, it was a really bad first 19 days of February). Apparently, that was never the plan but it was more fun to let me be pissy about it and watch my reaction when I found out where we were really going. Colleen = FAIL. JJ = FTW. But honestly, I was just happy to finally be here and get to go do anything with Jay at that point, so anywhere we went, I would have been happy 
But anyways, we went to Kankii, a hibachi restaurant - and everyone who knows me at all knows how much I would marry hibachi if it were socially acceptable to marry a food style. The chef at our table that night was hilarious. He placed a match in the appetizer shrimp they give you and had everyone at our table sing, “Happy Birthday” to me. Then he had the younger kids at our table have a little competition in which they tried to catch balls of white rice in their mouths. The second best part of the night was when the two elder couples sitting next to us told me that I didn’t look 25, but rather looked 21. I don’t really care if they were just being polite; I was excited.
After dinner, Jay took me to the Build-a-Bear store as a surprise. This may sound kinda silly or immature, two 20-somethings dressing up and naming a stuffed animal, but I had never done it before. When we had walked by the store back in September, I had insisted on just going in to look because I had never been in one, build a bear or had someone be all cutsy to build one for me. Sooo that’s what we did I (naturally) got a dog and dressed it up in a little suit. I’m not telling you his name because then I’ll just be completely mocked. Afterwards, we watched “Ghost Town” with Ricky Gervais and it was really good. Two thumbs!
All in all, a wonderful Birth-entines’ Day. And since “Slumdog Millionaire” won the Oscar for Best Picture last night, I’ll leave you with a farewell “Jai Ho” of your very own:
A Nipply Day in New York & Company
“It seems to be a bit cold in here for that mannequin…” -Jay Glatfelter
He is correct:
Birth-entine’s Day, Part 1
It took me 10 hours to drive here on Thursday, but I finally made it to Raleigh! I spent Thurs night and all day Friday straight chillin’ with Sara at her & TJ’s kick ass townhouse (she had her wisdom teeth removed Friday morning so I drove her). But I finally got to see Jay last night woot.
I had a fun Birth-entine’s Day celebration tonight with Jay :) He told me we were going to the Outback but instead he surprised me with hibachi! And there’s your tease to my next post, as now we’re going to go rent a movie. I did this like 30 seconds before we left, hurrah!
And So the Journey (Finally) Begins
Posted by Colleen on Feb 19, 2009 in Adventure, Family, Jay Glatfelter, NC Adventures, Road Trip, Sara Arden, TJ Burns
I am finally leaving for North Carolina in a few minutes. I’m going to stay with Sara & TJ in Raleigh tonight, so I won’t see Jay until he comes home from school tomorrow night 
but that’s life. I’m going to take Sara to get her wisdom teeth taken out tomorrow morning, so at least I’m a house guest who is making herself useful!
It’s a 10 hour drive, so I’m trying to do my best to navigate through traffic hours in NY, NJ and Baltimore/D.C. I was originally going to leave at 3am but the future Mr. & Mrs. Burns won’t be home from work til after 5:30pm anyway.
Okay, I’m going to go. My car’s all loaded already (That’s what she said?) and Strider’s been whining all morning because he’s seen my dad help load the car and he thinks my dad’s the one who’s leaving him haha. Good Lord. With his level of anxiety, no wonder the dog has heart problems. I’ve only packed clothes and random stuff, but I did bring my stability ball for no reason other than it’s a security blanket lol. I’m not going to blow up at 65 inch plastic ball in someone else’s living room… (again, that’s what she said?)
Okay, time to go for reals. I’m so nervous and sad to leave my family. This past 2 weeks of “issues” has really made me appreciate them all the more. Wish me luck, I’m near freaking out level…
Oh and P.S. Lost was awesome again last night! Cannot wait for next week’s!
So What’s the Deal With Facebook?
The whole Facebook change in Terms of Service (TOS) controversy has been everywhere the last few days. Basically, the old TOS said that if you closed your Facebook account, you’d retain the rights to any pictures, videos, notes, etc. (basically any original content) that you uploaded onto the site. The new TOS, which I believe were put into effect on February 4, 2009, indicated that Facebook had the right to use any content uploaded to Facebook however they wanted to because, well, they owned it regardless of any privacy settings. The only difference between the previous and the new TOS was that Facebook kept it fo’ lyfe. So even if you closed your Facebook account in protest, the powers that be could, say, still sell a picture of you holding your newborn baby to a diaper company and then collect all the royalties.
I’m not going to repost what it says word for word, mainly because you can Google it, go to Facebook yourself or just find it on the Consumerist - one of my all-time favorite websites - who first “discovered” what was going on.
There was big public outrage and everyone got all pissed and 29 million different Facebook groups were ironically created, blah blah blah. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made a blog post to try to calm everyone down but it still didn’t work. So around midnight last night, Facebook reverted back to the old TOS and the above picture is what we all awoke to see.
There’s just a few interesting things about this whole outrage:
- Facebook owns your stuff anyway right now; if you want to get your rights back, you have to deactivate your accout. Was anyone really so surprised to learn this? Look at the ads for different TV shows or products on the right hand side of your Facebook home page. On MetroBuzz way back last spring, we made fun of the fact that a fellow podcaster was advertised as a “Grey’s Anatomy Fan” in an attempt to get others to follow suite (She may have been the only “Grey’s Anatomy” fan last spring though hehe). They were already using your info back then.
- Honestly, not to sound like I’m making light of the whole thing or being naive, but why would Facebook really want to sublease my pictures of Sara & TJ’s engagement party out to a third party? Sorry guys, but I don’t think Facebook didn’t change the Terms of Service for US. My gut tells me that they changed it because more and more celebrities are starting to create Facebook accounts and use them as a big fan attraction nowadays. Zuckerberg & co. can jerk off to pictures of Facebook Girls Gone Wild while they’re posted on there, same as anyone else can (if they’re not set to private, of course). And I’m sure that if they had special attachment, there’s always the trusty old screen cap. No, the new TOS weren’t about us regular people. They were about Facebook having permanent ownership rights to Lindsay Lohan’s scandalous personal photos or Kim Kardashian’s “25 Random Things About Me” note (which exists). Cause hey, if the right (or wrong) picture gets uploaded onto there, then that’s an extra hundred grand in the Facebook bank account.
- There’s only one real thing that the little people like us would have to worry about Facebook stealing: Intellectual content or ideas shared via Facebook notes, videos, posted items, etc. Does this mean that Ralph should be careful to never post anything about his Cricket project on Facebook because one of the founders could see it, think it’s genius, & try to claim rights to the idea? They probably wouldn’t get away with it, but is this a legitimate concern? If Jay previewed a Lost Podcast vidcast on Facebook in order to entice more people to download it on iTunes, could there be an actual argument over who owns it?
So yeah, that’s my 2 cents. Just like when the news feed started 2 years ago, Facebook had a quick response time to all of the negative feedback & took action (though I personally loved the Stalker Feed from Day 1…). I just have to wonder, though, how many Facebook users over the last few days actually did stop uploading original content in protest…
Hopefully the Last Dog Post I’ll Make For A While
I have something else coming later that is completely and totally unrelated to the dog issues, but I figured I’d finish up yakking about the dog first since it’ll take me less time. Basically, he was pretty worn down still last night from everything when my mom, dad, Katelyn (sister) and I went to visit him. One of his most important heart medications is making him sick, but he needs it or else he’ll go into heart failure again - so it’s sorta a Catch-22, but he hasn’t vomited since yesterday morning (knock on wood) and he ate half his food tonight off of my dad’s hands and my hands.
Thanks again so very much to everyone who left so many nice, encouraging and thoughtful messages. I hope this is the last time I have to talk about the dog’s health problems for a while lol, so fingers crossed. Oh and he apparently rebelled overnight and started trying to turn on his IV catheter and had to wear this:
I wanted to leave tomorrow more than anything since I’m now 5 days behind schedule, but my parents asked me to stay one more day. I hate yet again postponing something I’ve been waiting to do for months, but I’ve stuck it out this long. Video after the jump if you want to see the difference between him from Mon night to this morning.
For V-Day ‘09, I Got Drunk With My Grandma. For Reals.
Posted by Colleen on Feb 15, 2009 in Family
I’m in NY til Strider gets out of the hospital. He hasn’t thrown up in over 24 hours but refuses to eat anything more than some carrots at the hospital. Well apparently in the 10 minutes it took me to download the pictures below & type the rest of this post, Strider threw up for the first time since early Saturday morning.
Here’s the two pictures that my dad sent us from his cell phone - my parents went for “visiting hours” 7-9pm. On a side note, isn’t it hilarious when parents and grandparents get into texting and sending pictures via text? My dad will text us during Yankee games when we aren’t home & he’s so adorable - he’ll spend half the inning typing out the text for one play and by the time he’s sent it, a whole new play has come & gone that he’s missed!
So yeah, I was going to leave yesterday & didn’t and was basically in a state of pathetically embarrassing depression over missing Valentines’ Day. If he came home last night, I would have gone today but he threw up yesterday morning & still would not eat at all, so then I was planning on going tomorrow. But apparently he is still not coming home til at least tomorrow night, so I guess Tuesday’s the new plan. I’ll have to leave at 3am (literally) to avoid traffic from here to Washington, D.C. (yesterday & today = weekend; tomorrow = federal holiday = not much traffic). That’s going to…suck. I’m adding 2 hours to my journey to go straight to Jay’s school for the first day that I’m there, making it a total of 12 hours driving.
But anyways, fingers crossed that it all works out. Otherwise, I guess I just gotta roll with it and figure out what to do. Hope everyone reading this had a nice Valentines’ Day/weekend!
You Are My Sweetest Downfall
It’s been a long two weeks & seemingly about to get longer. This is long.