Here’s how this works: I pretend to be a real blogger who posts pictures, confesses to having my life in disarray thus making you feel better about whatever shortcomings you may have, and once in a while I do a giveaway. Isn’t that what all the cool kids are doing? (The un-cool kids do annoying crap like take pictures of all their new gadgets and redecorating and I HATE THEM because I am jealous of all that stuff and isn’t that an ugly shade on me?)

It’s just like me to be days late with the de-lurking post. There’s good news in this, though. Wait for it. Since everyone else did it on the 14th and I’m posting this on the 18th it’s a good thing. On the 14th everyone was tired of commenting (“Gawd, another password just to comment and tell her that I like her knitting?”) so now you’re refreshed! You may even have today off! Four whole days to recover from all that de-lurking you did.

You don’t know what to say in a de-lurk? Oh, well you can talk about the weather, how much of an asshole that Pat Robertson is, or how you did some volunteering in your neighborhood (thanks for the APL suggestion, Susan!), or how you woke up this morning and listened to Martin Luther King’s speech because no one, and I mean NO ONE, should ever try to read it for him. Perhaps you could weigh in on the “Duh! I wanna be stoopid about art so please don’t make me think!” conversation going on at Racialicious. Maybe you could just ask a question. “Kelly, how do you get tomato stains out of your clothes?” You may want to ask something more serious like, “Have you accosted anyone in the grocery store lately?” (Yes, but she started it.) or “How’s the book writing coming? Is that why you’ve been absent of late?” (Again, yes. Two chapters down!) or “What’s up with your religious beliefs, huh?” (Oh, I can’t talk about that until I’m four glasses of cabernet into the conversation. It’s against my religion to answer anytime before that.)

Maybe you just want to ask a personal question since I’m so cryptic with my life and dole out tiny bits when I feel it’s safe. Ask away! I’ll answer in the comments. Maybe. Possibly.

I know. This is why you can’t stand me.

Aimee Greeblemonkey designed this because she’s smart, talented, and she has an IQ so big I’m afraid to publish it. She also has a lot of gadgets but somehow I’m not jealous of her because I like her. See? She’s smart AND does stuff like have contests where she gives stuff away and makes donations to Unicef to give relief to Haiti in honor of the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Nice, right?

The always funny xkcd.com helped me understand where I’ve been living lo these many years of Internetting.

Lotsa links, folks. It’s been awhile since I’ve linked anything. Must remember to highlight, move mouse to the chain link thingie, and paste the addy in. I miss talking like a hot geek, but seeing as hot geek wasn’t my first language it’s easy to understand. Since there was a Snow Day here and all administrators have to report I was up early and ready to go. Then, had to wait for the street to be cleared so I wasted time read blogs and caught up on my online wanderings which I haven’t done in a while.

GingaJoy wrote about Second Life and I wanted to see the video, but noooooo, it’s all we only show in the U.K. Why? and I really hate that condescending “why?” because it begs me to click on it and I have refused. So I still do not know why. I’d still like to watch it just to make fun of the fact that I teased the hell out of Erin when she told me she was like the Master of The Universe of Second Life because I could continue to shout, “BUT THEY’RE NOT REAL. THEY’RE NOT REAL.” at her while she looked exasperated at me. Why that was fun I do not know.

A reader named who comments as “Another Ken” sent me a great link which you may have seen while I was under a rock lo these last 6 months. You won’t be surprised to find out which presidential hopeful with whom I had the most in common.

Jenny had a video about children’s programs (or “programmes” in the UK but I don’t want to appeal to them at the moment because of the “Why?” debacle.) that is unsettling at best. I am neither to blame if you watch it and start inviting food to your stomach nor if that song gets stuck in your head.

Gary also had a video that was Norwegian with subtitles that tickled my fancy. Somehow, someday I will use that in some seminar or conference where I am a lecturer. It may be a stretch, but I will use it.

Coolbeans had an adorable meme and I’m not the meme-follower type unless people threaten me within an inch of my life or I see something and outright steal it as an idea to write about. Still. It was cutesy and fresh. Like a douche.

Not so much linky as it is WOW GOOD STUFF, but is anyone else in love with Chiwetel Ejiofor? I saw Kinky Boots and then had to see Dirty Pretty Things and I already knew him from Four Brothers (Mason=Obsessed With That Movie) but holy cow. He can act everyone else off the screen. It was all because of watching the great movie Amelie again and once again watched a movie gaping-mouthed with Audrey Tatou which mean I was going to start searching for information about her online which led to seeing the gorgeous Sophie Okonedo and wanting more information until frankly, it blew up my brain. No, really? I lay down my laptop (still unnamed as yet) and went to pick it up again but I produced such a shock that I turned it off entirely. So my brain AND my laptop were blown up. (Also? When I read bios of actors I calculate their age and think, “She’s only 3 years younger than I!” or “We’re the same age!” and what this does for me I haven’t a clue, except I think there may be a shot at being discovered at 36 so I can hold out a bit longer but I should probably start milling around movie sets to be sure.)

Someone made me watch the Sarah Silverman video about Matt Damon and then I accidentally found this one. I accidentally laughed, too. I accidentally sent it to friends via e-mail. I accidentally endorse Episode 4.

Fine. You want cute? You want something to be expected from a respected educator? Fine.

I would like to consider myself well-versed in good movies. When our family relinquished the Cable Gods from their service a few years back we went to an all-renting-movie family and watched all the free ones at the video store. So my children have seen almost every movie from the 1940s ever made. In spite of that, one of them has gotten away from me. My cravings of all things Citizen Kane are now fed. My initial response was going to be Don’t Believe The Hype. Since that thought was in my head at the time I sang the Public Enemy song almost entirely throughout the movie. A strange combination I must say.

This is a pathetic attempt at a professional website. Too bad. She’s really good on HBO’s “Big Love” which morbidly fascinates me. I realize she’s all of 14 or something, but someone needs to help her out on the technical end of web design. I’d rather look at MySpace or Facebook than that.

Finally, I’m all intrigued with this band. I can’t really explain it except to say that I probably love Koop because first I loved Bitter:Sweet and I’ve bought everything I can find on them. Probably also because it reminds me of Cirque du Soleil music. Good stuff. Check it out. Pour yourself an extra dirty martini first. You’ll thank me and my pseudo-Snow Day for it.

I hope that I don’t spend all my time writing about my job, though it is far more jam-packed a position than I imagined. Whenever I get a new project or phone call my thoughts are, “Hmm. Am I in charge of this?” or “Do I go to this meeting?” or “I HAVE TO DO WHAT?” Each time, however, I am learning something new and get advice that I scribble on a notebook to remember later. Recently, I heard this advice that I’ve been applying to whatever person who crosses my path:

There is messy work in this work we do involving human beings, but we are in control of two things every day:

1. Who or what gets our energy.

and

2. Our attitude.

Also, this advice:

Don’t take your walkie-talkie in the bathroom with you when you have to pee because if you hit the button everyone will hear you.

There’s a lot of stuff brewing up here at Mocha Momma and I’m almost feeling like I need a staff. Writing gigs, coffee tawlks, getting invitations to be flown places and test drive cars (all kinds of WOWWEE going on in my brain with that one). Other stuff is trying out products and there are some awesome things I’m going to get to test out and see how I like it. Some of the more fascinating ones are of the photography nature and I’m working on building my knowledge of my camera and some of the gadgets that go with it.

Other products are web-based things that can help build revenue for this site (seriously, I will need a staff, people! Send resumes! Send pictures!) and I’m playing around with Photrade. I first heard about it at a dinner in Chicago with the founder, Andrew, and lately we’ve been “in talks” (Staff! Hurry! I’m using lingo!) about how to best use the site to benefit both parties.

Other things keeping me busy are the 3rd season of The Office, reading some great books that were suggested by some friends on GoodReads, and catching some cool stuff online.

So, stay tuned. There’s stuff in the works. There’s also going to be contests and prizes and who doesn’t love a prize? Besides that dork in your office who picks his nose when he thinks no one is watching and has created a Booger Shrine on his cabinet? Besides him? No one.

subtitle: I Love The Linky Love, But Not That Way

You’re all reading this through a legal feedburner or at my actual site of Mocha Momma.com, right? If not, click here right now.

It’s always nice to be linked and sometimes I find it by accident just because I’m searching and reading blogs, but it sure was nice to see that the Ted Foo-lery doesn’t stop with just his pictures. Wasn’t this sweet of him?

But me? You know I’m late to the party all the time and I realize people have been writing about this for a while. I’ll be totally honest here: it is as yet unclear to me how this website (which I am not linking, but will provide it in this form: bitacle (dot) org) steals my stuff except to say that when I typed my name into the “blogs” and “aggregates” search box it came up with some of my posts. At first, this seemed harmless because they provided a post title and a link that came here to Mocha Momma.com, but after looking further I realized that some of the entire posts I’ve written ended up over there with NO LINKY LOVE BACK TO ME.

Even the “Help” section at the bottom of the page was asinine. How about a little lesson in how to use a verb, hmmm? Number 2 was worded this way: “How can I used the search?” Used? Really? You put an extra “d” at the end of that verb to make it past tense? That one was the least offensive of the horrid grammar I witnessed.

As I’m still figuring it out I have made some changes so if you are reading me through a feed I must apologize because now I’m only providing the summary so you’ll have to click my site to read the entire post. Suffice to say, even the Bitaclites must be reading this post as I saw yesterday’s post up on their site RIGHT AWAY and it’s time for a little Story Time here at Mocha Momma.

Everyone needs to come to the Story Time carpet. Very good.

Now sit criss cross applesauce. No touching your neighbors. Excellent job.

Everyone turn around and give the Bitaclites the finger. Nicely done, class! No, no, Belinda. Not that one. The middle one, dear. Look to your neighbor, JenB. She’s got it. Yes, that’s it. Good girl.

Tell the Bitaclites that we don’t appreciate their stealing stuff and not linking back to Mocha Momma. Very nice, class!

All together now: PISS OFF, BITACLE. Well done, especially the Canadian section. (I love me some Canucks, people.)

Don’t tell anyone you heard it from me, but Jesus Glez (no relation to that other Jesus we all know of) is said to be so uncreative that he isn’t able to come up with his own inspired construction. One would expect a person to be able to construct his own sentences in the formal register and not steal entire posts of other people, but maybe that’s just too much to ask. You might want to think your own thoughts, Jesus.

Also currently irritating me is this little video which, in truth, has a good message. It’s the newest Dove commercial about beauty (wait until you see the COMPUTER IMAGES THEY DO ON THIS WOMAN) and it made me instantly sad. I realized, once again, that women will never be beautiful enough. Never pretty enough. Never enough. Is this the standard of beauty to which we are to aspire? Because we can’t even get there.

It made me grateful that I never allowed Mallory to subscribe to teen magazines because every time I read one I am left feeling inadequate and bad about myself. No woman needs any more help in that department.

Just thinking my own thoughts here on my blog…