#followfriday #ff Read Dis

i like the #FF in front of my name, so use it, call it an addiction. i have my cute little meter over on the right, and it's pointed out in this blog in earlier entries that i am not really dead last for #followfriday (properly hashtagged) but a ferret can dream can't he? i think i'm 66th this last week in the world, not too bad for a freakin ferret

sam's quick tips for #ff  #followfriday:

   1.  start early to avoid twitter crashes, wed or thursday is fine

   2.  start following wed and thursday, so ppl will follow you back and reciprocate i'll follow as few as 200 new ppl, as many as 500 since they won't all follow back, i go from list to list of ppl i like ie: writers, artists, musicians, and  follow 100 from each type, and then move on till i have a good sampling

   3.  don't try to mention every single person that follows you back on friday, you won't be able to mention everyone without going to twitter jail (suspension)

   4.  where you are group mentioned?  cut and paste everyone's name into a tweet, and RT it, so the other endusers know you are doing it, the RT Button may or not be checked by any of them.  so when you cut/paste the RT then you take a little more time, but it's much more productive in the long run

   5.  basically i'm saying flat out, i do not like the RT button, at all for alot of reasons, and i tend to completely lift the tweet out of the time line with cut/paste, and NEVER use the RT button, unless i am gratuitously doing someone a favor which is what i do sometimes when i am feeling lovely and awesome, and a really nice ferret, which aint often

   6.  you can group mention people by category, if you have ten writers the group hug concept works well, 6 bloggers on blogspot? maybe lump them into a group tweet, and put the #FF in front - 7 lawyers? maybe you can take them out and....  oh wrong bar, sorry

   7.  always put  #followfriday @Samuel_Clemons  in front of all your tweets, and make a ferret happy!!

     I will love you and snuggle up, and if you are good to me, i'll climb up on your shoulder, and let you carry me around like that,  will balance up there nicely, and get a good view of the world from a better vantage point...  right next to your ear.   God Bless Your #FF  wiggle wiggle

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homeless radio voice guy

it's ok to be manipulated by the press, by politicians, by momentum, by inertia, by sex, it's an everyday thing to be manipulated by advertising.  madison avenue spends billions getting us to buy things without us thinking we are being manipulated.  so called "internet marketers" specialize in selling products to other internet marketers-who by the way, acknowledge they enjoy being manipulated by each other, indeed thrive on it.

but the viral video yesterday of homeless voice over guy has to be the greatest mass manipulation by a videographer and his subject matter to date.  when i posted a retweet of the guy's voice, i just thought he had a really great speaking voice, and thought:  "this is cool"  at that point there were approximately 100,000 hits on youtube.com  by lunch this was up to 4.5 million, as of this morning, thursday, less than 24 hours since it was posted, the link has 11 million! 

now, the manipulation wasn't so much that the video went viral, i think alot of people were just like me, we were astonished, absolutely astonished at this guy's speaking voice, to wit:


(Video Removed from Internet as fast as it came on)

i was not the only one impressed with this voice, as in fact homeless radio voice guy knew full well he was talented.  i am even more impressed by the ferocity and intensity and SPEED of this manipulation.  it doesn't hurt that the homeless guy was discovered by a do gooder video guy who works in the press, who had a youtube account, awesome equipment, and apparently, didn't mind if he stopped at a greenlight, and pissed off the cars behind him... everything all just coincidence? right? 

we have just come off the holidays, we all want a feel good story to brighten our day, we want horatio alger to make it.  i am sure the video guy just wanted to help another human being, but was that his job in the world to manipulate us all using the position as reporter and member of the "professional" journalism corp to get this guy a job, and a plane ticket to NYC to visit his mother?  did anyone stop to think maybe she didn't want a visit? she never sent him a ticket.

i venture there is a bit more to this story than meets the eye, and we have not heard the last of homeless guy by any stretch.  drug addiction and alcohol problems aside, this guy has issues, homelessness doesn't just occur, it's a process for some people, and often they are recluses from society for a reason.

for now, let's be happy he is getting his second chance, and that some video producer who didn't bother to do any background check, or get him psychological evaluations gave him a shot.

maybe the intensity and ferocity of this whirlwind was not what the doctor ordered?

too lame to write

all these resolutions mean nothing to a ferreet.  i make em so i can break em on purpose.  here's a post from Piper Bayard, belly dancer, necromancer, you name it, she does it, i'm feeling under the  cumulus clouds today, so i am taking the lame way out...linking to a better blog than mine 

http://tinyurl.com/23ajmqd

http://piperbayard.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/reverse-psychology-resolutions/#comment-535

i call women sweetie, they wink at me, and call me baby

"ok, did you call her sweetcakes, or sweetie, or sweettooth, we are getting to the bottom of this.." 

“Why don’t you leave this to the boys, sweetcakes.”  was how The Yard Barker has the story going down.  http://tinyurl.com/23399ps

but Fox Sports tells it like this:  "Listen to me, sweet baby, let me tell you something," Sports Announcer Ron Franklin reportedly told Jeannine Edwards.

having the world's largest network of special reporters, well connected, probing, and willing to ferret out the truth, i called my uncle freddie, who weighed in immediately with his take on the subject.

"Sammy is that you..  Are you still a moron?  Yea, I got the details,  she is denying ever being called sweetcakes, which she finds offensive, demeaning, and completely out of line. She insists she was called sweetie, which she kinda liked, cause she aint no sweetie.... But I got the scoop on the really big story, here Sammy, this is gonna be good, I can't wait to call my Editor, and get this to print right away, so how's your mother?" 

I knew my uncle freddie must have something really big, so i mumbled something about my mother vacationing in miami, taking her pet humans to the beach, but it being cold.... "Sammy, I could care less about your mother, I was just kidding around, you're still a moron, just like i thought...Here's the scoop... that Jeannine Edwards... Oh this is good, gonna bust this story wide open, I tell you... That Edwards broad?  She wears contacts!!  I gotta go Sammy.  Quit bein such a maroon, huh kid?"

We can make alot of choices in life, but we can't choose our family.  

blackbirds dying in the dead of night

'I've been to Iraq and back and not seen nothing like this,' resident of Ark. town says

.   This double negative by a man who's seen it all, but nothing like this.

    There are kids and pets and all manner of living creatures out there in the little town of Beebe, Arkansas, and I suspect none of them have never seen nothing quite like it.
  
    Speculation abounds as to why 2,000 redwinged blackbirds have fallen out of the sky.  One of the more interesting theories is that local kids were shooting off fireworks, and "scared the blackbirds" and apparently gave them all heart attacks.  

    Reminiscent of the Dustin Hoffman movie, "Outbreak" or creepy episodes of The Outer Limits, obviously, the government would rather put out the old "there is nothing to worry about" propaganda on this one.  Workers from the EPA were walking around Beebe in their white decontamination suits, yet the EPA has stated emphatically, the locals have nothing to fear. 

    My uncle freddie didn't need to snoop around, he quickly put two and two together to get 7, a prime number, and has it figured out.

    He sees it as apocolyptic warning sign of the end times.  He knew a couple of Mayans that have visited earth a few months back, just as an advance "exploratory" committee.  They arrived to check out the condition of earth, and inhabitants, and were not very impressed with earth's progress.  Since the Mayans are coming back in 2012,  and the end of the earth is scheduled for that year, they have to come and visit periodically.

    Now, elsewhere in this blog, we've mentioned the importance of the BFF button, and getting this universally accepted by mankind.  Shoot, when you get real friendly with someone online, you hit the ol "Best Friend Forever" button, and this will save mankind from destruction.  Ferrets have known this for some time, and we can save earth from itself.

    Now, we find there are folks running around with the wrong date!!  Seems a few Christians have the date pegged as May 21, 2011 for Christ's return.  We respect Christianity, don't get us ferrets wrong here!  It's just they've got the date a bit messed up.  

     "Sam get on with the story.."  that from Ronny in Annadale.  Thanks Ronny, you impatient troublemaker.

      So my uncle freddie said the redwinged blackbirds fell out of the sky because they were lovesick.   Yep.   Seems Beebe, Ark is like the Match.Com of the blackbird world.  Blackbirds from all over the world meet there to hook up.   This group that fell out dead were manic depressed, and a bit bipolar to begin with.

       Uncle Freddie said some hot lookin bird from NY City showed up and had the voice of an angel, or Mayan, and sang so lovely, all the chicks were lovesick for him.  Uncle Freddie, not used to such shenanigans witnessed it for himself.  Like women flocking to see Edward in Twilight, and secretly fantasizing about him, this Blackbird was good.

      So to the 2,000 bipolar, manic depressed blackbirds of Beebe, Arkansas who died over the holidays, we will remember you.  You have not died in vain.  At least the crooner from NYC has his pick of the chicks.

we are all writers

do you tweet? you're a writer
do you blog for fun? then you are a writer

it is pretentious for journalism majors, editors and published authors to think they are "writers" and everyone else is just a hack.  as traditional "paper" book stores and publications like the NY Times move over to digital media, the whole idea that only a few in the press control the flow of news or words is simply archaic and draconian.  anyone can start a rumor, all users of the internet have an internet "imprint" and we need to control our online image, and be sensitive to all these phenomena each time we post.

the internet is a world of words, anyone can blog, gOOgle is based upon words, as is any search engine technology, including Twitter "search".

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is based upon "key word technology" meaning when I type in "famous ferrets" i am seeking those words in subject matter on the internet, and getting better at using keyword technology in my headers and subect lines means getting more "views" or hits.. pretty simple stuff

we are what we write in this world... so write well, spell well, have your stuff edited by someone, and don't take it wrong when someone points out the bad grammar.  every tweet is logged by google.  it may take a few hours to show up, but all our tweets are there. 

we need to be good stewards of our online image, we are what we write, and we are all writers, whether we realize it or not.

peace

we talk about peace in the world, peace toward others, peace between nations.  one of my favorite recurring themes on twitter is to say "when elected i can bring world peace through more naps and dancing"


peace with others is only obtainable when we have peace within ourselves.  we can't attempt to have a settled, serene existence until we learn the trick of happiness.

serenity or happiness is a decision we make each moment, and moment by moment.  we have to decide that no matter what life throws at us, we can and DO HAVE A CHOICE:

     *  we can stomp our feet, start "thinking" about it, obsess, and get irritated

     *  we can realize that the moment is fleeting,  that we can choose to be happy, and contemplate a moment of peace and serenity in the face of misery

 as a ferret, i have all kinds of issues ppl don't think i face:  i have to steal the cats stuff,  i have to hide my human's remote, sometimes i dance so hard, i fall off the sofa, and land on my back, i'll be crawling around dark closets, and find spiders or worse!  and yet, life doesn't end, i don't make a big deal out of any of it, i have to keep sniffing things out, keep moving forward, i can't get all manic and crazy and upset about the little stuff.

    my first post of 2011 therefore is a resolution:  make peace with myself in order to make peace with the world and my fellow creatures. 

    i can get or  take whatever adversity comes along, indeed, i will whether i like it or not, but it makes it so much more pleasant if i don't get upset, don't keep thinking too hard, and just move on...

    i have a choice, and i choose peace, with myself

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