Snoskred Opinions

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Offensive words and the Aussie way.

13 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Aussies reading this, I need your input and comments. ;) Recently during my blogging chicks commenting challenge, I found myself breaking my own commenting rules. Specifically – “If you’re seeing red, get out of there fast – and as politely – as possible”.

A very judgmental blogger had stated that they would not read a blog if it contained swear words, and stated that they felt anyone using swear words basically was a bad writer incapable of expressing themselves in any other way. Them’s fighting words to an Australian – at least they were to me.

Living here in Australia I hear swear words all the time, it’s a fact of life. There is not one single word that shocks or offends me. Not even the C word. In fact I know people who use that as a term of affection. If one was offended by these words, you would probably find life quite difficult here in this country – Aussie readers, do you agree?

At the same time I have recently changed the way I do things here at the blog with regard to swear words. I put a * in them. This is something I do for the readers, not for me. That is because I do understand that some people are offended by these words.

So over the past few days while I have been cleaning my bookshelves (a job I finally finished) what this blogger said has been bugging me. I’m not going to link to the blog because I do not feel she deserves the traffic.

To write off everything a person says because of the occasional swear word? Isn’t that akin to writing off everything a person says because they are {insert one of the following – black, white, yellow, pink, gay, lesbian, heterosexual, republican, democrat, right wing, left wing, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, is my point made or should I continue?}. So I am a “swearer”. So I am going to hell. Or something. That doesn’t mean I am somehow “lesser” or my words have any less meaning.

I won’t lie to you guys (and Christian readers, please do not be offended by this, read the whole thing before you get upset) – I have struggled with this commenting challenge. First of all, it’s the blogging *chicks* and I’ve had some really terrible experiences with women during my life time. So the reality is, women scare me. Mostly. :) And I say that being female myself.

The other thing I have struggled with – many of the blogs belong to people who are Christian. I have always been somewhat scared of the apparently very religious after some bad experiences with the religious in my teenage years. The Christians I have known have never acted like true Christians – they preach, but do not *practice*.

I used to be Baptist. I used to go to church. The trouble was, the church I went to was more like a social group with cliques and some of the people were extremely nasty. It put me off church and Christians so much that I’ve never gone back. Since then I have often felt people who believe in God are as alien to me as people who believe UFO’s are coming to the earth to collect them.

I respect the right of everyone to worship whoever they choose, don’t get me wrong, but I do find it difficult when people are very judgmental and impose their religious views on others, especially in the areas of topics like a politics, sexuality, a womans right to choose, and the worst of all in my opinion, the religion where parents refuse to let their very ill children have blood transfusions which would save their lives. It’s an alien concept to me that you could care more about a religion than your flesh and blood child who is dying in front of your eyes.

I had a moment of panic at the start of this challenge when I opened up the first 10 blogs and the majority of them were Christians. But I’ve stuck with the challenge because I have found points of commonality with the people – even with the Christian people, several of whom I have now added to my google reader. Had you asked me at the start of this challenge would I be able to find Christians worth adding to my google reader, the answer would have been NO. Probably with a swear word in front of NO, too. :)

There’s blogs on the Australian Blogs Community that I struggle with because they have a very different point of view on some topics to what I do. I’m still willing to hear what they have to say. I listen to people who consider themselves left wing and right wing. I am incredibly tolerant in so many areas. Even I am surprised by how tolerant I am, from time to time.

What I have trouble tolerating are people whose minds are closed – who won’t listen to others and who will never change their opinion even when evidence suggests they should. This is why I have trouble with people who identify themselves as “right wing” or “left wing” when it comes to politics, because they seem to blindly support one side or the other. I’m a person who supports the side that is *right* and that means I can swing from one wing to the other in a heartbeat.

My blog has 5 hits for the F word on Technorati. Google comes up with 23 but it counts several of these more than once. If that negates everything else I have ever said here on the blog for some people, then so be it. ;)

As I go back through my posts I will be editing swear words to have * in them. I apologize to any readers who may have been offended by my using these words in the past, and I do intend to use * in them in the future. It’s not because of that very judgmental blogger, it’s because I do respect and care for my readers and I do not want to impose my swearing on them. I know not all of them come from a place where the F word is as common as hello.

Sephy posted on this topic today also, these two posts tie in quite well together.

I meant to write about interpretation today but it didn’t happen. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get my act together on that one.

Australia, commenting on blogs, feed readers, mistakes I made, women

The power of positive thought.

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

In various discussions around the interweb lately, I’ve realized that I’m a pretty lucky person. Fairly early on in my life, I have learnt some life lessons which have been useful in helping me get to the place I am now. Many of these lessons are going to stick with me and I can build on them as time goes by.

One lesson I learnt by working in call centres is the power of positive thought. Outbound telemarketing is not an easy job. You have to be able to get yourself into a mental place where you can handle people saying no to you constantly. Rejection on such a massive scale can really get you down. You need inner resources which most people do not have and find difficult to get.

Most important of all, you need to be able to put the past behind you and move on. Not past from years ago, past from the last call you made. When you were told “no” and you hang up the phone, you need to be able to say “The next one will be a yes”. Otherwise you won’t be able to make that call. And when you get a “Yes” you need to celebrate that and build on it. In an average 5 hour outbound calling shift, we would average 20 calls per hour, and only ONE of those would be a yes. That means 19 people said no. If you took it personally it could mess with your head in a major way.

So one of the tools I used constantly were Dream Cards by Leon Nacson. I didn’t use them in the way intended by the author, though. Each day at the start of a shift, I would shuffle the cards, close my eyes and pick one from the middle of the pack. That card would be stuck to my computer screen. The cards contain positive messages and I found that by having the card there, I would find myself reading the card – which is essentially *thinking* the card. Here’s a picture of the cards, so you can see the kinds of positive messages they contain. You’ll need to click the thumbnail for a larger image. :)

dreamcards1

And I found that each day, whatever card I seemed to pick out was exactly what I needed to think that day. I don’t know whether that is destiny or just pure luck. For example – I would pull out “I am free from agitation and tension. Nothing can provoke me.” on a day when the people I spoke to would be trying their best to wind me up. I had that card on my desk on the day a customer told me that wind power was bad for the environment because “it takes the wind out of the air”.

These cards got me through some really hard times. I am so grateful for that. I recommend you get your own set but if you can’t find them or can’t afford it, you can just write down a positive thought and put it on your desk.

When I left call centre work I got out of the habit of using these cards, but a couple of months ago I put them back on my desk and each day I shuffle them and pick one, which sits at the bottom of my computer screen. Next to a piece of paper that has sat on my desktop for many months now – sometimes taking the high road is no fun at all.

We often do not realize we are sabotaging ourselves. The “tapes” in our head play constant negative thoughts. Until you stop to listen to what tape you are playing, you cannot begin to make changes and play a more positive tape.

For more on the power of positive thinking, you may want to read this article – Mind your thoughts.

I also use I Can Do It cards by Louise Hay.

call centre, life lessons, moving forward, negative thought, power of positive thought, taking the high road

Things are different in the country..

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

This week at art class my teacher told us about one of the not so fun aspects of country life – being talked about and it getting back to you. She and her partner are renovating a house, and mainly due to a lack of funds but also due to a desire to be environmentally friendly and use materials like straw bales and paints which are not damaging to the environment with unusual paint colors, some of the aspects of their renovation are being discussed at various dinner parties.

She knows many people in the town, and somehow at these dinner parties there is always a friend of hers who lets her know what is being said. There’s probably equal amounts of positive and negative, and many of the developments and other renovations in the town end up being discussed as well. But she admitted it is a little unsettling to know that people are talking about you.

Another major difference I’ve found when living in the country is the stuff you carry in your car. In the city I rarely had anything in the boot or backseat. In the country most people and now even me tend to have a lot of items which need to be carried. In my car boot for example, I have a bunch of green shopping bags, and a cooler bag which you can put cold items in for drives – on hot days I use these to carry home cold things from the supermarket, even though it’s a short-ish drive. We have a little cooler bag which we put cold cans in anytime we’re going on a daytrip type of drive.

In one of the green bags I have my little kit of assorted things you may need –

– latex gloves. Useful for many reasons but my major one is to check the pouches of roos, wombats and other pouch animals – babies can survive up to three days after the parent is killed and they can be rescued. If you’re in Australia and you see an animal by the side of the road with a green stripe spraypainted on it, this means someone has already checked the pouch. Also useful in case of first aid situations.

– wet wipes of various kinds – anti-bacterial, glass cleaning, ones to clean hands, yes I am a germophobe but also these are handy when fishing!

– First aid kit. One night back in the city when we lived on a main road, we were just sitting down to a lovely chicken roast when we heard this huge bang. A couple of elderly people were driving along the road and they ran right up the back end of a car parked on the side of the road. Having done first aid for many years as a St John’s cadet, I grabbed the little kit we had there and ran out to help while the other half called the police. This poor old couple, I felt terrible for them – and it was a dark red car under a tree which meant you really couldn’t see it very well. It turned out ok, they were fine, and we even went to the hospital to stay with them until their family got there and then visited them at home once they got out because they were so lovely. Imagine being the first one to an accident scene in the country, where help can be quite a drive away and mobile phones don’t always work. You bet I carry a good first aid kit.

– a rug. Useful for injured animals, like the time I sat an emu on my lap for 30kms till we got it to a vet. It had been hit by a car on the hay plains and was grazed and stunned. We weren’t sure it could walk, so we wrapped it in the rug and it became my new best friend. Emus are not small birds, you know. They can also be extremely aggressive. But it was worth it because the bird was very calm and seemed to know we were helping, and ended up being fine.

Another big difference is you have no hesitation buying things in bulk. We go to a local feed store here and buy two 20kg bags of kitty litter every couple of months. This costs us $30 in total. It works out to .75 cents per kilo of kitty litter, it’s one trip where you have to lug something heavy, it lasts us ages, we put it into these big buckets and use it as we need it.. We never run out because we always go back when the second bag gets opened. It’s a great deal. ;) So if we go somewhere and we see a great deal for buying in bulk we usually just grab it.

And the feed store, I love it there. It’s like a trip back in time. They have a lot of really great stuff you’ve never heard of before. They sell feed for every animal imaginable. THEY HAVE LIVE CHICKENS. I really want to have chickens of my own one day.

We now have a rule for shopping in the country. If you see something and you want it, grab it because it is not likely to be there the next time you’re looking for it.

The kitty post will have to wait because I want to try and get some photos to go with it. ;) Keep an eye on the blog over the weekend to see photos of our trip posted by Sephy. Be good ya’all and have a great weekend, I plan to. ;)

country life, people talking about you

Get you some google reader?

6 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Christine mentioned in yesterday’s comments that I should stop by her blog as she had lots of new posts.. Well I have a little something to tell you. I’m there, all the time – and not only am I there, I am on 140 other blogs, plus about 120 bumpzee blogs, all at once. How can I manage to be in so many places? Is there magic involved? Click for a better view –

reader1a_600x440

Yes, there is – google reader magic. Anytime you write a post, it comes to me as a surprise in my google reader, usually within 2-3 hours of you posting it. This means I can know what is going on everywhere but the one downside of google reader is, it does not tell a blogger who is reading their feed. That’s why I usually leave a comment to let people know, hey, I’ve got you in my google reader now. Of course unless I fully explain that then people have no real idea what that means, so I hope this post helps to let people know that I’m blog-stalking them all the time without them having a clue. :)

So you can see by looking at the picture above that I have some folders in there – because there are so many blogs I like to divide them up into groups – and that the blog names which have new posts are in bold with a number after them. When you click on the group name (ie group1) you get all the newest posts from that group to read through. It really has changed the way I read blogs – and there is no way I would be able to read so many blogs without it. If you don’t use it, I highly recommend giving it a try.

I do have to apologise though because this weekend was pretty crazy with all the stuff I had going on, I missed out on commenting on about 100 posts which I had something to say but not the time, so please accept my apology for not dropping by on a lot of blogs just recently.

We made pizza, which seemed to take a very long time. We played pool. We did a fair bit of housework because things were getting quite messy and The Other Half’s bathroom looked like aliens had landed in there due to me buying him a new towel and then him getting towel fluff on every surface possible. Do not ask me how he managed this for I do not know! I did some painting. We went beach walking – and I have some photos, coming soon. ;) I re-did the template for this blog, and I also have been working on blogzreview, and I caught up on West Wing episodes, managing four over the weekend yay!

Those members of the Australian Blogs Community as well as the US blogs community may not know that they’re coming through to me on an RSS feed via google reader. This means I can read all the community blogs at once. It only gives me the first 250 characters, then I have to click to read the rest. It is really handy. Here’s a view of that.

readerbumpzee1a_600x440

So, hopefully now you know that even if you don’t see me on your trackers, I’m still reading you loud and clear, and I’ll be dropping by when I get a chance. ;)

feed readers, google reader

Not a complete disaster..

7 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

I think the new blog template looks ok. What do you think? Drop by and have a look, and let me know. The three column layout is something new to me and it did take a bit of getting used to but the advantage is..

<---- everything over there is about Snoskred
The other stuff is over there —–>

Thanks to The Blogger Workshop where I found the theme. I have to say it was really easy to install and then customize. The entire process took about two hours but that is because I went through all of my sidebar stuff bit by bit and decided what I wanted to keep and what to get rid of, I went and got a few new things and then I went off to have lunch and watch TV in the middle of it.

Major lesson learned though – anyone on blogger reading this, I recommend you don’t use the links list blogger has. Always do your links in proper HTML (which looks like this). It will save you a nightmare. At least, it would if you don’t have a Sephy to give you a little secret tip. If you’re using Mozilla Firefox, highlight your list of links, right click, choose view selection source, and you’ll get the HTML. Thanks Sephy, that saved me a ton of time.

The more I look at it the more crazy about it I get. I really love it. The one downside is the sidebars load before the main window and that slows things down a little.

blog template, no doom happened, yay

Blogging Chicks Comment Challenge.

13 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

I mentioned yesterday that I was setting myself a new blog commenting task.

So, there’s apparently 820 blogging chicks blogs. If I comment on 10 per day, this will take me 82 days. :) Just under three months. And, during that time surely more will be added to the blogroll.

I really don’t think I have the time for an all out comment assault like NaBloPoMo was, where I was doing 100 comments a day. Even 20 might be a stretch at the moment given everything on my plate. However, if I push myself to do 100 a day it will take me 9 days which is much more reasonable to me. I’ll have to see how it goes. I want to be able to keep on top of all my other projects as well – and keep up with my art, and watch at least two West Wing episodes a day.

If you are a blogging chick who has arrived here after I have commented on your blog and you would like to try challenging yourself to comment, you might want to bookmark this page – it has all the current blogs on it. Once you click on a link, it should change color which makes it easier to keep up with who you’ve read.

And, in honor of Paris Hilton going to prison, here’s a lovely a-ha song named Cosy Prisons which almost could have been written about her if you listen to the lyrics. ;) Enjoy! But be warned, once this song gets inside your head it’s going to be there for a while.. ;)

Remember what I said here about an a-ha secret? :) I liked the light show on this one though, and I already posted the live version of this song before.

Morten Harket from a-ha is on the list of men I love to watch, keep an eye out for that post coming to you as a surprise soon.. ;) I almost did it today but got sidetracked, the a-ha DVD’s are sitting here on my desk so I can take my own screenshots.

a-ha, challenges, music

My new blog commenting task.

8 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

I’m going to set myself the challenge of visiting all the blogs in the blogging chicks network, and commenting on as many as I can. I recently joined the network and I can’t wait to get into reading through the blogs on it. You can see the list of blogs in my sidebar. If you’re a chick you should join. ;)

Also, I’ve finally finished adding the blogs I read in google reader to my sidebar. This means I now have some organisation going on here people! And one of the new things I am implementing is a “new blogz” folder in google reader. When I find a new blog I like, I’m adding it to that section and commenting to people that I’ve added them to my google reader. Hopefully depending on the amount of time I have, once a month or so I will go through and add them all to my sidebar.

It might seem like I’m a slave to reading blogs if you look at the amount of blogs there. The truth is quite different. I’m a really fast reader. I always have been. On average it takes me 2 hours to read a book of average size. So when it comes to blog reading, I turn up here with my coffee in the morning and I whiz through 100+ blog posts in the space of half an hour. Any ones I want to comment on (and this is becoming more and more lately) I open them in a new tab. Once I’m done with coffee, I spend a little time commenting, then it’s off to other tasks for the day. From time to time during the day when I have completed a task, I reward myself by checking in on any new blog posts. Not all of the people on the list blog daily, some of the people on the list blog once or twice a month.

commenting on blogs, feed readers, google reader

Just in case something happens..

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

This post is sure to seem odd. I don’t usually post about my health and a vast array of other inappropriate subjects. For the last three weeks I have had some kind of evil flu which does not seem to go away. Whenever I get the flu I am reminded of the one time I got pneumonia in 2003 right before Christmas – summer, in Australia, hello? But I went to the dentist with wet hair, and my dentist was in Glenelg, and the day I went it seemed like there was a breeze right from the Arctic blowing up the middle of Jetty Rd.

A few days later I could hardly breathe and I honestly thought I was going to die. Plus, back then I was a smoker and I couldn’t smoke, so not only did I feel terrible but I was the crankiest person anywhere ever. I remember begging the other half to get me Garlic Prawns from Marcellinas in the middle of the night – and so worried about me was he that he actually did it. I believe that was about 4am. Marcellinas was open till 5am.. ;) and the garlic prawns were spectacular.

I could not sleep lying down. We had a waterbed (still do) and I could not sleep there – I felt like I was drowning whenever I lay down. I made a makeshift kind of bed on the sofa bed which involved a lot of pillows and spare matresses so I could be sitting up when I was lying down. Days disappeared while I hovered in some kind of delirious state. I remember nothing of it.

When I did eventually wake up, I was craving a cigarette. I went out into the backyard and I tried to smoke, but I could not. That was when I gave up smoking for good.

In the middle of the night last night I woke up and I thought – what if something happens to me? Will they know what to do with me when I am gone? I don’t want to be buried and decompose. I don’t think I would like that. On the other hand, I really don’t like the idea of cremation – what if I am actually still alive but in some kind of death like state?

However all us ladies are prepared to sacrifice comfort for fashion and I am no exception to the rule. I would like to be cremated and turned into a diamond. Impossible, no? No, it is actually possible. It’s called Lifegem. And though I thought I must have mentioned this before a search of my blog shows that I have not. It amazes me because this is like fundamental to the core of me now, this is what I have decided I want done after a long struggle of not knowing what I want done, and I have not even mentioned it to you guys?

Well, what I really wanted was to be cremated and put on the mantelpiece but the other half refuses. He thinks it would be spooky, and he says we don’t have a mantelpiece. He is right, we don’t. However, would it be so difficult to create one just for me? He also thinks I will live longer than he will. Over my dead body. I refuse to be the last one standing.

Anyway, I’ve had a nasty flu, and I have said nothing about it because I don’t want to bore people with that shiznit and I wouldn’t have said anything but it explains why out of the middle of nowhere I am talking about what to do with my remains. So now you know, and there you go..

And Adelaide people, I miss Barnacle Bills. Seriously, you don’t know how good you have it. Go get a two in one snack pack and eat it for me, will you?

adelaide, death, growing up, health

Blogocracy Blogging Experiment

Leave a comment Posted on by Snoskred

Tim Dunlop has a little blogging experiment going on. It’s very interesting and comes just at the right time for me, because I’ve rehashed the blogs I am reading in google reader and I have some space for new ones.

The first question Tim has asked is – If you change the government, do you really change the country?

I think the answer is no. Most people in the country honestly don’t care about the government or what they are doing. People just want to live their lives relatively peacefully. Government is only interesting when they’re going to give us some money, or if they’re going to do something for us. That’s why change does not happen often.

Most people get to the polling booth, and they basically ask themselves – How am I doing under this current government? Is everything generally ok? If yes, let’s vote for the people who are in now, because nobody likes change, people are afraid of change, let us stick with what we have now.

The reason this government has been in as long as they have is, “people” remember those high interest rates when they get to the polls. Regardless of what happened in the lead up to the election, regardless of who promised what, they fear a return to interest rates they cannot afford. Many voters are home owners.

For all those who take sides and argue that “this” or “that” will change people’s minds and make them vote for one side or the other, realistically it does not. Polls don’t matter on election day. That is because voting is compulsory in this country. It is not something that only those who care about politics and the future of this country do – at least some of the people voting honestly could not care less about the election but they are forced to vote. In reality it is likely that they make up the majority of people who vote – which means the majority of people who vote could not care less.

If change happens, by some miracle, most people find it is a case of “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss”. Life will go on, the same as before. Things might get better, things might get worse, if they get worse the change will not last long, only 4 years.

Politics is a dirty game. In reality for many of us, it has nothing to do with real life. We’re more concerned with the politics of the workplace, the politics of our own homes. And fair enough too.

The other answers – from people much smarter than I. :) Very interesting reads.

Andrew Bartlett – Bartlett Diaries

Ken Parish – Club Troppo

Kim Jameson – Larvatus Prodeo

Harry Clarke – Harry Clarke blog

tigtog – Hoyden About Town

Joshua Gans – CoreEcon

Robert Merkel – View from Benambra

politics