A few days ago, my friend Joey Michaels wrote a post about E/N which brought back a flood of memories for those of us who were involved in it back then and then Artfag made a top secret, invite-only Facebook group where all of us old-timers have been catching up and remembering old times.

It’s so funny to think about how little has really changed for me. Out of all 80 of us, or at least the ones who have been participating, I’m the only one who’s really still blogging the same way I did back in 2000. Every single day. I’m still on Camwhores (formerly portal 9), where I’ve been since mid-2001. I still post in the E/N style, I think. On both sites.

I dunno, I just never really thought about it before today, that things never really changed for me. Everyone else is off doing grown up things and talking about “the good ol’ days” and I feel like I’m still pretty much living them. It’s never really occurred to me until today that most of the people reading this post have no idea what the E/N scene was, let alone were they a part of it. People rarely believe me when I tell that that I started blogging, like for real, before the word “blog” even existed.

Back then, camgirls were smart as well as beautiful (not saying they aren’t now, necessarily, some are, but in a totally different way) and most of them were super geeks who coded their own websites by hand. I didn’t though, I used Dreamweaver which was notorious for writing sloppy code so even though I used it, I would have to often go into html mode and fix the code by hand, so I consider it a half & half thing for me.  This is an image of the main page of the last layout (I think) I coded and created by hand. I was so damn proud of it:

If you’ve never read my “About the Site” page and are curious about my site’s history, you should check it out. There’s a link in there to my first Angelfire site even. Remember kids, everything you do on the internet is PERMANENT! What’s so funny to me about my Angelfire site is that my version of a blog sometimes back then was to write on paper, then scan it in and post that. I should do that more often NOW haha We have a new scanner but I don’t know how to use it or I would totally do that. Also I was talking to Blake about this design just last week:

When I lived in Rob’s basement when I was in high school, on one wall I made this design, except in a circle, as a huge mural. I don’t think there are any pics of it but it was pretty cool and I was pretty proud of it. I was telling Blake about it last week but I can’t remember why, except I did say that I should draw it again in my sketchbook so it wouldn’t be lost forever and lo & behold, here it is!

I don’t like poetry. I don’t like reading it and I don’t like writing it, but after Rob and I broke up, I went through a brief poetry phase. Here’s one of them:

Piss Off

Go back to where you were.

Go back into her arms.

No one needs you here,

all you do is harm.

I hoped you were in a ditch somewhere.

I hoped for blood and gore.

I hoped that you had killed yourself and

your little whore.

I wished that you were starving,

And didn’t have a home.

I wanted you to know great pain,

I wanted you to roam.

I prayed that you had been beaten,

I prayed that you were dead.

I thought that you were staying there,

and you’d stop messing with my head.

But now you’re here and I hate you more,

Than I ever thought I would.

I thought that you had finally left,

finally gone for good.

I wished that you would disapear,

Or shrivel up and die.

But you’re still here living happily,

and I still wonder why.

Why couldn’t you have been a good boy,

And slit your fucking throat?

Nothing I would love better than to

watch your dead body bloat.

Can’t win them all I guess,

But I can always hope.

If you ever want to kill yourself,

I have lots of rope.

Hahahahaha!!! Isn’t that hilarious? I also think it’s funny that on my Angelfire site, I had a “PMS page“, which was basically the original version of my “Shit I Hate” page. I’m also still really proud of this troll story I wrote. If you knew the guy it was based on, you would find it hysterically funny too! :oD

More poetry; I wrote this one for Madison when she was first born:

Too funny!

But yeah, it amazes me how much and how little has really changed since then. Especially the latter for me since I feel like I’m still in the same place, doing the same thing as I was 11 or 12 years ago or however long it’s been (I started my first site in 1997, so how long ago was that?).  On the FB group, we were talking about “what if…” and wondering why none of us ever really made it “big” in the blog world and I still don’t have an answer. It kills me that people like Dooce get all this recognition for the same thing myself and several others have been doing better and longer. What makes her so special? What makes her more marketable than us? Why did she get a book deal? I don’t get it. She’s not the only one, I’ve written about the Mormon mommy bloggers before and that whole thing STILL baffles me.

Anyway, the trip down memory lane was a welcome change from the usual. Do you remember the E/N scene? What/who do you miss the most? Spill! I miss being pretty and having nice hair. Oh yeah, I still maintain a small webcam archive, which can be found here.

~*PLEASE DONATE SO I CAN GO TO ART CAMP!*~

PS. Another thing I just remembered is that a few years ago on Facebook, someone referred to me as an “internet celebrity*” and Madison saw it and was like “wtf does that mean?” so I had to show her my site and some of my Camwhores archive and explain the whole shebang to her. She actually thought it was really cool but now that she’s aware of the fact that there’s a relatively big audience, she won’t let me post everything about her anymore, which sucks, but I respect that. Wes knows about everything but my activity on Camwhores and he thinks it’s the coolest thing ever and constantly tell me what I should tell you guys about. “Tell them I did this!” he says all the time, like when I’m filing him or taking his picture. A total ham.

Okay, nurse Cheryl (ugh) is going to be here in 2 hours. I’d better get a bit more sleep.

(* It’s easy to be an “internet celebrity” when there are only 50 people on the whole entire internet haha)

Edit: Apparently Steph formerly of Delightz.net made the FB group, not Artfag and Steph wrote a really nice post about it which you can find here.

Edit #2: Here’s Artfag’s post about the whole thing.

So I’ll admit I’ve been a pretty awful denizen of the internet and didn’t really know what the whole SOPA deal was until about 5 minutes ago. It’s really fucking important that you read his if you don’t know what it’s about either because if it passes, it WILL affect you.

Not that it makes a lick of difference, but my site will “go dark” tomorrow in solidarity with the other sites that are protesting this bill. That means I won’t be updating. I also won’t be tweeting or doing anything considered as providing content because that’s exactly what’ll happen if this passes, sites you care about will go dark. The bottom line is that this will affect the internet as we all know it. Like I said, read the above link for a breakdown on it and see for yourself and do me a favour? Really click the link and read it. Because if this breakdown is all true, and I have every reason to believe it is, then we could all be in very deep shit if SOPA passes. I can’t do a damn thing from my little bunker in Canada but you? You reading this? I bet YOU can. So do it.

Have some Scratching Post. :o)

(Fun Fact: On The Mike Bullard Show (last clip), I showed my underwear on national television. :o))

Anyway, these clips are not in chronological order. The official videos are, but the live stuff isn’t. I was digging all of these up to show Madison when she woke up, in honour of Canada Day so I thought I’d share. Enjoy!

My friend Jay Holben linked this in Facebook this afternoon and I just got around to watching it now. Pretty interesting stuff. It’s a year old, so you might have seen it and I’m sure the stats have changed, but still interesting I think. Anyway, the text moves faster than I could read, so I suggest pausing when necessary and also possibly viewing the video in a larger size than I’ve embedded here. Here’s the YouTube link to the video.

So, is social media a fad? Even before watching this video I would have said “absolutely not”. The world’s changing and I feel really privileged to be alive at this point in history when the world’s changing changing changing and doing it faster than a lot of people can even keep up. I mean, how many people reading this can even figure out their Facebook’s privacy settings? (Take a look at Time magazine this week, that’s the cover story.)

I dunno, I just like this stuff a lot so I thought I’d share the video. I’m too tired to make a real post about it, so excuse me for not being my normal verbose self tonight…

Edit: Here’s this year’s version of the same video with updated stats, it was released this month.

I made a Live Journal post today I’d like everyone to take a look at if it isn’t  too much trouble.

I was interviewed by Marketing magazine this afternoon and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
This doesn’t have anything to do with the Hypercube contest, really, it has more to do with the Canadian ad industry as a whole and Marketing magazine in particular.

As most of you are aware, I went to college to be a copywriter and have been flirting with a career in advertising for damn near the past decade, even writing two articles ABOUT advertising and the internet for Marketing magazine. I was even offered my own column, as I’ve relayed before, but that fell apart amongst a regime change and budget cuts. I also subscribed to said publication for about 4 years and as such, I have very mixed feelings about it and how this article on the Hypercube contest is probably going to go.

Marketing magazine, for those who don’t know, is Canada’s largest (only?) trade publication for our ad industry and it’s kind of known for being one big circle jerk when it comes to things ad agencies have actually done. When they talk about hypotheticals and what agencies should do and things like that, they’re actually pretty brazen and often open-minded, but when it comes to agencies, everyone seems to be touching everyone else’s dick.

I don’t know for certain what kind of article is going to be written about the Hypercube contest, but I do know the author contacted Capital C, Nissan and the Competition Bureau before talking to me and a lady I know from the contest named Lori (at my suggestion). Of course, it was also my understanding that the now infamous Encyclopedia Dramatica article about the contest (which is still ongoing, it appears) was the catalyst for writing an article at all, so I guess that’s something, but by the questions that were asked and what was focused on, I’m not very optimistic at reading a truthful, in-depth piece on what really went down and I’m afraid that Lori and I are just going to come across as butthurt sore losers as we’ve both been accused of being for not sitting here like nice little ladies and allowing ourselves to be spoon-fed bullshit.

For me, this whole thing, this whole “Hypercube Aftermath” as ED calls it on their second page on the topic, is muddled and confusing. There are so many issues to address and questions left unanswered and where to go from here – and just so many directions this could go, I literally have a hard time trying to keep up. And I’m usually pretty good at keeping up.

Some people want to focus on the fact that Blake and I didn’t win. Well, Blake and I are long over that, that’s not even an issue anymore. What is an issue, however, is the fact that from the very beginning there was no way Blake or I could have won, yet they made us believe we could and they used us. In order to win,  at least according to the game we were presented with, we had to use every bit of social persuasion we had and we had to maintain a momentum that had me glued to Twitter from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. It had me spamming forums, placing fake car ads, getting people to make fansigns – creatively using social media to spread their message. And Tony Chapman himself said that they were looking to reward social creativity. Yet most of the people who won (I won’t say all) didn’t participate in any meaningful way, if at all, or signed up for Twitter just to be a part of the contest, or signed up for Twitter to just be part of the contest but only tweeted a few times here and there and only to the “voice” of the contest, @thehypercube. And they certainly weren’t being socially creative.

And as I said to Matt Semansky, the guy writing the article, Capital C, namely Tony “Douchebag” Chapman, was talking about the “net generation” a whole lot, yet they didn’t seem to know who or what the “net generation” is and in the process of choosing people who are not the “net generation”, they alienated and even angered the actual “net generation” (which doesn’t actually exist, it’s a stupid marketing term, but those who are in it, know they’re in it). The people I hang with, the power users of the internet who were lulled to sleep at night by the sound of a dial-up modem connecting and who are literally online or connected to the internet in some way every breathing moment and have been since they were children, they are not buying this car. But that’s who Nissan wanted to buy this car, I think anyway. At least that’s what the tech package and branding it a “mobile device” seems to imply. But they threw out the latest marketing buzz term “creative class” too, so I’m not sure if they knew WHO the hell they wanted to buy this car. Obviously there’s going to be some overlap between groups and maybe those who fall into the overlap are what they desired, but that’s not what they got, so to me, this entire contest just ended up being one giant clusterfuck of epic proportions. Some are already calling it “the most botched contest Canada’s ever seen”. On the internet. Where this whole contest took place. Where they were hoping to reach their target and build brand awareness and loyalty through community…except in their choices, they decimated the community that had formed during the contest and created full-on brand hatred that has only grown as the dirty truth about what went on behind the scenes has begun to surface. Um. I don’t think that’s a win, people.

When folks are clogging up (basically) your brand’s hashtag on Twitter by saying things like, they want to key every Cube they see or they’d like to vacation on the inside of a Cube with a blowtorch, or even that your product is ugly (check out the #nissan hashtag some time and watch it for a day) there was a problem along the way. But Nissan and Cap C? They refuse to acknowledge there was or is any problem and that in and of itself is the problem.

Matt Semansky asked me today what I thought Nissan could do to turn this around and while I forget my exact wording, I basically said that the best they could do is trash this whole campaign, kill CubeCommunity.ca, cut their losses and start over with a traditional media campaign aimed at the very people they didn’t want driving this car, because those are the only people who are going to buy it now. The fact of the matter is, their attempt at a social media campaign, their social media “experiment”, well, it failed. There’s no denying it, it failed in every way imaginable.

And in CubeCommunity.ca? With what little is on that domain right now? Even that is a complete fail and all they’re asking for is for you to join their mailing list. If the site is gone by the time you’re reading this, which is a possibility, there’s a photo of a Nissan Cube on the page with a speech bubble that says “oh hai!” They are ever so slightly co-opting the speech and memes of the same “net generation” they managed to alienate during the course of this campaign. That little “oh hai!” may seem like nothing on the surface, but it’s a rub for a lot of us. It reminds me of a Gap ad I saw in the 90′s with a guy wearing Gap jeans and a flannel shirt falling through the air and the tagline was “Plunge into grunge”. It was vile and completely offensive. I mean dammit, people, didn’t you watch Reality Bites? There was a reason why working at the Gap was considered the worst possible job there was and that poster pretty much summed it up.

For the record, I have never been in a Gap store in my life. And it’s all because of that ad.

But I digress…

I know it’s been pretty negative in the virtual world of Sunnyland the last couple of months because of this contest and that you’re all probably sick of hearing about it, but the thing is, I am of a breed, we’ll say,  that doesn’t deal well with injustice and some say that’s a trait of my generation, whatever generation I may be. Whatever it is, it eats at me. Unfortunately, I’m also a person prone to extreme anxiety and it took 4, count ‘em 4, Ativans to even function today because of Hypercube crap being brought up again and for my own sanity I hope that this article in Marketing magazine either ends this insanity or blows it wide open. I’m sick of all this whispering to each other behind the scenes and keeping secrets and flat out gossiping and people blocking people on Twitter and sock puppet accounts and all the rest of it. I’m sick of it, I want it to be done.

But as I said to Matt this afternoon, it probably won’t be the end. CubeCommunity.ca is going to launch (eventually) and it’s going to be a whole new thing. I’m no psychic or anything, but the future I see with this is not a positive one and it’s only going to be the final nails in the Hypercube campaign’s coffin. At one end of the spectrum, you’ll have people tweeting or blogging about what mouth-breathers the “winners” are and at the other end of the spectrum you’ve got the wrath of Anonymous and DDoS attacks. The reaction to CubeCommunity.ca is going to fall somewhere  within that spectrum and for that reason, if I were Nissan, I wouldn’t even launch it. As I said earlier, I’d cut my losses and start over with a different demographic. They failed with this one. But that’s just me. And they’re not prone to listening to me, so I guess I’ll sit back and *facepalm* with the rest of my “generation” as they flounder some more.

So that’s, more or less, what I conveyed to Matt Semansky of Marketing magazine. Or at least tried to. As I said in my Live Journal post, I’m just not any good on the phone, especially with this muddled topic, so god only knows how I came across.

Anyway, it’s almost 5am, I’m starving and I’ve gotten absolutey no work done tonight so I have to go eat and accomplish something.

OMG I don’t even know where to start or even what this post is going to be about there is so much in my head right now and it’s all just one big blob of thoughts and ideas that I can’t quite seem to grasp. Something’s definitely up with me, I’m just not sure what. My sleeping habits are totally fucked and thus so are my eating habits and my anxiety is through the roof.

At the same time, it’s supposed to be 8 degrees and sunny tomorrow and for some reason, right now, at almost 2am, I’m thinking it might be a fine idea to walk Lucky up to the post office and purchase stamps so I can send cards and letters and Sunnyland post-tards to people, like my friend Marylin who I think needs some mailbox love. Now, the post office goes way beyond my immersion therapy limits, right now I’m just supposed to be walking to the end of the block but that’s what I tend to do, I tend to get brave and take these giant leaps and scare myself and then I don’t go out again for a month. So while it seems like a perfectly fine idea to walk the dog to the post office and purchase stamps (which totals 4 things that cause me great anxiety) it’s probably not a good idea at all.

But I have $113 in my bank account, it’s supposed to be a nice day and I really want to purchase stamps by myself with my own money. :o/ I’m so frustrated and upset that there are all these barriers preventing me from doing so and in the end I won’t even get any stamps because I refuse to ask Blake to get them for me. It’s fine for him to actually put stuff IN the mail for me, but I want to be able to put the stamps on myself.

Back when I actually had a life and was independent I always always always had stamps, both Canadian and US and it bothers me immensely that there are none on my desk, that I don’t have the freedom to send a letter by myself.

And realistically I can’t even take Lucky with me because if I tie him up outside and leave him to go into the post office, he’ll freak out due to severe separation anxiety, slip his leash and start running home – except “home” means crossing the road and I’m paranoid he’d get hit. Because of his staples I can’t put his harness on to prevent that from happening so I guess I’m not going to the post office tomorrow because there’s not a chance in hell I’m going by myself.

And come to think of it, I’m alone with both kids tomorrow so it’s not even feasible. And don’t say to take the kids, they cause me MORE anxiety.

Anyway…

People keep asking me about the Hypercube contest and if I’ve been selected to be one of the 500 contestants. Well, I haven’t found out yet. The Hypercube website says everyone will find out by April 15th, so I guess I just have to sit tight and wait. I really thought we’d find out over the weekend so people had the weekend to work on their blank canvases but that never happened so it was an anxious weekend.

While I won’t be disappointed if I’m not selected, I’m still chomping at the bit to dig my nails into the “blank canvas” they keep talking about. I have pages and pages of blog post ideas and I intend, if selected, to do some of the best writing of my life thus far.  I have this crazy strategy that may be a little risky, but may just do the trick: I’m going to be myself and if the judges think I’d be a good representative for the car, then they’ll pick me. If not, no big deal.

To be perfectly honest, my bipolar is kicking in bigtime in regards to this contest. Half of me doesn’t want to be selected and doesn’t want to win because winning means I’ll have no choice but to do the driving part of my immersion therapy, which terrifies me. Whereas if I don’t win, the driving portion of my immersion therapy remains optional. The truth is, I can live a creative, artful life either way. Either outcome is an adventure, one just happens to be bigger than I originally anticipated and I wasn’t prepared to dream that big.

BUT, I have a Live Journal user icon that I never get to use that says, “Replace the fear of the unknown with curiosity” and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do with my life these days. I think the contest to win a Cube and then maybe even winning one and driving it fits nicely with that notion.

I really like the idea of keeping a camera and notebook in my glove compartment.

I think that in the end, it’s just really up to the universe. If I’m supposed to take the driving path and have that life, then I’ll win. If I’m supposed to walk before I run, so to speak, I won’t win. It’s that simple. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.

If I *am* selected as one of the lucky 500, I’m going to need all the support I can get from you guys though, as part of winning means votes, so while I’m ultimately leaving it up to the universe, I plan on singing for my supper and hopefully you’ll like what I’m going to do.

In other news, I braved Wal*Mart with the family on Saturday to do groceries and while we were there I grabbed some badly needed clothing, most notably pajama pants which I practically live in. I ended up getting two pairs of Hello Kitty pajamas pants and a pair of Hello Kitty pajama shorts for the summer, except I kind of overestimated on what size to get and I got an XL when a medium or large would probably have sufficed. Unfortunately I’d ripped the tags off before I realized this so now I’m just the proud owner of a couple of big pairs of pajama pants. No big deal, I only wear them around the house anyway and they’ll probably shrink some in the wash, so whatever.

Well, I don’t remember why now, probably laziness, I asked Blake to put away my new clothes for me (I got some tank tops & shorts too) and this is what walked into my office 5 minutes later…

Teh Hotness

…so that was special. Other than that it was a fairly uneventful long weekend besides a ridiculous amount of SPAMMING ASSHOLES following me on Twitter.

None of you may notice that I added a few new things to the “Shit I HATE” page but one of the newly added items is “Social media “experts” and online marketing douchebags following me on Twitter.” These people are fucking parasites and btw, what the FUCK is a “social media expert” anyway? Someone who parks their ass on Facebook and Twitter all day? Well then, I must be a social media expert too! And moreso because I have an 8 year old Live Journal and started watching social media way way way before anyone even use dthe term “social media”! I should go add like, 30 billion people on Twitter to advertise my social media expertise and online marketing company with profile pictures and bios not unlike real estate equivalents!Take a fucking peek! I present to you asshole #1, Brenda Horton and asshole #2, Jimmy Davis as prime examples of the kind of person I’m talking about. Or how about Brian Kelly?

OR OR what about the other assholes who aren’t actually selling anything, but they follow 30 billion people on Twitter and then when a few thousand or more follow them back, they stop following the majority of them so they seem cooler than they really are because they have like, soooooo many followers! It’s the MySpace school of Twitter, seriously, I can’t stand it.These people need to go fuck themselves.

Now of course I have the option of blocking these people and never having anything to do with them, but what fun is that? What I like to do is Direct Message them with links to porn and gore using shrunken  blind is.gd links or just call them leeches or parasites “to their face”. Oddly, this doesn’t discourage them or make them unfollow me, but it gives me a little bit of satisfaction every time I do it.

So that’s my current hate. I also hate chicken, but that’s a whole other post.

I guess I should wrap this up as I’ve written a wall of text here and don’t really have anything else to say at this particular moment in time. So, I shall leave you with Wes’ favourite song, which I hope you’ll all enjoy. Goodnight!

Why? Because I hate MySpace.

A few days ago Ditsy & I were talking about how much we hated MySpace and it got me thinking…why the hell do I even have one when there isn’t a single feature I like, use or pay attention to? Especially when my first thought in even talking to her about it was, “Holy shit, Ditsy’s on my friends list?”

When an honest to god friend gets lost in a sea of…I don’t even know for sure what I’d call most of them, oh that’s right bands…it’s time to simplify, so I just deleted it.

So the next time someone asks “Hey what’s your MySpace?” they can give me the same look I get when people ask for my cell number. (Just wait for Sunny Vs. the iPhone. Oh the hilarity. :oD)

PS. Is it sad that I made the big version of that screencap my desktop background?