Social Media when you’re not very sociable?

Social media is all the rage. Facebook, Twitter, and newcomer Google+, as well as dozens of other platforms, are constantly at hand for many, if not most, people these days. But I have a few questions I’d like to ask.

Who do you communicate with on the various platforms? Are they mostly people you know in real life, or are they relative strangers that you only know from the internet?

What do you talk about? There are some folks who post almost every intimate detail of their lives. Others write nearly nothing about themselves, but would rather talk about a favorite subject or two. Are you bothered by advertising or advocacy entering your social stream? What kind of information do you share, and what do you respond to, or like, in others?

When, where, and how often do you engage social media? Are you someone who is always updating your status and checking on others, or do you limit and separate your social time from other online pursuits?

One final question, then I’ll leave it up to all of you to answer, how does your online social activity compare with your real life? Are you more or less social online?

That’s it. Now I wait on you to have your say.

Just Being Social

This site is going to be the place where I explore and sound off on social media. I have a few ideas about what I’d like to say, but they haven’t been fully developed yet. Check back for those posts soon.

While you wait, just a few words on being social. What does that mean in regards to today’s social media? Like many of you I am on

Twitter, Facebook, G+, and I may still have a MySpace account. How do you keep up with it all? The answer, in my case, is not always very well. That begs the question, can social media be overwhelming?

That’s one of the things I’d like to examine more deeply in a future post. I’d like to hear your thoughts in the comments.

On Facebook

You can find me on Facebook too. There I’m Jim Lynch. I know that’s not much of a post, but it is an easy way to add my Facebook Category and Tag.

I still want you to follow me though.

Really.

On Twitter

You can find me on Twitter as bRightandearly. I know that’s not much of a post, but it is an easy way to add my Twitter Category and Tag.

I still want you to follow me though.

Really.

I’m Working Here

Well, a little bit. Trying to get the theme and other stuff to my liking. It’s not quite there. I need something new, so this post is a reason for that.

Spreading Out

I haven’t posted anything here on my WordPress site in quite a while. The good news is that means the main site hasn’t been having any technical issues. Still, that’s no reason to let a site go to waste!

This will still be a backup site, but it will also server for some stand-alone, different type of posts. One focus will be on social media. It will also serve for posts about Empire Avenue and Klout. More on that to come.

For today, if you are listed on Empire Avenue I ask you to visit my profile and endorse my blog feeds. Thank You! Back soon with more.

Here I am

For another day or two I’ll be here instead of my regular home. More later.

First Cup 02.03.07

The powers of a man’s mind are directly proportioned to the quantity of coffee he drinks. ~ Sir James Mackintosh

It must be tough trying to portray yourself as a moderate to the country while at the same time making sure your base is convinced of your far left bona fides. It was the later Hillary was kowtowing to the other day.

“Believe me, I understand the frustration and the outrage,” Clinton said in a speech to the Democratic National Committee meeting that brought the party’s nine White House hopefuls together for the first time. “You have to have 60 votes to cap troops, to limit funding to do anything. If we in Congress don’t end this war before January 2009, as president, I will.”

I heard a sound bite of that last sentence on a radio news broadcast yesterday afternoon. She was definitely using her Shrill Hill™ voice; the same one she was using when she made this statement:

“And let me add one other thing, and I want to be very clear about this,” she said. “If I had been president in October of 2002, I would not have started this war.”

Dan Conley had this take:

Anyone who believes her, please raise your hand. Or maybe there’s some literal truth here that I’m missing … such as, like Bush, she’d wait until March 2003 to start it.

Or perhaps, given the extraordinary set of circumstances it would have taken for her to be President in 2002, she had somehow acquired a superpower, let’s say omniscience, in the late 90s and knew for a fact that Saddam had no WMDs. Of course, if Hillary knew everything that Bill was doing all these years … oh, never mind. (h/t James Joyner)

Her nutroots base may be happy to hear those sentiments,but I’m willing to bet she hopes the rest of the country wasn’t listening closely.

Still a Terrorist

The day after last year’s London subway bombings I wrote the following post. I am re-posting it here as it has some relevance to the current outrage over the Pope’s quotation regarding Islam. It also ties in with an email correspondence I’ve been having with Chad at In the Bullpen. Chad’s post looks at the recent history of the conflict between Islam and Christianity and quotes part of an email he sent to me:

Previous popes have tried to have a dialog between the two religions, but you cannot have a dialog when one side refuses to actually hear what is said. If you get your source of news through an Imam who repeatedly tells you the West as a whole wants to exterminate your kind, what other choice do you have than to react violently? The problem, or at least as I see it, is more that the religious leaders within Islam fail to tell their parishioners the truth and prefer them to walk blindly.

My reply:

Islamonazis (to use a phrase I heard somewhere) are not so much insulted as they are looking for a hook — something they can use to call for more violence. The bigger the insulter (and it doesn’t get any bigger than Christianity) the bigger and more useful the hook.

During our exchange I was reminded of this post. A few minor changes have been made due to outdated links and the like.

My Dog Is A Terrorist

Don’t get me wrong, I love my dog. He’s great with kids, even the youngest who can just walk and who’s idea of petting is hitting Joker on the head. He let’s us know if someone is in the yard, but typically doesn’t bark without reason. Still, he’s a terrorist. You see, Joker has one all consuming hatred. Cats. Not the cartoonish, stereotypical hatred of cats that dogs are reported to have, but an all consuming desire that cats should not exist in the world. We’ve tried to acclimate him to a few cats. Nothing doing. He actually broke a window in front of the house because of cats in the yard ($100 vet bill, $100 to replace the window).

Take a look at the Day by Day strip at the top of the page (here or here if you linked directly to this article). Chris Muir nails it. The terrorist perform their actions not because of Bush/Blair/Iraq/et. al. but because infidels exist. That’s you an me my friend. Getting along with these extremists is a one way proposition. They have no desire to get along with us, no matter how hard we try to get along with them. Their goal isn’t accommodation, but elimination. Period.

The left still doesn’t get it. Their primary (and not unexpected) response to yesterday’s bombings is along the lines of, “We’re very sad for the British people who were attacked. It was Bush’s/Blair’s fault.” Steve Verdon, posting on Outside the Beltway, does a great job fisking the left’s contention that Bush is responsible for increased terrorism. Michelle Malkin exposes several Reactions from the American Left as does Brian at Iowa Voice. Many others (follow the links in either of those posts) are pointing out the liberal lies as well. I invite you to look at the comments posted on any of the blogs who are actually saying that terrorists are the ones responsible for this attack. Inevitably there will be a comment or comments similar to the one I received (even with my relatively small readership) saying, “BUSH AND BLAIR BROUGHT THIS ON”. (I guess if you can’t make a real argument SAYING IT IN ALL CAPS will make people believe it.)

I’m sure that we will be seeing more reports today as the British investigate those who are responsible for the cowardly attacks. It doesn’t require a crystal ball to predict:

• Those who are actually responsible hate us infidels, but,
• The left will continue to blame Bush
• The left will continue to blame Blair
• Crybaby libs will claim we just need to get along
• TOM will sieze any opportunity to highlight the lib/left view
• Terrorist will be looking for more ways to hurt us
• Joker will still hate cats

Power Problems

Well, I’m back over here for awhile. Here’s why:

July 28, 2006 – 4:00 PM PST
Due to a generator failure at one of our four data centers, the building operators were forced to shut down power to the entire building. Because of this failure, the data center is currently offline.

This will cause some of our customer’s web sites to be down. For current information, please check back to the Help Center.

Your continued patience is greatly appreciated.