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You guys will not believe what an ordeal it’s been to upgrade the I Hate My Message Board Forums to IPB 3. I had to sit in my office all day and listen to Run DMC all. day. long. while I supervised. It’s not like I could just sit there in my chair, either, I had to get up and dance. Those beats are contagious, I tell you what.
It’s pretty much done except the skinning work and lots of little bits and pieces. Hooray!
George from Tumblemoose and I wanted to set aside a spot in the forums for all of our blogging buddies and the people who love them to hang out. The TnT Blogger’s Lounge is a place for people who blog to shoot the breeze, get advice, share knowledge and most importantly laugh. Jump right in! Registration is free, quick and painless.
And as always, we’d greatly appreciate anything you can do to help spread the word about this new forum. Tweet it, stumble it, post a link on your blog, invite your mom, whatever you feel comfortable doing.
I’ll be glad to answer any questions about the forum and how to use it. There is also more information in the Welcome Thread.
Just a reminder, I Hate My Message Board now has a Facebook Fan Page. Please become a fan today!
(yeah, I couldn’t very well really leave this post without a Run DMC video could I? Small Fries BIG MAC!)
Or, the association of the burned out and fatigued is meeting at my house. BYOB, I am also broke.
I don't know who these people are or what they are doing, but it looks like fun. Photo credit: Petirrojo
There’s a ton of stuff I want to do these days and a ton of stuff I need to do or am obligated by federal, state and local laws to do and it’s at the point now where I don’t know if I’m coming or going and I get so overwhelmed that instead of methodically going about my business, I spend all of my time aimlessly clicking around on the internet. I’m sure you guys know the feeling. My entire online business is based on people doing just that! Go me!
So, I decided that today I would take good advice from an unconventional source and Stop, Collaborate and Listen.
Stop, take a breath, pay attention to what my body is telling me. Sit and let the calmness of the universe cradle and soothe me. Dissolve into a fit of giggles (sorry, this is always what happens after I relax. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ANALYZE THIS!!)
Collaborate, people like me, they want to help me. Find out who they are and how much I can dump on them. The key is to give folks enough that they feel trusted and valuable, not enough that they realize you’re pawning all your work off on them.
Listen, what’s that sound? Does everyone know what’s going down but me? Figure out a way to safely ignore it, whatever is going down now is old news. There, dismissed, now I can concentrate.
I wrote a guest post that got rejected so I’m posting it here
I don’t know why it wasn’t published, I thought it was very good and very list-y.
Seven Ways to Lead a More Better Life
1. Be a sleeping beauty, not a wakey doody!
You must get enough sleep or you will be tired and have unsightly circles under your eyes. Most of the time sleepy people are very cranky and when you point this out to them they shout. Nobody likes a cranky shouter!
If you do not sleep 8 hours a night, you will get bored eventually because all those hours you were awake you were doing stuff and will soon run out of interesting stuff to do. If you sleep more, you’ll save stuff for other days and will probably not be tired of life until you are really old. Like 60!
2. H2O helps you so!
Not too much though because if you keep going to the bathroom, people might think you are:
A cocaine addict. They might even follow you to the john and ask you for some which would be very awkward for all concerned.
Pregnant. My husband asked me the other day with that tone why I was going to the bathroom so much. Like 3 whole times while we were at the movie theater. Hello?! We got there 2 hours early and I had a gigantic sized coffee to keep me awake and my allergies were bothering me. Duh!
Bulimic. There is nothing funny about bulimia, trust me, I tried to think of something and couldn’t find a thing.
There are special bladder exercises you can do to try and train yourself to go longer between potty breaks, but frankly, I think it’s nasty to walk around with pints of pee just sloshing around in there.
3. Get the scoop on coupons!
It’s the secret the food industry doesn’t want you to know about! You can also buy stuff on sale!
4. Exercise will mesmerize in people’s eyes you’ll be right-sized!
If your body looks good other people will admire it and say “Hey you, you look GOOD!!!’ and that will make you feel good. I don’t know what will happen when you are all old and wrinkly, but I’m sure by then you will have saved up enough self esteem that you won’t miss it too much. Also, much easier to find cute clothes if your butt is right-sized.
5. Keep your mind active!
Yeah, I know Wheel of Fortune has gotten really scary now that it’s in HD but solving those puzzles is a great way to keep your brain nimble. Try not to yell at stupid ass dummyheads for buying vowels too much though, aggression is bad for your heart!
6. Hobbies are not just for the geeky and weird!
You can’t sleep all day so find something to occupy you in your spare time lest you start picking at your skin or plucking out your eyebrows. That’s what bored monkeys do, you know. Whatever you do though, don’t take up knitting, the world has enough people selling on etsy right now, thankyouverymuch.
7. Don’t eat anything with arms!
Trust me on this one. Legs are fine. Wings, groovy. But anything that has arms is really creepy and bad for your karma.
Happy living!
Oh yeah, before anyone points that out, I totally stole that post from a comment I left on another blog. Eh, it’s summer rerun season.
And I’ll leave you to ponder why on earth somebody would make a video tribute to Uncle Jesse with “Life is Life” by DJ Otzi and the Hermes House Band as the music.
Now I’m going to have to spend the rest of the day finding out what other B list stars have tributes with Europop soundtracks. This could take all day, maybe all week; I mean I bet there are dozens for Charles in Charge alone! Then, after that’s done, I’ll be in good shape to tackle my crap what needs doing.
Psst – if you haven’t already add I Hate My Message Board to your Facebook Fan Pages. I’m not sure what it will do for you, but it will make me look like not so much of a loser in front of my friends and family if it seems like I am popular. Thanks!
Or, more plausible explanations for inexplicable crap
Photo credit: mwboekmann
Once again, I must remind you that all answers presented in this column are not so much answers or even opinion but stuff I thought maybe sounded like it could be the explanation. If you copy this for your homework, I will laugh myself silly at you.
Stephen from The Rat Race Trap asks: Tracy, why do people who tend to gain weight keep eating unhealthy foods and way to much food overall?
That’s a million dollar question, isn’t it? I imagine most people would start off their answer talking about evolution and holding on to fat for lean times and so on and so forth, but I’m not sure that explanation holds water. Think about it, you’re a caveman, life is nasty brutish and short and there are always things to run away from. Are you telling me that you’d spend excessive time looking for food and then eating so much that it impairs your ability to run away from saber tooth tigers not to mention make you unable to power your vehicle? Hardly likely.
All of us, but especially the overweight, think about food too much. Yeah, yeah, I know, I totally capitalize on that for my own fame and fortune. I have kids to feed, leave me alone! So, you realize you’re 5-10 lbs over capacity for your pants and the first thing you think is, dang, I need to go on a diet! And that’s when it begins, you start thinking about what you can eat, what you can’t eat, how much to eat and when to eat it. You buy books and magazines filled with pictures of food to help you decide and you actually read email forwards that start with “OMG, you can totally make a cake out of fat free whipped topping, carbless flour and a diet Pepsi!”.
What this is doing is making thousands or even millions of connections and pathways in your brain that will go crazy the next time you’re alone with a bag of Fritos. And after you eat them, you’ll think about what you should have eaten instead and where you’ll buy it and how to avoid the bad stuff, and again the message your brain gets is FOOD.
So you find yourself wondering why you can’t just leave the candy bars in the vending machine and the more you think about it and what kind of snacks to bring from home instead and reading magazine articles with helpful hints that all seem to involve packets of instant oatmeal, the more connections are formed labeled FOOD.
And what happens when you see food? Electrons start firing like crazy in your brain and you have to get some of that. And what foods are we most likely to see? The ones in bright packaging, the ones shelf stable enough to be in the vending machine, the ones you can eat right away. Junk, mostly.
This is not to say that I think that the overweight are food obessessed and with no self control, but I have noticed that a lot of times when us people go to correct a problem we overcorrect and wind up making things worse.
My totally unproven and non-FDA approved weight loss plan is instead of saying, hey, I need to diet! Is to say hey, what fun thing could I do today? Instead of thinking about what you could or should eat, think about that hobby you’ve wanted to take up. You can’t open a bag of Ruffles while playing the guitar!
Total semi-related self promotion
I have a guest post up today on some guy I talk about way too much’s blog called “A Life Less Boring“. It’s about avoiding a life of crushing boredom by following your passion. I’d love to hear what you think, so go head on over and give it a read.
Or, I am such a mean mother I make my child write my blog for me
My 13 year old son wanted to have a go at doing a Museum of Snack Food post and since a kid needs a summer job and this is Men’s Pocky, I thought why not? So, without further ado, here is Nicholas’s review of Men’s Pocky.
Mr Pocky Review
You all know Pocky, but for those not in the know, Pocky is a type of desert/snack food from Japan. It’s pretzel stick dipped in milk chocolate, or strawberry flavored cream. But what you may NOT know is that there is, indeed, a Pocky for men.
Pocky ingredients and nutrition information
That’s right. You may, like me, have thought at one point “Pocky is just not manly enough!”. Well now it is, with the advent of Mr. Pocky
Men's Pocky
What makes Mr. Pocky for men different than regular Pocky? It has been coated in dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate.
Sticks of pocky for men
Its not a good idea to lick it, as then the chocolate will melt. It tasted pretty good. Like a crunchier dark chocolate, after you ate a pretzel stick. The aftertaste is…weird. Hard to describe, kinda like darker then dark chocolate. After a few minutes though,the aftertaste becomes a sort of bitter feeling on your tounge. You can also suck it like a lollipop, if you so choose. Also, if you put a small bit in your mouth, and keep the rest out of your mouth, it looks awesome. Not a good idea to eat it outside during a hot day though.
I give Mr. Pocky a final score of 8.4 out of 10. Tasty, but the bitterness that kicks in about a minute or two after you eat one is untasty. Also, regular Pocky tastes slightly better.
Photo credit: rita banerji A note about this photo; I did an image search on Flickr to find a picture for this post, this was one of the first results. It’s a powerful representation of how many women in India (among other countries) are illiterate. For more information see the photo’s page. Even if it means you skip my post, read it.
I have this unnerving habit of just popping up at unexpected times, rattling off some stuff to my life coach, Tim then disappearing. Well, it’s not unnerving to me, I’m used to it, but he’s not fluent in the language of Tracy and usually his response is “I have no idea what you’re talking about”. So then, I thought perhaps I shouldn’t try to explain complex thoughts on Twitter and write real letters but then I thought dang, I never gave him any money, I should just post them on my blog instead. And some literary agent will read it and you know how much people like books where an old-ish person mentors a young-ish person and they both learn valuable life lessons. Movies! I’ll be in a movie!
Here is a sample of what will be in the book:
Dear Tim,
Hey, you’re smart and you read books and stuff about the brain, what’s it called when a person absorbs ideas and then the ideas go to that place in your brain where there are no words? You know, it feels like a dam is blocking them all and you know you’re thinking about stuff but you can’t explain it because you are thinking in brain language not people language? But then it comes out, and you still can’t explain it like a say text book person would, but instead as an allegory? You know like how Jesus explained stuff.
Because whenever people ask me to explain stuff, I can’t just tell them hey A, B, C and therefore D, instead I have to make up a story and hope like heck they are extrapolators and not nitpickers, because the nitpickers, they are all like “But that doesn’t make sense, nobody would give a monkey a pair of pliers and a hot glue gun and expect a Buick” and that frustrates me. Anyway, does this syndrome have a name? If not, can you discover it and call it Jesus Syndrome?
NOT that I think I am like Jesus, that’s blasphemy (although don’t worry, self esteem still high!) but more like “If you like the way Jesus talks, you’ll love Tracy”. Which is absolutely true, no matter how you slice it.
Let me know, I think you could get a book out of it and we could both go on Oprah or The Today Show, but I won’t do Rachael Ray. You can, if you’re that desperate for publicity, but count me out.
Best wishes,
Tracy
Dear Tim,
Does the president have a life coach? If he doesn’t, I think you should convince him to hire you. DON’T volunteer to do it pro bono, because 1. he is very rich and 2. he might not think you are a very good life coach if you work for free, in fact charge him extra to compensate for the secret service people listening in getting free coaching.
Seriously, I know he seems very put together and confident but it’s got to eat away at you having the weight of the free world on your shoulders.
Just an idea I thought I’d throw out at you. If he says no, how about Prince Harry? You both have accents, he needs help and I could make some cash talking to the British tabloids about you.
Think about it,
Tracy
Dear Tim,
I bet you didn’t believe it when I said I was going to make t-shirts! I’ll give you a bulk discount if you want to order some to give to your clients as end of coaching presents. People love presents. If you’d like, we could change “DANGIT!” to “PISH-POSH!” to sound more British-y.
Tally Ho!,
Tracy
P.S.
You can check out Tim’s Blog if you want to learn more about life coaching. It works! Believe it or not, this IS living the dream for me. And on Friday, June 19th I have a guest post on Blogging Without a Blog on how to handle it when your post is linked on an online forum.
along with a wide assortment of other 
