Category — Microblog Mondays

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Last weekend, we surprised the Wolvog with his floating birthday and tickets to an e-sports event. It wasn’t actually a surprise because we needed his help to purchase the tickets. We couldn’t understand the ticketing system, but the Wolvog assured us that yes, the only option was 12 hours of games over two days.

12 hours.

I was quaking whenever I thought about going–I am not a fan of noise or crowds–but I went in with an open mind and LOVED it. He explained the game to us the night before and patiently answered questions while we watched. I ended up on my feet, cheering on the Washington Justice while they played against Paris and London.

If you had told me five years ago that I would be attending a two-day e-sports event, I would have told you that there was no chance. But I’m glad I went–and that he introduced us to this world–because we had the best time. It was the most female-friendly video-game-related event I have ever attended, maybe because the game itself has built in diversity on all fronts. And zero lines for the bathroom, even though the event was about 50% women. Win-win!

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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There was a beautiful piece in DCist last week–titled “‘What Am I Going To Do To Keep Her With Me?’: Army Officer Commissions Music To Honor Stillborn Daughter” about the creation of an original piece of music. You can hear part of the piece if you click over to the article. It’s embedded in two parts.

The article states: “Two months after giving birth to Madison, she reached out to Baltimore-based composer Balmages with the idea to commission a piece of music to honor Madison’s memory and provide the comfort Elliott felt from music to others. Something that could help someone cope with a tremendous loss.”

What an incredible way of grieving and keeping someone close and helping others, all at the same time. Loss, which is sometimes so private, becomes a shared experience when converted into sound.

It’s a beautiful way of remembering someone who was here.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Google searches. They seem straightforward. You put keywords in the search bar. The algorithm spits back results. You usually find what you want.

OR SO YOU THINK.

This article from Scientific American about all the tricks you can do with searches just blew my mind. (At least, the “What Good Searchers Do” section.) I do almost none of them. Will I remember to do these tricks when I’m searching two weeks from now? Probably not. But will I remember this article and use it for — at least — the next ten minutes. Absolutely.

What are you searching for right now?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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So yesterday’s quote from Followers was funny, but today’s is sobering. On page 166, a person in 2051 is speaking with a robot name Mateo at an archive who offers her earphones so she can listen to the audio portion of a video. Most people in 2051 have devices embedded on their bodies by the time they’re seven, so they would have no trouble hearing the audio sans earphones. This person, on the other hand, does not have a device and asks about the earphones.

Mateo nodded. “The Archive currently uses them for our guests younger than seven, and our guests whose income indicates that they live below the information line,” it said. “In other words, our guests who do not have devices.”

Which, of course, is a scenario that plays out in our world daily. In many cases, despite the best efforts of schools and libraries, the poverty line IS the information line. How can you keep up with the flow of information if you can’t afford to access it? And accessing information, in the here and now, involves a computer or digital device. It’s sobering how many assumptions are made about access. That everyone will be reachable or be able to access information online, whether they’re at work/school or home.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I spent my life putting two spaces after every period. One space after a comma, two spaces after a period. Four publishing houses were unable to break me of this habit. I wrote my manuscript with two spaces, then did a search for two spaces throughout the document, and changed them to one space, as per each publishing house’s stylistic rules.

I don’t know what made me change, but a few months ago, I switched to one space. It was hard at first, but now I don’t think about it when I get to the end of the sentence. I just tap the spacebar once and move on to the next thought.

Sometimes I think to myself that I don’t have it in me to change. But I proved myself wrong this year. I went from two spaces to one. Though you won’t get me to change my mind on the Oxford comma.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.