Social Butterflies

July 15th, 2008 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

I’m not really sure about this whole social networking thing.

I realize that statement is so 2005, but I’m a little late onto the scene here. Now you can be my friend on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. And I want to be your friend, especially since my newly opened accounts are relatively friendless. Heck, with only 4 friends, I’m a MySpace hermit.

I guess that my issue is, who really cares what I’m doing this very second? Who am I to think you care?

Look at me trying to have my humble pie and eat it too. You’re reading this on my blog, at the domain name I registered, hosted by a travel community that I pitched an idea to. I have another domain name that’s simply my name: kelseytimmerman.com. And that’s nothing compared to the fact that I wrote a 300-page book where I am the central character.

If that’s not the opposite of humble, what is?

If it weren’t for the book, I don’t think I would have joined many of these sites. I saw the YouTube clip below on my agent’s website. In it an author is being drilled by his publicist to join all of the social networking sites. After watching him squirm, I thought I would circumvent any such conversations. So I joined.

I even downloaded Second Life and flew around a virtual reality world with my T-shirt-clad avatar hoping no one would talk to me because I wasn’t sure how to talk back. That’s 30 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

Doesn’t promotion look like fun?

Now that I have joined everything from MySpace to Twitter, I’m kinda like…meh. But it’s beginning to grow on me. I admit it is kind of cool getting updates on people that I haven’t seen in a long time and to see when someone has moved cities, or is having a birthday. A few of my friends even have changed their relationship status. I thought about posting a note on their wall congratulating or consoling them, but I didn’t. I’m still waiting for someone to change their gender; that would definitely warrant a “wall-to-wall”. I’ve even made some new “friends”.

I feel a little silly belonging to all of these networks, but I’m a firm believer that everyone has a story, so why shouldn’t they have a Facebook or Twitter account.

If you’ve got one…wanna be my friend?

Sweatshop the Game

May 7th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 3 Comments »

Does anyone remember the computer game Hot Dog stand in which you buy the hotdog, the buns, etc, and you see if you can make your little hot dog business work?

Well Sim-Sweatshop is kinda like that except instead of selling hot dogs for a profit you make shoes for a loss. Okay, other than they are both less than elementary introductions to economics, they’re nothing alike.

The goal of Sim-Sweatshop is to make three shoes in a day to earn your full day’s worth of pay – $6.05. You do this by dragging the parts of a shoe together. It’s frustrating, which I suppose is the point, because the game constantly interrupts you to eat or join a union or to buy your daughter some shoes. The closest I got to reaching my daily quota was 2 2/3rds pairs of shoes.

Do you think you have the mouse ability to be a successful shoe assembler?

PLAY SIM-SWEATSHOP

I should be writing…

February 13th, 2008 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

…but I just spend 1.5 hours watching the Clemens-McNamee hearing. I don’t even like baseball!

The sad thing is that someone could and (probably will) bind the transcript of the hearing, put Clemens on the cover, and sell a hundred times more books than the book I’m supposed to be writing.

Of course, maybe if I admit to using HGH to enhance my thumb-twiddling abilities, which fuels my creativity, I could sell a lot more books.

How about this for a title:

Where am I wearing?: a global quest to meet the people that made my clothes…I use HGH

Adventures in SPAM: Chinese businessman wants to supple me

January 16th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 1 Comment »

I did it. I responded to the Chinese businessman that wants to supple me. Here’s what I wrote:

In all honesty, I think you are most excellent. To be truthful, I have not doubt that you are legal sellers. I’m not lying when I say that I’m intrigued by your low priced, quality products. If you could supple me with more information about your outstanding products, I would be forever in your debt.

Your friend,

Kelsey

It will be interesting to see what happens. I’ve never responded to SPAM before. I’ll keep you posted.