Review of a political blog

The one political blog I picked was called Pam's House Blend...always steamin'!. The woman that runs it is called Pam who is African American, I think. She leans to the left. When I finally looked at the blog, I noticed that she has a new nephew (she had a picture with him in the upper left hand corner of the page). She deals with many issues, not only political, but many have a political lean. She dealt with how many people are marrying for Health Insurance. Also, she dealt with the issue of Washington University honoring a woman with a honorary doctorate who is an anti-feminism and also anti-gay. The advertising is geared towards women and some for African American women. There are many ads that clearly show that she is a liberal blogger. The blog won awards for many things, and it is listed as one of the best LGBT blogs. The people who comment are mostly women, and might be gay. However, there are some guys that comment.

I was attracted by this blog because of the simple color, and layout. I did not like the ads, but I understand that a professional blog needs it to stay afloat.

My Political Identity

My political identity is complicated. My parents talked politics at the dinner table, and we watched the news together, but they could not vote. However, they instilled in me that I should look at a candidates' policy instead of party affiliation. I grew up in the Bill Clinton era and my first real it for politics happen in 1996 when I made fake ballots and had a face off between Clinton and Dole, in which Clinton of course won. I really liked him when I was little (8 years old or so), he was very personable on camera. I kinda leaned towards democrats, but one situation altered that view. When Salisbury was running for Governor of Maryland I wanted her to win, even though she was Republican. I did not feel for the current Governor at the time, he always bothered me. When Ehrlich was running for Governor, I actually rooted for him. Baltimore is not a great place for great voting, cause incumbents just stay in their place unless they leave on their own.

I got to vote in the past Gubernatorial elections and local city elections. Now, I can vote on both policies and personality. I am registered under Independent, but in Maryland that just makes you miss the primary because of the closed elections.

Testing

After testing myself through some on-line websites, I was pretty amazed by what I found out. The first site that visited was "Spot the fake smile," a BBC test. I received 15 out of 20 faces correct. I felt like it was an easy test to do. Some faces were hard to tell, but many were really easy to figure out.

The empathy quotient test was a bit tricky, because I was not totally truthful. I got a 32, which is low empathy, and I blame it on my tiredness when I took the test. Also, I blame it on the feeling I felt when I was taking the test and the reliance on what my gut told me was what I really felt about the questions. I took this quiz later on in the night, and by then I did not feel like I related to any one.

For the eye recognition test, I got a 25 which fits between the average/typical score. The point was to match the eyes to what emotion fit it. I would have did better, I think, if only I did not take this test when I was tired. I do see the connection between tiredness and poor skills.

Overall, I think I am pretty average. This was a great activity to do.

Girls rule when writing on the Internet.

I think there are some in roads to women breaking into Computer Science. I know of some that even major/minor in it at UMBC. I think young girls on the Internet creating blogs should not be a surprise because they are usually the ones writing in diaries and journals. It is just that now they moving from paper to digital and more people see their work. The only reason people think Computer Science is a male field is because we think of Bill Gates and other male geeks. Also, it makes me think of making boring codes.

Riff on Opening Lines.

"One day- eyes bloodshot, thumbs blistered, and hopped up on Mountain Dew- you will finally beat Halo 3."* With all of your might you step outside into a new world. I world of LSD color, and machines. The machines that were mere machines a second ago will be the rulers of the world. Why didn't you realize that this had happen, you ask? Well, the machine that you were playing, was in fact playing you. As this reality sinks into your mind, you quickly run back into your house and see that every machine based technology that you ever had is gone. Even your sleep number bed rolled out. In a matter of minutes your life is changed forever.

You wake up.
(Transition of point of view)
Thank God, that was a dream. It was really Twilight Zone-ish. I must have fell asleep watching Terminator and that crappy machine take-over movie. Ewww, Mountain Dew is gross, why did I drink that in my dream. But, Wow, I can't believe I still haven't finish Halo 3. Its been one week, I'm getting old, back in the day I finished games within a couple of days.

*First line provided by Urbanite March 2008 issue.

Stepping on the Humor Scale.

http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/newsh/items/selftest/item_8508.html

It was fun, and quick. However, it did tell a lot about my current humor situation. At least I did not score super low to be called "a poor old gloomy thing". I did however score a 40. It told me, "If your total score is between 40 and 50, you use humor sometimes, but perhaps you could learn to let yourself go and enjoy more variety."

I know I should go out and have fun, but school sucks my soul away, lol. The score is broken further down into four sections. I scored the best on the Appreciation part (14), but the lowest on the Creativity and Performance part (6). The middle two, were Coping and Facilitation which were both 10. Each section had a huge paragraph telling me about what my score meant to me and humor. All I know is thank God I am not a complete downer.

Mourning on Facebook

I have not joined a mourning group on Facebook, but I have been invited to some. The one I want to talk about is the various VT groups I got invited to right after the shootings. When I was invited I felt that if I joined I would be a fake. I did not feel connected to the situation, so I could not really mourn for it. I know some who truly knew people at VT and was scared for them. However, all the fake people did it just for face. I rejected the invites a little after the media stopped talking about it, and when many people started leaving the groups.

I have seen some of my friends join groups for individuals who died. There were not that many people in those groups, the most was 100 people. Also, I have seen missing persons groups which had more people in them. One later turned into mourning groups because the person they were looking for, was found dead. That group made me sad. On a related topic of mourning groups, it that I have posted my Grandfather's obituary as a Facebook note. My friends gave their sympathies via the comment area, personal message, and wall.

Photo Finish

*I found this picture on the Internet. It's cute so I want to write a little story about it!

Alicia and Bobby had been friends forever, or at least since they were two. They would go everywhere together. They would hang out at the park, each other's home, and during lunch.

It was a nice Saturday afternoon so Bobby's mother took them to the park. At the park, Alicia and Bobby ran to the swings, but it was packed with other children. Then they ran to the sandbox, where they found there was no space to play. A little upset, they ran up to Bobby's mother and complained. She told them to play on the slide and so they ran to the slide. They had to wait their turn, which seemed like forever. However, they each got to the top, and looked around, and saw how high they were. People yelled at them to go down the slide or else they would lose their turn. Alicia was the first to go down the slide. She put her arms up while she went down it. She was fearless, not holding on to the sides of the slide. Bobby came down right after she got off the slide. He was not that bold, he held the sides and felt a bit embarrassed that he was not as fearless as Alicia. He met her at the bottom of the slide and both had a energetic look on their faces. They both knew that they wanted to slide down again. They went sliding for fifteen minutes, each time they became more energetic and more fearless. Bobby's mother kept watch, as they attempted different "stunts."

Alicia was wearing a pretty flower dress, so she could not do many things. Bobby took this as an opportunity to impress her, and on the last go around he went down face first. Bobby's mother was busy talking to another mother, so she did not see her son when he hit the ground. His white shirt did not have a single stain on it. And instead of crying after hitting the ground, he got up and ran after a laughing Alicia. After a while they became tired, and went over to Bobby's mother and had a little picnic. Later they decided that they wanted to slide for one last time before going home.

After sliding, Bobby and Alicia met at the bottom of the slide. Bobby's mother was walking up to them from a far. The two neighbors and best friends did not seem to be bothered by cooties. So when Bobby leaned in for the kiss, both eyes closed Alicia met him. At that moment Bobby's mother took a picture and laughed.