Japanese schoolchildren are adorable. I don’t know if it’s the uniforms or the pigtails or the mullets, but something about everything they do has a twinge of cute overload. At my school, one of the popular games for girls to play at recess is Hana Ichi Monme (花いちもんめ). It’s a little like Japanese Red Rover The girls break off into two teams and walk back and forth at each other while alternating singing a song:

勝ってうれしい花いちもんめ               katte ureshii hana ichi monme
負けてくやしい花いちもんめ               makete kuyashii hana ichi monme
あの子が欲しい                                        ano ko ga hoshii
あの子が分からん                                    ano ko ga wakaran
相談しましょう                                        sodan shimasho
そうしましょ！                                        so shimasho

決まった!　　　　　　　　　　　　 kimatta!
(A Team) Luckyちゃんが欲しい          Lucky-chan ga hoshii
(B Team)Coolちゃんが欲しい　　      Cool-chan ga hoshii

We’re happy we won, hana ichi monme
We’re sad we lost, hana ichi monme
We want that kid
We don’t know “that kid”
Let’s talk about it
Yes, lets!

We’ve decided
We want Lucky!
We want Cool!

It’s not much of a song, but it’s cute to watch. After they sing they huddle in their respective group and pick a member of the opposite team to challenge. The two challengers go out and either play Rock, Paper, Scissors or a game of chicken. The loser is then made to join the winning team.

In case you don’t believe me, here’s a video of the game in action: (more…)

The Consumerist blog did a brief post on the possible (incredibly likely) closure of the Seattle P-I. While the P-I closing is sad enough it was the results of the accompanying poll asking “Do you even care that your local newspaper may die?” that depressed me.

For the record. I said that I cared.

I find it so interesting that almost everyone’s blog on my blogroll has had discussions about life at work and new policies that their jobs are implementing. Of course that’s because most of the people on my blogroll are journalists and many newspapers are trying to implement (to borrow from The Spokesman Review) “transparent newsrooms.” They’re encouraged to blog.

I’ve mostly kept work-related issues to myself because, well, I don’t know how my job would react to me talking about policies we run in the office. Earlier this week I did learn the policy when they gave me back my contract to review for employee evaluations. What I learned is that I’m not supposed to publicly disclose anything about clients or our “trade secrets.”

In other words: don’t talk shop on the blog, it’s simple enough. But I get so surprised when I wander around the internet how many non-journalists talk about their jobs and how much they hate their bosses and how work sucks, and they wonder why they’re not getting a raise/more respect/a pony. Maybe it’s because your manager’s reading your blog, genius.

So here are some things to think about before you blog about work-related stuff:

1. Don’t name names. Try to keep your coworkers names out of your blog as much as possible. People ego search all the time. I overheard my supervisor the other day say “I’ve looked you all up on Google at one point.” Crap. Well maybe your supervisor is looking at you, too.
2. Don’t talk about clients. If you have a job where your livelihood depends on a happy client, don’t talk about about clients in your blog. I’m sure your job (like mine) probably has some sort of confidentiality agreement with certain clients, and since you may not know who does not want their name broadcast on the intertubes, just don’t talk about them at all. If you do, it goes back to not naming names again. Give them a clever alias that no one will be able to figure out, like Sicromoft.
3. Watch your spelling and grammar. I have to work at this a lot as well so there’s no judgment if you have something misspelled on your blog from my end. But if you’re currently seeking a new job and have a public blog, it may be a good idea to give some of your recent posts a once-over and check for grammar, spelling and how you use the English language. If a potential employer were to find your blog, wouldn’t you want to sound as articulate as you could. Even if you’re blog isn’t supposed to be for professional use, if you can find your blog using your real name (i.e. johnsmith.wordpress.com) then maybe you should keep it professional.
4. If you want to have a just-for-fun blog, give yourself an alias like “kumquat” and stick with it. But even the best aliases can be broken if you’re hitting too close to home (remember the Washingtonienne?)

I’d also like to hear what you think about how we present ourselves on blogs. What’s the impression you get reading someone’s blog? I’m curious to hear people’s answers.

I survived my first real woot-off these past couple days. I didn’t get much, all the cool stuff I wanted to get sold out almost instantly. I did get a nice printer, though, which is good because I’ve been printerless for almost two years. But today when I checked the status of the woot-off I found that it had ended and this was the last item:

Go Cougsars [sic]. For those who aren’t aware, this was an Evergreen inside joke. And to Dan: I think there’s still some bacon salt in the ME desk (yeah I took one and hid it, wanna fight about it?).

In other weird things I found from the internet: Here’s pictures of a woman who rummages for grocery lists then makes characters out of them and performs in grocery stores. Neat.

I am officially in love with Netflix thanks to a recent discovery in their Watch Instantly section. While their movie selection for instant viewing is getting better by the day, there is one gem that has made me a Netflix junkie and that is their wide variety of exercise videos available to watch instantly on my laptop. Here’s where to find them:

1. IN Netflix click on the “Watch Instantly” tab.
2. Go to “Movie Categories” and select “Sports & Fitness”
3. On a sidebar to your right there are a number of sub-categories. Select the “Workouts” category and you’ll be directed to all their workout videos.

In the workouts categories you’ll find a number of great videos including the entire CRUNCH series, which has some of my favorite workout routines. It does, however, have a few videos I may never watch (like the “Hot Yoga” series.) My personal favorite is the CRUNCH Candlelight Yoga because it’s a great stretching routine to do after you’ve done some intense cardio. So if you’re in a workout rut and have a Netflix account I would definitely recommend checking this out.

I went to check my e-mail today and found this in my inbox:

It is my pleasure to inform you that you are being considered for inclusion into the 2008-2009 Princeton Premier Business Leaders and Professionals “Honors Edition” section of the Registry.

The 2008 / 2009 edition of the Registry will include biographies of the world’s most accomplished individuals. Recognition of this kind is an honor shared by thousands of executives and professionals throughout the world each year. Inclusion is considered by many as the single highest mark of achievement.

You may access our application form using the following link:

http://app.formassembly.com/forms/view/11970

Upon final confirmation, you will be listed among other accomplished individuals in the Princeton Premier Registry.

For accuracy and publication deadlines, please complete your application form and return it to us within five business days. There is no cost to be included in the Registry.

 	On behalf of the Managing Director, we wish you continued success.

 	

	Sincerely, 

 	Jason Harris 

Managing Director

Princeton Premier

Needless to say I was surprised because I am not a business leader and never have accessed abnything to do with Princeton affiliates.

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Simon’s cat is back with new antics. This is for all the cat lovers out there.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S13EfSncVh0]

We all hate having to break up, but what could be more humiliating than to get dumped on one of the most popular Web sites in the world. Yesterday Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales announced he is no longer seeing conservative talk show pundit Rachel Mardsen via Wikipedia. What a great guy to handle such a delicate situation with grace and class. Actually, the statement he has on his Web site is rather boring except for the comments that he’s still married, but considers himself single. What a champ.

He also stated he had only dated her for a month, well then who cares? Why are you posting this on your Web site? No one knows who you are and no one would be talking about this if you would just not even mention it on one of the most widely used sites in the known world. I mean, while I’m trying to read up on the history of Comic Sans and press random post I get taken to your page. But had you kept your mouth shut this never would have been an issue.

So Mr. Jimbo, congratulations on your failed relationship with a hot conservative pundit. I hope your three-week relationship served you well.

I’ve been doing a lot of practice with html and CSS. I realize how long it’s been since I’ve practiced html because all the tutorial sites have been telling me my way of making paragraph styles and headers is completely outdated. How embarrassing.

So now it’s back to the basics. I’ve been having a lot of fun so far, but Web design is not my forte. Hopefully by may I’ll have a working site to show off my skills.

If anyone has any tips please let me know. I’d eventually like to redesign this blog and give it a little f my personal style. Any tips or good Web site tutorials would be helpful.

What I’ve been consulting: http://www.w3schools.com/