This Week We Are The World

This week we are the world. The world was all a twitter with tweets about the death of three American icons. These were three people from three generations.

On Tuesday our blogger honored Ed McMahon, who passed at age 86. McMahon was a gentleman that we welcomed into our homes for more than 30 years as Johnny Carson's sidekick among other roles.

Yesterday, our blogger honored Michael Jackson, who passed at age 50. This iconic legend who most of us have watched for the past 40 years, from a little boy to a grown man, always surprised us with his talent and creativity, among other things.

I will not let the week go by without honoring Farrah Fawcett, who passed at age 62. For those of us who are Farrah's peers by age, we remember her smile and her gorgeous hair. All the women wanted hair like Farrah and all the men wanted the women in their lives to have hair like Farrah. She was a fine actress and you would know this if you saw some of her more serious movies. Now she will be remembered as a brave woman who was willing to share with all of us her struggle with cancer to the end.

In this world filled with technology...twitter, plurk, tagged, YouTube, my space, facebook, emails, blogs...today is Saturday and it is just a day to remember that in January 1985 Michael Jackson collaborated with Lionel Richie and produced with Quincy Jones a song that touched us all. We are the World! (United Support of Artists for Africa) We listened intently, we bought the album and together we tried to help save a continent, most particularly Ethiopia.


As this day closes, I will remember that Dennis and I played this album with our children when they were quite young. The album is still in our home carefully preserved for whatever reason. Maybe because it made us think, hope and assure ourselves that we are all part of this world and this week We Are The World making a choice.

Enjoy this remarkable YouTube video of the studio recording of We Are The World. I'd would love to hear from you!



....change can only come...when we stand together as one!

Technically speaking, He's Just Not That Into You

Have you seen He's Just Not That Into You? This film opened yesterday and since today is Saturday I thought I would provide a little preview of this romantic comedy. Technically speaking, He's Just Not That Into You, was not on my to-do list for February 6th, so I have not yet seen the movie, but I have seen the previews. I think this is one of those films that I might be able to convince my husband, Dennis, to see. Why? Eye candy! There are enough "big" stars, both men and women, in this film to keep everyone happy for 129 minutes. For your convenience, I have included a trailer for the movie in this post. You will see that the producers feel that the basic interactive groundrules for men and women are established when we are very young children, which is "he says one thing, but means another" and "she hears what she wants to hear". As an aside, I remember my first little boy "friend". In 1954-55 we walked to kindergarten each morning holding hands. His name was Raymond Wood. I think he was always nice to me!



Ok, here is the scoop: He's Just Not That Into You is based on a self-help book that was written by Greg Behrentdt and Liz Tuccillo. No, neither Greg nor Liz is a psychologist. Both were writers for Sex and the City, they based this book on a famous line from the 6th season episode called "Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little" which originally aired July 13, 2003(yes, the episode title is the name of an annoying song from The Music Man). Six years later and with a reported budget of $25,000,000 we now have a romantic comedy that will either make you laugh or help you escape today's crazy technical world for two hours.

Probably the most poignant message in He's Just Not That Into You is this: In today's world, unlike when I was wondering "why doesn't HE call?", a person can't just expect to hear from someone via a landline phone, they need to worry about every known "SOCIAL NETWORK": myspace, facebook, youtube, plurk, plugoo, brightkite, ping, twitter, yammer, and the fatal text messaging via the cell phone. As Mary, played by Drew Barrymore, says: "It's exhausting!"

The fact is love, or what we hope will turn into love, makes us do foolish things. We are all guilty of this, we are human. In 1965 Martha (Reeves) and the Vandellas released "Love Makes Me Do Foolish Things", it never made it to #1, but many of us loved this song, because in 1965 and for a long time after that, our social networks consisted only of a phone and the Friday night mixer (dance). This song made us cry and if we were really lucky that special someone would ask us to dance and we would forget all our troubles. Escape!



So for this Saturday: Dance to this music,take a break and go away with your friend. Go to the movies or rent a movie,love the one you're with, and let me know how this works out for you, write a comment on my blog post.

P.S. For the record, if you are wondering what happened to little Raymond Wood. We continued through grade school together as friends. After that we lost touch. In 2006, my mother passed away. As I stood outside the church waiting for her funeral to begin, I looked across the crowd and there stood Raymond. He walked over to me, put his arms around me and said "I wouldn't miss being with you today." Precious memories, indeed!

Life Streaming using BrightKite, Twitter and Plurk

When out and about, Lisa and I are "Life Streaming" using Brightkite, Twitter and Plurk.

It added a whole new dimension to our trip to Tucson.

By sending a SMS message to BrightKite with our location, @ Blythe for instance, Then sending shots we were taking with our iPhones via email to BrightKite where they were then tagged with that location.

As BrightKite posted the picts they tweeted them for us so those that were following would be notified of new content. (HI MOM!)

With the actual conversation taking place on Plurk, where we could use the direct link to all of those iPhone/BrightKite images we took the time to share.

Next we get home and slam everyone with our Nikon shots...

But that is another post.

Got a Life? Have fun with it!

Plurk 8 reasons why it is everything that Twitter should be

Verb. plurk - To chronicle the events of your always on, action-packed, storybook, semi-charmed kinda life...

Microblogging is where it is at today, and with all of Twitter's recent downtime many of the Internets crash test dummy's, (like yours truly,) have jumped on the Plurk bandwagon, and here is why,

1) It has a time line, and inline reply's to your "Plurks"
2) It's up.
3) You can put your friends in groups.
4) It's up.
5) I has "Karma"
6) It's up.
7) The Mobile version is boss!
8) Did I mention it was up?

Got Plurk?