Friday, May 21, 2004
G-man
I never thought my life could be
Anything but catastrophe
But suddenly I begin to see
A bit of good luck for meIt started out as an ordinary day. Come to work, log in, get set up for work, then peruse my daily web log reads. But then things took a turn when I got to A Girl Named Bob. Her post mentioned not only the currently infamous Gmail, but also the fact that, in order for people to snap up the relatively few accounts that are being offered up currently a webiste has been set up, Gmail Swap, so people without accounts can offer trades to people who have accounts. As Bob points out, some of the trades make for an interesting read. But what I found interesting was the fact that current Blogger users may have an invitation already, so suddenly I became aware that I might be the owner of a much-coveted Gmail invite, and with tension mounting and the soundtrack in my head rising to a crescendo, I clicked my Blogger link to look for the telltale box.
I never had a chance to shine
Never a happy song to sing
But suddenly half the world is mine
What an amazing thingOh. My. God. I got one. It's like my lottery numbers came up. It's like that time I was watching the raffle items, and my favourite item came up for grabs, so said "That one is mine." and they called my ticket number, making me the new owner of a custom toilet seat cover. It was the coolest, and so was this.
I never thought I'd see the day
When I would face the world and say
Good morning, look at the sun
I never thought that I would be
Slap in the lap of luxury
'Cause I'd have said:
It couldn't be done
But it can be done
All of the sudden my good fortune has placed me on the horns of a dilemma. I have the fabled Gmail invite, so what do I do with it? I had considered getting a Gmail account when they became available, but I wasn't drooling over them or anything, but now, knowing that everyone else wants one, I want one too, because I'm selfish like that. Then, to complicate matters more, Bob tells me that people are selling their invites on ebay for around $50.00 each. I could use $50.00. I mean I offered Bob first dibs, since I wouldn't even know I had an invite but for her, but rather than take me up on it, she pointed out the whole ebay situation, so now I'm just sitting there, stupid smile on my face, pondering the possibilities.
I never dreamed that I would climb
Over the moon in ecstasy
But nevertheless, it's there that I'm
Shortly about to beSo after minutes of agonizing thought, I decide to look into this whole ebay thing. I mean a Sumo wrestling match would be awesome, but money is money, and right now I'm really short on it, and my car is low on gas, and I'd really like a donut, and I'm supposed to go camping in a week. All things that could be helped by money much moreso than by bondage Ken and Barbie, yodeller pictures, or 1 GB e-mail storage space. So I'm trying to figure out how you actually sell an invitation. Am I selling a link? Do I register for them and then hand them the password? I start to investigate. I also start to panic. This Blogger invite has apparently come and gone and come again for some people, so I don't know long I have to take advantage of it. Also, I'm never first in any internet craze, which means that about the time I decide to sell my invite is about the time they won't be popular anymore, so somehow I've slipped into action-movie-ticking-time-bomb-every-second-counts mode. I'm, ironically, doing Google searches for information on how to go about selling my free invite, but nothing concrete is showing up, so I start following the links in my invite to see at what point I have to choose my address and such. Then there's one link that warns me that once I go forward, I can't back out and come in again. This is the point of no return. So I'm staring at the link thinking, "either at this point, I click the link and get some sort of password that entitles me to a gmail account or I find myself at the point where I select my address, which means I won't be able to sell my invite. Back in action movie land, this is where clock gets down to single digits, and there's some panicked guy yelling, "Cut the blue wire! No, the red! The red!!!" I clicked the link.
'Cause I've got a golden ticket
I've got a golden chance to make my way
And with a golden ticket, it's a golden day
So there I was on the e-mail address registration screen. At that point I had to select an address, so my hopes of selling or trading my account were dashed, but so was all my worrying about what to do with my newfound invite. So you can congratulate me on my new account at woodstock42 at gmail dot com if you like. But I didn't actually lose hope at that point because I had heard that some people found that they actually had the ability to invite other people to use Gmail, so I figured I could always be one of the lucky ones. But no, inspection of the account does not show the "invite other users" link. That's okay. It was fun hour, and I got my Gmail account out of the bargain. And I got it before a lot of other people, which means I can lord it over them and be an ass about it, even moreso than usual, so I'm pretty happy about that. And hey, I've still got my toilet seat, dammit.
posted 3:48 PM
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
So Ernie tells me that Blogger now has a comment feature. I mean Ernie didn't tell me personally, of course. Ernie's a big shot blogger, and I'm a peon in the world of blogging. Ernie wouldn't have time for the likes of me. That's why I feel very confident stealing his picture. He'll never know, and besides, he's not even using it.But I'm getting off topic, prostrating myself before Ernie, the Great and Powerful (a.k.a. Ernie the Little, Yellow, and Different). What I wanted to say was this: Comments!!! Yea!!! I've been very appreciative of Haloscan's free commenting system except for the part where sometimes my comments disappear of their own volition. I wasn't crazy about that "feature" but I just figured you get what you pay for. But then I'm paying the same low price for Blogger's comments, so we'll see. Someday I hope to graduate to Movable Type where I can get the absolute power I crave, but if Blogger continues to make my life so easy, I may have difficulty making the transistion. In the mean time, when the occassional visitor wanders in and makes a comment, I'll actually know about it, rather than being surprised somewhere down the road. And, hopefully, when I come back later, that comment may still be there, so I don't have to wonder if I just imagined the comment. Of course the possibility exists that I've been imagining the comments all along, in which case I guess I can expect to continue in that vein. Blogger may have worked some of the bugs out of my web logging, but they've done nothing for the built-in bugs in my synaptic pathways. So if you're a real person, please try out my new comment system so I can see how/if it works. All imaginary people please hold your comments until I've worked the kinks out of this new system. Thank you.
posted 2:33 PM
