Cafe Leone

If you are not making use of Google Alerts, then you are guaranteed to be missing something. Google Alerts is a great way of  getting email alerts of relevant news, blog links and other interesting results based on your search criteria.

For example, I have an alert set up for various news items I am interested in, such as atheism, politics, Getting Things Done, etc. I set the options to email me those daily.

But more interestingly, I have Alerts set up for my blog.  By typing in this: link:http://www.cafeleone.net/ and link:http://cafeleone.net/, I can see who links to me as soon as they do. I set it to email me as soon as it happens. This is an excellent way to see who is talking about me and I believe it works faster and more accurately than Wordpress or Technorati or whatever other method you use. I can see instantly when someone throws a meme my way but hasn’t alerted me to it yet or when someone adds me to their blogroll…still waiting on that one.

As a safety precaution, I have an alert set up for my kids, my social security number and even my street address. It is not because I am paranoid. It is simply because I am curious. I did get an alert about a site that had my street address. It turns out it was my street address in a completely different state, but that was interesting nonetheless.

Click on the link above and start getting your Google Alerts.

blogging | 8 Comments »

At some point last year, I declared a “memeatorium” and vowed not to do another meme until 2008. Well, here we are in 2008…a lot quicker than I anticipated, and I have a couple of memes to take care of. One from the incomparable Dan. I will get to it, I promise.

But this meme is from Loz.

Early on in my “career” as a blogger, I signed on to BlogCatalog or one of those other “I’ma blog whore” sites. One of the first stops I made in my journey, was this Aussie named Loz. I loved his writing. Up until that point, I belonged to one of those 30 second visit websites, like BlogExplosion and all I did was watch the countdown clock instead of reading. But Loz was different. Here was a guy that was doing what I wished I could do; write something of substance. Every post of his is a heartfelt and sometimes heartbreaking essay. I love it and I am lucky to know Loz. He is a class act. Thank you Loz!

Here is the original Cut-and-Paste from Sueblimely, the originator of this Meme.

I have gained so much more knowledge of blogging than I could possibly have learned just by researching the subject. This is all due to the help, support and encouragement I have received from other bloggers. I have therefore created the ‘Blogging Mentor Award‘ to recognize and thank those who help us on our path to blogging, be it encouraging and helping us to start blogging or helping us to be the best we can, once we have started.

Unlike most awards, it is not necessary to have received it yourself to be able to pass it on to others. It is free for anyone to use; anyone who wishes to say thank you to their own blog mentors. All that I ask is that you include a mention and link to my Blog Mentor Page. This way I can compile lists of those who have been generous enough to give the award and those who have received it, giving them recognition myself by some backlinks

There are two formats to choose from - the graphic or the button:

What prompted me to create the award was reading that January is National Mentoring Month.in the USA. This is an initiative spearheaded by the Harvard Mentoring Project of the Harvard School of Public Health, with the aim of recruiting volunteer mentors to help young people achieve their full potential. The US ‘Thank Your Mentor Day™’ is dedicated to thanking or honoring individuals who have guided us and had a lasting impact on our lives.

Although the Blogging Mentor award is not restricted for use in January’s Mentoring Month, ‘Thank your Mentor Day‘ may be a particularly good time to use it. The date for 2008 is 24th January.

 

So, now comes the part I hate…nominating others that have probably already been tagged. I consider everyone in my blogroll my mentor, but I will nominate 2 of you that have been around since the beginning.

Dan - not me but the real Dan; the Dan that gives all Dans a good name. He is cool, has a beautiful family, has great taste in American baseball teams and mustard, and has that ever-so-adorable accent that makes him sound very smart…until he says the word PUNGENT, which he pronounces “POONGENT.”

Daizie - She continues to be a mentor and an inspiration to me. If my fingers released as many words as hers do, I would be so happy. She can lob an insult my way and make me feel like I deserved it. But all the ribbing is designed to motivate me. Despite the fact that she is not a true Patriot (ie she does not like the New England Patriots), she is still the one I have in the back of my head whenever I sit down to not write.

There are dozens more of you out there. I stalk you, I email you and bother you. But it is because I am insanely jealous of you.

Keep up the great work out there and thank you Lozster!

tagged, uncategorized | 10 Comments »

That’s right! I had this intense desire to continue writing my novel last night. I even went so far as to open the folder with my writing in it! My fingers were poised over the keys like they were made of shards of glass. But don’t worry…I stopped myself just in time. Phew! That was a close one!

The excuse I used was that I was having a debate with myself about whether to write longhand or keyboardhand. All this Paralysis of Analysis kicked in enough to stop my dead in my pretend-writer’s tracks and to turn on Family Guy instead. Quagmire is my hero!

So, here is a question I ask of all you real writers out there: Longhand or on the computer? Why?

writing | 12 Comments »

I went to the gym this morning. The gym I go to is really not my favorite but it is across the street from my job and that is very convenient. But other than that, I really hate this gym.

The main thing I hate is that the showers in the men’s room are “communal.” This means that there are no partitions between showers. Any guy who has survived high school is probably still reeling from the emotional scars.

Now, I am feeling an overwhelming need to state that I am very comfortable in my manhoodliness. The logistical problem is that since the gym is across the street from my job, it is not unusual to bump into people I work there (not literally bump into!). Sometimes, I even have to shower with my coworkers…very awkward. But there are all sorts of unwritten rules on how to handle this including eyeball placement, how long you can be exposed without a towel (<5 seconds), conversation topics (sports and weather…no work)

But this morning was different. It was Saturday, so the chances of bumping into a coworker are slim. But apparently bumping into a FORMER coworker is not so usual.

Normally, I don’t even shower at the gym. I typically go back home or find some other creative solutions. But today I wanted to hit the ground running so I thought I should take care of business at the gym.

I was in the shower happily all alone after a particularly grueling run. Taking my time to make sure all the parts have been sufficiently lathered, I heard a voice that I recognized but couldn’t place. He then walked into the shower while I was lathering, rinsing and repeating. He said a brief “How are you?” with a heavy Boston accent and proceeded to turn on the shower and wait for the temperature to be just right.

Washing away the soap from my eyes I was faced with the ass of a 50 year old man. As he turned, I realized who this man was. I used to work with him over 12 years ago. Well, the mutual recognition was apparently important enough to be unconcerned about the fact that we were butt-assed naked! I said, “Jerry! Long time no see.” I then went about the task of washing the soap from my face.

I felt a twinge of panic as I opened my eyes and saw that he was still looking at me. I smiled nervously…and then he started to walk towards me. The sphere of space that surrounds me and that usually requires an invitation, becomes larger when I am in a public shower.  This guy invaded it without blinking. As he and all his “shortcomings” [linger on that for a while...its worth it] made their way towards me,  his outstretched right hand provided proof in the age-old ritual that he held no weapons……thank the gods! “Dan, howz it goin’ you some-bitch?” I was a tad awkardified and mortified but I am nothing if not cool, so I reciprocated and proved to him that I too had no weapons in my hands at that moment. Then he proceeded to tap me on the shoulder in that way guys do. I basically call this, a “guy hug”.

He continues to relay what has happened to him in the last 12 years. I know now that he went out on medical leave  and subsequently left the company and is now working for another company that he likes, blah blah blah. During this, he never once stepped into the shower! He remained completely dry, fully frontal and as perfectly squared to me as Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.

My eyeballs have stopped bleeding from both the deluge of shampoo and what awaited me after opening my eyes. I then said to him, “Holy crap, Jerry, at least you could have bought me dinner first!”

funny | 10 Comments »

For both of you that were worried, I am alive. Just lost my network at home last week and trying to pick up the pieces with minimal F-bombs (I am up to 25 F-Bombs in the course of three days!). Still working on it, but I won’t be done this weekend. It won’t be done because apparently I have these three baby goats that I am supposed to toss a bone to once in a while. This weekend is one of those “once in a whiles.” Curses! Doesn’t the Mistress Goatkeeper understand that I DON’T HAVE THE INTERNET!? Of course she doesn’t. She would rather we dust the effing lightbulbs or pay bills or feed the kids or look the kids in the eyes when they speak to us or…choke….gasp…..PLAY WITH THEM! JEEZ! No internet! You might as well rip out my liver with a rusty putty knife!

Temper tantrum - I can take that off my todo list.

Stay tuned for my latest and greatest post: My 5th grader is not smarter than a 5th grader.

In the meantime, look over to the right and click on anyone else in my blogroll. These people are more eloquent, funnier, entertaining, smarter and more huggable than I will ever be. They all cast giant shadows and all I can do is bask in their coolness.

By the way, this is gross, but I just noticed that my hands still smell like the Nuclear Meltdown Buffalo Wings I ate last night during the Pats game; despite having washed my hands 8 billion times. So much for being a vegan! But if God really wanted us to be vegetarian, he wouldn’t have put wings on those poor buffaloes!  ->Even if you are not laughing at that, I am! Sometimes I surprise myself.

blogging | 15 Comments »

I work on the 10th floor of an office building in Boston.  As part of my recent health kick, I have been walking up the 10 flights in the morning and between floors during the day. In fact, I have found that when the 2 o’clock slump comes (read that as me at my desk snoring), I find that if I go all the way back down to the first floor and come back up, I am usually recharged…for a solid 20 minutes. At which point, I realize how stupid it was to go all the way up and down.

In fact, unless I am with others that are not interested in being on the stairs, I will always take the stairs. Otherwise, I have no problems with “social elevatoring”  as a very literal and expedited way of working my way up the corporate ladder.

The new year kicked off for many of us with the usual array of resolutions that last for precisely the amount of time it took to come up with them in the first place. To celebrate the new year, the City of Boston and [insert company name here] decided to incorporate a “Take the Stairs. Every Step Counts” program as a way to encourage people to get healthier.

The Mayor of Boston as well as our CEO had a very nice ceremonial kick-off in the lobby of the building and walked up a flight of stairs. Our HR department very nicely plastered the stairwell with various signage to motivate people…assuming they were motivated to begin with because otherwise, they would not be in the stairwell to begin with.  At each landing there were signs that read “Every Step Counts” and “You Can Do It”, etc. Very nice. I can feel Eye of the Tiger playing in my head.

But there is one sign that is completely immobilizing me. Frankly, I am puzzled by it. It reads: “Walking Upstairs Burns 3 Times More Calories Than Taking The Elevator.”  Stop for a few seconds and think about that statement. Are you as dumbfounded as I? The first thing that strikes me is that this sentence is the exact equivalent to “Jogging burns x times more calories than sleeping.” Well, DUH! Doing something is always going to burn more calories than doing nothing! The second thing that strikes me is that if I read this correctly, ONLY 3 TIMES? So, what you are saying is that all I need to do is come in in the morning, go to the elevator, take it to 10, then let the doors open, take it back down to 1 and then press 10 again. Once I have done that, I have officially equaled the calories I have used while sweating and getting dizzy walking up the stairs. Ummmm…folks, where is the incentive?

So, my revised New Year’s Resolution is to take the elevator 36 times a day. I can feel the excess weight slide off!

funny | 16 Comments »

Nothing more to say….

Baby Goats, funny | 6 Comments »

You can file this in the “WAY too much information, Dan!” file. But I feel close enough to both of you to tell you anything and now.. I am about to tell you anything.

As we both know, public restrooms have a unique set of etiquette rules. Both men and women have to navigate that treacherous, and a bit, nasty course all the time. Men have the unique anatomical feature of a directional spout. This feature allows public restroom designers to install two-ish urinals for every toilet. This I refer to as “peeing on the wall.” Nice invention. The problem is that urinals provide little privacy. There are a million unwritten rules about where your eyes need to be while peeing, which urinal you choose when there are more than two, what you are allowed to talk about, etc.

My confession to both of you is that when I address the urinal, I commit myself by unbuckling my belt and working at it from that direction. I know the correct, more manly way, would be to unzip, reach in, do the underwear origami (underwearigami?) maneuver, release The Bishop from his confines (I was going to say “rectory”instead of confines…it is making me laugh really loudly thinking about it, but I don’t think it is appropriate so ignore what’s in these parenthesis), then take care of the business end of why I am there and then do everything in reverse.

That is not what I do. I need to de-buckle myself. There is no good reason for it, other than habit….and fear of the grip of death of a billion little metallic zipper nubs causing unneeded pain to a most sensitive part of my body. The gods know that I may need to use it once again …someday. The other reason is that with my method, I can put things back exactly where I want them using mostly gravity. The more macho way means that it is a crap shoot (?) as to where all the pieces end up. All you have is that small window that you then have to try to squish into place like a snake charmer on his first day on the job.

So to make a very short, long, I was in the restroom at work, doing what I do whenever I have to do it.  At some point, I was joined by someone else, while I finished off with a “two shakes of the lamb’s tail.” I continued on with the repositioning and re-buckling. At this point, the much more manly man doing the ever-so-graceful, one-handed reach and yank, looked up at me and said, “What were you doing, masturbating?”

Listen, god’s gift to all things macho; you have broken a whole bunch of commandments just now. The most important of the “Thou shalt not’s” are:

A. Don’t even think of talking while at the urinal. You are not allowed! It is in the manual! “The moose up front should have told you that” (Which movie was that from?)
B. Don’t pay close enough attention to me that you notice whichever personal habits I have chosen to exhibit. For goodness sakes, I have heard guys fart while at the urinal and no one blinks. How I retract, is not your business! You are not permitted to be interested in that.
C. Don’t say the word masturbate in a men’s room….E.V.E.R!

Please don’t hate me!

funny | 12 Comments »