BlogHer for Hims, Too

If the men who attend BlogHer are a pathetic lot,
you should see the ones who attend internet porn conventions.
- James Griffioen, Sweet Juniper

* * *

The social media world is buzzing -- or in hipper circles, Google +ing -- about BlogHer ‘11 scheduled to take place in San Diego August 4 to 6.

(NOTE #1: I say '”scheduled” because I learned to always hedge your words against  postponement due to plane crash, tsunami or outbreak of cold sores.)

“Are you going?”

“What parties are you attending?”

“Did you buy any cute new shoes?”

“Can you believe they picked her as a Voice of the Year and not moi?”

Gossipsnipesqueeeeeeeelbitchsqueeeeeel!!

And that’s just the men who are going.

Men?!

MEN!!??

(Interlude: DramaDramaDramaDrama)

First, thanks for recognizing vaginally challenged BlogHer attendees as “men.” Tiny gestures like that matter.

(NOTE #2: Don’t refer to that particular defining feature as “his tiny gesture.” Least not within ear shot.)

For you newbies and don’t-really-cares, every year a handful of the penile-impaired brave the unpredictable sea of estrogen known as the BlogHer blogging conference. On occasion, these men cause a stir either purposefully or by others overtly fawning over their dangling bits.

Having been at BlogHer ‘10 in NYC last year, and being what some loosely call a “man,” though the record shows I’m clearly more just “a guy,” I have reached the following conclusion on this controversy:

Ladies and dudes, get over yourselves.

It’s a blogging conference.

Not Middle East peace negotiations.

Not the G7 Summit.

Definitely not Charlie Sheen’s mansion despite the abundance of goddesses from the writing and professional world all about.

What BlogHer boils down to, for all its “let’s chant ‘female empowerment rah rah rah’ until it is totally meaningless” foundations, is a social and networking event.

Just a big-assed one.

(NOTE #3: The phrase “big assed” shouldn’t be used anywhere near BlogHer or its attendees. I seriously don’t have to explain why.)

That’s how I viewed BlogHer ‘10 when I attended as one of the few and proud Members with a Member Brigade.

I went to meet new people, connect with others I already knew online, listen to what attendees and speakers had to say and have a good time. I also had a mission to spread the word about a good cause that needed people’s help, but that’s my burden in life.

Yeah, yeah -- the target audience is women and I’m not one.

However, I don’t kid myself. My blog subject matter and reader demographics (as well as my friendships and this sexy at-home lifestyle I lead) tends to overlap with this crowd. 

Besides, I always stay up to date on my Cootie shots.

Anyway, I came (no, My Love, no! I “went” – I definitely only “went”!), I saw, I mingled and BlogHer well met my expectations.

With the exception of the “women and humor writing” panel, which turned into a Comedy Central Roast of oppressive honky dinosaurs (and that Polite Fictions guy who risked his balding melon to ask a respectful question), nearly every panel I attended and discussion I had with attendees about blogging, writing and life applied as easily to men, dads and humanistic space aliens as well as women.

That’s not pathetic. That’s good bang for the buck.

(NOTE #4: Banging in exchange for bucks, extra Mr. Potato Head doll swag or other forms of currency, even Canadian, did not take place at BlogHer ‘10 to the best of my knowledge. I’m also sure the conference organizers neither encourage nor endorse such things.)

I won’t be at BlogHer this year. Opposite side of the country, cash flow issues, Thing 1 has a JM doc appointment, etc. However, if you are going, let me offer one piece of advice:

Have fun, but act like a grown-up not an asshat.

That applies regardless of your Klout score, page views or your gender.

Technorati Tags: blogher,blogher '11,blogging

Brief Observations on Summer Camp 2011

One Thing is having fun.

The other, not so much.

Take Me to the Bridge

Thanks for putting up with me this week. It’s gotten better, including two new freelance writing assignments to fill the time and bank account while My Love pounds the pavement looking for a new job.

Just a quickie before the weekend and some real posts next week:

• Congrats to our two giveaway winners: Julianna from Surviving Boys won the free tickets to Lake Compounce amusement park while the irrepressible Cheryl from Deckside Thoughts gets to lust after Matt Bomer on DVD with the White Collar: The Complete Second Season collection.
• One more DVD giveaway for fans of another popular USA Network TV series coming next week – this one comes with a real-life celeb sighting and shoulder rubbing by My Love. Trust me, I was very jealous. And turned on.
• I have a video post from Conan O’Brien’s crew today as a “Friday Fun” post at DadCentric: Team Coco presents ‘American Dadiators.’ I also explain what the proper term is for ‘love handles’ when they are on a woman.
• Thanks to Neil at Citizen of the Month who was the first to recommend the Uncools do the Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver when we were up there two weeks back. The fam is all smiles on the return trip across it in the above photo, but they were soiling themselves on the way over. More on that later.

Let’s take it in the weekend optimistically, then. Hit it, Old 97’s:

No ‘White Collar’ Crime to Give You Free DVDs

Good news today – no disasters, thefts or near poisonings. Murphy even got a paws up from the doggie dermatologist.

Let’s celebrate, doggie style, with another giveaway of one of Murphy’s favorite TV shows.

The fine folks of Fox Home Video found out I have a thing for many of the original series on the USA Network, so they asked me to give one of you a 4-DVD set of White Collar: The Complete Second Season, a show about a former con man helping the FBI in New York City.

White Collar has a little bit of everything.

Good guy crime fighter Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) with a sense of humor and, for one glorious episode, a bad-ass mustache.

Suave ex-art forger Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) with a penchant for retro clothing and a quest. He must balance the moral dilemma of wanting justice to avenge the death of his ex-girlfriend while also contemplating making one last big score. I can neither confirm nor deny that he is loosely modeled on another Neil from New York.

Goofy and lovable sidekick Mozzie (Willie Garson) who practices Zen and the art of the con. Definitely based on a lawyer I know.

Exotic lesbian federal agent Diana (Marsha Thomason) who occasionally has to go undercover as a hetero hooker and/or model. (Really, what mom blogger out hasn’t done all that at one time or another, right? Once? In college?)

Token dude Clinton Jones (Sharif Atkins) who really should have a bigger role in the show but instead spends most of it in the surveillance van. In the above photo, I think he has The Rev. Al Sharpton on the phone.

And Tiffani Thiessen.

Sigh.

Oh, she plays Elizabeth, the FBI’s guy wife, but that’s not important because I’ve had a thing for her since …

… she played goody-two-shoes Kelly Kapowski on all those dreadful Saved by the Bell series. (I was in college with a lot of time between classes, people.)

Then again when she played bad bad girl on Beverly Hills 90210.

Or later as the object of desire of The Ladies Man (a highly underrated SNL movie spinoff, mind you).

The lady is versatile.

And totally smokin’. Almost as much as My Love. I sense a Baby Burke on the way next season.

Oh, why is White Collar Murphy’s favorite show?

Because the Burkes have one lovable bear of a yellow Lab named Satchmo.

Who gets to follow around Tiffani Thiessen like so.

Sigh.

All righty, nearly the same rules as yesterday’s Lake Compounce amusement park ticket giveaway:

• Leave a comment by 8 a.m., Friday, July 15. Any comment will do, but if you have a White Collar crush, confess!
• Include a working email address when you fill out the comment form so I can contact you if you win.
• Be a citizen of Earth. I’m in a better mood today, so even if you are Glenn Beck, you qualify.

One winner to be picked at random. Others will be humped by the dog.

Let Me Amuse You With My Misery

I don’t delude myself. I know most of you come here for a grin and giggle, not to be impressed by:

• my profound insights (you’re smiling already, yes?),
• my clever turn of phrase (look, if you must roll on the floor in laughter, please do so over the muddy paw prints by the door), or
• my dazzling use of metaphor, allusion and other terms you have most likely not thought about since you wrote your last English literature term paper (this was only a few weeks ago for this reader and this one, so they are excused for reading my blog as a way to purge their brains of all intellectual thought before summer break).

However, I’m not feeling all fun and games these days. Oh, let me count the ways:

1. Within 10 minutes of stepping foot in Seattle for our recent Cure JM conference/vacation, Thing 2 left not only his iPod Touch but also his beloved Nintendo DS and some 20 games for it on the airport shuttle train. Even he could do the math on that. In short, a grainy security camera stlll of yours truly might now be pinned to a corkboard hanging in the Seattle-Tacoma International’s TSA office with a note to “Approach with Caution. And Mace.”
2. Returned from said “vacation” to find our house had been broken into. Luckily, the biggest thing stolen was a huge jar of loose change. Unluckily, the only other thing stolen was Thing 1’s piggy bank. Which contained $100. Which she received from relatives as an elementary school graduation gift.
3. In the mail pile that collected during said “vacation,” I received a jury duty notice. All I’ll say is that on August 17, someone in the criminal justice system may be very sorry our state didn’t do away with capital punishment.
4. Speaking of death, our dog Murphy is apparently suicidal. Last month, he ate a bowl of grapes. Yesterday, because our Lab abhors subtly, he chowed down a block of rat poison. I happened along shortly after both incidents and did what I do best – made him puke his ever-loving guts out. It’s a talent.

The list goes on but I’m depressing myself. Maybe I’ll detail it more online (I will most definitely give you the scoop in person if you buy me a beer because I’m just a loose-lipped harlot for the hops as you know), but as of right now I need a little happy in my life and if it can’t be me, why not one of you. Hence:

LET ME GIVE YOU STUFF!

A brilliant PR company (i.e., one that actually read my blog and put a few things together) has offered to let me give one lucky reader

4 FREE PASSES to
Lake Compounce amusement park
in Bristol, Connecticut

Lake Compounce is the oldest continuously operating amusement park in North America, having started in 1846. (I know you folks are used to my typos, but I did really type one-eight-four-six.)

It is home to Boulder Dash, which has been voted the world’s No. 1 wooden roller coaster and is liked even by the stodgy New York Times. Lake Compounce even has Connecticut’s largest water park (no, not Long Island Sound -- we have to share that with, you know, Lawn Guylanders).

The park is a gem from what I hear from friends and I’ve read online.

That’s right. I’ve never been.

Not that I didn’t want to go and give you a firsthand review.

I tried to go last week with the Things and My Love and the four free tickets the PR folks gave me to use, but 30 minutes sitting in a traffic accident on I-84 made me turn back.

And yes, you may add that to the list.

Anyway, here’s da rules:

• Leave a comment by 8 a.m., Friday, July 15. Any comment will do. I’m easy. Duh. (If you want to comment, but don’t live any where near Bristol or don’t want tickets, just say so.)
• Include a working email address when you fill out the comment form so I can contact you if you win.
• Be a citizen of Earth. So unless you are Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum, you qualify.

I’ll pretend to give an extra entry if you like the “Always Home and Uncool” Facebook page, which occasionally includes bonus photos, links, bon mots and extra moanin’ and a-bitchin’ from me.

One winner will be picked at random. As will my nose.

My Son, The Dancing Machine

Our city’s afterschool program holds a year-end event to celebrate the children, raise funds and give thanks for another 9 months without one of its supervisors being carted off in a straight jacket. This is good.

Unfortunately, there is also a “show.”

The kids in each elementary school’s program put on a skit. Some years the skits relate to a theme like cultural diversity, saving the environment or the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (we have lots of corporate financiers in these here parts). The subject doesn’t really matter because the show usually takes place in an auditorium as cavernous as Sarah Palin’s brain cavity. In addition, the auditorium features minimal on-stage sound amplification and an audience consisting of a horde of baby brothers and sisters screaming for Sippy Cups while their parents whisper loudly to one another, "What are they saying up there?”

This year’s show was just as inscrutable, especially the section featuring the Things. We believe it had something to do with fire prevention and MC Hammer.

The highlight of this incoherentness was our son, Thing 2, shaking his booty like his 9-year-old life depended on it. Let’s go to the videotape:

Apparently, the boy is born to boogie. While emptying his backpack one night, My Love and I found a “birthday book” his classmates had put together for him. These are just four of the comments:

 

NOTE: These are all from girls. Uncool’s son has got it goin’ on!

Then there was the report card conference I had with his teacher. The boy is an excellent student, good classmate and “quite the dancer,” she said. “And he’s so serious about it.”

When asked about his passion for the disco floor, Thing 2 declined comment for this post. Instead, he thought he’d just show you:

(Sorry. YouTube won’t let me embed the video because it uses a licensed song, so go to http://youtu.be/HBpVmdtCjxA to view it.)