I take a bad picture – I rarely, if ever, look even halfway respectable in pictures that are taken of me. There are about two pictures of me that I can look at and not cringe. The “Hat” picture which graces the About page is one of these. My graduation picture is most definitely not. Which is a problem considering Curly Durly is determined to keep my grad-pic in pride of place on the fireplace till she has another one to replace it (roll on July, another silly hat, and an outfit with trousers so I don’t look like a fat penguin).

My point being, if I have a picture I don’t like (i.e., most of them), I don’t show it to people. I keep going till I have one I do like. Good karma must be accruing to the chappy who thought of modern photo-booths where you can have several attempts to look human. What I definitely don’t do is use a picture that makes me look (quite frankly) like a startled ghost that has stuck its finger in an electrical socket. Especially when this picture is to be placed on something that will be in use for a minimum of five years.

The thing with my job is, I get to look at lots and lots of faces. Around twenty thousand at the last count. And most of the pictures are really rather good – though if I had a penny for every time I’ve heard “oh, I hope I don’t break the camera”, I’d probably have enough for an external hard drive and a pair of glasses by now. Clearly, the majority of people in the Soton region at least feel the same as me. You make an effort not to submit pictures that make you look, quite frankly, deranged.

All of which makes the odd one all the more special. Everyone took one look at the picture, blinked, looked again to make sure, then went “oh… dear…” I will NOT be surprised if we get a phone call from the lady asking if we can reissue her card with another picture on it.

Whilst we don’t keep formal lists, there are some names that stand testament to how cruel parents can be (and how Terry Prachett the world is sometimes), and there are some faces which have become firm favourites. This lady, bless her pink eye shadow, is definitely one of the better ones.

(And no, we’re not being cruel, laughing at people. We are doing it in a loving and respectful manner. That, and if we didn’t do it occasionally, we would all go stir crazy).

Times are, the round of emails from colleagues actually throws up a gem or three…

(All the following are on Flickr, so click to see full size).

And my favourite…

If a paperclip is a “trombone” in French, what is a trombone?
(Staring at a box of paperclips all day in the office. Sorry.)

I was on the train home today, staring out the window, listening to Eve 6, and the urge came over me to make new Blog Minions. Yes, I think about my blog whilst I commute. That’s not odd, is it?

Anyway, there are three new Blog Minions I would like to introduce you to:

The Brainy Snail, for taking care of me and making sure my brain didn’t explode before todays interview. So not exactly blog-related, but as she didn’t get a proper introduction for her previous Minion-contribution, I figure she deserves a little paragraph now. And trust me, managing to make me calm this afternoon was no mean task! Gibbering wrecks had nothing on me. Everybody, wave at the Brainy Snail.

Jay, for being brave and sharing a cheesecake recipe. That, and his little squirrel/beaver/rodent avatar makes me grin every time I see it. See, it doesn’t take much to be made a Minion. Be nice to Jay people, he’s new to Bright Meadow (at least, he’s only just started actually commenting). We don’t want to scare him away.

Crazy. Ah, Crazy. How can I not make someone who blogs under the name “Crazy” a Minion? He can generally be relied upon to say nice things in comments, so that’s a plus too. That, and he keeps asking to be made one. Way I figure it, if you want something that badly, who am I to deny you the pleasure? Say ‘hello’ to Crazy. I’m sure that straightjacket is just a fashion statement…

Now, being a Blog Minion can mean whatever you want it to mean. I don’t ask you to do anything – it is simply in recognition of the fact you are jolly good eggs, and people who have made Bright Meadow that little bit brighter 🙂 If you want to take the button back to your own site to proclaim your Minionhood (and make a handy link 😉 ) (if you even have your own site), please do so. If you want to completely redesign the button, please do that also. If you don’t want to link back, again, that is fine by me. I just want you to know that I appreciate you.

The full list of Blog Minions can be found here, as can a fuller explanation of what Minions are.

I’m currently in need of a stiff drink – I just finished pruning back my RSS feeds. I had 250 on the last backup list I did, and now I’m working during the week, I just don’t have time to keep up with them all. I’m now down to 150 feeds. I want the list to be even smaller, but I just can’t decide what stays and what goes out of the remainder. Unfortunately, most of the remainder are the high-volume ones as well :S

Scobel has gone. I gave him the benefit of the doubt for a while, but he’s just not floating my boat. I honestly did try, but he’s just not my cup of tea. Also, if I find myself going into withdrawal and changing my mind (unlikely, but I’m female, and it’s been known to happen) I know where to find him. The blogosphere ain’t so big you can loose someone like that, no matter how hard you might try.

Most of the other feeds that have been sent to the great Aggregator in the Sky are web2.0/tech ones like the assorted ZDNet blogs and things I subscribed to back when I was in deep research mode. I’m still gonna be keeping a pinky on the pulse, but at one remove. If the old favourites such as Danah, Molly, Ross, and Liz are talking about it, I know from old I’m gonna be interested in it. Stowe has also managed to wangle his way back into my heart. His eternal tracking of his Technorati ranking is starting to bug me, but he does have the decency to flag those posts with consistent naming so you get some warning and can just skip over them. In this case, the blogging-good pretty much outweighs the bad. He can stay.

So this cull might leave me that little bit further behind the curve than before, but is it really that important if I’m a day/week late with the gossip? If it’s important enough to impact on me, I am sure I will hear of it before it is too late.

I’d like to say I was being original, but it turns out I’m not. Mildly ironically, I check my RSS tonight, and find that Josh has already bitten the bullet.

If you’re curious as to how I’ve chosen who stays and who goes, it’s easy – if I like their style, they stay. Writing should grab your attention. The words you read on a page or screen should let you see the personality of the author. You should enjoy reading them. Even more importantly, perhaps, they should challenge you and make you think. I couldn’t list what makes good writing, but I do know it when I see it. ^*1* That’s the yard stick I used during the surgery, so you can be guaranteed if it’s in my OPML file or on the Bloglines page, then I genuinely enjoy reading it. ^*2* No more sheep-tendencies for Cas. Well, I can try 😉 Sorry if I’ve zapped you from the list, but there are only so many hours in the day. If you think I should be reading your stuff then plead your case, and I’ll give you a second chance. Or if you think of anything I might enjoy reading do let me know. I’m always up to trying new things.

I really hope I haven’t offended anyone – trust me, it’s as hard for me as it is for you. It shouldn’t be this hard to delete a feed from Vienna, but it is. I feel disloyal and nasty when I remove my subscription. I am so pathetic.

Not sure why I felt I had to share this with you, but *shrug* there you go. Oh, and this isn’t a whole anti-A-List rant or reaction or anything. It is a genuine attempt to make surfing the Internet fun again.

Endnotes:
^*1* Good being, of course, a subjective thing. Let’s not get back to the whole Clive Cussler debate.
^*2* The exceptions to this are news sites such as BBC, NYT, and to a degree tech/gadget/funny sites like Gizmodo and BoingBoing. At the same time, I am seriously considering removing Gizmodo from the list as well. They still supply gems, but the dross is rapidly starting to drown them out. Oh, and the sites of friends. They’re exempt too. If I’ve met you in RL/have formed a genuine online relationship with you, then you’re safe. More or less :devil_tb:

Of all the bizarre search phrases that have brought people to my blog, “Chiropractor christian .u.k.” has to be one of the oddest. Who knows what post gets you that search result… :blink_tb:

I just checked Askimet before I signed off for the night as is my habit (once or twice proper comments get caught up, and I hate for people to feel left out or unloved) and was greeted by this most superb piece of spam I have seen in a while. I have no idea which post deserved such a message, and I’ve now sent it to the firey depths, but I did screenshot it so you can share in its glory.

It’s not so much the content of the message itself that made me smile, but what awaits you if you go to the site mentioned. Truly, truly worth a visit, if you are so inclined.