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A few months ago, I was approached from someone from "Staffing Marketing" here about the possibility of being in a new staffing website that was being considered. Sounded like fun, so I decided to go through the process. I spent a couple hours just chatting with the gal who was getting stuff going, and explained what I do, some interesting things about me, and so on. A few weeks later, I was contacted about doing a photoshoot. It was a little freaky, but I decided it couldn't hurt, and early July, I found myself in the Microsoft Studios building getting video and photos taken!

There were a couple minor followups, but nothing more... I was beginning to assume that the project just had fallen through and wouldn't happen. No big deal. But that wasn't the case, and found out a couple weeks ago that the site went live. It's REALLY weird to see pictures of yourself up on the front of a website for your employer!

Then it got even weirder - they also created some ads for the web site, for both the web and print. I haven't seen anything about print ads yet, but I've already had a couple people tell me they've seen me in ads here on Slashdot! That's right! My face is being shown to random Slashdotters to advertise Microsoft as a place to work!

I can't emphasize how much it weirds me out to know this is happening and have seen a couple screenshots of it...

But if you're reading a story here, and at the top you see this Microsoft ad reading "View", featuring an Xbox Live Tester, that's ME!!!

And if you're wondering how heavily marketing has touched things... let me just say that the bio and details shown for me are all my very own. I wrote out the bio myself, and I don't think they even changed a single letter of it. So I'm assuming that everything else on there is just as honest. Which is really nice to see...

(sorry for the double messages for anyone that gets them... I didn't realize that "Publish" throws the story in the Firehose, and I didn't want it there...)

I hate MySpace.

I will clarify that. I specifically hate MySpace. I don't hate the concept of social networking (obviously, since Last.fm is a form of it), and I don't even hate the specific functionality that's on MySpace. I like what they're trying to do, and a good, popular social networking site is needed.

But the only thing that seems to be keeping MySpace popular is its popularity.

It's horribly ugly - one of the worst designed websites I've seen in a long time. It's full of ads - and not even good ads, but the crappy worst-of-the-web ads, chock full of sites that shove spyware and adware onto unwilling peoples' computers. It's buggy. It is really hard to customize, meaning most people do it via third-party websites that throw more garbage into a user's profile, and the limitations mean most customizations are also very ugly. The profile is also very rigid, meaning that when you want to add stuff that doesn't fit into any of the topic headings you're given, you have to shove it into one of them.

Oh, and they play up the whole "grassroots" thing and pretend that one person created MySpace (Tom), but that's far from the truth. A subtle marketing campaign managed to convince people of such things and somehow got MySpace moving. But there's nothing grassroots about it.

But now we have Virb. It just launched recently - I think it left beta just last week. It already seems to do most of what MySpace does - and it does it with much more style.

Virb user profiles are ad-free. They're easily customizable - change your colors, fonts, text sizes, and arrangement of profile boxes without any HTML or CSS knowledge at all. You can even add custom profile boxes for whatever you want to add - Last.fm charts, for example, fit nicely into them. :) It even integrates with Flickr - instead of having to upload photos to the site separately, link it to your Flickr and it will show your lastest pics on your profile. And if you know CSS, or are willing to learn, you can tweak the hell out of a profile there. For example, someone made their profile look like a MySpace profile, but it still looks better than MySpace. Someone else made theirs look like something totally different. I'm highly impressed, and it's encouraged me to play with my own and see what I can do.

I hate feeling like I'm shilling something - it's very much not the type of person I am. But I just really want to see the ugliness of MySpace stop polluting the internet, and Virb seems like it might be the place to do it. So I would like to encourage everyone to abandon their MySpace and head on over - or if nothing else, at least create their own Virb profile and play with it.

Oh yeah, by the way - Virb has their own mini-Last.fm knockoff on there, called VirbTunes. Essentially, it does the scrobbling part of Last.fm, and adds it to your profile. Ignore it. Use Last.fm charts instead! :)

For the first half of the bowling season, I was struggling something fierce. I worked with some people last summer to try and improve my form and improve my game - but I made enough changes that my average had dipped for a while. Not unexpected, but it was very frustrating. How frustrating? I finished last year with a 211 average. I've been sitting in the high 180's so far this year. So yeah, quite the dip.

In the last month though, after another lesson with a coach, I started to iron things out. I still have to low dips, but I'd been throwing quite a few good games - at least once a week I'd be churning out something above 220. Two weeks ago, on my Thursday night league, I shot 680 - two 240+ games. So it's been coming together.

Last night, though, things were looking good from the start. I found the right ball to use during warm-up, and the conditions were great for me - I pretty much had to put the ball either at 2nd arrow, or outside it, and it would come back into the pocket. The first game was great - a 248. I was feeling good.

The second game... I kept things up! I couldn't miss, and after getting the first six strikes, I started to wonder if tonight would be the night - but I tried pushing it out of my head. After two more, I was completely aware that I had eight in a row, and that this is the most I had done before. The ninth frame... I could feel the nerves starting to hit me. But I held it together, and again, it was a really nice shot. And then I got quite a bit of applause, and realized how many people were watching.

So when I went up for the tenth frame, knowing that I had a real shot here, it was tough. The first time I stood up, my legs were shaking enough that I had to put the ball down and take a minute. I took a couple breaths, went back up, and again threw a solid strike, and again more applause. I had drawn a crowd, which I didn't think would help! But, even with people watching like this, I held it together enough to throw yet ANOTHER strike. 11 in a row. Wow. At this point, I was happy no matter what!

That last shot... wow, it's hard. You know this is the last one you have to make, and you know that lots of people are paying attention. From what I've heard, peoples' natural tendency is to try and "force" the ball into the pocket, and often pull it and blow it that way. I just let things flow the way they had been, and made my approach.

When I let that ball go, I knew it was a good shot. It was going to be in the pocket - and it was just waiting to see what would happen. It hit, and it was a completely solid strike! I had just bowled my first 300 game! The cheering was incredible, and I was totally overwhelmed by the whole thing!

People I didn't know were coming up and congratulating me for the rest of the night, and I don't think I could make the grin on my face go away. It was just something I can't put into words!

I still have a hard time believing it...

We've been getting unusual weather here in the Northwest recently. It snowed last Wednesday - which is unusual, but not unheard of. However, since then, the snow hasn't melted much at all. In fact, it's snowed twice more, and is snowing right now. We're not talking a lot - an inch here, a half-inch here. But the Northwest isn't prepared to deal with it. They don't salt the roads, and there aren't many plows. Many of the roads have just had to have the snow and ice get worn away from cars. Which doesn't always work...

...and some people don't know how to deal with the conditions. Definitely worth a view.

I hope that first person was massively ticketed - there's not knowing how to drive on snow and ice, and then there's being insanely reckless and dangerous.

Because I like to show off...

My new tattoo - which is also my first (but definitely not my last).