Feed my fishies!

I don't remember what site I found this on, but they had it as their intro page. The site itself wasn't great, but I thought the gadget was cute. I was able to go in and customize my fish, too, so it was kinda fun making my own fish tank. Don't forget to click around to drop food and watch the fish go eat it.

Sure, it's nothing amazingly special, but it's entertaining for a couple seconds. After all, I have Quirky Lurky over there in my sidebar, so why wouldn't I post about this? lol And to think, I said Lurky probably wouldn't stay for long....and he's been there for a little over a year and a half. Crazy!

But yeah, the fish. Feed them....and if you want your own, just click on the little button underneath it to take you to a customization page. :D

Subscribe Via Email

Oops! Someone informed me that I had the option turned off. I'm not sure how I managed to do that unless I bumped it while changing other configurations a while back, but it's available again now.

I went ahead and added a quick link on the left hand side so you people can easily find it as well. Just add your email address and it'll automatically send out a quick email with a link to let you know when I've published something new. If you use an RSS feed regularly, then you can subscribe in either way you prefer.

Automatic posting finally!

So I haven't had the chance to really stack posts yet and I haven't in the past because if I have to stop by to manually post it, then I could just write the post then.

Now that Blogger has finally made it possible to future date posts so that they'll automatically post on that date, I'm thrilled. It's been my biggest, and pretty much only, complaint about Blogger. It seemed like every other blogging platform had the feature, so even though I preferred using Blogger, I was always jealous of that feature.

Once again, this summer I'll be away working at a camp, and won't really be here to post a whole lot. I'm really hoping to have the chance to get at least a few posts made up in advance, though. I haven't been here much lately because life is too hectic, but that means my "to blog" folder is absolutely overflowing. I have so many things I want to post about -- it's insane!

Cross your fingers that I'll catch a break between now and the time I leave, so I can get a few more posts ready to go and this place won't fall apart while I'm gone.

Unsent Letters--Quirky Style

Just wanted to let you guys know that I've finally started working on one of my other blogs. I don't have much time to dedicate to any one given site right now, but I hate just having a dead domain sitting there with no life.

I'll be offering up the chance for people to guest blog and post their own quirky letters at some point (with links back to your place, of course), so keep that in mind for the future. :)

Unsent Letters

PJC--We will not be held liable for your smiling

I'd love to get to the point where my site needed a warning like that. Although, I *want* be held responsible for it, hehe.

Unfortunately, I don't know where this originated, so if you know, let me know so I can give them credit (and view their site!).

A New Quirky Jessi? Time for a Makeover

Across the web, I'm known as this image:



I never planned to stick with it for 2 1/2 years, but it caught on and I stuck with it. There's not much to work with there, but I've played with it a few times...like for this banner that was needed for a site that I won a contest on:



On Bloggeries, it was once brought up a battle between "monkey and bunny" because my avy was a bunny and the other guy's was a monkey. It took more than a few seconds for me to even register that, though, because as a general rule, I don't associate myself with a bunny.

I recently got a review that said "Cat lovers you have got to check this out. Jessi has a great sense of humor while being quite informative! FUN SITE!" and I thought, "hmph, yeah, I do mention cats quite often around here." Over the years, I've associated myself with cats quite often as well and I have several username variations that care cat oriented, too...but never had I actually branded QuirkyJessi as such.

Over the weekend, I went browsing for some new images to use another project I was working on and I ran across the cat you see in the top picture. Well, actually he looked like this:



And I switched him to this:


I was going to just edit the colors a bit and then kick off a contest here that I've been contemplating with a nice LolCat variation for Quirky. Instead, I ended up mimicking my lovely little branded QJ logo and just ran with it. Oops.

No, it's not meant to be an exact replica either, lol. If it was, I would've done several different things to make it the same....like playing with his eyes to make them lopsided, hehe. And some of the features are over-exaggerated so when I shrink it down to avy size, you'll still be able to see. I was just having fun with it and this is where it ended up. I thought I'd share with you guys since I've talked about cats here a whole lot more than I have bunnies.



So what do you think? Could I pass off as a kitty in bunny disguise?

Quirky Jessi's Inbox--A New Series?

So as I go through my email multiple times everyday, I have a tendency to toss Gmail's stars on certain emails. Those are the emails that I think "oh, I should post about that!" whether it be on a forum or on my blog (usually the latter), but there are soooo many things, that I rarely actually get back to going through them. And when I do, I don't want to overwhelm people here with jokes or stories or funny pictures or quirky ponderings....

But wait. That's exactly what this place is about, huh? So what's my excuse? I forget. Or I suddenly think that people don't want a repeat of their own inboxes. But you guys wouldn't anyway, because you don't subscribe to the same things I do....and you don't emails from my mom (and who gets them from a great guy named "Daddy Bill"...heck, I don't use names around here, but you can't really get the feel of the guy without putting his nickname out there for everyone).

The stuff I get is quirky. That's why it gets starred. But what do you guys think about a mini-series within Quirky Jessi. Maybe a post a week from "Jessi's Inbox" or "Quirky's Inbox"? A reminder for me.....and a quick insight for you guys? A place for all that stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere?

Okay, you're right. None of it fits elsewhere, so all of it fits here. But that's what I'm getting at, lol. I could get a whole blog out of it really, but I think it can fit in here just fine. What do you guys think? Should I take the plunge and add a new label to my vague set of tags? Should I make a commitment like that? *Holds breath*

Why I Post Full Yahoo Articles

It's a copyright problem to copy a full article here....regardless of whether I credit them or not.

I know this.

I respect this.

I'm a journalist, so I even *understand* this.

And I try to follow the rules, but looking through the last few article links I have bookmarked, I'm disappointed to see that they've already been removed. The articles have been purged and are gone. I checked. I searched. I hunted.

The same with their pictures. I always upload borrowed pictures to my own account anyway to spare bandwidth theft issues from other people, but geez.....this was just a few weeks ago. We're not talking years here, people, or even months.

Yes, news moves fast...but where are the archives (the links 'look' like they'd be archived, but nope)? Going back into my own archives, I can see a few links right off that I can guarantee are broken. And if I searched for those articles or those pictures again, they wouldn't be there. That's rather disappointing because the whole point of linking is so that people can follow the link and get to the original source or find more information.

So while I'd much rather post snippets of this or that and then send you off to someone else's credited work, I can't always do that with Yahoo, I've discovered. In a year, when someone comes across my site via some random search that leads them to a yahoo article post here, I want them to have access to the full story....not just the quote I happened to pull. :(

Models Give Negative Self-Image---Is This Image Better?

I recently noticed that some of the images I'd used in a pro-ana/mia post had been deleted. I'm guessing what little of the bodies were left...showed too much. It was kind of irritating, but I understand regardless, I suppose.

And so, in light of such a serious subject, I can't help but post the above lol-cat. The words are true, although the cats make it seem cute. Is that a more appropriate image to use?

NaBloPoMo Is Over and I Survived---Now What?

Yep, it's over. And as much as I enjoyed participating, I know my content dropped here. Yes, I know, there's not much "content" to speak of anyway, but some of the things I posted usually would've come fully equipped with witty commentary and quirky descriptions. Instead, I resorted to posting short things.

The funny thing is, it's not because I didn't have more to say or that NaBloPoMo was stressing me or anything. It was more like....I knew I was going to have to be posting every day and I was afraid I'd run myself thin by the end....which somehow lead me to be "thin" all month long so I didn't have to think about it. And there were days where I had 2 or 3 posts I wanted to make, but then I'd tell myself to wait until the next day, but then not have time to put the effort into them that I wanted.

And now that the month is over, my "Things to Blog" folder is just as full as ever and I still have several things I want to talk about. Notice I said "talk about"....so they won't necessarily be the quick posts you guys have gotten used to. They won't be a mile long either, but there are some quirky products I'd like to toss out there to you guys with a bit more than "hey, click this link...it's cool," lol.

For now, though, this is my last post of the event and we'll be back to regularly posting a few times a week with a bit more emphasis on each post. Thanks for sticking with me and I hope you all had fun. :)

QuirkyJessi.com is Live!!

Yay! It seems to be working correctly, so please let me know if you see anything screwy. *Does a little dance*

On a side note, I just went to my profile to mess with something and noticed that it had me listed as being from Afghanistan and working in the Accounting field. I don't know when they made those fields required, but it automatically listed me as the first in the alphabetical list. Weird. You might want to check yours in case you didn't have those specified before.

~Edit~ This woman (I'm not sure of your name, lol) asked if links needed to be changed. While it would certainly be appreciated (I'd rather have the main domain listed places than the old one), you don't *have* to in order to still find me. Blogger automatically forwards links of quirkyjessi.blogspot.com to the new www.quirkyjessi.com. I'm still working to get quirkyjessi.com forwarded, too, but regardless, I shouldn't lose many people with the switch. :) That being said, I don't know if it might have slower page load if you don't switch links because you go to the blogspot.com address first and then get redirected....it's instant on my computer, but others with slower connections might notice a difference.

~Edit Number 4 (because I edited that last edit a couple times, too, heh)~ QuirkyJessi.com is now officially working, too, although I know for sure that this one takes a bit longer to load (it has to redirect a couple times the way it's set right now...will try to fix later on.) Once your cache is updated, though, it shouldn't take any longer on future visits....you've just gotta get here first for your computer to remember the site and then you should be fine later on. :D

QuirkyJessi.com----Did I Really Do That??

Okay, so I went ahead and purchased QuirkyJessi.com and have begun the process of changing CNames, etc, so now I'm just waiting a couple days until I know that everything has registered and my site will show once I point Blogger in that direction. Thanks for all the input guys and cross your fingers that this goes smoothly!

Custom Domain on Blogger.....And What Should It Be Called?

Alright, so I've been doing more research and now I've come to a dead-end for the time being. First of all, I checked out a few of the different recommended hosts for my site and found a few that similar really similar in terms of service, satisfaction, and prices.

(Speaking of which, April, you recommended Bluehost. I can't get to your blog because you have your Blogger profile set to private. All the reviews I read for Bluehost complained of downtime....do you experience much of that or is it exaggerated by huge businesses losing money by a tiny bit of downtime? Also, if you stop back by and comment again, leave me a link to your site so I can come by and see you. :) And so I can link to you when I say stuff like this! Hehe.)

Anywho, all that aside, I remembered that Blogger now allows us to publish to our custom domain without actually having to host it somewhere ourselves. I'm seriously considering this as a first step for me, so I don't have to devote the time to completely rebuilding a new site and maintaining it. I can keep my blog, continue tweaking the HTML, and have my own domain as I originally wanted in the first place.

Two questions, though:

• One--Has anyone done this and how did it work out for you? Okay, so that was kinda two questions on its own, but it was the same sentence and the same subject, so leave me alone! :P
• Two--What domain should I use? Any of the basics like quirky.com or quirkiness.com are of course taken. QuirkyJessi.com is open, but do I want that? (Shush it...still on the same subject/question...it doesn't count as more than one.) The name of this place is "The Quirky World of Jessi," but it's rarely about me anyway, so I'm thinking something more like TheQuirkyWorld.com might be better. I say that because it's available and other combinations aren't necessarily. Neither is that memorable, in my opinion, especially since most people end up spelling Jessi with an 'e' or 'y' or 'ie', so if they heard it or were trying to remember it instead of just clicking a link, they're unlikely to end up at my place. It's directly linked to my name and even though people I meet across blogs/forums know me as such, it's quirky 'stuff' that I blog about (that's taken, heh). I know the simplest of solutions would be to buy both and forward to one or the other, but if I'm keeping with Blogger, then they only automatically forward to one place, and I'd have to deal with the other. And then, which is it that I would want as the main site.

Your guys' turn to help me out again! Which domain should I buy?

Changes for November/NaBloPoMo '07

So NaBloPoMo has officially started and while most people took yesterday to reintroduce it and do some chit chat about the event, I decided to hold off. I made a few changes around here, but nothing too noticeable.

...well, except for the fact that I am officially back from my month of pink! It feels so good to be blue again. I noticed on one of the sites I'm a member of that I still have a screenshot of my first layout/color scheme posted. I definitely like this one better, but I'm thinking it's about time for a new banner, too. I may put together something specifically for the holidays later on and then work out a new semi-permanent one later.

My sidebars have changed a bit, too. I didn't have much of a blogroll here because I read blogs through other places and generally just talk about the blogs I like here, so I got rid of the few listed. I tidied up the "other places to visit" section, too....some of the sites didn't even exist any more and it was just taking up room.

I've added in the NaBloPoMo participant badge on the side and there's some talk about a survivor badge for afterward, so this is a nice placeholder. I really don't like having so much in the side bars, but I'm not ready to lose it all yet either....at least it's not splattered with ads instead, right?

On a slightly different note, I've considered getting my own domain. I like Blogger, to be honest, minus a few little disadvantages, but from my involvement on some blog forums, it keeps coming up how it's sometimes better to have your own domain. At this point, it's not like QuirkyJessi is really headed anywhere big, but at the same time, it'd be kinda nice to start working on traffic 'now' to my own domain instead of getting my .blogspot.com address so built up and then starting over. I'm not sure. What do you guys think? Have any suggestions for a good place to buy the domain and host a site of my own? The cheaper, the better, of course, because I don't use ads, but at this point, I'm just browsing around.

~Edit~ One of the main reasons that sparked this post, I didn't even talk about. I also added a Bookmark button to my post layout so that you can see it at the end of each post. If you scroll over the top of it, you'll notice that it'll pop up a list of other sites you can bookmark the posts at (all the major ones are there: Digg, StumbleUpon, Del. icio.us). I've never used them much, but I know other people love them, so I thought I'd make it easy on y'all. Also, you guys know I'm all about linky love, so if you happen to place something of mine there, I'll return the favor in some way or another.

More Blogaversary Fun Part II--Visitor Facts

Hey, my blog birthday/anniversary only comes once a year, so I might as well use the time to see how it went this last year. Here are some facts about the people who visited Quirky:

• Depending on which site I check, there were approximately 4000 'different' people who clicked in. (The highest quote was for 6100 different people, so who knows?)
  
• 51% of those were Firefox users. Woohoo Firefox!!
  
• 1 visitor used the browser "gzip" which I've never heard of, heh.
• 9 unlikely visitors were actually still on dial-up. I wasn't even sure if that was still around. I'm sorry for all the graphics that probably lagged up this minority like crazy, lol.
• 1% of the visits were made by users with Linux, and almost 8% from Mac users. I'll never understand Mac users, but I love the quirky ads they put out and the strange loyalty is almost worth investigation. 4100 visitors were using Windows XP. Yes, that's more than the 4k unique visitors quoted in the first one, but the stats were from different places and I took the lower number for the visitors, lol. There's no way of knowing who to believe!
  
• 3 visits were made on a computer running only 8-bit color. Um, which 8 colors are those? :P
  
• Over a third of people's resolutions are set for 1024x768, but there were actually 6% who were using 800x600.
  
• An overwhelming amount of visitors were from the United States. I'm not feeling much foreign love. :(

Okay, I think I'm done with the stat exploring, hehe.

More Blogaversary Fun--A Year of Strange Searchers

I used to post every so often about the weird search topics that brought people here, so now that I've hit the one mark, I thought I'd list some of the oddest searches.

• "see my panties"
• "a portmanteau of the phrase snide remark "
• "college student" +"instant noodle" +statistic
• "opposite of italicized"
• "pink elephants and lemonade" meaning
• "let go of my ears" tattoo
• 7bdef5f98fd316a934e1408d31a08a28b029d27908a2b8b1
• a torso pops out!
• all the participants in world toilet expo 2006 in thailand, email addresses and fax numbersare ramen noodles poisonous
• craving carrots all of a sudden
• diethylene glycol antifreeze ice cream
• emoticon bra clip
• fizzy pamplemousse
• grandma got swallowed by the internet
• hobo symbol for kind lady
• how many chairs fit around 76" dining room table
• my sandwiches smell like bananaspie selling: whole or slice
• sex in the 60s
• shakespeare beer joke
• take care of a virtual pet that's a mammal.
• under the desk you will see a rusty razor blade and a bottle of scotch. remove your own appendix.
• "i told my mom what i had just seen. then my mom got scared, she"

I was going to make a comment on each one, but for the most part, my reaction is simply WTF? I have no idea what some people were looking for when they searched for these things and mistakenly ran across my site, lol.

NaBloPoMo Again Already....and I'm Doing It!

Okay, so I did it. I signed up to participate in NaBloPoMo. If you were with me last year, then you heard me ramble about it a few times. Basically, a bunch of bloggers sign on to blog every day of the month, and that month just happens to be November. It may not seem like much, but it's a difficult task and takes lots of commitment. There's no cheating allowed....no skipping a day and making it up by posting twice the next day. Nope. Every day. Period.

Along with meeting lots of great people and stumbling across tons of new fascinating blogs thanks to a randomizer feature (Half of the current blogs I read are a result of browsing through them last year and it'll greatly hinder my performance this year, especially considering how many other things I have going on to deal with).....there are also prizes offered.

I had a lot of fun last year browsing through everyone else's fun, so this year, I thought I'd give it a go. I figure it might just be the kick in the butt I need to sort through all this crap I have sitting here, waiting to be blogged...but I'm not blogging! We'll see, right? I'll have a huge research project, midterms, finals prep, work, and life in general to deal with next month, so who knows if I'll actually have the time and dedication to put into it.

Who am I kidding? Blogging is so much more important than ace-ing my classes, hehe.

Happy Blogaversary Quirky!!

Yep, it's been a whole year. Looking back, here are some of the entries from my first month:

• Blurry vs. Focused--a photo with a baby jaguar and a little boy
• Revenge of the Flip Flops--Dun, dun, dun. I've referenced this post a few times since then, and the fact still remains that I hate flip flops. Um, and to spoil my own morals and fun, I just happen to be wearing a pair now that were forced on me over the summer...and I saw the price tag, so I'm certainly going to get the money out of them, even if that means using them to kill flies and spiders, hehe.
• Post Secret--a long entry about some of the postcards from that week. I still visit the site weekly. I find it ironic that I posted it on my birthday considering how sad many of the postcards were, and how un-sad I was at the time....at least I think I was. Who knows? But hey, it means my birthday is in 2 days...woohoo!
• Never Too Young--My first mini-rant, this time about someone who claimed that one is 'never' too young to grow up. I begged to differ when the person at the heart of the conversation was a preteen who had to step up and take care of children younger than herself. She 'is' too young to be forced to literally grow up and possibly miss many parts of her own childhood.
• What is a Friend?--My first analysis of a concept here. Man, I used to get deep here, guys! Lol. Boy did QuirkyJessi become a different place....it became....quirkier! And a whole lot more fun!
• Gangbanged Duck--Yep, duck rape. Literally. *giggles*
• Econ Problem Part One-The Box--*Giggles again* This was me defying 'the box' and making a point to go against what my econ class was trying to teach me. I defiantly sat cross-legged on top of the box instead of staying inside.
• Econ Problem Part Two--The Dog--And 'this' was me going above and beyond what everyone expected and turning the 'mere dog' used as a factual object in an econ problem and turning it into a sentimental creature that created tons of problems because they objectified it. Good times. Lots of cute pictures to illustrate, too, hehe.
• Hippo Dentist Bill--The big guy featured above and a quick comment about him.

Yep, it's been fun, but QuirkyJ certainly has changed a bit with time. I wouldn't post half of that stuff now, mainly because I don't take the time to write long drawn out stuff now. It's still tons of fun, though. Here's to another year. *Raises one of the gangbanged ducks into the air* Cheers!

I've Gone Pink!! Incredibly Pink!! (Breast Cancer Awareness Month)

I don't like the color pink. At all. I don't know what it is about the color, but it tends to make me uncomfortable. If I try to wear a pink shirt, or god forbid, pink underwear, that's all I can think about all day. I become acutely aware of the fact that there is something pink attached to me and it gets weird. It's just another color and I don't care, but it happens no matter how much I try to forget about it.

This month, though, I'm breaking my own rules of comfort and changing my blog colors to pink. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and everyone's familiar with the color connection (well, it was either for this or Victoria's Secret's Pink line, but I wouldn't do that, now would I?). Most of us know someone who has been effected by breast cancer whether directly or indirectly, so why not join us? It's for a good cause.

Check out PinkforOctober.org for logos like the one I have above, some stories, and links to other sites who have gone pink. Here's the link to other places that have info about breast cancer. Remember, awareness is the whole point, so take a few minutes and educate yourself a bit more. Like....did you know that breast cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer death worldwide and *third* in the United States? Exactly....go check out the facts.

I'm bacckk!!

Yep, I'm back in town and it's about time to start blogging again. I've got tons of stuff to talk about and can't wait to get started....but I 'am' still swamped with stuff going on here and I won't be back at my own place for another 2 weeks. The good news, though, is that it won't be long before things are back to normal (er...quirky)...so yay!!