Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Blog

10 creepy ads.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

I found this via a posted link on a friend's Facebook account: 10 Creepiest Old Ads.

And they are seriously creepy.

I will have trouble sleeping from the pig-cutting-himself-up-ad alone.

Aiee.

Labels: humor, links

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Two Twitter sisters.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I earlier pointed out two Twitter accounts I enjoy.

I have two more: Claudine and Corrine.

These two sisters have made me laugh out loud with the things they write. Hilarious.

For example, last night, on Twitter, I mentioned that a drunk woman was puking outside of my bedroom window. Earlier, I had noted that I was drinking Urban Detox, one of those vitamin-enhanced beverages, wondering if it would "work." Corrine comes back with the statement that urban detox seemed to be working on someone.

I just have to laugh. Witty.

Labels: blogging, friends, internet, links

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Brutal.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

Your result for The Brutally Honest Personality Test...

Pollyanna- INFP

13% Extraversion, 80% Intuition, 33% Thinking, 47% Judging

So, you want to make the world a better place? Too bad it's never gonna happen.

Of all the types, you have to be one of the hardest to find fault in. You have a selfless and caring nature. You're a good listener and someone who wants to avoid conflict. You genuinely desire to do good.

Of course, these all add up to an incredibly overpowered conscience which makes you feel guilty and responsible when anything goes wrong. Of course, it MUST be your fault EVERY TIME.

Though you're constantly on a mission to find the truth, you have no use for hard facts and logic, which is a source of great confusion for those of us with brains. Despite this, in a losing argument, you're not above spouting off inaccurate fact after fact in an effort to protect your precious values.

You're most probably a perfectionist, which in this case, is a bad thing. Any group work is destined to fail because of your incredibly high standards.

Disregard what I said before. You're just easy to find fault in as everyone else!

Luckily, you're generally very hard on yourself, meaning I don't need to waste my precious time insulting you. Instead, just find all your own faults and insult yourself.

*****************
If you want to learn more about your personality type in a slightly less negative way, check out this.
*****************

The other personality types are as follows...
Loner - Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving
Pushover - Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging
Criminal - Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving
Borefest - Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging
Freak - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging
Loser - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving
Crackpot - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging
Clown - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving
Sap - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging
Commander - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving
Do Gooder - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging
Scumbag - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving
Busybody - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging
Prick - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving
Dictator - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Take The Brutally Honest Personality Test at HelloQuizzy

Hat Tip: Rev. Mom

Labels: humor, links

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Is it annoying? Yes.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

I try not to link to stories Drudge links to because, basically, what's the point? However, the story about the bobcats moving into the empty, foreclosed house was interesting. Until I got to this part:

"Bobcats are not known to attack humans," said Monique Middleton of Animal Friends of the Valley, which provides animal-control services.

"But are they pussycats? No. Can they do a lot of damage? Yes," she said. "They usually look for a food and water source, and there is an old koi pond in the backyard and that's where they are headed."

Is it possible to make direct statements? Yes. Does it seem anyone is capable of it anymore? No. Should we just phrase all of our statements as questions? Um...

WHY DO PEOPLE INSIST ON DOING THIS??!!!

Just say "They aren't pussycats. They can do a lot of damage." Spare us the excess verbiage! You sound stupid! I want to beat this out of people, I really do.

Labels: links, rant

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Everywhere a soap box, yet always so dirty.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

When my friend Girl Friday writes, I just sit back and enjoy. More than once I've linked to her posts.

The latest post contains a quip that really sums up a concept I've grown fairly disgusted with. I call it "poli-bleed." It's where everything becomes a platform for political bickering. In this case, a site about fashion, in which a commenter takes a political swipe for no apparent reason. Girl Friday responds exactly right:

"Poor Stacey forgot she was on a fashion website and not on her lavender-scented soap box."

I have seen on various sites, ranging from hair style how-tos (yes, I would like to know how to do things with my hair) to cooking tips, comments left by people that have nothing to do with the topic and are merely ill-thought low-wit cheap-shot political barbs.

Are we so rabid about our political beliefs that the directions on how to create a chignon or where to buy business attire inspire venemous comments on Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin? Is everything political?

Step back and away and from the little pit of rage that is your personal politics and find a way to enjoy and adapt to life as it is, people. It seems as if some folks are so quivering with political anger that they can barely order a sandwich at a restaurant without some kind of misplaced diatribe. An open comments section on any website is simply too much to resist. It must be filled with garbage.

As Girl Friday said in her witty post: I am so bored already.

Labels: blogging, links, politics

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Forms are fun!

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

So I stumbled upon JotForm today, and decided to be an idiot. It could have several useful applications, but I'm not in the mood to come up with any right now.

Labels: internet, links

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

30-second bunnies and one-minute movies.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

My friend Naomi showed me this web site, where cartoon bunnies do 30-second reenactments of films. It sure is a lot cheaper than going to the theater, and I find I can get a lot of films squeezed into the time I have in the day. I'm finding it as useful as Book-A-Minute Bedtime. And of course, Movie-A-Minute is useful, though, theoretically (but not in reality), 30 seconds longer than the bunny reenactments.

Labels: links, movies

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Linkage: The 2008 election, summed up.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Regarding the upcoming election... what, me worry?

At least the TV commercials will be gone.

Labels: links, politics

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Linkage: Texting enables, comments disabled.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

Two blogs had posts that caught my eye.

The first wrote a brief post on whether or not texting, with all its abbreviations and short-cut writing, was really the "death" of English. I admit that I used to think so, and I still get annoyed when people use texting practices in mediums that do not require such abbreviation (email, notes, etc.) However...after trying to learn to read various things in connection with recent flying lessons (weather, A/FD notes) I can see the benefit of being able to see a few letters and extrapolate the word behind it.
Read: Is text message really the death of the English language?

I've disabled comments off and on for this blog, but generally, new posts have comments. Other bloggers, however, have come to the conclusion that it is better to not have comments. I'd be curious to know what readers think, particularly readers that don't have their own blogs to function as a way to comment on things they read online.
Read: Comments disabled.

Labels: blogging, links

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

The road to nowhere.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Seeing as how I'm in Bismarck, I believe I need to check out this hilarious historical marker: The Road to Nowhere.

Hat Tip: Say Anything

Labels: links, tour north dakota

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Shyness.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

Shyness is a disease, and therefore, must be cured. Right?

According to this article, a hormone can "cure" shyness (as well as help with autism, etc., which is valid research and a whole other story).

Being introverted is not the same as being shy, mind you. Not all introverts are inherently shy. Unfortunately, I am both introverted and shy, a combination which leads to bizarre behavior "anti-social" behavior that generally goes unexplained, for the simple reason that I can't bring myself to explain it.

"Yeah, I can tell you are shy by how much your write about yourself on your web site," one person said.

On paper, anything is easy. In person, not quite so.

This is how it works for me. This is what goes on in my head when I suddenly find myself in a group of people.

I quickly glance around and do a rough tally of how many people I know versus how many I don't know.
If I know around half of the people quite well, I relax a bit. (Mere acquaintances don't count. I need to feel like a large enough percentage "have my back.")
If I know about 80 percent, I completely relax and probably seem very outgoing, and even borderline obnoxious. I can crack jokes, make people laugh, and get involved in heated discussions.
If I know less than half, I won't say a word and will probably keep my back to the wall and my eye on the door.

Shyness means I rarely initiate conversation with strangers, and have a hard time doing seemingly simple things like getting a waitress's attention or walking in front of people at, say, communion time at a church where you walk up front. Most of the time I want to say something, but I usually come off as very cold because I absolutely can't bring myself to approach people and talk to them. I often seem emotionally immature and fidget with my hands and hair when I'm around people I don't know. This summer has been a challenge. It was difficult to just show up to go to class and walk into an office full of people I didn't know. Not to mention shaking hands, and the hand-shaking phobia I have.

I recently had a conversation with someone regarding talking to people on airplanes (which I will have the "opportunity" to do in just a few days).

"I don't normally talk to people on airplanes," I said.*

He laughed. "What do you do when they ask you questions?"

"I try to answer in one-word answers. People make me nervous."

"But you can meet the most interesting people on airplanes."

"That's probably true, but they still make me nervous."

People do make me nervous, and about the only time I'll approach a person I don't know and strike up conversation is if they are doing something intriguing, or the situation is such that it makes me so curious, that I can't not ask.

And of course, you know what curiosity does to cats.

I can see how people who find shyness a hindrance (which I do, many times, to my great embarrassment) would want some kind of drug to "cure" the problem, but it just seems like cheating. Just like outgoing people need to learn to shut their yap, shy people need to learn to take a chance. Not take a drug.

Related Posts:

* One exception, on a flight from San Francisco to Denver: I sat next to a guy my age and offered him some gummy bears. (Yeah...anyway...) We got to talking and I found out he worked in computer animation for films, and was one of the guys who helped create the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter films. "You're kidding!" I said. "I loved the Sorting Hat, the way it talked all of a sudden out of the folds of what seemed to just be a hat." He smiled. "Really, you liked it?" It was an interesting conversation about art and animation.

Labels: links, my life, summer 2008

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Things they won't say about me when I'm gone.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

::I thought the idea (and the list) was clever, and decided to try it for myself.::

She was consistent.

She was inconsistent.

She was an out-going people person who loved any opportunity to meet and talk to new people.

She always met life with an even, un-dramatic keel, staying level-headed and calm.

She never took sides, for she never tried to see things from the perspective of others.

She was overly closed and protective of her own feelings and did not open herself up to people.

She never saw any scenario as a worse-case scenario.

She was almost heroic in her successful efforts at controlling her tongue and consistently refused to put her foot in her mouth in the heat of the moment.

She quickly adapted to "adulthood" and maintained a respectable level of maturity that was age-appropriate for every situation.

She had few opinions and rarely expressed an interest in sharing or defending those she did have.

She loved attention and craved public accolades for all her efforts and hobbies. More than anything, she liked to be the center of attention at parties or in groups.

She was known for having a large roster of friends and social engagements.

Labels: blogging, links, lists, personal

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Paperthin.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I like local publications. While on my recent trip to Knoxville, I picked up a copy of the February 2008 Paperthin magazine at the University of Tennessee. Free, of course. I was drawn to the look of it. (I'll be honest: I often judge by covers.)

I'm visually orientated, and I like free.

Nice compact size, making it easy to carry around and read as opposed to the often huge, unwieldy, newsprint and shedding ink monstrosities that free publications usually are. Combine that small size with fine, glossy pages and high-level graphic design happening inside...the small magazine looked great. Less is more. It really is. Being overwhelmed by the amount of material and articles and ads and sheer size happens a lot when I read newspapers.

The magazine wasn't hugely jam-packed with articles like a lot of indy rags are, but again, I count that a plus. After a while, being beat on the head by "alternative" writing gets old, since so many authors are painfully overwrought and take themselves too seriously (to the point of hilarity) in such publications. Paperthin obviously places a premium on quality over quantity, and I liked it.

Plus, I got a good laugh out of the tongue-in-cheek writing found in the fine print. In amidst what seemed to be the usual copyright notice on the first page (which looked like a restaurant guest check) I found this:

All content within is copyright (C) 2008 Lone Rider Design. Paperthin is published monthly, and available free of charge by Lone Rider Design. That means you don't have to pay for it, just in case you were wondering what "free" meant. Without limiting the rights under copyrights reserved herein, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without the prior written consent of Lone Rider Design. That means if you do any of the aforementioned stuff, we'll send Luca Brasi over with nothing but a hatchet, and a lot of free time.

I suppose, by reprinting their copyright here, I should expect a visit with that hatchet.

I often pick these free magazines and newspapers up because I have had an obsession since I was a kid about starting my own "newspaper." I've made many fake newspapers, and even have a few on my site. There's little point in it now though, I suppose, since I'm doing that online and have even subconsciously (after years of constant web site re-working) ended up with a web site design that mimics the look of a newspaper to some degree.

Still, I like to see what other artists and writers are doing, and I even hold onto the idea that a paper publication still has value and could really be creative and fun to hold -- like a small treasure -- in this digital age.

Paperthin was pretty good that way. I hope they keep publishing, and I hope the people of Knoxville appreciate the fine little magazine that it is.

Links:

Paperthin Mag's web site is here.
Find out more about them here.

Note: This post was pre-written and published as scheduled. Read more about this here.

Labels: links, media, travel

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Mashups.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Over at Dilbert.com, you have the opportunity to come up with your own punchline to a Scott Adam's Dilbert cartoon.

Fun.

Some of the punchlines people have come up with are kind of lame, but the idea is cool.

Labels: links

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Honorable men(tion).

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 8 comments link this post

::I'm always glad I can call her a friend; with writing like her most recent blog post, I am more than just glad, but grateful. I felt a weird kind of "yes, exactly!" and kinship and Jane Austen-y and maybe just a little less a loser.::

What about the honorable men? Girl Friday asks in her post (which you should read in full).

After reading it more than once, a particular paragraph stuck in my mind:

We mistake clever, sensitive men for honorable ones. We even fall into the trap of believing that nice, "red-blooded" American boys are honorable. Niceness should not be the standard. When we set the bar higher, we're derided.

I had never made that connection before, the one about mere niceness. Every woman is just out looking for a "nice guy", and every friend who's trying to play matchmaker is describing the potentials as a "nice guy."

Nice guy?

Women are derided and blamed and fed excuses for wanting, hoping for, and expecting more than niceness; wanting honorable, instead.*

Many times, over the years after something went sour in the peculiar non-event, not-many-know, reveal-little-to-anyone personal brand of concealment I specialize in, I would find myself saying to a close friend who asked for details (and probably said it with a lot of guilt and confusion to myself just as much): "...but he is a nice guy, despite all of this. He's a nice guy. Don't say anything bad about him. He's a nice guy. He means well. He's just too busy. But he's a nice guy."

That niceness is a trap. It leaves a woman feeling like she must really be awful for such a nice guy to still be considered, to still seem, nice, while she somehow feels like a truck ran over her heart.

All that nonsense about women preferring bad guys and nice guys finishing last? It's the wrong argument. Straw man. Red herring. Sour grapes. Whatever you want to call it.

Niceness should not be the standard.

I got to know a nice guy, last year. The year ended like the Hindenburg (read any post here from 2007 to get your fill). And this? He still is a very nice guy.

So. What.

*In many of the "relationship" posts on this blog, you'll find comments with far too many guys saying "yeah, but you women are this, this and this so what can you expect from us men?" Then it gets into the usual arguing back and forth of how women want too much or too little, or do this or that, or are somehow responsible (either passively or actively) for the behavior of men. Far from anything honorable. And it never occurred to me until now why that response rather repulsed me and seemed weasel-y, and why it annoyed me to have to wade in and debate and say, "oh, you're probably right, women should do this so men would do this." Many of these fellows seemed nice, so what could I say? They must be right. It never occurred to me to expect men to be honorable, and to be men. But it does now.

Labels: links, relationships

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Link: VerveEarth

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

My sister Jacqui sent me an email she'd received about VerveEarth, and I decided to put Hampden on the map.

It's an interesting idea, though I don't think it'll change my life much. It's nice for visual people like me who want to continue to "humanize" bloggers from just being words on a page to seeing where they are loosely located in relation to me. It's also a cool way to find blogs and bloggers that are in the region that I hadn't been aware of. It would be better if more bloggers got on the map for that to really be seriously beneficial.

Regardless, I logged this blog onto the map, and North Dakota now boasts one more marker.

Hooray.

Got a blog? Put it on the map.

Labels: blogging, internet, links

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

These are funny comics.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I can't touch the visual and comical perfection of these comics over at BirdandMoon.com. My friend Naomi sent me the link via Facebook.

(Thank you, Naomi. My sister and I laughed our heads off. You know me perfectly.)

Labels: art, cartoons, friends, links

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Another blog down.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

HeavyDluxe explained football to me, in particular, how the downs work. I never got that. And, it was right before Super Bowl 2007.

I can't thank him enough.

He's killing his blog.

That's a real bummer.

I've contemplated the ins and outs of blogging, and quitting blogging:

But still. Bummer.

Labels: blogging, links

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Settling?

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Via Dawn Eden I found this excellent blog post by Louise Brosnan, which then led me to this article, entitled "Marry Him!", by Lori Gottlieb.

What Gottlieb and Brosnan talk about made me think of something I'd written on the same subject in my blog post "The Third Column", though they surpass me in depth and each approaches the subject with their own life experience and worldview inherent.

Essentially, there is a difference between the two writers on a seemingly similar subject.

What Brosnan says about the idea of "settling" is a much better understanding of it all than Gottlieb manages to express; Brosnan comes at it with a decidedly better take than just "settling" for someone, and chooses to see the root of the issue, which is love:

I reached this happy state not by "settling" for a partnership without the warmth of true love, as Ms Gottlieb advises, but by growing into an understanding of what love truly is.

[...]

Lori Gottlieb has been honest in admitting that most women still want "a traditional family" and that the current obsession with soul mates gets in the way of realising this goal. But in her desperation to get there anyway she is willing to sacrifice the very bedrock of marriage, which is true love between the spouses. The result, in her case, would not be a traditional family at all but, in her own language, a completed "construction".

If only she had been brave enough to inquire into the nature of true love and not dismiss it in a throwaway line ("whatever that is") she might have done her sisters a real service. Instead, she has tried to persuade us that love can be put in brackets while we persist in our twentieth century habit of getting what we want. Perhaps few people will be swayed by her argument; certainly, no-one will be helped.

I like Brosnan's idea of marriage not being a compromise. Normally, that would sound incorrect, but what she seems to be saying is that it isn't a compromise i.e. giving in ("settling"), but a giving up. Or, even better, just giving of yourself and refusing to see it as a compromise where I might give in and relinquish some parts of me, but retain the rest. A compromise is not enough. Love requires a full giving up.

Both Brosnan and Gottlieb's articles are well worth the read.

Labels: links, relationships

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Links: Cartooning mental disorders deceptively.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

My friend Claudine provided me with the link to a web site which illustrates the bizarre truth that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strip... well, go see for yourself: Garfield Minus Garfield. It'll give you something constructive to do today on your computer while at work.

Labels: links