Good friends like good help are so hard to find these days. You think you know someone and then BAM, they up and stab you in the back. Who am I talking about? No other person than my former, yes you heard me right, former best friend Pepper, the newly discovered Judas in my camp. She has betrayed me in the worst possible way. SHE HAD A THREESOME!

Before you start asking huh, lemme refresh your memory. In a previous blog post, did I or did I not say we were both aiming for ‘sexual depravity’ of the year award? And did I not mention we do things together? The keyword being ‘TOGETHER!!!’ Well, this Delilah twin had a threesome without me!

Who introduced her to cybersex? That is a rhetorical question but in case you are not getting the gist, the answer is MOI! I introduced her to cybersex. Who introduced her to virtual threesome? Who has been her partner in crime and perversity for donkey years? Who would have ended up being her first lesbian lover? All ME! The two of us together have been the sexual fantasy of every red blooded man we come in contact with. We were supposed to give up our threesome virginity to one carefully selected lucky guy but now, that dream has been forever crushed; Pepper is no more a threesome virgin!

How did this monumental betrayal happen? Let me tell you in her own words – “I went to a club and as I was sitting, swaying to the music, a girl walked up to me and told me her friend likes me. I looked where she was pointing and saw the friend, a cute looking guy. I went over to their table to join them and we found we had a lot in common. Over the next week, we exchanged mails and calls. It was obvious from the very beginning what they wanted but none of us actually voiced it out. Last week, I invited them to my place and soon, one thing led to another and we spent a whole four hours in bed doing sooooo many wonderful things together. It was FUN. The next day they returned and again the day after. Each time we wound up spending hours in bed. Now I’m one step ahead of you” (the last was said to and at me)

Now there are three things that hurt so much:-
1) It was not an impulsive, overcome by desire kinda thing. That I can understand. But it had been leading up to sex for more than a week. It was PREMEDITATED!
2) She did it with them more than once! If after the first time she had called and told me, I could still forgive but no, she did it again and again. This shows UNREPENTANCE!
3) Telling me “I’m now one step ahead of you”. That is unforgivable GLOATING!

How can someone do all that to a person she calls her BFF? Now I understand how Jesus felt; what made Caesar ask ‘Et tu, Brute’; how Samson must have looked upon Delilah’s bitchy face.

I am crushed!

caught between two extremes and two feelings. i hear you my little brother. i have been there before.

but you cannot deny that this should have been done sooner. saying goodbye has been long overdue. i guess you just needed the push and the reason to do so. and this was it. i am always the bad one it seems. the gfs always say i am. i just radiate an aura of bad influence, so no reason not the play the role that i was given then, i guess? *smiles*

just a word of advice: becareful little brother, tread this relationship with this one carefully. beautiful things like her will almost always break your heart…

Did you spend black Friday shopping in stores or avoiding stores?

this is my sixth post of the day. but! it’s sort of technically my first of the day because it’s seven minutes past twelve. so. yeah.

I got around to writing. took me eternity, but it happened. at first I was writing a scene I’ve done in my head so many times before. but that didn’t work out because it turns out that it was more interesting and vivid in my head. so then I started writing a scene I’d definitely written down before. and lost, because my files and I have a horrid relationship. I finished it pretty quickly once I started writing. for some reason, murdering people is my favorite thing ever. in writing, I mean. only in writing. I’m not a psychopath.

one can read it. here. have a grand time. it’s somewhat graphic in nature in terms of a person dying of a drug overdose, but I figure if you’ve endured the not-making-senseness that goes on here, you’ll be okay.

currently listening – so mad – frente!

A weary heart says to itself:

Right now I refuse to dedicate myself to a dry, dull and fake relationship they call marriage

Well, I guess I kind of gave it away with the title of this post!!! LOL

I went into the barn at about 5:30 pm tonite, to feed and close up the barn for the night. It gets dark early now, so if I don’t feed before 5pm, we are working in the dark!

I was almost done, having mucked the stalls, fed, put out the hay, and climbed up in the loft to toss down more bales.

When I went over to ‘the big guy’s” stall to lock the door, I happened to glance up, and saw something on the ledge next to the stall door.  At first I wasn’t sure what it was, since I didn’t have my glasses on. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a chinchilla – which was highly unlikely!!! LOL

Then, I realized it was a tiny owl!!! Not moving, just calmly staring at me! I pointed him out to my husband and ran back to the house for my camera.

Fortunately, the little guy was still there when I came back. He was undisturbed by the past half hour’s  goings on, and by the interior light being turned on. He sat very still for his photo, barely blinking. He was about 8-9 inches tall, looking as soft as a chinchilla, mottled grey, with ear tufts. I am not too familiar with the different owls – and at first thought of a saw whet owl.

I said goodnight to the horses and the little owl, and closed the barn doors. The doors had been open all day – and I assume that’s how he got in. The stall doors stay open all night, so I am hoping he can find his way out thru them. Unless, of course, he is staying to feast on barn mice all night- which would be fine with me!!!

When back in the house, I got out the old Peterson Field guide to research the little guy.

Turns out he is a common screech owl – they have 2 color phases – grey and brown. My brief research did not indicate they would frequent the inside of barns, but there he was. The saw whet owl, does not have ear tufts, and is even tinier! This little screech owl was about 8 or 9 inches tall.

I know we do have a great horned owl or two, in the trees near the river – they are the ones I hear at night. Apparently these larger ones will prey on the smaller ones like this little guy.

Of course, now I will worry about him all night, and hope he is just hanging out and can find his way in and out of the barn!!!!

Here is a link about the diminutive screech owl, with descriptions and the different calls they make. I know now that I have heard them around – just never was sure whoooo or what was making that sound!!

It’s very cold and windy out tonite – so he’s welcome to hang out in the barn, hunt mice, and keep warm- if that’s what he chooses!!!

**********************************************************

All is well, with a hint of snow in the air, and a never ending source of new discoveries, at Mountain Meadows tonite…………………

Some of you might know that Microsoft recently held its yearly Professional Developer Conference (PDC) in LA. They had an awesome lineup of “stars” lined up to talk about the latest microsft technologies, as well as  shedding some light as to the direction in which the technology is progressing.

I wasn’t one of the lucky to be there, but I got to watch the live-stream of the keynotes and some of the Channel 9 live stuff. Also, another GREAT feature is that most (if not all) the talks are available for viewing on the PDC site.

Some of the big stuff that was released were:

• Office 2010 beta
• Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2
• Silverlight 4 Beta
• ASP.NET MVC 2 Beta
• Sharepoint 2010 Beta

So, lots of videos on exciting topics, including stuff on C# 4.0, Windows 7 and more… Check them out.

So it seems that Google is spreading the fun and has spread around a couple of invites for Google Wave.

Drop me a line if you’re interested..it’s first come first serve  so..

Why is it so Freakin’ Hard to Practice at Home?

I think that John Daido Loori explained the difficulty best when he stated that the things you do in a home practice are the same as those you do in a monastic practice.  The largest difference lies in the amount of support you garner from the monastic environment.  Fundamentally, the practice is similar – You wake up, open your day, sit zazen, tidy up, go to work, eat, sit zazen and then go to sleep.  I am simplifying the lay-life a bit here but, mostly, you go about a similar routine.

However, two things differ in quantity: Intensity and Support.  In a monastic environment you can expect support from fellow practitioners through-out the day.  This is not the case in a home-practice.  You cannot expect your family or co-workers to support you.  They may not understand your practice or even care about it.  It is a simple and painful fact.  This is especially true of convert Buddhists in that a family isn’t Buddhist.

Personally, I fight for a time to devote to my practice when I won’t feel judged by my family/friends and co-workers.  I think my daughter gets it but she is only 16 months old.  Maybe that is why she gets it.   This is hard for a home-practitioner to intensify their practice while not receiving support.  Online communities and small grass-roots sanghas can aid in this but monastics are used to almost daily support, instruction and aid.  Home-practitioners can not count on any of that.

Intensity is an issue that is a little easier to bear.  intensity does not have to equated with legnth time practicing when it comes to a home-practice.  In a monastery, a lay-person or monk is in essence “punching a clock”.  I don’t mean this in a derogatory sense unless the practitioners begins to see it as ends to a mean or a way to pass the time.  In which case maybe a little self-reflection is in order for that particular person.  A home-practice, on the other hand, should be measured in ratios and quality rather than in spans of time. 

A homemaker, parent and/or working adult that is able to devote even a small time of intensively engaged practice out of a busy schedule is worth more than a full-time monastic any day.  Non-working college students have no excuse and can stop whining.

On a personal note, I am still working through Ango which means intensive practice (more than I usually do), increased engagement (sangha both online and “brick and mortar”), other devotional work (increasing involvement of liturgy into my practice both home and at the sangha) as well as strict following of the Precepts (I figured I’d give it a shot).

I’ve been working  hard at keeping all these things in line and at the same time keeping up my level of performance at work, being an active and mindful father and husband, complete my thesis and keep my sanity.  I planned on including some of my devotional aspects in dressing up the Christmas tree this year.  I originally planned for it on December 8th (Rohatsu) Bodhi Day and also celebrating the end of my 3 month Ango, but due to other considerations we ended up doing it on Thanksgiving. 

Well, I didn’t want to do the entire service (chanting and meditation) that I originally had planned in front of the entire family (again I guess I still have a little Christian guilt left over) so I settled on placing some prayer flags (that were kindly donated by a friend) on the tree.  When I mentioned the prayer flags to my wife her comment was “That doesn’t make sense”.  So I reacted less than mindfully, sulked and put the flags away and my Bodhi Tree goes unadorned.

Now the point of this isn’t about tradition or garlands or Zen.  It’s about practicing around people who don’t care or who aren’t concerned about your practice (and there should be no expectation that they would be).  This makes it hard for a home practitioner to practice.  It makes it hard for me.  Explaining the importance of these small things of my practice is an obstacle.

John Daido Loori Roshi puts it well, I suppose, when he states:

When we practice, life is made easier, not more difficult.  Practice doesn’t bind us; it makes us free.  Greed, anger and ignorance bind us.

I suppose that is correct.  Am I binding myself to my practice or is my practice binding me?  Illusions come in all sorts of flavors.

No illusions,

John

how I hate this job.
Literally hate the whole idea of it.
Can’t even say we are half way done although the main pieces of furniture we are taking is slowly getting over there.
I am pushing my husband one hundred and ten percent of the way.
He wants to wait, and I say “we have nine days left of vacation and you want to sit and wait for the time to pass and then move when we have to go back to work?”
How insane is that?
or is it just me?
I say let’s get moved while we have the time off of work.
So I am pushing him every bit of the way and he isn’t liking it.

anyway….I’m tired and tired of the whole mess, but it isn’t like some magic wand is going to be waved and we are suddenly all in there and everything is neat as a pen.

So I’m hosting a baby shower tomorrow. And I decided to make a fruit salad as part of the menu. I’m not big on fruit, but hey, I have to think of others.  I’m in the grocery store and I pick out the usual fruit salad suspects: grapes, bananas, strawberries, etc.  I decided I needed to work some melon in there somehow so I search for some cantaloupe.  Then it hits me…I’ve never a) purchased a whole cantaloupe, b) I couldn’t tell you if it’s ripe or not (do you shake it? Squeeze it?) and c) I had no idea how to even begin to cut it up.  Now, honestly, I probably could figure it out…but then I had this vision in my head of me with a big knife, a round cantaloupe, a flat countertop, and one of my fingers getting sliced off in the process…so I went and bought the precut melon cubes in the prepared food section.

My domestic skills are severely lacking…

Real best friends tell each other everything.
They spend as much time as humanly possible together
just to laugh about random and hysterical shit that no one
would remember anything about two weeks later.
They know when the other is hurting and know exactly
how to make it better.
They share everything but get mad when one steals the other’s french fries.
It’s never awkward and there’s never nothing to talk about.
You miss each other when they’re gone on vacation and
you always notice if they’re absent in class one day.
You make friendship bracelets together then laugh about how corny it all is.
You don’t even ask if they’re coming over. Of course they are.

Right?

Damn. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a best friend then. That’s my fault though. Gotta be a friend to have one and all that junk. God, I’m so lazy.
——————————

I told myself that I would definitely update this thing every day but I missed yesterday. D: It was Thanksgiving anyway. Too much cramming turkey + mashed potatoes down my throat to care about typing out my thoughts. ^___^”

Lesson Learned by Alicia Keys
How have I never heard this song before? It’s super good. This= new song obsession. I usually don’t like a lot of Alicia Keys stuff besides her older stuff so yay!

Tears, so many tears this evening.

Feel like a fuck up. I hurt a friend without meaning to, hopefully that’s cleared up now. I’ve been trying not to think so that I don’t dwell on the bad things, but unfortunately it’s meant that I don’t think about the things that need to be thought about, e.g. things to say before I open my mouth.

And looks like I got my hopes up for nothing over something else. Again.

I don’t know how today’s interview went, didn’t really get a feeling either way.

I wish I didn’t feel sometimes. I really do.

Hair~ Zero Style – Mary
Eyes~ Poetic Color – Dark Wood
Skin~ Laqroki – Phoebe
Outfit and Animation~ !gO! -She Devil Costume

I love this romper! It kicks ass. It pokes ass with a pointy stick. It surprises ass with buttsecks and leaves it happy. Gocha Merlin has a store called !gO! which sells prim babies that are actually kind of cute, complete elf avatars, and costumes. Two little Christmas elves I met a few days ago gave me the landmark.

I went Black Friday shopping today wearing this outfit. Now let me speak as devil’s advocate; I have fun going store to store looking for 50L deals. I am cheap. But there were a few things that would make me love this event even MORE:

1. Accurate slurls to all the vendors. I think it benefits both shoppers and merchants when store owner make slurls that land directly in front of the 50 Linden Friday event vendors. Even when a store has a landing point the slurls will form a beacon we can follow while we wait for things to rez.
2. More store variety. I can tell some stores participate every Friday. I would love it if those stores would step back and give other merchants a chance to participate, especially since similar “day of the week” events are sprouting up on the grid to make up for this demand.
3. Punishing stores that don’t come up with things to sell on time. The time frame for the event is very specific and very limited. It isn’t good when a store is really late putting up their vendors or just drops out in the last second. Maybe there can be a three strikes rule? Again, it seems like lots of stores want to participate so it sucks when a store owner gets that chance and doesn’t come through with their end of the deal.
4. Less participating stores on the Cupcake sim. The mall was lag soup to begin with. The sim with more than 40 avatars in it is lag HELL (and believe me, I know what hell is like). Miel and Milk Motion have stores in other sims, why not direct some of the traffic there?

That’s my constructive criticism as a Fifty Linden Friday consumer. There are some rocks stars I need to make unholy deals with. Bye!

Posted from Ms. Robbiani’s Inventory

hiya!

hoping y’all had a wonderful turkey day yesterday!  i was sick wednesday so i got nothing cooked which meant ALL my cooking had to happen thursday morning.  luckily it was just us and i have been doing it for years so not too difficult:

We had SUPER juicy turket, paula dean’s southern style giblet gravy (eewwww but hubby begs for it every year & this year thanks to Paula Dean i finally succeeded!), cornbread stuffing, beets, apple cranberry relish, candied sweet potatoes and crescent rolls

YUM-O!!!!!!!!

of COURSE there was pumkin pie for dessert

at this point hubby says did you SERIOUSLY just take a picture of your PIE?????  ROTFLMAO!

Drake wasn’t here so it was just 4 of us   now i have lots of left overs SUH-WEET!!

after dinner and some coffee i went through the black friday ads and then headed over to Michaels.  i scored three brand new cartridges for my cricut that i have been REALLY wanting!  after a short night’s sleep i was back up and out at walmart to score a BRIGHT BLUE cricut expression!  i have been wanting the bigger cricut for some time but just couldn’t justify the expense since i already have the baby bug but for $188 – seriously good deal!!!!  unfortunately i am feeling sick again today and just couldn’t get down to the scraproom and play.  but tomorrow morning i hope to be back up to speed and doing loads of fun things to share!

for now i am off to play with pez and take it easy.

big hugs to all!

M

Nah, I have no idea why I am creating a whole new blog post right now, lol…I just felt like it. Kyaaaaaa! I like my blog. ::huggles her blog till she pops its head::

Anyway, I am on a 10-day break from college. Yeah, I really needed it, if you’re wondering. Even a freaky workaholic such as myself deserves a break every once in a while ::giggles::. College…is a whole new experience. Really…it’s amusing, in the past two months, I have seen extremities from the Egyptian society that made me marvel how this country is still alive and kicking.

Seriously…the other day, Wednesday, I think, I came out of the debriefing session and was walking towards the lecture hall, because some really nice guy had promised to get me all the 3 LOTR movies on a DVD, so I was waiting for him to finish his own session. Anyway, I was just walking through the door and…the person who CLAIMS to be the…”representative” of our batch, walks up to me and goes:

“Are you arrogant and claim to be able to speak English?”

I just went: O.O “I beg your pardon?”

So he repeats it again.

And again, I go, “excuse me?”

So…for the third time, he repeats it.

I was shocked…really, it may seem, translated as it is, that there is nothing wrong with it, but in Arabic, the expression had me baffled. Like…what is with that guy? I just frowned and went, “I can speak English, sure, but I am nothing near arrogant.” And then I just stared at him some more and went, “Really…shouldn’t you be obliged to pick better expressions? What kind of way is that to speak to a fellow future colleague, or a girl, in general?”

Seriously…on the other hand, however, I have met people who are so humble and shy, they don’t even raise their eyes to meet other people’s.

It is amusing…that perhaps…even in colleges, amongst freshmen, there is a good representation of the entire country…the small community (first-year students of med-school), represent the whole country…All the wrong people…are the representatives. Jeez.

Anyway, college aside, I am working as hard as I can on the 13th chapter of Leave Out All The Rest. I got the EVILEST idea yesterday and yep, the story doesn’t end with chapter 14…I think it will extend to…chapter 15, yep. Guess so. Can anyone take a guess what I am gonna do? It has something with that “little” threat that Samuel made to Yami, before letting him go to Seto’s place. ::grins::

I am aware that I am taking forever to write. I am VERY sorry about that. I had thought I would find time, but unfortunately, I don’t, usually. I hope in these holidays I’ll be able to get something up, if studying doesn’t hinder me.

Today was the first day of Eid…the “meat” celebration, LOL. Nah, it’s called “Eid Al Adha” and if anyone remembers my little fic, called Torment of Tentalus, which I deleted because I royally screwed it up…I had explained the two major celebrations in the Muslim society.

Anyhoowwwwwwww! I have cravings to write LOTR. Legolas is cute and Aragorn is his perfect seme ::insert winking and sighing sounds here::. I can’t help but imagine our sweet, golden Elf with those huge, amazed eyes filled with oh-so-amazing expression of hurt and betrayal…YUMMMMM!!!! Good enough to eat for lunch tomorrow!

Anyway, it’s time to go back to writing…finishing page six…yes, I know, that’s what I said last blog post, but I had to go and change some stuff because I am adding that evil little thing of mine.. ::evil laugh:: I swear, poor Yami.

Wish me luck…

J’écrivais ce message à un ami, à propos de mon expérience sur le site xkcd.com.

BD de xkcd

Donc…

• Je vois le dernier xkcd.
• Ça me fait réagir.
• Je veux répondre.
• Je sais qu’il y a des forums pour accompagner ces bande dessinées.
• Je vais sur le forum lié à celui-ci (déjà quelques clics et il fallait que je connaisse l’existence de tout ça).
• J’appuie sur Post Reply
• Ça me demande de m’identifier.
• Comme je crois avoir déjà envoyé quelque-chose là, je me branche avec mon username habituel.
• Ah, mauvais mdp.
• Je fais “forget pw”.
• Oups! J’avais pas de compte avec mon adresse gmail (faut que ça soit la bonne combinaison donc, si je me rappelle pas de mon username, ça marche pas).
• Je me crée un nouveau profil.
• Le captcha est illisible, ça me prend plusieurs tentatives.
• Faut que j’aille sur mon compte gmail activer mon compte sur les forums xkcd.
• Une fois que c’est fait, je me retrouve à la page d’accueil des forums (pas à la page où j’essaie d’envoyer ma réponse).
• Je retrouve la page que je voulais.
• J’appuie sur Post Reply.
• J’écris ma réponse et je l’envoie.
• Évidemment, mon profil est vierge.
• Je vais modifier ça.
• Ça commence par mon numéro ICQ?? Eh bé!
• Plus bas, je vois des champs pour Website et Interests. Je remplis ça rapidement, en pensant au plus générique.
• Il y a aussi ma date de fête. Pas moyen de contrôler qui la voit, etc. Je l’ajoute pas.
• J’enregistre les autres modifications.
• Et j’essaie de changer mon avatar.
• Il y a pas de bouton pour uploader.
• Ça passe par une Gallery, mais il y a rien dedans.
• Je laisse tomber, même si je sais bien que les geeks de xkcd sont du genre à rire de toi si t’as un profil générique.
• Je quitte le site un peu frustré, sans vraiment avoir l’impression que je vais pouvoir commencer une conversation là-dessus.

Deuxième scénario.

J’arrive sur un site qui supporte Disqus (par exemple Mashable).

• Je peux envoyer un commentaire en tant que guest.

You are commenting as a Guest. Optional: Login below.

Donc, si je veux seulement laisser un commentaire anonyme, c’est tout ce que j’ai à faire. «Merci, bonsoir!»

Même sans me brancher, je peux faire des choses avec les commentaires déjà présents (Like, Reply).

Mais je peux aussi me brancher avec mes profils Disqus, Facebook (avec Facebook Connect), ou Twitter (avec OAuth). Dans chaque cas, si je suis déjà branché sur ce compte dans mon browser, j’ai juste à cliquer pour autoriser l’accès. Même si je suis pas déjà branché, je peux m’identifier directement sur chaque site.

Après l’identification, je reviens tout de suite à la page où j’étais. Mon avatar s’affiche mais je peux le changer. Je peux aussi changer mon username, mais il est déjà inscrit. Mon avatar et mon nom sont liés à un profil assez complet, qui inclut mes derniers commentaires sur des sites qui supportent Disqus.

Sur le site où je commente, il y a une petite boîte avec un résumé de mon profil qui inclut un décompte des commentaires, le nombre de commentaires que j’ai indiqué comme “likes” et des points que j’ai acquis.

Je peux envoyer mon commentaire sur Twitter et sur Facebook en même temps. Je peux décider de recevoir des notices par courriel ou de m’abonner au RSS. Je vois tout de suite quel compte j’utilise (Post as…) et je peux changer de compte si je veux (personnel et pro, par exemple). Une fois que j’envoie mon commentaire, les autres visiteurs du site peuvent voir plus d’infos sur moi en passant avec la souris au-dessus de mon avatar et ils peuvent cliquer et avoir un dialogue modal avec un résumé de mon compte. Ce résumé mène évidemment sur le profil complet. Depuis le profil complet, les gens peuvent suivre mes commentaires ou explorer divers aspects de ma vie en-ligne.

Suite à mon commentaire, les gens peuvent aussi me répondre directement, de façon anonyme ou identifiée.

J’ai donc un profil riche en deux clics, avec beaucoup de flexibilité. Il y a donc un contexte personnel à mon commentaire.

L’aspect social est intéressant. Mon commentaire est identifié par mon profil et je suis identifié par mes commentaires. D’ailleurs, la plupart des avatars sur Mashable sont des vraies photos (ou des avatars génériques) alors que sur le forum xkcd, c’est surtout des avatars «conceptuels».

Ce que xkcd propose est plus proche du “in-group”. Les initiés ont déjà leurs comptes. Ils sont “in the know”. Ils ont certaines habitudes. Leurs signatures sont reconnaissables. L’auteur de la bd connaît probablement leurs profils de ses «vrais fans». Ces gens peuvent citer à peu près tout ce qui a été envoyé sur le site. D’ailleurs, ils comprennent toutes les blagues de la bd, ils ont les références nécessaires pour savoir de quoi l’auteur parle, que ça soit de mathématiques ou de science-fiction. Ils sont les premiers à envoyer des commentaires parce qu’ils savent à quel moment une nouvelle bd est envoyée. En fait, aller regarder une bd xkcd, ça fait partie de leur routine. Ils sont morts de rire à l’idée que certains ne savent pas encore que les vraies blagues xkcd sont dans les alt-text. Ils se font des inside-jokes en tout genre et se connaissent entre eux.

En ce sens, ils forment une «communauté». C’est un groupe ouvert mais il y a plusieurs processus d’exclusion qui sont en action à tout moment. Pour être accepté dans ce genre de groupe, faut faire sa place.

Les sites qui utilisent Disqus ont une toute autre structure. N’importe qui peut commenter n’importe quoi, même de façon anonyme. Ceux qui ne sont pas anonymes utilisent un profil consolidé, qui dit «voici ma persona de web social» (s’ils en ont plusieurs, ils présentent le masque qu’ils veulent présenter). En envoyant un commentaire sur Mashable, par exemple, ils ne s’impliquent pas vraiment. Ils construisent surtout leurs identités, regroupent leurs idées sur divers sujets. Ça se rapproche malgré tout de la notion de self-branding qui préoccupe tant des gens comme Isabelle Lopez, même si les réactions sont fortes contre l’idée de “branding”, dans la sphère du web social montréalaisn (la YulMob). Les conversations entre utilisateurs peuvent avoir lieu à travers divers sites. «Ah oui, je me rappelle d’elle sur tel autre blogue, je la suis déjà sur Twitter…». Il n’y a pas d’allégeance spécifique au site.

Bien sûr, il peut bien y avoir des initiées sur un site particulier. Surtout si les gens commencent à se connaître et qu’ils répondent aux commentaires de l’un et de l’autre. En fait, il peut même y avoir une petite «cabale» qui décide de prendre possession des commentaires sur certains sites. Mais, contrairement à xkcd (ou 4chan!), ça se passe en plein jour, mis en évidence. C’est plus “mainstream”.

Ok, je divague peut-être un peu. Mais ça me remet dans le bain, avant de faire mes présentations Yul- et IdentityCamp.