Category Archives: Blog/tech

Question of the week: The Blog Crush

Posted on by
14

I got an email today. It went something like this.

I found your friend’s blog. Now I got a huge crush on said friend!

I smiled and thought of the timeliness of my friend’s email. I’ve been thinking about blog crushes these days.

The blog crush isn’t really about looks, but looks definitely help. Rather, the attraction is centered around a talent for expressing ideas or telling stories. The blog crush is just like an intellectual crush, but it starts online.

I’ve been blogging a while and over the years I’ve had a few blog crushes. They wear off when said blogger begins blogging sporadically or stops all together. Sometimes the crush just wears off as I get to know him better.

My current blog crush is Jay Smooth. I think he’s my first internet “celebrity” blog crush.

Question of the week: Do you have blog crushes? Or have you had a blog crush?

Blog strike

Posted on by
10

Way back when I first started blogging — when it wasn’t even called blogging — I’d often write about the guy I was dating. We broke up about a year later shortly after he read a piece alluding to my frustration and unhappiness in the relationship.

In my post-breakup sadness, I naively believed we would still be together if I had never recounted the dream on my blog. I felt my words were unfairly used against me to justify the breakup rather than fixing the relationship.

After that, I asked him not to read my blog. I wanted him to know as little about my life as I knew about his. I wanted the break in communication and knowledge about one another’s lives to be equal.

Of course, there was really no way to make sure he wasn’t readying my blog and that troubled me. Still, I didn’t stop writing. I’ve never stopped writing on my blog for more than week* until now.

***

At first, It wasn’t an intentional blog strike. I was just busy. Job1, job2, family, DB, friends, traveling, and the phantom dissertation proposal were all taking up a lot of my time.

But it quickly evolved in to a decision not to blog, to lay low.

That feeling I had many years ago returned. I was still bothered that you could know so much about me — or at least what I chose to reveal — and yet you would still be a mystery. So I didn’t reveal anything, no thought, opinion, story, or update. I wanted to make you do more than just type my URL to find out how I’m doing. You know, call or visit.

And so, I chose to keep my words to myself for a few weeks, until I knew you’d be gone.

There was that time back in October 2006 when I had technical difficulties with my blog and had to switch hosts. I think my blog was hacked.

Placeholder for Ed’s clever post title

Posted on by
8

In January, I got an invitation from the blogger behind Eastside Scene to have coffee, tea and just chat about blogging. He invited other local bloggers. The first meeting was small. Just me, Eastside Scene and P3000. The next meeting in February was much better attended. I skipped out on the March meeting because I was touring Texas.

I left work on time to make sure I wouldn’t arrive at El Gallo Café the site of our monthly meetings too late. Eastside Scene was the only one there for a while and we chatted about art and blogging over smoothies. Soon we were joined by Ed from View From A Loft.

Ed’s great. Not only does he have some cool photos of major LA events posted on his blog, but he also comes up with some witty headlines. Well, more like blog titles. He complimented my writing, and I mentioned that I’d like to have his ability to write succinct titles.

“You know, you should re-name some of my posts,” I suggested.

Ed pulled up my blog and looked for recent posts. Ed, Eastside Scene and I came up with some titles for my simply-titled Nopalitos post:

Continue reading →

Dear Readers, I appreciate you

Posted on by
3

A few months ago, K posted a list of simple pleasures, those little things that make you happy. I replied with my own list, which had a lot in common with hers.

One of those things was comments on my blog. I love getting emails announcing a response to the latest post. I don’t even mind the critical and snarky comments all that much.

Of course, I would have no comments without wonderful readers. I think it’s pretty cool that you all find my tales and questions interesting enough to return. I’ve been doing this since 2001 because I like interacting with readers, which also comes from reading your blog (if you have one). I still love writing in notebooks, but it’s not the same. There’s no one there to reassure me that I’m still cool. Hah.

¡Gracias!

I wouldn’t have know about this if not for MsAbcMom, who got the idea from The Other Mother

Cindylu en Blogotitlán

Posted on by
2

I love blogging so much I’m contributing my words to other blogs as a guest blogger or regular contributor.

If you don’t already have these blogs on your blogroll or RSS feed reader (I recommend Google Reader), you should add them.

  • VivirLatino: my favorite go-to blogs for news on politics, culture and entertainment in the US and throughout Latin America. My first post at VL on undocumented immigrants and death.
  • The Unapologetic Mexican: Nezua, the main author at UAM invited several bloggers to post on the weekends. My first post at UAM is about broaching those sticky discussions on race with people who may not be allies.
  • LA Eastside: I don’t live on LA’s Eastside. I’m squarely on the Westside. If you’re confused, the Militant Angeleno has a great guide on LA’s regions. However, I’m on the Eastside culturally. It’s where my LA roots lie.

And don’t worry, I’ll still be regularly posting here.

Question of the week: In a sentence or two

Posted on by
14

It’s happened twice in the last two weeks.

The first time I was asked to describe my blog was at the Latina/o blogger gathering in East LA. The second gathering, set up by Eastside Scene, was pretty well attended. Everyone got a chance to discuss how he/she got started in blogging and their focus. When my turn came along, I explained that I’d been blogging for about 6 years. I didn’t even know I was blogging when I started. Since then, my initial diary-like writings have evolved as I realized people were actually reading. That was the easy part. It was more difficult to describe what I write about.

Yesterday, my friend Jake, editor of Puro Pedo Magazine, asked me to describe my blog in a sentence. It was tough. Jake called it “digital chisme,” but I think it’s more than that even if chisme’s been a current focus. I came up with something last night, but today it looks rather pretentious and the description is still unclear.

La Pregunta: How would you describe your blog in a sentence or two? How would you describe my blog?

[Note: Yes, I know I've been lagging on the QOTW posts. I've been a little distracted. I have a few ideas for the next few weeks, so don't fear my lovely readers.]

Yo, lurkers! (’08 version)

Posted on by
15

These were made by the Zacatecas peoples
They think you should comment (artifacts at the Natural History Museum)

I missed National Delurking week, which is supposedly the second week of January. I have an excuse. My computer was broken.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a lurker is “a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom, file sharing or other interactive system, but rarely participates” (source: wikipedia).

If you’re a lurker*, leave a comment. You can write whatever you want, but if you need a prompt, here’s some ideas: recommend something (a book, film, song/album, website, blog, whatever); tell me about yourself (where are you from? what do you do?); tell me why you love/like/hate Lotería Chicana.

I promise I won’t bite or call you annoying (that was so last week).

*Of course, if you regularly comment you can chime in too.

The big switch

Posted on by
13

On Friday, I bought a 13″ black MacBook.

It was weird. I wasn’t just buying a new laptop. I was making the switch from a PC to a Mac. I’ve been wanting to do this for awhile, and still don’t know why I didn’t buy a MacBook a few years ago when I was in the market for a laptop. That laptop, my trusty LifeBook is currently out of commission. Luckily, I have 99% of my files backed up and my main concern in switching to a Mac is about my iPod.

Oso, my favorite globe trotting blogger, believes owning a MacBook will make me more popular. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get my own fan club.

Photo by Oso (his flickr photostream)

Reluctant promotion

Posted on by
4

The first time I met X, he told me I looked familiar. I’d never seen him before. I would have remembered. But he insisted that he had met me. For a brief moment, I wondered if he “knew” me via the internets. Did he lurk on my blog? Had he come across my photos on Flickr? MySpace? Facebook?

Nope. Our paths had crossed in a much more simple way, at school.

A couple weeks later, X introduced me to some of his friends at the Los Lobos concert and I heard the same comment from his friend.

“That’s what I told her when we first met,” X said.

“Yeah, but it was a pick up line,” retorted M, another one of his friends.

“No, it wasn’t,” he defended himself. “She really did look familiar.”

Once again, I froze. Why was I familiar to this girl I’d never seen before? I really hoped it wasn’t my blog. But it was much easier. She had billed me for an ad in La Gente de Aztlan, a student-run magazine at UCLA.

And what if X and his friend did know me from my blog? Would that be weird? Yeah. I suddenly quiet down whenever my blog comes up in “real life.” I mumble an affirmative response whenever a new acquaintance asks, “so [insert mutual friend] tells me you have a blog. He says you’re a blogger.”

Ugh, yeah.

I’m no good at self promotion, shameless or otherwise.

I really need to get over this. I’m proud of the words I write here and I like the fact that someone reads them… even if that person knows me in “real life.”