Paranoia?

Seems like my dentist's office is among the latest to have become paranoid. Earlier this week, before they would begin cleaning my teeth, I had to have my picture taken -- "for security reasons" was their formal answer. Come on! What do they think I'm going to do? Send a proxy to have dental work done? ;-) Maybe it's that there's fraud in the dental insurance industry ... Don't they use dental x-rays for identifying people? And wouldn't that suffice?

DH says to get over it, and I will, but seeing as there is so much fraud out there, wouldn't you think they would use the tools already in their possession instead of using one that has greater potential to change?

Oy.

Thing 23

Yippee! I finished 23 things. Having joined Ning, I'm going to contact back some people I 'met up' with, and then work on my other blog, which is hobby-related. I'll let you all know how that goes! Happy blogging, everybody. Remember to keep it to 15 minute increments to make it manageable . . .

Thing 22

Staying current. I can do this in 15 minute increments -- there are few people I know who don't have 15 minutes to experiment. It's gratifying to see how some things were easy to do, and that I really didn't break anything ;-) Wahoo! In a PL setting, I don't know how we could help but at least overhear about these new technologies. They're pushed at us from every direction, literature, email, message boards, IM, meetings, etc. Now if we have access to tools and time, yes, we can do it and make these blogs presentable and valuable.

Thing 21

I was invited to Ning by the first librarian in my PL who finished. These social networks as well as other Internet applications are growing faster than kudzu in the south! When it all shakes out, who knows what will be 'top dog.' Somebody who was on Ning contacted me out of the blue (which is fine with me, I guess), but then another friend found me and I realized I hadn't kept track of what she was doing work-wise these days. Maybe Ning is a little more professional than spacebook is/are, but I think the networks I end up enjoying will be those I seek -- not ones that I started.

Thing 20

Facebook and MySpace: I've had a Facebook account for a couple of years but haven't really used it much. In fact, I'd forgotten my account login and had to request password assistance ... FB is logically organized and for me it is intuitive. When sites aren't intuitive, I don't think I want to take time to figure them out -- what's the point? Since deciding to work on 23Things, I've stalked nieces and nephews (who are kind and have taken pity on me), found a volunteer contact I needed to ask a question of (long story), and decided that FB might be the best way for me to post the ton of photos I have gotten recently due to many family events. DSis in FL has married the terms and calls them SPACEBOOK! lol I realize that 'poking' is the official term when someone wants to contact you, but that term is a little smarmy to me ;-)

Thing 19

Podcasts: DD streams audiocasts from her computer at work and enjoys being able to listen directly, but hasn't collected them via podcast much. When she runs or exercises, she generally listens only to music on her portable digital media player (iPod). The runners I know though do download podcasts to keep current with their favorite programs, and if I were one to listen to a lot of audio, I'd do this too.

Thing 18

YouTube and other video sites: I've had a lot of fun watching favorite comedians on sites like YouTube, but some of them can get to be long. A great fun one is of cats set to music. The hyperlink didn't appear to have taken, but you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkuBhQaCOJQ. Funny how the hyperlinks don't work from the editing page but do work on the blog itself. Guess one must have faith ...