Aug 23, 2011
Josh Kinnal [sic] has the peculiar (but spreading?) habit of pronouncing his ‘r’s American style, even though he is not American. Is this the Australian International accent?
(From the Lorraine Crescent blog)
Look. I know I over pronounce the letter ‘R’ in some words, American-style. I also know that I say the word ‘idea’ in a way that is different to other people.
The thing about the letter ‘R’ started, I think, when I first went to New York in 1992. I was 18, impressionable, and picked up the accent in about 3 days. It took me 2 months of being back home to shake most of it. The thing that stuck was the way I say ‘beer’, ‘here’, ‘their’, and other words that rhyme.
It’s probably never going away now. That’s just the way I speak. I’m used to it and it helps me be better understood than other Australians when I’m in the USA, so maybe it’s a good thing.
Whatever it is, it’s a part of me. I don’t force it and I don’t apologise for it.
Aug 5, 2011
Can someone explain to me the relationship between Google+ and Buzz and Reader? When I share something in Reader, shouldn’t I have the option of sharing it with my Google+ circles? The people who follow me or who I follow on Buzz have no relationship with the Circles on Google+.
It all seems a bit messy and ill-conceived.
Google’s social media platforms need a good spring clean and while I love all the potential Google+ offers I want it to be really very bloody good. I want seamless integration into my daily activities.
It worries me that Google abandons good ideas too quickly rather than updating them, improving them and, quite frankly, behaving like the company that brought them to the position they’re currently in.
Without the seamless integration, early adopters will just forget about Google+ like they did with so many other recent Google products.
Jun 22, 2011
If you’re sitting around worried about your life and how hard it is, you could do a lot worse than to listen to some recordings of Mike DeStefano (here’s to absent friends).
I first came across DeStefano when I heard him do a story on The Moth Podcast about his wife dying in a hospice. Then I heard him tell another story about wanting to commit suicide.
The thing about DeStefano: He was really funny. He was laugh-out-loud-for-minutes-at-a-time funny.
In this interview with Marc Maron (fast forward about 20 minutes to get to the actual interview) he comes across with a philosophy that can only be described as simultaneously positive and misanthropic.
You’ll be glad you listened and if he doesn’t motivate you to be a better person you deserve all the shit you get dumped on you.
