Social Media Friendships: No Nudity Required

My stalker proof picture

Who says you can't make real friends on social media? Is it you over there? Or you? Well I am here to tell you that you are all full of crap. I have made a real deal friend using solely social media and she didn't even ask me to send naked photos!

Before we start this debate I am going to ask you what a friend is to you? Well I'm pretty easy. My friendship can be bought by way of Mexican spice packets. Ok, not just that. We would ideally enjoy each other's company (virutally or not), be able to banter and actually carry on a conversation (yes under 140 characters can count as a conversation), have my back (as I do yours), and send me Mexican spice packets.

So here's how it played out. I came home after an EXTREMELY long day of motherhood, work, and general life to a package. A package? Really...  It was a small nicely wrapped box and my heart sang out. It had to be from Stay at Home Babe! 

Someone does not go light on the tape

No that is not her actual name and yes I do know it. Not only did I not have to send her naked pictures, I also know her name. Sorry but I had to earn that information and so do you. 

Anyway, I was bitching on Twitter, as it is a hobby of mine, about running out of Mexican food spice packets that I use to make my wannabe Mexican food here in Brazil. It was the cry that was heard around Twitter and Stay at Home Babe (@stayathomebabe) came to my rescue.

This fine lady, a fellow American with a strong love of all things spicy, sent me spice packets from England! By the way Old El Paso, if she can find these pockets of fajita gold there why in the hell don't you sell them here?!

As I slowly pulled out the packets imagining all the yummy spicy goodness in my future I found another surprise. A token if you will. An awesome gift just for me! The perfect thing to go with my new apartment and something that actually made me get all sentimental.

It was this key chain:

Wow, someone practically on the other side of the world did all this just for me, just to make me happy. She went out of her way to pick something up that I was homesick for. On top of that she gave me something that I will make me smile every single time I see it on my keys. Something that will remind me that I am lucky enough to call such a sweet person a friend.

Thank you Stay at Home Babe! You are the best 21st century pen pal. I really hope to meet you in person one day. (Please note that I meant that in the least stalkerish way possible)

10 Things I Get from Twitter

Picture by: http://images.linuxidx.com/go.php?filter=off&page=7&q=twitter+addict

Not everyone gets Twitter, but those who do are addicted to it. Here are 10 things I get from my Twitter fix.

10. A Thought Vomit Bucket. I can stop in and post any random thought in my head! It's like cleaning house. Thought in and thought back out again.

9. Information. There is A LOT of information circling around that black hole called Twitter. You get info, articles, and sites that you would have never found on your own.

8. Arguments. Pissed off? Feel free to vent or bitch. And while you may piss someone else off, 140 characters limit the amount of arguing possible.

7. Audience. Doesn't matter what it's for, people are listening.

6. Klout... whatever that is ;)

5. Support. Call it what you will but I feel incredibly supported by my Twitter circle! They will answer questions, give you a pat on the back, a kick in the ass if needed, and will help spread info that you feel is important.

4. Laughs. There's some funny shit going down on Twitter!

3. Banter. How often do you get to banter in daily life? This art form was dying out and Twitter is bringing it back baby!

2. Friendship. Sounds super lame to non-Twitter folk but it's true. You make Twitter friends.

1. An Addiction. Once you drink the kool-aid you may never get out again!



Created by Oatmeal

Do you get Twitter?

A Note or a Tweet: is Technology stealing Memories?

It was only a matter of time until my parents asked me to get my crap out of their basement. You know, the old box of high school love letters, old photos, pom pom from pep rallies, and yearbooks.

Well, their prompting only encouraged me to spend time sifting through the boxes, enjoying the trip down memory lane.  Nothing was or will ever actually be accomplished. It's my God given right to leave crap in my parent's basement.  However, I have narrowed it down to two smallish boxes.  I think my work is done.

Anyway, I got to thinking about this ritual.  I have stories of my parents' that came out in these kind of boxes. Hell, I found letters to my Grandmother, all 86 yrs of her, in her closet.  It's awesome, amazing, and very very cool to read.

That's when I started to feel sorry for my children.  I know the internet is an awesome thing and without it, I would not be here today.  But what the hell are they going to do?!

Unless our kids start printing out text messages and aging the paper with tea bags, they aren't going to have jack in their box.

And that is the change of time baby. I'm only 30 and I already see it. My kids' box is going to be an external hard drive or two. Love letters are sent in 160 characters and notes are left on iphones.

What is happening to the youth theses day!?!?!

Ok, that was a little dramatic.  I'm sure they won't miss a thing. They may even find our old notes dirty and a waste of paper.

Personally, I love all my old letters and notes. I remember opening my locker to have that little folded square of paper from my boyfriend fall out.  It was always a surprise, even if it was there daily.  Then again, that was before the readily available cell phone.

Holy crap, either technology is moving far too fast or I really am aging!

Do you still have your old letters and notes?  Do you ever feel like this generation is missing out on something?

Twitter Changes People

I didn't get Twitter before.  Really, didn't get it.  And now I'm addicted. Amazing the how one itouch app can just change your life.

It's like a connection to the world, in 140 keystrokes.  It kind of turns me on. No nitty gritty. No idle chit chat.  Straight and to the point, even sometimes in a grammatically incorrect manner.  Nothing like a fragment to turn a girl on.

But it is changing me.  Twitter has awoken the Mother blogger in me and it's taking everything I have to fight it.  

I will not post on diaper rash. I will not do it!  I swear I have a life outside children...

Oh wait a minute...

Then again, being a Mother brought me to Rio de Janeiro in the first place.  I got knocked up with my husband's baby.  No, there was never any question.

Anyway, I didn't have health care and I couldn't afford the astronomical amount they wanted me to pay for care.  It was such a shame that I was married and American at the time because, if I wasn't, I would have gotten a pretty damn good discount. Those single, illegal Moms get all the breaks.

But I love that story because I get to say that I, an American, had to run across Brazilian borders to give birth to my child in a Brazilian Public Hospital. Hello coolness, I rock your 3rd world country, Public Hospital World!

And I get half my posts from experiences out and about with my boys.  If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have gotten completely harassed for my circumcision post.  Not to mention, my breastfeeding post.  People have a tendency of getting creeped out when childless people breastfeed other people's children.  Not that I know or anything.

So what to do with all this?  I'm thinking I need to find some more randoms to follow on Twitter. Something to break up the game, shake up my life, and fill my head with nonsense.  I could also watch Fox News for that, but this girl has standards.

Where does that get you, you ask?  Well, you just read a post about basically nothing on a blog that is supposed to be about an expat in Rio who is, in fact, in Maryland visiting family.  I'd have to say you got a whole lot of zilch.  But at least it was mildly entertaining.

Just a trip down Rachel's Ranting's Thought Process Lane.

So you tell me, what influences your blog?

Twitter hates Nordestinos?

So there is a new twitter hate campaign out there and it's focused on the Northeast of Brazil.

Apparently there are quite of few Brazilians, who shall remain nameless (Damn Paulistas... oops), that are blaming the people of the Northeast for Dilma's win. 

It's a total smear/hate campaign calling them ignorant, poor, stupid, and saying they shouldn't be able to vote because they aren't educated enough in the first place. 

First of all, all the stats show that Dilma would have won even if you didn't count the Northeast. So go suck on that you pseudo-intellectual, "educated" people. 

And who are you to talk shit about another group, especially one who didn't grow up with a knock off Lojas Americana's silver spoon being put into his mouth by his nanny, who raised ya, and who is from the Northeast in the first place!

North easterners are feisty survivors who speak a Portuguese I have no chance in hell of understanding! And it does not matter how long I've lived here. They are the forgotten step children of this country. 

Go on, claim corruption. Right, like that has never been a problem in this country. That's like blaming the pizza instead of the deliveryman for it arriving late.  It is not going to work if the system doesn't. Everyone will, and does, steal because the system allows it.  And if you high and mighty figure out a way to fix it, bottle it up and sell it to the rest of the world. Maybe you'll be able to bump yourself up to real silver. 

The thing is, I know all kinds of people from the northeast and they aren't just doormen, they are family and close friends. They are the feistiest, smartest, and best survivors out of everyone I've yet to meet. Hell, we city folk panic when we can't get our Brazilian passports on time or our maid doesn't show up one day. OH MY GOODNESS! Who will raise my children, wash my dishes, and what on Earth are we going to eat?!

It comes down to this.  Brazil would survive my presidency without a problem.  This country has had it's fill of drama.  Dilma is not going to kill it. If Bush didn't kill my country, and he sure did try, Dilma is not going to kill yours. And why hate your brothers from other mothers?  They were only trying to pick a lesser of two evils.  Apparently the vast majority of Brazil, and the world, disagree with you.

Deal with it. Start a blog. I know I did.  Oh wait, maybe that's what you are doing with twitter in the first place.  Well then just shove it.  No one wants to party with the pity partiers, and if they do, they are no better. 

I swear, I'm going to start an island for countries to send their prejudice bastards. Sadly, my Grandma may have to go too. I'd hate to see her go but I'm no hypocrite, most of the time.