I wasn’t sure what that something would turn out to be, but I’m getting a clearer picture now. I know writing is a major component and my stick people drawings too.

So, fine – I have the freedom to pursue writing and drawing now. Lots of freedom and my husband’s blessing and a good support group – all good things for venturing out of the cube farm.

Last night I set out goals, I made a very doable “to do” list and yet by 10:30 a.m., I found myself mired in MSN conversations about video games, RPGs, personal relationship crises (not mine), random chit chat and idle web-surfing while reading replies.

This is not the work I committed to.

I would never have frittered away the morning on MSN conversations at my contract job. I would have chatted a little, but politely cut it off to get some real work done. Not that I don’t love chatting with my friends, I do. I want to hear about their day, their thoughts, their troubles – all of it. But, never really in-depth talks at work unless it was really dire.

I had rules when I was in the office.

Conversations fell into two categories: Fun/Unimportant and Serious. You can’t decide between whole wheat and white bread for lunch? That’s Unimportant and unless I was waiting around for my project to compile, I never paid much attention to that sort of chatter. You just found out your girlfriend sent all your belongings to your mother’s because she no longer wants to live with you? That’s Serious and I made some time to talk and make plans to continue discussions right after work.

Emphasis on the “after work”. I did my job first, and only rarely – and for really, really Serious things – did the work day take a back seat.

Now that I’m working from home on something a lot less 9 to 5ish, there seems to be an impression that what I’m doing now is really nothing more than a frivolous hobby.

That impression is my fault.

People talk to me and I feel rude if I don’t really listen and respond accordingly. I think I do this in part because a) I was raised to be polite and b) I don’t take what I’m doing seriously either.

I mean come on, I write blog posts and draw stick people. Yeah, that’ll put me on the map. I keep looking at what I want to do and thinking: “This isn’t a grown-up job. I need to do something meaningful.”

For instance, I showed my portfolio of stick people drawings to a few other folks and when I heard the term “artist” come up – I laughed and blushed. Artist!? Pshaw. Waterhouse is an artist. Klimt is an artist. The woman drawing the Mona Lisa on the sidewalk with chalk is an artist.

Me? I’m a doodler.

As for being a writer…I’m a good technical writer. You want a help file that will give you step by step instructions without making it complicated? I’m your girl. These blog posts – well everyone and their brother has a blog. That can’t be serious work.

Except that it is – or at least, it can be if I take it seriously. And if it isn’t serious work, it’s the groundwork for the writing that will be.

So now that I’ve admitted the problem is me, I need to fix it. Maybe I am an artist! Maybe my little stick people are going places. I’ve been a technical writer so why can’t I just say that I’m a writer and leave off the technical part? Besides – no one ever knew what I was talking about when I said “technical writer” anyway and I never thought of it as my lifetime career.

My first step towards fixing this mess is setting my status to “busy” on MSN. If I am going to commit to this, I have to actually commit to it instead of farting around waiting for the Big Idea to fall out of the sky. That isn’t going to happen – I will have to work at this.

Sorry friends, there will be a lot less MSN chit chat in the future so I can focus on the work I keep saying I need to do.

Maybe now I can get on with this new work!

As a recap, Ms. Knight is miffed that TransLink did not run transit later than usual on Halloween night while she and her “posse” were out “getting their drink on”. Apparently sobering up in the wee hours of a cold November morning while dressed in a slutty, cold-weather-inappropriate costume kind of sucks.

Ms. Knight also complains that TransLink is more concerned with impressing visitors for the Olympics than its own citizens (and unfortunately, that’s probably true) and that McDonald’s has more sense because they stay open late to take advantage of all the drunk people with the munchies.

I don’t disagree with the assertion that public transit should be available late at night for people too inebriated to drive – that’s one of the great things about public transit – but how late is late enough?

Vancouver, a city that tags itself as “world class” (and don’t get me started on that misnomer), has transit that stops running pretty early considering how late the night life in downtown Vancouver runs. Any city that is truly “world class” (I’m looking at you Berlin) has a 24-hour transit system in place – or at least one that runs until 2 or 3 a.m.

And let’s face it; a cab ride from downtown Vancouver to say Burnaby, Surrey or Port Coquitlam etc. can get pretty expensive – and that assumes you can find a cab driver who will take you anywhere if you’re drunk. Most cabbies, quite reasonably, don’t want drunk people in their car.

That being said, TransLink’s operating hours are not exactly a secret. TransLink didn’t just spring this on an unsuspecting public for Halloween – the hours are clearly posted on their website along with maps of every route and time tables for every single stop. Their website isn’t easy to navigate (the maps are hard to get to), but the information is there.

Perhaps the reason TransLink doesn’t run later isn’t just that they don’t care about the citizens of Vancouver, or that they are financially constrained but, perhaps they don’t wish to be perceived as supporting “getting your drink on” at clubs. I bet they also don’t want to clean up the resulting mess of a bunch of drunks with food from those captains of industry at McDonald’s off the bus seats and floors.

Another good reason for transit not to run late: TransLink performs maintenance on buses and train lines at night to ensure that everyone gets a safe ride during their hours of operation. It seems TransLink is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Terminate service at 1 a.m. – people complain. Run transit 24-hours and do the bare minimum for maintenance and repairs – people would complain.

Knowing that Ms. Knight, perhaps you should have planned your night out a little better. And that goes for the “other 200 people” you mentioned and the “hundreds of people trapped downtown” every Friday and Saturday night. You could have done any of the following before headed out dressed as a “slutty version” of anything:

• Rent a hotel room together.
• Share a cab to the closest house and crash.
• Plan your time accordingly and make sure you’re on the last bus home.

These ideas are not beyond your intelligence.

Just for the record, I find it very hard to believe that the same people get “trapped” downtown every weekend. Is their ability to remember when the buses stop running hampered by the amount of alcohol they consume? I could see that happening once or twice, but every weekend? Give me a break – if that’s really the case, then those hundreds of people are morons who drink too much.

I suppose your next argument would be cash flow – but, if you can afford to pay cover charges at clubs and pay more to get drunk at said clubs; you can afford to share the cost of a hotel room or a cab.

Your “bleary eyed $2.50” is hardly an inducement for incurring the extra expense of running transit an hour later.

I’ve seen drunken people on transit here – it’s not pretty: loud, obnoxious, reeking of booze (and, in one case, urine) and a river of vomit under the seats. I sure didn’t envy the poor driver who had to hose down and disinfect the bus that night. I wonder if he appreciated those party-goers $2.50?

Your right to pass out on the bus, be a drunken nuisance, or throw up on yourself does not trump TransLink’s policy of providing their employees with a safe and puke-free environment in which to work.

Ms. Knight, as the Events and Student Life Director for the Kwantlen Student Association, couldn’t you find something more important and pressing to write about? This article – written in association with your position at Kwantlen, gives the impression that being inebriated and unable to get home is part of the routine for Kwantlen students. Also, as someone who is in charge of events and student life, you do a poor job of planning your own events and life if you can’t manage to catch a bus out of downtown by 1 a.m.

I’m even more surprised that the Chair and Director of Academic Affairs thinks this is an appropriate story to have associated with Kwantlen.

How would you feel about a $2.50 donation towards finding something resembling journalism at Kwantlen?

I need a vacation.

My first thought upon realizing this was “A vacation from what exactly?”

Let’s face it, I have a pretty sweet life. I have a fantastic (and cute!) fiance who has been extremely supportive and encouraging in my quest to run my own business and do what I like for a living. He is my best-friend. We live in a nice apartment, we have lots of books and toys to amuse ourselves with and we eat like kings most nights.

But, amidst all this happy “we”, a canker is blossoming.

I need time alone. I need to get away from our nice apartment, away from my best-friend, away from our toys and routines. I need to regain my sense of space and self. I want to come home with a sense of eagerness and come back to our life with the ability and renewed desire to participate in it fully.

I felt guilty for wanting it, for needing it – I questioned myself about it endlessly. Do I love Joe less if I need to be alone? Does this mean that I’m a selfish person? Does my need to sprawl out across the whole bed without running into anyone supersede my responsibilities to our relationship?

The answer to all those things is no.

I discussed everything with Joe and I should have known that this would be his response: “You should go – a couple of days of doing nothing by yourself will be good for you.”

Rilke said it best:

“I consider the following to be the highest task in the relation between two people: for one to stand guard over the other’s solitude. If the essential nature of both indifference and the crowd consists  in the nonrecognition of solitude, then love and friendship exist in order to continually furnish new opportunities for solitude.”

My thoughts about love and relationships have changed drastically over the past two years. Yet, there is still this nagging voice in my head (the product of too many romantic films and novels) that needing to get away, alone, from your regular life for a few days was disaster in the making. That real love means merging together as one person forever and ever, it means being a mirror for the other, it means bringing them into your fully-realized world where you entertain them with endless delights and teach them how to live within you.

Now I understand fully that those perceptions are all garbage.

I don’t want to submerge myself in someone else’s personality (nor do I want them submerged in mine). I cannot be anyone’s mirror. I refuse to let some half-finished, disorderly mess of a person come and live in the internal world I’m still building for myself because they find it easier than building their own world.

I find myself agreeing with Rilke again:

“[Young people] (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all their messiness, disorder, bewilderment…:And what can happen then? What can life do with this heap of half-broken things that they call their communion and that they would like to call their happiness, if that were possible, and their future?

And so each of them loses himself for the sake of the other person, and loses the other, and many others who still wanted to come. And loses the vast distances and possibilities…No area of human experience is so extensively provided with conventions as this one is: there are life-preservers of the most varied invention…society has been able to create refuges of every sort, for since it preferred to take love-life as an amusement, it also had to give it and easy form, cheap, safe, and sure, as public amusements are.”

Before now I had simply withdrawn deeper into myself to come to the solitude I need to be happy. Now I know that Joe and I can create space for the other to live in and leave out all the guilt that is supposed to be associated with needing that space.

So I booked my two day/two night trip to Victoria, BC (I got an amazing deal with Pacific Coach Lines) and that’s that.

Two days of keeping my own counsel and focusing on my own inner needs will go a long way to regaining and preserving my happiness!

To recap that post: The article talks about the joys of free-wheeling sex with no need for condoms since a guy who’s had a vasectomy can’t get anyone pregnant. The article then goes on to give details of a couple of schmucks who think women are essentially crazy bitches who want nothing more than to oops an unwilling guy into fatherhood.

My response was that the writer of the article was irresponsible for failing to mention that vasectomies are pretty damn good at preventing pregnancy, but not STDs. I was also a little horrified that the article seems to support unsafe sex with multiple partners – “swinging from the chandelier sex” – with no mention of ensuring both/all participants safety.

Anyway, since that post went up I’ve had a lot of comments on it (well, for my blog it’s a lot of comments) and as of today that post has been viewed over 800 times.

In the last month, here are the search terms used to find that post (and my comments in italics):

• how old you have to be to get a vasectomy (in Vancouver, most clinics seem to think 30 is a good age)
• lied about vasectomy to be promiscuous (way to spread disease and cause unwanted pregnancies jerk)
• dating a man who’s had a vasectomy (well, you’re unlikely to get pregnant)
• vasectomy std condom
• do you still need to use a condom if you’ve had a vasectomy (you do if you’re worried about STDs)
• pregnant condom vasectomy
• vasectomy for 23 year old (I’d wait a little longer – but that’s just me)
• can a woman become pregnant after her man has had a vasectomy (less than 1% chance)
• should i get a vasectomy (Google is not a Magic 8 Ball – talk to your doctor)

I think what worries me most is that people have the idea that vasectomies put an end to STDs. As though the inability to get a woman pregnant also bestows magical, disease-repelling powers. This is most certainly false.

I’ve noticed too that not one of the search terms used to find that post since it went up in July has had anything about getting tested for STDs. Not one.

If you’re not sure about yourself – get tested. If you’re worried about catching one from your partner, get tested together.

A lot of people will say “But, I’m in a long-term monogamous relationship! I haven’t got a disease – and neither does my Significant Other!”

And if you both came to that relationship as virgins – then yeah, you’re probably safe. But if you didn’t, if you’ve had other partners and had unprotected sex with any of them or had some random one-nighter where you’re not sure if you were safe or not then getting tested is a good way to set your mind at ease.

I figure it’s a way of being respectful of yourself and your partner to say “I’m no angel but I know I want to have something serious with you – so I’m getting tested to make sure nothing I’ve done in my past affects our future together.”

As for screwing around with random people – if that’s your thing then be prepared to be safe about it. Condoms don’t take up a lot of space. Put one in your jacket pocket or your purse – even if you’ve had a vasectomy or have been told that you’re safe because he had a vasectomy.

I probably seem like a pushy bitch when it comes to condom use – but I feel very strongly about it.

I also want to address the most recent comment on the July post from JR.  JR said that condoms “have a failure rate of 10-15%” and that vasectomies only have a “failure rate of 0.1%”.

Let’s get something cleared up about the failure rate of condoms: ‘typical’ use of condoms has a failure rate of  10 to 18%. Typical use means you are NOT using the condoms properly. Perfect use of condoms has a 2% failure rate and coupled with spermicides and other contraceptives that rate falls further.

‘Typical’ use of condoms includes:

• Uncovered contact with your partner before putting on a condom (pre-ejaculate contains sperm!).
• Not rolling the condom down the entire length of the penis.
• Staying inside your partner after ejaculation and allowing the penis to become flaccid.
• Not holding/securing the condom as you pull out of your partner.
• Not washing yourself thoroughly after removing the condom.
• Improper storing of condom (in wallet, direct sunlight etc.).
• Tears in the condom from removing it from the packet (i.e., with teeth, sharp fingernails etc.).
• Using oil-based lubricants with the condom (oil breaks down the latex).
• Using a very old condom (they can dry out and break down even in the packet).
• “double-bagging”  (i.e., using two condoms at the same time) this actually increases the risk of condom failure.

‘Perfect’ use of condoms is making an effort to NOT do the things on the above list – and even then, you have as much as a 2% chance of sex leading to an unplanned pregnancy.

As for vasectomies, JR is correct – there is a less than 1% chance of failure. Though, men must be cautioned that the rates of success do vary slightly depending on the surgical technique used and the surgeon himself.

I think vasectomies are pretty great at preventing pregnancy – it’s the closest you can get to a guarantee aside from abstaining (and what fun would that be?) – but a vasectomy DOES NOT prevent you from giving or receiving sexually transmitted diseases.

So, just to recap: I am NOT against vasectomies. I am against unprotected sex with multiple partners – vasectomy or not! – and I think that Details magazine was remiss in not addressing this in their article.

And JR, if you’re reading this, you should really refrain from identifying with truly “thoughtful and caring” men if you’re going to say women are “dumb” and refer to us as “stupid hormone ravaged PMS’ing c**ts!”

Most people forward these types of emails on out of kindness and concern – and were the missing person real, sending this information out could prove useful. There would be more eyes watching out for the missing child, more people who recognize their face and could help track the child.

It’s easy to be taken in because most people figure “What sort of jerk sends out a fake missing person poster?”

There are ways to tell if you’re being taken in though:

Does the poster contain specific information about the child such as:

• age
• height
• weight
• date and time of disappearance
• clothing the child was last seen in
• location the child was last seen in

Does the poster give legitimate contact information should you spot the missing child? Has there been anything on the news or in the paper? Has an organization such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children posted anything regarding the child on their site?

When in doubt, use the search function on Snopes – a great website that collects and dispels stupid hoaxes, urban myths and other types of asshattery.

I think the thing that really annoys me most about these hoaxes is that hoaxes like these make people question legitimate emails and information about those who really are missing. It belittles and diminishes the grief and worry of those who still don’t know where a loved one is – and those people have a legitimate claim to the public’s help.

In short – do a little a research first, if it’s legitimate, then by all means spread the information so help can be given to those who need it.

ChoreWars is a sort of RPG that makes doing boring chores a fun game. You can claim experience points (XP) and get gold and treasures for doing mundane tasks like washing the dishes and you may even get to battle a monster!

If I had kids – this is exactly the sort of method I’d use for getting them involved in keeping their rooms tidy and helping wash up after dinner. As the Dungeon Master (DM) you can determine the chores, the treasures and the monsters all to your own liking.

This is a great way to see who’s pulling their weight around the house and to reward the people that do (maybe 500 gold pieces in the game could equal $5 in real life?).

I can indulge my love of all things geeky and get “rewards” for chores I was going to do anyway.

I made some purchases on your site today – not just because I like to shop Canadian, but also because Amazon’s shopping cart kept losing one of my items intermittently.

I purchased four items; two of them will ship now and two will ship later. The total of these four items, before taxes, exceeds your $36.00 minumum for free shipping – yet, I was charged $11 for shipping.

This is a little confusing – if my order total exceeds your minimum requirements – why am I paying any shipping at all, regardless of when the books are published? This seems like a scam because you don’t explain why the shipping costs are being added to an order that exceeds your minimum purchase total.

I am also puzzled by your feedback request. You said “We value your feedback. Tell us what you think.”

So, ready to oblige, I clicked the link and got a single question: “Please rate [on a scale of one to 10] your overall site experience with us today. Please select one response only, based on your experience you had with us today.”

Aside from being poorly worded, is that really all the feedback you want? If you value my feedback, let me give you some actual feedback! This single and uninformative question doesn’t make me feel valued. This question says “We got your money already, but for legal reasons, we’re obliged to give you the impression that your opinion matters.”

Why is there not a feedback form and questions – so you can get specific feedback about possible improvements or even praise for a job well done?

I don’t need a personal response from the CEO about my feedback (though, if Heather Reisman wants to address that stupid shipping gaffe I’d sure like an answer), but come on, at least pretend like your customers matter.

That feedback question is nothing more than a pacifier – and I am NOT pacified.

Cordially,

R.

www.rambleicious.ca is not up and running. It was suggested that I preserve my 4/10 Google page rank by doing everything the long way around.

It’ll be a few weeks before I have the new site up.

I also had a pretty nasty hard drive crash last week – so there was no Sticky Note Friday last week.

Apparently, dropping your extremely heavy copy of the OED on your laptop keyboard is bad. It dents the hard drive and renders it useless. So, uh, don’t do it.

That’s my catch up post for today – real posts are in the works!

A new draft proposal by the college is looking to strip Ontario doctors of their right to exercise their religious or moral conscience when practicing medicine.

As it is now, a doctor can refuse to do things like prescribe the morning after pill, give a patient an abortion and can refuse to refer a patient to another physician who will do those things if the treatment being asked for goes against their religion or conscience.

I think the college is making a mistake with this approach.

I do agree that doctors should have to refer a patient they will not treat themselves – I don’t think it’s for a doctor to decide a patient shouldn’t be treated at all simply because the treatment goes against the doctor’s conscience or religion. Those patients the doctor will not treat should be referred immediately to a doctor who will.

Forcing a doctor to treat a patient when the doctor has made it clear the treatment in question goes against everything he believes in is a bad idea. I think no matter how careful the doctor is to treat that patient’s physical needs - the quality of care and compassion that is normally involved in medical treatment drops off pretty sharply when the doctor actively disagrees with a patient’s own moral or religious decision.

For instance, if I went to a doctor for an abortion and the doctor told me “My conscience and religion forbid this treatment, but since I don’t want to be disciplined or sued, I’ll do it.” Could I really trust that doctor to then be careful with my physical and mental well being? Do I want an important decision and procedure like that handled by a doctor who has made it clear he does not respect my right to have the procedure in the first place?

I’m pretty sure the answer is no.

Force these doctors to simply refer the patient elsewhere and, if necessary, end the physician-patient relationship so the patient can seek appropriate care with a physician who supports their right to the treatment they need or want.

The proposal states that ending a physician-patient relationship based on personal beliefs could “contravene the Code and/or constitute professional misconduct.” I think this is fairly asinine. I would much prefer my doctor say “I am going to refer you to another doctor who is accepting new patients, as my religious and moral beliefs are making it difficult for me to treat you with the respect, compassion and level of care you deserve.”

Instead, those cases where a doctor does want to terminate his relationship with a patient, refuse care of an existing patient or refuse to take on a new patient, the doctor must do so “for reasons related to his or her own clinical competence” according to the proposed code.

It seems to me that this approach encourages doctors who wish to live by their personal beliefs to lie. If a doctor lies about his “clinical competence”, does this mean the College can examine whether he should hold a medical licence?

The code also says the first step in ending a physician-patient relationship should be a referral to specialist – and in the case of a GP not wanting to do heart surgery or something equally specialized, this makes sense. I don’t want a GP trying his hand at a triple bypass surgery. Where the doctor in question does not want to provide a young girl with birth control pills because he thinks she’s too young to be sexually active or his religious and moral beliefs brand her as an adulterous slut- what specialist could you possibly refer her to?

The code advises the following in those cases: “…proceed cautiously.”

The well being of the patient should always come first – I agree with the College on that completely. However, sometimes the well being of the patient is best addressed by the physician admitting “I’m not the right doctor for you because of my religious or moral beliefs. Let me refer you to a doctor I think you’ll connect with better.”

That sort of honesty is what makes a physician good – that honesty ensures the patient will always come first.

The feeling of being processed is already rampant in doctor’s offices across the country. Patients get a maximum of 15 minutes and two issues to bring to the table before they are ushered out the door. If the doctor is spending any of those minutes giving poor quality care to a patient he was forced to treat, his ability to do his job is severely compromised.

Forcing a doctor to treat a patient they cannot be objective about or kind to will only serve to highlight and compound existing issues in the health care system. Make it a rule that no doctor can refuse a to refer a patient – if the doctor in question loses many of his patients because he refuses to treat them, he has no one to blame but himself. 

You can read the proposed code here. Click View Backgrounder under the Human Right Consultation section (this will allow you to view a .PDF file) scroll to the Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code link and click that for the full version of the proposed code.

If you wish to comment on the proposed code, do so no later than August 15, 2008 by sending a letter to:

Andrea Foti
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario
80 College Street
Toronto, ON, M5G 2E2

or email Andrea at: afoti@cpso.on.ca

Anything done in Ontario can easily be adopted by other Provinces – so speak up now!

Really.

I spend a lot of time reading blogs, commenting on blog posts (when I have something intelligent to say) and blog-hopping in the hopes of finding cool new reading material. I also spend a crazy amount of time thinking about what to write in my blog about that will be interesting, relevant and maybe even useful.

I’m never going to be the blogger who writes something entitled How the political climate of America influences Canadian spending habits (a quick Google search didn’t turn up anything on this specific topic, so I suppose I could write this) nor will I ever have the popularity of Dooce who, internet rumour has it, makes $40k a month from her site (is this true? do people believe this?).

So why am I up at 5 a.m. writing a post that will not change the world or pay the rent? I’m not sure.

I don’t write about my relationships on here – I’ve alluded to them, but I can’t give details because it’s not really a private life if I tell everyone about it. Besides, in some cases I know I won’t say anything nice so why bother? Though, I sort of enjoy reading about other people’s relationships. I like knowing I’m not the only one making a mess or getting left with one.

I don’t talk about the specifics of my work because it’s easy enough to find this blog and writing about your employers or clients on a public blog is a good way to get yourself into trouble. Most people who write “My boss is a total jackass and here’s why.” posts aren’t getting book offers or a sudden increase in traffic to their site – just a lucky few, the rest of us are getting reprimanded and probably fired.

I don’t use my blog as a journal either because one day is pretty much like the next and repetition is boring. I have to be honest and say that I do use this blog as way to work things out in my head about things like guilt, dishonesty, love and the like. I like the feedback and so far it generally agrees with me and let’s me know I’m not crazy, I just think too much.

That doesn’t seem to leave a lot of things to write about and yet, here I am, writing anyway.

So what should blog content look like?

Does it always have to be full of deep meaning? Should it always be relevant and useful for your readers? Can it be something just for yourself – like a session with hundreds of would-be psychologists reading and commenting? Is it OK to baldly state opinions you know few people share and then refuse to apologise for upsetting your readers? Can I post everyday – even if it’s drivel like “I got up, ate breakfast and went to work – same as all the other days for the past 5 years.” and not find a single humourous thing to expand on?

What if I want to go into all of my relationship poo-poo in great detail – with names and places – because it makes me feel better to talk about it? What if I just want to talk about it because I feel vindictive? Does wanting comfort and comradeship make it OK to reveal those details? Do the rules change if you’re just being mean?

Is it really OK to post the private details of the people I live with? Am I violating boundaries by telling the internet personal things about the people I love – details I know I would never tell our friends over dinner? If I have kids, would it be OK to post pictures of them running through the sprinkler in the nude? What about detailing their most embarrassing moments? Is that amusing or awful?

I guess a blog is whatever you want it to be about and somewhere out there is an audience who wants to read it.

The rules you make are personal ones depending on your level of comfort and how well you can take having pissed off relatives and friends when you post pictures of them drunk and throwing up at your Canada Day barbeque.

Should there be general rules for posting? Should the spelling and grammar police be allowed to ticket people who write in “txt msg” format or who type with their Caps Lock key on? Should spell checking be mandatory?

I have my own opinions on this which other people would find restrictive and probably anal and yet I’m sure there are readers who’ve come here and thought “Did she not read this before posting it? What garbage!”

Again, I think it’s all a matter of what you’re capable of and what you’re comfortable with – there is an audience for everything. 

I think the best advice I’ve been offered on the subject of blog content is: “Before you hit the ‘post’ button, be aware that this content will be viewable by anyone who looks for it, the content will outlive you and deleting it means nothing. It’s still exists somewhere.”