Blogelemy

Wasting time online with Dailymugshot.com

I find myself wasting time online at times. The lastest thing that I have been doing is dailymugshot.com. If you have webcam (or digital camera) you can take a picture a day and let the pictures create the virtual flip book as you can see below: (you can slow it down if you are getting motion sickness)

Daily Mugshot

I've also created a daily mugshot for the newest addition to our family:

Daily Mugshot

How do you waste time online (besides reading this blog)?

I dislike fax machines

The only thing fax machines are good for.

I consider myself to be pretty tech savvy.  I enjoy using technology to get work done easier and maximize the work that I am doing.  Sometimes I like it too much.  One piece of technology that I have never liked is fax machines.  Fax machines have never been a technology that I could trust.  I understand the need for them (or I did 15 years ago).  I know that it is helpful when someone needs a document with a signature on it.  I remember the days in college when I would send a fax to my mom through my 28.8 modem to see if she would read through one of my term papers before the days of attaching files to emails.  My biggest issue is the fact that I don't trust that the fax went through until I talk to the person and hear from them that they did in fact receive every page of my fax.  Too many things can go wrong with a fax, the connection could never be established, toner could be out, paper jammed or out, wrong number etc...

This past week we had some families try to register their students for our Senior High Winter Retreat by sending us a fax.  It seemed to go through on their end but our fax machine was down and we didn't receive it.  Typically, this wouldn't be a problem except that we had sold out our retreat and this person would've had their registration in prior to our sellout.  We were able to squeeze her in but it added another chip in my mistrust of fax machines.

Raffstar.com confirmed what I already knew about myself

About a month ago I saw a post on one of my students feeds about a website called Raffstar.  Heavy with advertising, Raffstar gives out prizes randomly to those who acquire free tickets.  Plus Raffstar gives the majority of its advertising revenue to a selected well-known charity for that prize.  Raffstar claims that this is win-win-win approach to giving out prizes.  The webuser wins a prize, the advertiser wins 'hits' (possible customers) and the charity wins a donation.  You don't have to do anything to get a ticket and typically you can only get one ticket per item per hour. 

It seems pretty harmless(and it is) until you get someone who is compulsive (like me)doing this.  I found myself constantly logging on and trying to increase my chances to win a prize.  If my son woke me up in the middle of the night, I secured another ticket.  For my own sanity, I had to create a cutoff prize by which I would no longer try to win any prizes after it.  Oh and by the way, I never came close to winning anything! 

Raffstar reminded me that I need to be really careful about what I get involved in.  Being as compulsive, competitive and consumeristic as I am, I really have the ability to lose sight of the fact that I am as sucked into something as I was and neglecting other important things.