Food Blog Addiction: Are you in its grip?

Hi, I’m Sasa and I’m a Food Blog Addict. Food Blog Addiction (FBA) is a disease with a rapid onset. FBA has seven stages. Whether it's you or a loved one that needs help, please don't be afraid to reach out. Do you stay awake past your bedtime because you can't tear yourself away from food blogs? Have you ever let family and friends eat cold food so you can get "the perfect shot"? Do people's eyes glaze over when you start discussing speedlights, styling and props and widgets? Yes? Then read on, you're not alone. Stage One: Complete Oblivion The first stage of the addiction is barely worth the label “stage.” We include it here just to illustrate that all FBA victims do in fact experience normality before their illness, though if you meet a victim after the onset, this may be difficult to imagine. FBA is not a genetic predisposition, nor can one be born with FBA. FBA can be avoided by a) not learning to read or b) never using the internet. Some types are not prone to FBA and may therefore be exempt form the above restrictions. This group includes people who think of “food as fuel,” and the visually impaired who cannot see the provocative photographs which are used to lure readers in by the food bloggers (FBs). Conversely, some types are more prone to succumbing to FBA. Generally these people already enjoy discussing food and may have more than the average number of cookbooks or even a subscription to a food magazine. Stage one is a blissful state, a carefree time when “cooking” is neither a competitive sport nor an event requiring military level planning and execution. “Dinner” means pasta, or maybe a stir-fry. The idea of photographing food seems absurd and not a little mad. Desserts may be bought at the supermarket (!) and cakes are baked only occasionally. The same dish is often cooked repeatedly. Stage Two: Stumbling Across an A-List Food Blog This is generally an innocent mistake and at this stage, the perpetrator still has pure intentions. The reasons for this unhappy accident may include searching for recipes for a special occasion such as hosting a family event or dinner party. Some cases of referral to food blogs by a sufferer to a new victim have also been recorded. The victim may come across sites that stun and immobilise her with photographic splendour (suspects include Tartelette, Canelle et Vanille and La Tartine Gourmand), reel him in with innocuous and chatty yet beguiling prose (Smitten Kitchen, Steamy Kitchen, Simply Recipes) or, worst of all, promote personal identification with the writer (Orangette, The Wednesday Chef, Joy the Baker). Stage Three: Going Through the Archives in Chronological Order This stage is also known as “the point of no return.” After perusing the original article, the victim is compelled to scroll down the page to read more. The page ends. Eventually, in unsated desperation, she clicks through to the archives. Generally, upon finding that there are several years worth of posts, the panic subsides and, if there is time to do so, she settles down to read. If this is not possible, the first symptoms of a gnawing anxiety appear. The page is bookmarked for later perusal. This anxiety is called “FOMO” (fear of missing out) and will be discussed in more detail further on. Stage Four: Absorption and General Neglect The victim may now start to show signs of unhealthy behaviour. Often he will stay up very late reading through archive after archive of food blogs. The dangerous “link system” that food blogs have set in place ensure an almost endless supply of material. Everyday tasks such as washing, eating and communicating with others in the household may be neglected or performed only perfunctorily. Oddly, at this stage, not much cooking is done. Addicts may resort to devious means to secure time to read including feigning illness or claim to be otherwise incapacitated. Stage Five: Thinking About Setting Up a Blog of One’s Own Sometimes, this stage is confused with remission or a disappearance of symptoms. The victim has generally satisfied her desire to read and read and returns, outwardly to a normal life, though she may make offhand remarks about starting a blog or do research into blogging platforms. Occasional relapses into stage four can still occur if the victim finds new blogs that she feels she cannot live without devouring in their entirety. FOMO is still a real danger and she will, more often than not, install an RSS reader so that she can keep up to date with any new posts that appear on her favourite blogs. Stage Six: Actually Setting Up a Blog This stage is characterised by endless monologues concerning the pros and cons of various blogging platforms, for example regarding their ease of use versus flexibility and attempting to discuss technical details that most non-sufferers have no interest in (whether widgets’ tendency to slow page loading is worth the added functionality and so on). Once again he will spend an inordinate amount of time hunched over the computer, this time reading through forums regarding blogging, blogging platforms and photography. Some victims display an urgent desire to buy expensive camera and/or lighting equipment. Stage Seven: Full Blown Addiction The victim in the throes of stage seven never cooks the same thing twice. She spends hours scanning ingredient lists and shopping and refuses to eat before photographing the meal to within an inch of its life. She appears distracted at odd hours and writes things down secretively in a notebook - these are probably notes about an upcoming post. FOMO continues to grip her and she may be reluctant to be without internet access for any length of time. The victim leaves comments on other blogs and joins a community of other addicts, none of whom seem to be aware that FBA is a serious disease that can shorten attention spans or prolong them to the point where functionality ceases, cause the victim to spout egregiously concerning said subject and otherwise completely reorder their lives and the lives of those around them. www.sasasunakku.com Thai Food Recipes.

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Friends Forever (I Am Reading) (Paperback) newly tagged "book reviews"

Friends Forever (I Am Reading) (Paperback) By Sally Grindley Buy new: $3.95 22 used and new from $0.01 Customer Rating: First tagged "book reviews" by jclewis Customer tags: friendship(2), beginning reading(2), childrens books(2), chapter book(2), friends, relationships, kids, book reviews, beginning reader, social development, fox, bears

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Announcing: The Metaverse Reader

I’m really pleased to be able to announce the availability of The Metaverse Reader, an iPhone application for virtual worlds residents / follower / interested parties. You can download it here for free. What is it? It’s essentially an RSS reader with two sections. The first is our own RSS feed . The Second is a ‘Wider Metaverse’ [...]

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One on One with Jeff Segarra of Nuance

Jeff Segarra is the Director of Product Management for the Imaging Division at Nuance Communications where he leads the team that delivers the company's scanning and business productivity products. We asked Jeff about his company and how it balances the different products it sells. FCM: You do a lot of things including imaging, speech to text, health solutions and so forth. Do you keep these divisions separate or do they work in tandem? JS: Nuance is made up of four divisions: (1) Enterprise, providing customer self service and call center applications, (2) mobility, command and control capabilities for mobile and consumer electronics, (3) healthcare, clinical documentation and dictation services, and (4) imaging, PDF conversion, scanning and document management products. Automating business processes is a common theme that runs through nearly all of our solutions, across all of our divisions. It’s important to note, however, that our divisions only really work in tandem when a customer needs a solution from multiple divisions. Say, for example, that a customer wants to change an ECM research report that is on paper to audio in order to listen while driving. Nuance OmniPage allows you to scan a paper document to Kindle and then Kindle transforms the document to audio using Nuance speech to text technology. There are many other ways our technologies work together to provide valuable offerings for our customers. This is just one example. FCM: You've been making a lot of purchases lately. What is your long term strategy for the company? JS: Our strategy is to continue to serve our customers with the most complete solutions possible. Acquisition can be a quick and cost effective option when it allows us to fill a gap in our offerings to better meet our customers’ needs. We consider carefully what the customer needs to be more productive or to save money and then we make a build or buy decision. Sometimes there are technologies available at a price that will work within our business model. Other times, it makes sense to develop the software ourselves. FCM: What impact have the government Electronic Medical Records directives had on your business? JS: As a result of the government’s directives, EMR opportunities for our document imaging products are beginning to present themselves. We are seeing more activity in this arena, especially in situations where the customer needs to extract data from paper documents for use in EMR systems. But the most significant impact for our company has been in the area speech recognition solutions for direct dictation into EMR. It all boils down to this: Physicians can speak faster than they can type. Speech to text solutions make doctors more productive, improve the quality of the EMR data and allow them to spend more time with patients. FCM: What aspect of your business do you see having the most growth opportunities over time? JS: One of the most promising growth opportunities within our imaging business is to offer sophisticated production capture technologies in products that are easy enough for the average office worker to use. Industry analysts agree that, today, less than 10 percent of office workers use document imaging technologies to automate their document workflows. It’s simply too difficult for the average office worker to use. On the other hand, centralized production capture departments have long used powerful tools to increase productivity, speed workflows and remove the drudgery that comes with processing paper. The key to tapping into this promising opportunity is to make these technologies simple and straight forward to use. Nuance is moving to take advantage of this opportunity. FCM: There has been a lot of talk that ECM has been an abused term and some have called for document management to be moved into a separate category. Do you agree and does your company have its own DM solution? JS: Although I understand why some would call for a new document management category, I believe that both document management and document imaging fit appropriately into the category of ECM. This is true even though the category continues to expand and change. There is a very wide continuum of document management software available as part of the ECM market--with varying capabilities, functionality and price points. We describe Nuance PaperPort as document management software because our customers use it to manage paper and electronic documents. With PaperPort, we have chosen to offer powerful document imaging capabilities and lighter document management features, preferring instead to address more sophisticated document management needs through our connectivity to partner systems. The result is a product that hits the sweet spot for users working in a range of settings from home offices to the largest enterprises. Related Articles: One on One with content management's movers and shakers Nuance debuts new PDF Reader Nuance buys eCopy Nuance releases PDF Converter 6 Nuance welcomes OmniPage 17

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5Words: New Netbooks, Reviewed by Gizmodo

Gizmodo reviews Pine Trail netbooks. Barnes and Noble targets iPad. New hard drives: XP beware? A tablet. For $92. And decent! Google’s fancy visual RSS reader. TSA: employee attempted PC sabotage. Should the feds snub iPhone? _______________________ Like 5Words? Subscribe via RSS. Share/E-Mail

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Relax? You Relax! The Star on Crosby's Gear

Maybe I shouldn't check my RSS feeds when I'm in a fighting mood. The headline in my Google Reader ticked me off. From The Star's hockey feed, "Relax, Canada: Crosby's Gear Found". It's the "Relax, Canada" part that really boiled my potatoes. This whole anxiety over the whereabouts of Sidney Crosby's missing stick and glove was completely manufactured. I skipped every article on the subject and never once felt inclined to write about it. Crosby scored the golden goal, giving this nation a moment we'll never forget, and I don't believe one Canadian gives one iota what happened to the gloves and stick her threw into the air. I sure didn't. I clicked through the "Relax, Canada" headline and noticed the actual article on The Star's site was changed. "Relax, Canada" was preserved in the page's url, and cached in my Google Reader, but gone from sight on the actual page. Relax, Star... we could give a shit about the gloves and stick. It's your condescending tone that's got me all riled up.

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FREE Gardening Planner Printables

If you’re planning on gardening this summer, you might find these printables helpful! The Garden Planner 2010 Includes column for the seeds you have to plant, the date you wish to plant them, and the anticipated harvest time frame. The Square Foot Gardening Planner Includes a 4×4 grid to plan your SFG layout. Enough space to include the plant [...] FREE Gardening Planner Printables is a post from: $5 Dinners (c) 2009 $5 Dinners. Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you see this post anywhere other than your email subscription or RSS reader, then the site might be guilty of copyright infringement. Please

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Red Plum Printable Coupons

Here are some of the latest and hottest printable coupons at Red Plum this week: $1.50/2 Kellogg’s All Bran, Raisin Bran, Frosted MiniWheats $.55 Earthgrain Whole Grain Bread $.40 Domino Sugar product, 2 lbs or larger $.50/1 I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Be sure to check out all the other printable coupons available at Red Plum, Smart Source and [...] Red Plum Printable Coupons is a post from: $5 Dinners (c) 2009 $5 Dinners. Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you see this post anywhere other than your email subscription or RSS reader, then the site might be guilty of copyright infringement. Please

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Sharing Content in the FUTURE

The internet is a very disorganized place. I think our children and grandchildren will laugh at us for (among many other things) even trying to bushwhack our way through this chirping, hissing, dripping jungle of data, media, networks-within-networks, and kittens doing adorable things. The next truly killer app will be the one that is able to organize content, suss out what matters and what matters to you, and deliver it to you on a silver platter (or on a lunch tray, or in the Stanley Cup, or however you want it served). The big question that follows is how, exactly, will content-- written, visual, audio, etc.-- be sorted and organized? Who will be the decider? Will the New York Times editorial board bestow the label of true and important? Will Google's algorithms sort items based on myriad criteria to allow the relevant to rise to the top? Will billions of netizens vote and decide? Who knows. Here's what I do think is true: In dealing with the oceans of media and content, perhaps the most valuable validators will be our friends. They'll share links, photos, videos, blog posts, quotes, quips, and other stuff they like with you, their friend, and you will share back with them. We already do this of course, through e-mail and IM, status message and Tweet, RSS, Blog, Buzz, YouTube, Flickr and Facebook. But it's fragmented, it's disorganized, and it's not very well integrated. A recent article by Marisa Meltzer at the American Prospect wrote about blogging/sharing platform Tumblr, which gives users a slick, easy way to share content-- original or not. She aptly describes it as a tool for "curating" the web-- for picking out and sharing what matters to you, and ignoring the rest. I've experimented with a number of blogging platforms over the years, and Tumblr is the one that feels most relevant to the moment we're in now: distilling simplicity from the pandemonium. So is Tumblr the future of content sharing on the web? Well, no, not exactly. I think we're gravitating toward something that melds Tumblr's simplicity, ease of use and customizability with much of Google Reader's functionality, and then ties it together with Facebook's network. Google and Facebook are both working hard to develop the killer content-sharing platform, but Facebook still feels clunky, and Google Buzz is the worst of all worlds. But it was just 25 years ago that the first .com was registered. Fifteen years ago, Netscape changed the internet. And five years ago, nobody had heard of a Twitter. So I won't go any further in my speculation about how we'll be sharing-- or even what we'll be sharing-- five years from now.

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Gardening – Seed Freebies

These great seeds from Dinner Garden arrived in my mailbox this past week! Also, here’s another freebie for you… Sign up to the Tomatoheirloom’s newsletter get your free basil seeds. Variety package includes 3 garden size packets: 1 each of Classic Genovese, Dark Purple Opal, and Lemon Basil. ($7.50 value) You do have to send in a [...] Gardening – Seed Freebies is a post from: $5 Dinners (c) 2009 $5 Dinners. Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you see this post anywhere other than your email subscription or RSS reader, then the site might be guilty of copyright infringement. Please

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