The Easter bunny came early

... and brought chocolate cupcakes instead of Easter eggs.

Blog about blogging

I'd been thinking about blogging for a while and had started putting together a post in my head about why I blog: what is it that makes Café Chick who she is, and why does she bother? And then, along came Donna with a meme about blogging from Sunday Stealing. A perfect place to begin!

1. How did you come up with your blog title OR what does it mean?
I like the nature of story telling, so I wanted my blog to reflect this in some way. Whether the stories were long or short, I felt that the word tales captured this well. As for Café Chick, I played around with a few names and thought that this one sounded funky, yet multi-faceted enough to blog about whatever I wanted.

2. What are your general goals for blogging?
I originally started blogging about places I'd been to and stories I'd encountered along the way. Some of my early posts are almost reviews of cafés or restaurants; I now use Dineout and Menumania to review food and dining experiences, but often relate the stories on my blog. In July 2008 I started the Day Zero 101 goals in 1001 days project and use my blog as a way of documenting this. I generally aim to have one main subject per post, and to try and cover a range of topics. My purposes are multi-fold and incredibly self-indulgent; I blog partly to document/diarise events in my life, partly to explore things I find interesting, but most just because I can. ;-)

3. Do people “in your real life” know that you blog and do they comment on your blog OR is it largely anonymous?
As far as I'm aware, there are two 'real life' people who know my identity. One is my sweetie, who reads almost every word I post, probably to check what I write about him. :-P The other is a former work colleague, whose blog I enjoy following. I enjoy the anonymity that being Café Chick allows; she is a small, but fun, part of who I am as a person. She probably also gets away with sometimes saying things that the real me wouldn't be bold enough to come out with in real life. (See notes re self-indulgent, lol.)

4. How often do you post (x per week)?
I aim to post every day or two, depending on what I've been up to. I think I average about five posts per week.

5. How often do you read other blogs (x per week)?
Heaps. In addition to the many blogger blogs I follow, my RSS feed is full of blogs related to work (education), blogs written by my colleagues, blogs about blogging, blogs maintained by a couple of my real life friends, and Post Secret. I try to read through them daily.

6. How do you select blogs to read (do you prefer blogs that focus on certain topics or do you choose by tone or…?)
See above. I believe that many people blog for different purposes, and some bloggers maintain more than one blog or may cover a range of subjects. For the most part, I choose the one that's most relevant to me to follow, or one that has simply caught my interest.

7. Do you have any plans to copy your blog entries in any other format, 0r do you think that one day, you’ll just delete it all?
I don't think I'll just delete it all but, having said that, I did end up deleting most of my professional blog from a few years ago. I suppose I didn't need to; I just didn't feel that it was relevant any more. I also don't think I'll use my blog entries for any other purpose, although I sometimes enjoy browsing back at earlier posts and thinking, "wow, is that what I was doing around that time?" etc.

8. What are the things you like best about blogging?
I like to write. I like to read. I am also interested in people. Blogging, for me, brings together all three of these aspects, and I have got to know some amazing people from all around the world via their blogs. I find this to be one of the most valuable benefits of blogging.

9. What are the things you don’t like about blogging?
Nothing, really. The day I find blogging to be a chore is the day that I'll stop.

10. How do you handle comments?
I enjoy them, but I don't necessarily write for the purpose of eliciting comments, even though I am mindful of my potential audience. I don't see a comment-less post as being less successful than one which has sparked a whole screed of comments; as an educator, I know that so-called lurkers are still a valued part of any online community. Heck, I'm Lurker #1 in many instances, as I certainly don't comment on every blog or post that I read. I don't necessarily respond to comments I receive, even though I read every single one; I see comments as a valuable part of the blogging experience, but one which helps develop a wider blogging community, and not just a 1-1 relationship between me and the commenter. I love tracking visitors to my blog via my Clustr map (those little red dots are so exciting!) and my Flagcounter (ditto for each new country that pops up). It's amazing to think that people who don't know me and who live in more than 70 different countries have visited my blog!

11. Do you have any burning thoughts to share on blog etiquette?
Not really, although I get incredibly annoyed when people attempt to bypass my word verification and make a generic comment like "I like it" for the purpose of posting advertising links to dodgy websites on my blog. Grrr. I sometimes find it hard/annoying to read a pale font on a dark background, but mostly read posts via my RSS feed, which removes all the formatting. Oh, and writing all in CAPS or with Random capital Letters annoys me. (Yes, I was a teacher. Don't get me started on apostrophes.)

12. Any desired blog features?
I quite like the Blogger format, but occasionally would like a bit more flexibility re layout etc but don't feel motivated enough to develop my own template from scratch. I may do this eventually. I experimented with a new background this week; I'm not sure it will be permanent.

13. Have you suffered blog addiction?
Maybe ...

And how about you? What burns your blogging fires?

Ukulele chords

I asked for a purple ukulele for Christmas with the intention of having some fun with music. Since then, several members of my extended whānau have caught onto the idea and ukulele sales to them have reached an unpecendented high in anticipation of a big family Christmas together. But we are yet to actually play anything, either individually or as a group. (I think they're all waiting for me to teach them to play or, more likely, teach their kids.) Remembering the four guitar chords I learned to play when I first started teacher training wasn't hard - but what next?

Here are a few chords to help you form a basic repertoire:

It's sad, but true, that a beginner can play a huge array of songs with just these chords or simple variations on them. There are some great tips for beginners on the Ukulele Hunt blog, including links to almost every ukulele-related site that exists. I'm keen to find a group in Wellington who I can hang out and practise with, or to form my own if I can find enough interested people and, even better, someone who can teach us. In the meantime, there are lots of resources online, including some good videos on You Tube. There is a lot of fun to be had playing the ukulele - guaranteed to brings smiles to faces! :-)

So I'm going to practise some more, then book a trip to Central Park and see if I can hang out with this guy and have a ukulele jam:
 
Wow - George Harrison never sounded so good!

Gerry and the Pacemakers

Last night, I took my father to see Gerry and the Pacemakers in concert at the Opera House in Wellington. It was Dad's birthday present from last year; he is good at finding ways to get me to pay to take him to concerts he wants to see. ;-)

Technically, the concert was Gerry Marsden and a backing band; there was not a pacemaker in sight on stage, although I'm guessing there were several in the audience. Fair enough; it was a 50th anniversary tour. Except for a 10-year-old girl sitting in front of me, I was probably the youngest person there by about 30 years. (Ok, ok - Dad is only 28 years older than me, but you get the picture.)

Growing up in a musical household, I was introduced to two distinct musical influences from the 1960s: Dad's early Mersey sound, and Mum's cheesy pop American hits 1960-1965. Over the years, I have developed a musical empathy for both styles and can see how they existed in parallel worlds before the British invasion hit during the mid-60s. As soon as Gerry opened his mouth and delighted us with his broad Liverpudlian accent, there was no denying which camp he was representing, although he did play several crossover covers during the night.

The rhythm section (drummer and bass player) were tight and the guitarist (musical director) had obviously worked hard to establish a new musical direction for the group's sound. The keyboard player eventually woke up; I'm not sure why he was there for the first hour or so. (Yes, I'm probably unfairly hard on keyboard players; it takes one to know one.)

Local actor-cum Dancing With the Stars-cum wannabe singer Shane Cortese started the show with the backing band, playing a set of rock and roll-style numbers and a few obscure covers. He has great energy and has obviously done a lot of work developing his vocal skills in recent years. It was hard to stay enthused though; the break in between his set and the main event was excruciating long as well, while Shane was out front "signing merchandise", or trying to convince as many punters as possible to part with their money.

And so Gerry began his set. He's very short (it was funny watching roadies lower his mic stand and lower it again), entertaining, and his voice is still well pitched with a similar tone to his younger days. The high notes weren't a problem, but anything below a certain range was noticeably moved up a note or two. His constant banter throughout the evening added humour and warmth. It was a bit strange having him ask for the house lights to remain on during the whole concert so he could see the audience; weren't we there to see him?

There were far too many 'filler' songs for my liking; covers from an eclectic song list which didn't necessarily go well together or add anything to the song being covered. We were all there for Ferry Cross the Mersey; I'm not sure if I like the treatment the rhythm section gave it. The concert ended with the ultimate tearjerker, You'll Never Walk Alone. Despite trying not to, I couldn't help crying, as I have done every time I've heard this song since it was played at my boyfriend's funeral 15 1/2 years ago. The Liverpool football fans were happy, though, and more than a few red scarves were waved around for effect.

All in all, an ok concert but not one to rave about. Dad seemed to enjoy hearing some of the B-songs that his band played in the 60s. As I was leaving, I realised that this is the only concert of this type that I have been to since Stevie Wonder in Christchurch, and my next concert will be Simon and Garfunkel in Auckland in June. With that in mind, it's hard to compare with musical legends on that scale.

This Charming Man - Marian Keyes

As a long time fan of Marian Keyes' books, I wasn't sure about the blurb for This Charming Man (2008). It almost sounded too formulaic: one man (charming, of course) with a secret, and all the women he is connected with throughout his lifetime coming together at a certain point. Obviously there were far more storylines and issues dealt with along the way, including domestic violence and alcoholism. After reading Cracks in my Foundation (2005), I once again applaud Keyes for her frankness and honesty. This Charming Man is certainly not her best work but, if you like Keyes' writing style and you're in no hurry, it's an enjoyable read.

I felt there were almost too many characters, many of whom could have sustained an entire novel on their own. Each character's background was developed in great detail, something I usually enjoy. However, this meant that most of the novel simply meandered along until about 3/4 the way through, when the action really started to kick in. I found Lola's short-hand style of dialogue quite annoying and couldn't help assigning her an English accent as a result, no matter how hard I tried to make her Irish. I'm pleased that Grace turned out to be different to how she was first portrayed. Her twin sister, Marnie, was a superb representation of an alcoholic in denial, and I think that somewhere along the line I fell in love with Damien. Who wouldn't?

Definitely one for Marian Keyes fans, but perhaps not a good 'starter' book for someone new to reading her novels.

April Fool's Day

There is just something so inherently funny about 1 April. I feel sorry for people who are born on April Fool's Day because they are somehow destined for a lifetime of giggling (and not necessarily in a good way). A former work colleague was born on 1 April and so was her father. They thought it was convenient that her 21st and his 50th birthdays both fell on a Saturday; however, it took quite some convincing for their guests to believe that their birthdays and party was real!

Our IT manager at work has a great sense of humour. As a company, we have recently migrated to Google Mail and it hasn't been without its hiccups. (Don't even get us started on the disasters with Google Docs!) We often get lengthy updates from Glen with explanation of how to fix this problem or sort out that bug, sometimes with a description of why an error has occurred, but always tongue in cheek. Staff responses to these emails vary from those who have found their own solution already, those who are desperate to fix the problem straight away and will follow any measure to do that, and those who think it will just fix itself if they ignore it for long enough. Glen is very aware of all three groups within our staff.

Here is this morning's email, with the heading "URGENT - Major Google mail problem. Please read":

Hi Everyone

We have discovered overnight that a recent upgrade to Google's mail servers is causing problems with mail clients on both windows and macs. This has the potential to corrupt your mail indexes causing the loss of your saved mail. There is no need to panic though - as long as you follow these instructions carefully before you read or send any more email you won't have any issues.

The trouble is caused by the way mail clients cache messages from an imap server. The problem can be easily fixed by doing a full shutdown and restart which will flush out your old mail caches, so:

1. Once you have read this message close all of your applications and shut down your computer. This needs to be a full shutdown and not a restart - so on both macs and pcs choose the Shutdown option rather the restart.

2. Once your computer is shut down you need to leave it switched off for at least 5 seconds (counting 1 mississippi, 2 mississippi, etc out loud is a good way to make sure you waited at least 5 seconds.)

3. Turn your computer back on, and once it is started up again go back into your email client.

4. Google have put a special check in place on their servers which can indicate if your system is now in a state that will prevent the potential corruptions. To check this send an email to afcheck@*** with "check my mail" in the subject line and nothing in the body of the message (you might want to note this down on a piece of paper before you shut down). You should then get an automated response indicating that everything is ok. If you don't get a response check that you have the email address correct and send the message again - you can open this message again and copy and paste the address to be sure if you want.

Here is a reply from one of our UK staff:

My mail has been out of control for sometime so I called the Google help line. They directed me to their local support office which is really a shed down the road until their new office is completed. A very nice man in a headscarf and lipstick asked me if I was the Messiah. I said yes hoping it would give me priority, I could see others waiting.

I was directed to the rear of the shed where two blondes in white coats fastened my arms behind my back. I was taken by surprise because it's not even April the first here yet.

Confused of Colchester

And here is a suggested solution from a NZ staff member. (Note: you should always use an old shoe.)

Part of me would really like to try the email address Glen gave us, as I'm sure he's got some smart automatic reply set up, but perhaps I could use someone else's address so he doesn't think I've fallen for it? April Fool!