definitions, ideas, concepts, thoughts. participation encouraged.

It isn’t often that I hear something that is blatantly flattering about Generation Y.  I look younger than I am, so it is usually paired with a sidelong glance in my direction.  And the comments go something like:

Selfish.

They need lots of coddling.

A Generation X-er, reading Penelope Trunk’s posting about Blackberry discipline (or lack thereof), I sort of, momentarily, thought it might be nice to be a member of Generation Y.

I’ve had this thought before, reading Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs.  Something about Generation X-ers not being able to fly the nest and it being somehow related to Star Wars.  Give me a break, it’s been a while since I read it.

Anyway, Penelope’s post rings a little too true for me.  As someone who is a little bit more interested in efficiency and productivity than is perhaps completely healthy, I’ve heard (more times than I can count) comments about my BlackBerry ball and chain.

At least now that it’s a BlackBerry and not a Treo, it’s just a theoretical weight.

The Bloggess is awesome. And hysterical.

And a little bit out there. But I like that.

…it FUCKING ITCHES SO MUCH I WANT TO SCRATCH MY SCALP OFF WITH A SPORK. It’s so bad that all I can think about is that story where the girl had that 1950’s beehive hairstyle and never washed it and it itched like mad but she kept putting on more hairspray and then one day a billion baby spiders poured out of her ear because a hairspray loving spider had burrowed in her scalp and laid eggs in her brain and they hatched…

I just can’t stop reading. Or laughing. Or being a little bit appalled.

Sort of how I feel when my good friend from high school talks about being a mom in this New England mugginess and heat and her 1 year old crawling all over her like a little monkey.

Only more.

David, Originally uploaded by elisa delbonis

Do you know what an illegal character is?

 ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + = - } ] { [ | \ ? / > <

Those are illegal characters.  They can royally screw up your life.

So… when you’re making a new file, renaming a file, thinking about the naming of a file, think those characters right out of your pretty little head.

Don’t use them.  They make things break.

Like uploader tools.  Stuff like that.  So, if you’re SURE you will never ever ever put that file (document, PDF, image, etc.) on the web, go ahead and illegal character away.

If you might want to someday show it to the world: Just Say No.

Sr. Joyce, Originally uploaded by elisa delbonis
I got the eyebrow from Sister Joyce today. It’s sort of like getting the eyebrow from my mom, only worse.