You've Been Dooced!

The corporate world has a thorn on it’s side, this thorn is known as employee blogs.There’s a stigma attached to blogging about one’s workplace and we’ve seen a few of those bloggers outcome. Heather Armstrong worked at a dot-com startup company where she blogged about her work under the pseudonym of “Dooce”. She was later fired when her employer found out she was writing about the company. She later coined the term “Dooced” as a worker being fired for blogging about their work. There has been a sleuth of bloggers who’ve been “Dooced” like when Google employee Mark Jen was fired for blogging about Google or otherwise known as the Google guy who got dooced.

Apple doesn’t have a policy about blogging about their work as long as no inside information is revealed. People are now debating whether Apple should encourage, or even permit its employees to blog and how much freedom should bloggers allow their commenters?

I believe that Apple should not let their employees blog about Apple. There’s way too many pitfalls of blogging about work and commenters should be out of the question. When you blog about work you take the risk of leaking something. The ramifications of blogging about one workplace are too great and I believe that all companies should make it policy not to write about their workplace online. One day, you write about Joe from the next cubicle over about his sub-par workmanship, another day you may be collecting unemployment checks ‘cause you been Dooced. You may not even know what hit you.

About Blogging

What makes for a good blog? Is it blogging about the humanitarian work and preaching good old Christianity principles, or is it blogging about something as personal as your sexual escapades and how you stuck a bottle up the other end of someone’s pie-hole? It’s been proven that the latter suits the taste for the online audience.

Heather Armstrong is running a successful website called at Dooce. She is in Utah and blogs about her daily life but it is written in a comical take. Just how successful is she? Her audience is so big that she is able to support her husband, daughter, and her little dog too through her website by selling ad space on her online diary like website.

I think the reason why she is getting such a large audience is because she’s insightful and is a real person who has real problems. She was once put into a mental hospital because she had post partum depression after she had her baby. She is real and truthful and that is how her reader likes it. I feel that the internet is no place for privacy and Armstrong exposes that head on. Through her not so private thoughts she connects with her readers. Sometimes she pokes fun at her Mormon heritage and people like the semi-self deprecating stories she writes about.

Blogs have become a large mainstream in the internet culture. Everyone and anyone can have a blog. It is accessible to all but how does one makes theirs popular and the most read? My guess is you should connect with your readership through your stories and you probably might have to top Armstrong’s adventure with the condiment bottle.

May I Have Another (iPOD)

I have a love-hate relationship with the iPod gadget. I try to summon every fiber to suppress my rage against iPods. The iPOD is a portable media player and it has become a national sensation where every cool kid on campus must have one. So of course I bought three over the course of three years. What can I say? I ‘m a sucker when it comes to peer pressure. I’m probably one of those people who would be pushing and shoving my way to the front to jump off that bridge that everybody’s moms keeps ranting about.

One of the reasons for my pure undiluted hatred towards the iPOD are that they keep coming out with newer, smaller, sleeker versions. And it’s in your face, rubbing it in that you have an older version iPOD. Like when I carry around my 30gig 6th generation wheel iPOD, every newer version taunts my old bulky iPOD. Some can even say that they are shamed into buying the newer versions.

I’m out of $600 and have 2 broken 1 year old iPODs to show for it and that’s not the other reason why I despise the iPOD. When I brought them into the Apple store to get them fixed, it had surpassed their one year warranty. And when I asked if there’s anything they can do, the workers basically expressed that I was sh*t out of luck. Man, was I peeved.

My love for the iPOD is really a forced one because I just wouldn’t feel right shelling out for impersonators like the Zen Creative. I just can’t bring myself to buy it. I just can’t.

Since then, I have replaced my previous iPOD with a 1 gig Nano. I know, I‘m such a slave to the marketing world.

A Touch of Power, a Dash of Insanity

Oprah Winfrey, known to millions as the woman whose net worth is a billion dollars. She has the Midas touch.

Growing up, all I knew about her is she has massive army of women who was willing to do her bidding. If she says buy product X, women dash out to their car leaving only tire skid marks and a billowing cloud of smoke like in the cartoons in search for X.

Oprah build an empire from her national television talk despite growing up dirt poor. Who knew this woman, who came from humble beginnings would grow to being one of the most powerful woman today. She has the power to control millions of people through the power of her talk show.

This woman can build you up, or tear you down. In one instance, the writer of “A Million Little Pieces” was granted instant stardom by Oprah having him on her show. Oprah found out the man lied in his memoirs so she tore him a new one, practically ripped him to shreds on national TV. If you want to talk about power, you talk about Oprah. Even “South Park” did a parody on this incident.

There were even rumors circulating that Hilary asked her to be her Vice President but she laughed and said that she would rather be President. Why do I get this eerie feeling that that is possible? This woman, I’m afraid, may have millions wrapped around her fingers and there’s nothing we can do about it.

I fear that one day she’ll convince Americans that she should be queen and it’ll be a good change for us. After all, we are sheep ready to be herded to our slaughter.

Good Old Boob Tube

I remember watching the boob tube way back when I was three or four. Watching Saturday cartoons was a ritual, I guess for most children. TV have reached beyond just good entertainment, it made an impact on my life. The three most important television programs that I believe were ever created were "Sesame Street", "Mister Rogers", and "Reading Rainbow", all made possible by PBS.

I started preschool when I was four, and thank goodness for Sesame Street, otherwise, I would have been that foreign kid that didn’t know a lick of English because my parents only spoke Vietnamese (Even though I came to the States at one). Sesame Street teaches things like the alphabet and numbers with a big giant yellow bird, to the green man who lived in the garbage can (Were they trying to expose kids to the homeless?), along with the rest of the ambiguous animals/creatures gang.




The late Mister Rogers was important because he taught you morals and socially acceptable behavior. My friend’s 5 year old niece was suspended from kindergarten! Kindergarten, for gosh sakes. If I were her parents made her watch Mister Rogers she’d learned not the bite people. I bet there’s an episode where it teaches you not to do bodily harm to someone.




"Reading Rainbow" got me into reading books. It would read the stories and use the illustrations from the book to engage the viewers. After watching an episode, I would go to the library on the weekends and checked out that book. "Reading Rainbow" is important because I believe it promotes literacy.



A show importance depends on the individual but I believe these shows were important to me and other children because they were educational. They help children and with literacy, help develop an idea of how to act in society.

Shock Jock

Howard Stern, idiot perverted disc jockey, or innovating genius who changed radio broadcasting forever. This man have reached a mass audience with his sexually explicit, vulgar show laced with wild antics like have a woman having sexual relations by herself, on a bass stereo, or being so not politically correct when having mentally challenged guest on and calling him a retard. Love him, or hate him, you got to hand it to the guy; he's sure is resilient. He fought the FCC from the very beginning because he believe he had the freedom of speech and no one is going to take it away from him. He was fired from numerous radio stations but the man just kept coming back because the radio stations knew no matter how they fought, this man brought in listeners. He was #1 in ratings for many years.

Howard Stern is a man who really is a "give it like it is" kind of guy. He opened doors so stations know that the FCC can't muffle your opinions and views, as crude or offensive as it may be. He influenced the radio medium by kicking and screaming against censorship. He created a whole new way to approach radio.

I just didn’t really care much for his shows. I am not his target audience. From what I know about him, I thought he was a joke. Didn’t he try to run for governor, or something? Before this class, I just knew he was the guy who you go to for gross humor, and listen about sexual things. I know that much. And no, I didn’t crawl out of some cave or was chronologically frozen and have recently been thawed; I just never really cared about the fuss people were making over him.

Bleeding Hearts

My 23 year-old male friend is “Emo”. He likes to describe his recent breakup in emo poetry, “She ripped out my bloody heart and crushed it beneath her pointy-toed stilettos. The hole continues to bleed.” You would think this is out of some dark movie but it’s not. My friend is riding on the “Emo” train. People who described themselves as emo are people who are in despair and want to sound like they’re wallowing at the bottom of some ditch somewhere. It seems like this trend has caught onto teens to people in their early 20’s.

Emo is short for “emotional hardcore” which was to describe bands that got really emotional during their concerts. This kind of music has reached a large mass of followers. I remember when Emo music was for the non-conformist, the weirdos who wore all black. Now Emo music has caused a phenomenon, spawning a trend associating the music with fashion. People who are into the Emo trend, can be identify by their listening to Emo music,

sounding Emo (like my friend), or dressing Emo like.

Emo music has reached a mass audience. It’s trendy to be Emo. You always know it’s trendy when you pass a highschool and everybody and their mother looks like this:





P.S. I hope I don't offend anyone. It's just written with my opinions.

He Ain't Jus' a Country Boy

"A Face in the Crowd", made in 1957, still speaks volumes, even compared with modern films today. It stars Andy Griffith as the explosive, charismatic “Lonesome” Rhodes. Marcia Jefferies plucks this traveling vagabond from the jailhouse floors and transform him into national sensation. His country boy attitude charms a nation and rockets his popularity from radio to television. As an entertainer, he was able to wield passions, aroused emotions, and prejudices from his viewers. The big authoritative powers behind his show saw this as an opportunity to exploit his fame to gain political power. As “Lonesome” bust his way to the top of the ratings, Marcia Jefferies was the women behind this man. Along the way, she became ensnared by his intoxicating character even when she began to see his true colors.

Rhodes, becomes a vicious power hungry beast, who doesn’t really care for the viewers. While he hocks saint-like morales on television, he carouses around with women while bad-mouthing the very public that worships him. He knows he is “an influence, the wheeler of opinion, a force”. He can pull the strings of every “redneck, crackers, hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers” in the country to do his bidding. They would probably help him achieve his desire to have a political seat in the government. Only Marcia Jefferies can tear down this monstrous demagogue she created and break away from his grips but does she have the strength to do it?

I was impressed with this movie and thoroughly enjoyed the film. Andy Griffith played his character powerfully and so did the supporting cast. And through the façade of entertainment there was underlying message; The Entertainment media is a very strong source of power that can control the public. Media such as Television can influence the opinions. You can see that justification through California electing Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor. A dose of cold reality is doled out in this movie and I liked it.

Favorite Magazine

I know I’m a girl but I love reading Maxim. Maxim is a men’s magazine. The contents, of course, are plastered with scantily dressed women. But looking beyond the hoochies that are slapped on nearly every page lays very humorous articles. I came across it one day in the restroom my brother and I share. I guess the magazine was his “reading material” while he does his business. Anyway, I shouldn’t get too personal. I was bored so I read a few articles and it made me crack up. I never read a magazine that was so funny. There also is an online version but they mostly have pictures of women then there are articles so I don't read it online.

The magazine covers just about everything that can be interesting. The article that stood out the most this month was, “The Wild, Wild East.” They write about Macau, a gambling world where you can be treated like king with enough cash. There articles also cover things that don’t seem to fall into the legal realm. There was an article where the writers went to Cuba and smuggled in some energy drink that was laden with cocaine. There are articles that are curious and odd like making homemade alcohol in your toilet stall while you are in prison, or how to hustle someone in pool. But all these articles were written with humor and interesting facts and that is why I read it.

I think the target age is 20’s into 40s. And I think even though it reaches a big audience, their main target is still men. And for their ads, they have clothing ads for Gucci to unknown, cheaper brands. The have ads for beer and soup to tech gadgets. There isn’t an ad that they wouldn’t take, it seems.

I guess because of the varying range of things they write, it can interest men who wants a laugh while learning some facts while they gawk at pretty girls. Have you every listen to men talk? They spew out all kinds of information like they were a PBS channel.