I'm hoping for some input on this one....

According to The Economist's survey this week on the new media, blogs are a conversation. They are interactive. Teenagers (... and some of my adult friends now that I think of it) are using them to chat with each other and make plans, rather than using email or IM, and newspapers should be using them to allow their readers to interact with reporters, editors and each other (more on that later).

So with that in mind - and assuming I have at least a couple readers (as evidenced by comments from Daddy Yankee and Bo Bice, which I particularly enjoy) - I'd like to solicit input. I considered sending an email out to my friends, but considering this blog is called "it's better than a mass email," this might be the best forum.

I am looking for music suggestions. Since discovering the ease and excitement of music downloads, I need some new music. Plus, I like to send out year-end best-of CDs and so far, all I've got so far is Reggaeton and Bachata and I am not sure I want to do an all Latin music best of. So what are you listening to? (I realize this blog has never been a spot for tons of comments and interaction, but I thought I'd give this a try....)

The survey also got me thinking about the state of affairs in the newspaper business, and despite some of the discouraging outlooks both in The Economist stories as well as pretty much every where you read about newspapers, I don't think it's dire. One person predicted that the last newspaper would be read and recycled in 2040 (which I don't fully buy), but that doesn't mean the industry will be dead. Maybe newspapers as we know them - printed each night on newsprint so it arrives when we wake up - but assuming they get their act together, chances are they will be around for a while to come.

The average profit margin for the largest papers is around 20 percent, compared with some 7 or 8 percent for most Fortune 500 companies. So they are making money, and just need to rebuild the industry. Enter the opportunity for interaction with readers through the Web sites - and perhaps eventually putting content only online - and taking advantage of online ad dollars, which I understand many papers aren't doing.

It seems to be a stubborn industry, hesitant to embrace or even research the changing media world around them. Many reporters fear bloggers will take away their jobs (while bringing down the standard of journalism with lack of credentials or editing), but rather than working with the changes, they are largely rejecting it and will soon find themselves getting left behind. What papers seem to have going for them is a trusted name and a reputation, and if they bring this into the current climate, I think they can continue to present news and analysis in the new media world.

Maybe I am trying to be optimistic as I continue to look for a job in this damn media industry, and I don't want to think the money I spent on grad school was wasted....

I'd vote for Chris

Confession time: I watched American Idol last night and liked it.

I haven't watched the show since they crowned Kelly Clarkson, who by the way did go on to produce a handful of undeniably good hits. Act like you don't turn "Since U Been Gone" up and sing along when you hear it. I have had to pretend that her progressive thinness and blondness has not directly correlated to her increased fame. I just can't help but like her and all that love-who-you-are independent woman stuff she touted. In fact, I think I need to download a few of her songs right now....

The next season didn't do much for me, although I guess I should have been supporting Reuben who hails from the 205. My hometown had Reuben Fever - my family included - but I guess there is always some element of surprise and obligatory support when someone from Alabama hits fame outside of football. (Rumor has it another Bama boy got pretty far on Idol? Oh, and I just discovered that a dude from this season was born in the 'Ham. Dang, who knew?)

Anyway, I got bored with American Idol and the hype it produced. Mainly I was disgusted by how they paraded obviously bad singers in front of the cameras to draw in viewers (i.e. William Hung - and didn't he get astronomically albeit temporarily famous for his horrible rendition of some Ricky Martin song?) Plus, I didn't care about the dynamic between Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell. I feel like just admitting that Simon is a nasty, hateful human being just fuels the argument that his schtick sells. It does. He's usually right and his delivery makes people love to hate him.

And even though I try to avoid Fox and everything it stands for - have you noticed all their shows come with a "viewer discretion advised"? - I was hooked on Idol last night. I found myself talking back at the judges - at one point Paula cried and Simon got cut off by the theme music - and deciding which singer I would vote for. With the talent, or lack thereof (um, that blond Southern girl who struggled through her love song last night? Ouch.), the drama of the judges, the catchy theme music - I can see why so many millions of people watch it each week. I must say I hope my interest in the show is fleeting, but I had to admit it was entertaining.

bloody hand and bland cookies

I got shot in my dream last night. This isn't the first time I've dreamed of being shot - in fact, as a cops reporter, I had pretty disturbing dreams - but it always kind of shakes me up.

I watched a fairly violent movie last night with lots of murder and mayhem, so I guess I went to sleep with gun violence on the brain. In my dream I was being chased through an abandoned house with my (not real life) grandmother and grandfather in tow. Finally one guy catches up to us and he kindly gives me a chance to make a case for why he shouldn't kill us. I started on some teary rant that clearly didn't convince him, and he shot me twice in the hand. The hand. Why the hand? I remember feeling a sharp burning in my hand as I slept, and I look down at the bloody mess and wondered how it was that my fingers were all still intact.

Then I recall screaming out, "No! I'm a writer! I'm a writer!" As in, how dare he shoot me there? Like the shooter has just ruined my life by choosing my hand as the target. It felt so dire in the dream and now it just feels ridiculous.

Lest you all think I am just wasting my days watching movies and experimenting with blog layout, I'll have you know I have been a busy woman. I've even been dabbling in a new hobby: cooking. Yesterday I made whole wheat tortillas from scratch, which were surprisingly good, and today's exploit is low-calorie oatmeal cookies, which taste unsurprisingly not good. I substituted the butter for applesauce and the recipe called for a suspiciously small amount of sugar - and the taste corresponds: kind of bland, gummy and appley.

But the important part of this is that I baked. That's right, I used the oven. It didn't explode, no hair was singed, and I didn't have a come-apart. I think I am officially over my oven phobia. That and healthy cookies.

bathing regimen experiment continued

[Editor's note, Part 2: I'm back to the original layout. Sure, I'm indecisive, but I also don't think I liked the white space and large font of the last template. That's for those of you who are following my layout changes....]

Now back to more important things. Like shower regimen. Last fall I began something of an experiment that required me to temporarily abandon my trusty bar soap in the shower for a host of gels and washes and loofahs. After a couple weeks, I was convinced all those nonsense girlie products were actually there for a reason.

Then I traveled with nary a loofah or scrub and have since gone back to my old ways. Though I fully recognize that seemingly superfluous shower products certain serve their purpose in the daily regimen, I have found that the real key is lotion. Without that, we are nothing. OK that might be overstating it, but regardless of how I clean my body, lotion has been the trusty standby to guarantee nice-feeling skin.

But the real focus this time is on shaving. I have always been a fan of the cheap yet trusty pink razors that come a dozen to a $5-pack, but on a whim I thought I'd try out a couple new brands. Really, I thought I would upgrade to Noxema brand razors, and since they had fat plastic handles, more blades than you can count, and came only three to a pack, I thought they would be quality. Plus, they weren't as expensive as the $8 fancy-pants brands, so they seemed reasonable.

I was sadly mistaken. I gave them a try for a couple weeks and was disappointed each time. They plain didn't work. Noxema should stick to making just face wash. So I decided to abandon the upgrade attempt and picked up a 99 cent two-razor pack of Schick from the travel size bin at CVS. As it turns out, these were better than anything I have used - which I suppose isn't too surprising considering this is what Schick does, but these were no Quattro Xtreme Razor 2000 or anything.

Usually you get what you pay for, but not in this case. My guess is, I'll eventually go back to the reliable Daisy razors (unless I decide to continue the tests and reach for the high-end ones or even men's razors?)... I mean, if it ain't broke....

overestimating how much it really matters

As it turns out, all of the things we think will make us massively happy or pitifully sad or otherwise affect us profoundly are simply not a big deal.

See, upon recommendation from a friend, I recently read a story that ran in the NY Times magazine a few years ago called "The Futile Pursuit of Happiness." It's about a few scientists who have been studying how we anticipate the affect a certain event will have on our happiness. They call it affect forecasting.

As the author explains it, we overestimate the intensity and duration of our emotional reactions to future events. We think a certain event, buying a new house, for example, will make us much happier for much longer. Similarly, we expect other events, such as losing a job or even a death in the family, to make us deeply sad for a very long time. Well, according to these guys, we're wrong.

I understand it has to do with adaptation. We tend to acclimate quickly to our situations so that the moments we thought would be much more intense soon become background noise.

This idea isn't particularly new to me, considering the last couple of years have brought a slew of large changes in my life, all of which now seem like no big deal (or at least not the end of the world, as I would have led you to believe at the time). I figured my ease with dealing with certain events came from me being a generally positive person who enjoys being happy enough to seek out positive aspects of situations. But perhaps a larger part of that is adaptation.

The catch is we keep doing it. Even the scientists discussed how they knew they were overestimating the future reaction, but they continued to do it. We continue to overshoot our expectations, putting way too much weight on how we think a certain thing or event will affect us.

My point is that even though we know this - I know this and recognized it as I read about it and similarly recognized how in the end, the affect is much more muted than expected - we still get worked up.

I am still losing sleep over getting a job and moving to a different city. I want the perfect job and think I will just be crushed if I don't get it. I will certainly be miserable if I don't move to an awesome city. And while the truth is that it likely won't be that big of a deal, I still sweat it.

How do we avoid that? Well, one of the researchers noted that he didn't want to.

If he could wave a wand tomorrow and eliminate all affective-forecasting errors, I ask, would he? ''The benefits of not making this error would seem to be that you get a little more happiness,'' he says. ''When choosing between two jobs, you wouldn't sweat as much because you'd say: 'You know, I'll be happy in both. I'll adapt to either circumstance pretty well, so there's no use in killing myself for the next week.' But maybe our caricatures of the future -- these overinflated assessments of how good or bad things will be -- maybe it's these illusory assessments that keep us moving in one direction over the other. Maybe we don't want a society of people who shrug and say, 'It won't really make a difference.'

"Buy It"

[Editor's note: As you can see, I changed the format here. Please feel free to weight in on the new look.]

I just made my first legal music download.

I know, I know. I am decades behind everyone else with their iTunes and Rhapsody and whatnot. I admit - I had been downloading music illegally for a while (and truth be told, if I really liked the artist, I'd go to a music store - physical or online - and by the CD.) But that route was often limiting, and well, illegal.

But now I joined my brethren in the 21st century. I had been nervous about the whole process, mainly because I just don't fully understand it. Questions like whether I can burn the songs on a CD or email them to a friend or put them on my mp3 player or another computer daunted me, and I can't say they are fully answered. I was also unsure which music service to use and how they were different, and frankly, researching the topic just seemed boring and confusing to me.

Now I am finding it's just too easy. My credit card information is saved, and all I have to do is find the song or artist and click the "Buy It" button. Then the song miraculously appears in my jukebox and then neatly organized by artist in my music folder. This could be dangerous. My first downloads were a song from randomly obscure Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark (it came on recommendation) and the awesomely ubiquitous Sean Paul. I am poised to make more purchases.

In other news, I finally mustered up the motivation to send my resume and clips to two places. I am not massively overexcited about either of them, but they are the gateway applications - kind of like the gateway purchase. When you are shopping, you sometimes have to just buy something small off the bat to get the spending rolling. After that first purchase, it somehow becomes easier to find what you are looking for and lay down the cash for what you need.

So now, I am hoping that will just set off a firestorm of available jobs and a deluge of motivation on my part. We'll see.

sample cover letter

Date

Name
Company
Address

Dear Mr./Ms. Somebody-or-other:

Unless I drop someone's name right off the bat in this letter, my guess is you'll just scan it, maybe looking for some key words or worse, egregious errors, before moving on to judge my resume. I'd be surprised if you made it all the way through even then, and because of this, I will cut to the chase.

I want you to hire me. The job looks pretty cool, the work not too hard, and the location doesn't entirely suck. I'd be good for the company: I'm kind of funny, I like to laugh, I get along with people for the most part, I don't lie or fabricate sources.

I could also insert here stock words like hard-working, creative and aggressive, but considering you are just scanning, I could also insert such nonsensical phrases as flux capacitor and butter bean ice cream head and it wouldn't make much difference. Most of your judgments will be made with a glance at my resume, taking into account number of years experience and where I last worked.

They tell us the cover letter allows us to give more detail to some things mentioned on your resume, but I find it hard to believe. I hate writing these letters; they stress me out and I never feel like they are clever or eye-catching enough. And I wonder how much you pay attention to them anyway, except to shake your head at how cheesy it is or maybe pass it on to a coworker to laugh at it. Plus, I may suck at cover letters (and some have even told me I am weak on paper), but give me an interview and you will be ready to sign me on, I promise.

Anyway, please hire me.

Kind regards,

Sara

updating my profile for the high school directory

After receiving two notices in the mail from my high school urging me to call an 800 number and update my profile, I finally called.

I wasn't sure what they wanted. It's not long until reunion time, so maybe that's it? Although, in a tiny private school with 35 kids in my graduating class, no football team, no prom and certainly no committee to arrange such post-school activities, I am not sure the school'd be hosting a reunion. (Plus, why an 800 number? What about the Internet, folks?)

So I called the 800 number, armed with a short list of lies of my career successes, which of course I had no intention of using. After getting off the phone with the woman, I thought perhaps I should have lied:

No, I don't have a permanent address right now... No, see, I just moved, and will be moving again... Er, uh sure keep my dad's address. ... Why yes, I have earned a degree since finishing high school. Two actually. Thank you, yes, thanks. Well, yes they are both in journalism, but one's a masters.... ? Yes, just graduated... well, really I graduated nine months ago... Um, well, no I don't really have an employer. Yes, two degrees. No job. That's right. You can put freelance writer on there, but there's no address to include. That's right. No, no husband or kids either....

No thanks, I don't think I will be ordering the $75 collector's edition directory then.

Couple that experience with the reality that the grace period for grad school loans is almost up. Nine months. Soon I begin the monthly payments. I knew it would happen, but as I was filling out the forms and seeing all those numbers with dollar signs next to them, it still kind of felt like fake money. I just got to go to back to school and not pay as much and how cool is that? "It's an investment in your future," my father told me, and sure that made sense in a nebulous, worry-about-it-later, character-building kind of way. Oh crap, now I have to pay that back.

****

Is it just a coincidence that reggaeton is all over the radio these days? Was it there before, and I didn't notice it until after I spent two months completely submerged it in? Is it kind of like when you learn a new word and then hear people use it all the time after that?

Either way, it's everywhere and I am not complaining. I know, some of my friends who have spent time in South America reject the fast paced Latin dance music, and others I know have a negative association with it, as it is connected to an often exclusive culture in the states. But I welcome it with open arms. It brings me back to the cobblestone streets and musty strobe-lighted discotec of Copan.

Today show, Schmoday show

I had a dream last night where I was in high school (but still at my current age) and Katie Couric was a lunch lady. She leaned over the food line to gossip with me, which of my friends are married and where I got my cute outfit.

I guess I had Couric on the brain with the news of her leaving the Today show and heading over to CBS. Here are my thoughts on the topic, pretty much in chronological order.

1. Really? The bubbly anchor - who before 8 a.m. plays pretend anchor but as the morning progresses get more and more giggley as the segments get more ridiculous - is going back to news?

2. This woman, who let it be known I do like, but not for her newshound edge, is going to be taking over the anchor chair at the network of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite?

3. That annoying bitch from the view and Who Wants to be a Millionaire is taking her spot? (One blog questioned if people would be able to take her seriously as a news anchor if she keeps her Millionaire post too. Once again, people, the Today show is hardly a news program.)

4. Hmmm... maybe Couric's got it in her. When she's not talking about herself or digressing or interrupting guests, she does seem to have a sharp interview style. Before the Today show, she had strong news experience and when she does do real interviews, they aren't so bad. And as this NPR commentary points out, having a woman in the anchor spot - particularly one as warm and real as Couric - might not be such a bad thing. Do we really need an old man with a deep voice to feel like we are getting authoritative news?

5. The Today show is total crap (though in the interest of full disclosure I watch it while I eat my cereal and particularly enjoy the fitness and fashion segments), I don't watch network TV news, Couric is and will continue to get paid mindblowing amounts of money, and in the end who really cares?

my dad's a happy man

So my brother just got a job. On Wall Street. With full benefits, dental, year-end bonuses and a fat salary (although he assures me it isn't the snort-coke-off-hookers kind of salary).

This is significant because this is a man who has always shunned corporate life, much to the dismay of our father. I remember he had a job a few years back where he went to an office all day and did work and had a assignments and a boss and steady paychecks, and each time he talked about it, the veins in his neck would bulge and he'd break out in hives.

He's never been one for authority (think long-haired rocker in high school loathed by the headmaster and adored by the chicks), and to him having a full-time job was just a contract to waste away at a desk chair and emotionally beaten to a faceless pulp by society.

But don't go thinking he's some kind of unemployed vagabond. Since college, he's done just fine by himself freelancing. He even managed to go back to school for a master's degree in a massively complex and cutting edge futuristic computer science . (That is perhaps for another post, but said foray into academia just showed that this is one of the smartest, most creative thinking people I know. Stop with the awwwws.)

Nope, he's done fine, but with each passing day that he didn't have a full time job or health insurance, my father lost another fine gray hair from his poor head. See, my brother always said that every family has one - the uncle or brother or sister or cousin who bucks the tradition, breaks the family line of doctors or lawyers or whatever it might be, to forge a new path of (euphemism here) creativity.... (I don't fully agree about his assessment, particularly the part where he compared himself to our uncle who really was that one in the family... again, perhaps for another post).

For my father, a doctor from a line of doctors, this idea of setting off on a wayward path always made him a bit nervous. Although he has always been unflinchingly supportive of us and everything we do (never once a hint that we should consider being doctors), I think he was always waiting for brother to get a life. Nevermind that he had one in which he was perfectly happy and successful, it didn't fit the mold. And more importantly it didn't involve health insurance.

(And perhaps the fact that I went the traditional route right out of college, landing a job that although it paid pennies and offered only minimal health coverage, did provide some kind of stability... until I got laid off along with the entire editorial staff... just exacerbated the pressures on my brother to get a stable job. Oh how the tables have turned.)

Well now everything has changed. My father is giddy with excitement that my brother has a "real" job with a salary and a 401K and health benefits. It's similar to last year when both his children were in school earning their respective masters degrees. For a man devoted to advanced education, this was a dream come true. Now, he's won the lottery. And so now I just need to get on it and find myself a job too.

spokesman comments or lack thereof

The federal government is trying to find a way to move from the 50-some-odd-year-old system of paying employees to one based on an employee's performance. Rather than award workers for how many years they have put in at a federal agency, they are looking to award them based on how well they actually do at their jobs.

That makes sense to me, but considering this is the federal government we are talking about and evaluating employee performance requires more work, it could be some time before the old system is changed.

As I am reporting on a related story, I am faced with the quintessential example of why paying for performance is a good idea: the government agency press office. Since my first days of reporting on the federal government, I have come to see the agency press office as the bane of my reporter existence. When I call, I can picture them sitting around an office, gossiping, doing their nails, emailing, drinking coffee. When the phone rings, one of them rolls her eyes and takes a deep breath, mustering up the proper amount of miserableness and I-don't-give-a-shit attitude.

I called one agency press office today, asking for them to help put me in touch with some big dude and knowing if I didn't start with them, I'd be shut down immediately. With her rudest tone of voice, the half-listening woman on the other end basically acted like she could care less why I was calling, as if I had rung the wrong office and why would she be the one to help me. She starts to transfer to me some unknown office in the bowels of the agency, but I stop her, explaining that I will only be transferred back to her since I am a reporter. She then cuts me off mid-sentence and transfers me to some random voice mail where I would no doubt be ignored again.

This seems to happen every once in a while, really with any press office where I don't directly know the contact there. It's infuriating and frustrating, and often there are few other options. I wonder how many of these press people would be around if their job performance was evaluated. Or how their performance would change were it to be linked to their pay.

Surprisingly, I did get a call back not too long after I left the message. But perhaps unsurprisingly, the spokesperson pulled out the classic we-have-no-further-comment comments. The person you really want to talk won't comment, but sure I'll answer your questions, she tells me. As I start to ask them and get more and more in-depth, bringing out a few follow-ups to her statements, she continues to answer with about four stock phrases, regardless of the question. I could ask her what she had for breakfast, and her response would be "As I mentioned before, the agency chose to blah blah yadda yadda yadda."

Now, I understand there are answers you want that you just aren't going to get, especially if the story has a tinge of controversy or agency fault. But part of me wants the spokesperson to own up to that. It's not like I don't recognize that each answer sounds strangely similar to the last, and in fact that time it had nothing to do with the question at all. Would it kill you to just say, You know Sara, I have about three things I am authorized to say, so you can probe until you are blue in the face, but you ain't getting anything else out of me. In not so many words, I once had a spokesman say that to me, and for a second I felt like we were both humans stuck in a tough position on two sides of the story fence.

Nintendo fingers

What does one do on a cloudy weekend afternoon in the New York capital region? You go to Mallbany, of course. Many know this town as Albany, but considering there is little else to do there and no other need for us to visit than for a mall, it has been dubbed Mallbany.

Well, this recent trip to Mallbany was unique, as I discovered the funnest video game ever known to man, although I am not sure that statement comes with much weight from a person who is not all that into videogames. The game is Guitar Hero, and we got sucked into it at Best Buy, where they had set up the game and the two guitar-shaped controllers.

It's like Dance Dance Revolution, I guess, but perhaps easier and less physically demanding - although one should beware of Nintendo fingers, the ache and tightening in your fingers after prolonged video game playing. I am embarrassed to say, I walked away from the massive flat screen TV and mini guitar with said cramps.

The game was worth it. As a green mohawked British rocker, I wailed on the wawa bar and waved the guitar in the air to "Appetite for Destruction" and "I Want to Be Sedated." The more I rocked out, shaking the guitar and breaking a considerable sweat, the more points I got, and I do believe I was rewarded for also singing along and karate kicking the air. All too quickly, we forgot we were standing in the isle at Best Buy while pre-teen boys watched our rocker personas take over.

The game was so good, we went back a second day. Quit judging.