Thank you to Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook, BusinessWeek photo

You have to thank people when they help you now that my Facebook is back.

Dear Mark Zuckerberg (sent by Facebook)

Thanks for the prod to Appeals Support.How many emails can I send without breaking the rules?I know you hate the question but what if you have to take the Interstate to San Francisco and they don’t tell you which lane to stay in, when to pass and what the min and max speeds are? Then State Troopers are pulling people off the road when they decide it’s the right thing.

Hail Mary worked at Notre Dame and Facebook

One of the great advantages of Catholic football teams is the Hail Mary, a hopelessly long pass near the last seconds of the game. Make it and the game is won. Protestants don’t have the luxury on calling on the Blessed Virgin for anything let alone last minute football game reprieves.

So my Hail Mary to Mark Zuckerberg worked.

Staying upbeat despite all

By Stephen Pate

PEI Disability Alert

January 1, 2009

Being a social advocate is not the easiest job. You are constantly prodding a reluctant government and society to change.What keeps me going is the progress we have made in just a few years. Certainly the recent passing of Kay Reynolds and thinking about her life’s work spurs me onward. She and others who worked tirelessly for the benefit of others are examples to us even after they pass on.

Time For Journalists To Take A Lesson From (Smart) Musicians

From TechDirt

These days there are a few types of stories we see and write about consistently: (1) the legacy recording industry’s troubles in adapting to a changing market, (2) the ability of a bunch of motivated, smart musicians, bucking the old way of doing things and finding tremendous success and (3) the legacy newspaper industry’s troubles in adapting to a changing market. Given (1) and (2), you would think that (3) might lead to the obvious (4) of a bunch of motivated, smart journalists, bucking the old way of doing things and finding tremendous success.

And, in fact, that is happening, particularly with upstart blogs, but it’s not getting as much attention. Romenesko points us to what should be a must-read essay over at the Columbia Journalism Review, highlighting the fact that worried journalists should be studying up on the success stories of musicians who are succeeding even as the legacy recording industry struggles.

Will newspapers survive the recession / depression?

By Stephen Pate

Rob Patterson isn’t getting any sleep either. 20 blogs yesterday.

That’s not fair. He heard Derek say I was PEI’s most prolific blogger and he’s thrown down the gauntlet.

I think he just flushed his buffers, zzz’d his RSS, and freshened his air fresher.

I posted such a long comment – very unlike me- that it bears repeating.

The traditional media will not go away. Social media like Blogger is still on the edges of the scene. For example, Google News while popular is not profitable. The web sites for most major newspapers that deliver product are quite profitable.

Without profit no enterprise will survive. 

I’m probably not making this better, am I?

Well my Jehovah’s Witness cousin from way down Yarmouth, NS sent me a mysterious email.

TO: STEPHEN PATE

I REPEAT EMPHATICALLY – PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME ANY MORE EMAILS OR VIDEOS OR LINKS TO BLOGS OF ANY KIND! PLEASE TAKE ME OFF YOUR LIST!!!

THANK YOU ROR REPECTING MY REPEATEDLY EXPRESSED WISHES.

name withheld ( I typed that over the real one)

(see note at the end)

Now I don’t know about you but I find those all caps emails sort of rude and confusing.

First it’s hard to know where the sentence begins. Then there is the confusion over whether the message is an acronym, anagram or just someone really mad.

Being a Jehovah’s Witness, my cousin Jim is a mild mannered man of the Lord, a paragon of self-control and closeted anger. He would never be angry with me but believe in the Lord that I might be saved and join him in paradise – no in the garden sharing my dinner with the lions and my breakfast with the lambs.

Cool things

A lot of cool things happen. Right now I’m in a creative place. Seeing my work in print is a thrill. To see a video in the Journal Pioneer.
is a new step.

I’m writing up three blogs a day, stories, and songs every day. I work on Blog layouts which can be fun and creative. Social activism is like marketing – condense the message into a sound bite and interest people in the story.

Thank you YouTube

Thank you YouTube and Blogger, and Google and Facebook. Because of you I have 68 videos published with over 38,000 viewers.

OK some people have millions. Mine don’t have breasts or the promise of breasts or quasi sex acts so they get a more views for that promise. And they’re not about famous people for the most part.

They’re just things Michael LeClair and I put together with Trisha Clarkin plus some I did on my own and a few I stole.

If I did a film and showed it in Charlottetown, how many people would see it? 15 maybe 50. Thank you YouTube.

I need to get a new camera.

For hire: Nymphomaniac

So I am into this on-line dating thing but I throw my hands up in despair. I cannot get profile writing down.

Despite decades of writing experience my profiles sound boring, dry, even clinical.

“I am a male who likes to talk long walks on the beach and hold hands and watch movies and anything you want to do is OK with me and I will cook a delicious 7-course meal while you drink cocktails on the deck.”

If every couple really liked to take moonlit walks on the beach they’d have to post traffic cops in the National Park. Hell, when it gets close to moonlight time, all the girls I know are downtown dancing or want to go to bed.

I think girls are onto me about the cooking thing – I always cook one super meal and after they move in, not another moment is spent at the stove. Oops revealing my secrets.

So I tried to upgrade my profile and give the gals a look at the real me, big mistake. Pointed them to my blogs and Facebook. That’s me or at least the on-line side of me.

So listen to the response I got yesterday -

Truly, reading your profile and some of your site info….I don’t think I would be someone you could connect with….you are way too deep for me….not that I can’t be deep but I am naturally not deep….I am sure you get what I am trying to say….I so respect people like you…so involved and active. Makes me feel like I am coasting thru….”

I give up.

I’m going out to the University and advertise for a nymphomaniac with a Phd.

Conversion Blues

Argh! my old blog would not, could not convert to Blogger’s new version. So I had to transfer the articles the hard way. There. Read them again or let them go.