Easily the worst radio show in Minnesota.

Too bad you couldn’t luck up like you did with your avatar photo!

The salesperson was very used-car salesperson, and we quickly told him no thanks – my husband (right there) is a pro photographer. That USUALLY works, but this guy first got condescending (“Oh, are you a hobbyist?”), then – when we pointed out that no, he’s a PRO, published repeatedly, blah blah, we starts chatting him up.

We thought he just wanted to shoot the breeze with a fellow pro, but then he whipped out his book and tried to sell us on coming in for a “date night”! It was so completely surreal.

I’m not into high pressure sales like that, so after we repeatedly tried to get away, I finally just blurted out that I couldn’t think of a more horrible way to spend a date night, than getting photographed.

The whole thing was SO weird. I had never heard of them before, and they were marketing at a HOME SHOW – Had to call another photographer friend of mine when we got out of earshot to blab the details and see if she’d ever heard of them.

She had – apparently they’d emailed pretty much every wedding photographer in the city, looking to get them to work as contractors for the business.

The whole thing was smarmy and cheesy. The photos were nice, but very “template”. Blown out white background, etc etc.

Sorry to hear you got sucked in

He doesn’t really do portraits anymore, but was great at em – you could always ask Porter to do some for you

I get that we shouldn’t focus on material things during the holidays, but that’s not th issue here. It’s customer service, or a lack there of. This is a great opportunity for them to show if they care about consumers or just the bottom line.

I, for one, am sick of Christmas. Growing up, it was about special gifts selected for each person, usually hand made… selecting the absolutely perfect holiday card for each friend. It was about a few weeks of holiday season, and it was special.

Now, Menards has their Christmas shit out in August, with other stores close behind. It’s now more like 1/3 of a year of people just stressing out, spending themselves into a hard place – and constantly being pressured by commercials AND the news to do so. It’s not about enjoying time with family, it’s just SPENDSPENDSPENDSTRESSSTRESSSTRESS.

People tell others off if they’re wished ‘Happy Holidays’ rather than ‘Merry Christmas’. Others are more than willing to bodycheck someone for the last canister of cocoa on the shelf, or get into physical altercations over the “it” toy of the year. Now, people are absolutely losing their minds over the possibility of their ipads arriving late.

Poor babies.

If they don’t have those purchases in their hands on Christmas morning, their worlds won’t end. Really, if anything beyond “well, that kind of sucks, guess it’ll arrive next week!” happens, they really need to reevaluate their priorities.

I’m just really sick of seeing what this out of control materialism and stress is doing to everyone – and it’s starting earlier and earlier every year. I’m done with it.

Looking back and reflecting on the two months of almost no Social Media (aside from LinkedIn and Foursquare), I can say that my life has been pretty good. Why? Because I have intentionally released myself from meaningless “connections” and “relationships,” most of which did nothing positive for me. It could just be my distaste for the self-proclaimed experts (did you know you can be an expert in anything simply by stating so in your Twitter bio?) or the attention-seeking bloggers that made me leave social networks, but what it really stems down to is, in fact, the lack of authenticity people displayed matched with the surplus of drama people created and entitlement they thought they deserved (for Tweeting… Really, people are entitled because of their Twitter account or Klout score – can you believe it? It’s hilarious!).

I actually hate social networks now. Although some say Twitter is the water cooler and Facebook is the BBQ (or whatever analogy you want to use), the reality is that Social Networks are Middle School. Blogs, Facebook walls, Twitter feeds, and the rest are now where “experts” and “professionals” go to passive aggressively mock, call out, and upset their “friends” and others. These actions, mind you, are neither actions of experts or professionals, but instead are actions of immature adults who have nothing better to do.

But, you’re right, real friends don’t need social networks. But it’s interesting that you are using social networks to determine who are your real friends. As for me, aside from this comment and the occasional LinkedIn update, I stick to e-mail or texting. Surprisingly, I feel more connected to people now than I did with my social networking connections.

I guess the main idea is this: turn off the damn computer, stop gossiping about people that have different values or priorities and problems than you, and live. We’ve ALL wasted too much time doing this bullshit. There is, in fact, a life outside of Twitter chats and Facebook groups. Your offline self is so much more valuable than the online persona you created.

There was a time when “ideal image” was blond hair, blue eyed Caucasians. I seem to recall just a BIT of strife that came from trying to pursue such a narrow ideal.