02.04.05
Apparently, I have offended people with my website -- askpixie in particular.
According to my guestbook, people have the following to say:
Hmm. Have you people never seen a blog or webjournal before? 90% of them are just people whining and telling stories about their lives. Including myself.
The internet is filled with people freely expressing themselves. No one is obligated to ask me questions or even read my website.
Before I post anything publicly on another site, I make sure to see what the site is about first, before making faulty conclusions and/or embarrassing myself.
Let's say I am supposed to take a scheduled tour of the Wickety Widgets facilities. However, I broke my leg and can't go. So, I drag myself over to my computer, and try to find the Wickety Widgets contact information, so that I can cancel. Because, for some reason, I don't seem to have that information already. Ahem.
So, I try wickety-widgets.com, or some permutation thereof, and I can't seem to find their contact information that way.
Then, I google "wickety widgets," and the first thing I find about them is a post on whiney.com all about how wickety widgets are made.
Personally, and maybe I am in the minority here, I wouldn't automatically assume that whiney.com represented Wickety Widgets.
I would maybe look at whiney.com, see that it was definitely not about Wickety Widgets, but was advice for whiners instead, and I would not email them to say that I couldn't maket the tour of the Wickety Widgets facilities because I broke my leg.
I would keep on looking until I found the correct information, or try something else, like calling 411.
Also, the odds are that had I contacted whiney.com about Wickety Widgets, and they found my misdirected email funny and mocked it on their site, I wouldn't be horrified about being publicly ridiculed.
The odds are actually more in the favor of me never knowing about it. Since I obviously misunderstood the intention of the site, I probably won't go back looking for an answer there.
At most, when I was contacted by Wickety Widgets, wondering why I didn't make the tour, I would figure out that I hadn't sent the email to the right place.
And to address other things, lots of people "went to university." or "I believe that the President of the United States has attended university, yet he has been a junkie, an alcoholic, a criminal, and has run several large corporations into the ground. Somehow, he managed to go on with his life.
Spell-checking and grammatical exactitude lacking from my site? Let's see, this is a personal webjournal, not a professional website where I expect to sell my wares to the public. I didn't pay someone to put together a sleek, stylish website to attact potential customers. I typo sometimes. I used the wrong tense. I even use bad grammar -- sometimes even on purpose!
Of course I am not qualified to give serious advice. I certainly wouldn't expect serious, helpful advice from someone who has "If pixie can't help, you're screwed.™" as her tagline. Professionals and counsellors generally don't use the technical term " you're screwed" a lot when they're helping people.
I guess the explanation of askpixie isn't clear enough for some people.
"what the hell is ask pixie?
because:
sometimes you have a problem, and you don't know where to turn... sometimes you have a question, and you don't know who to ask... sometimes you have something that you can't readily identify, whether it be animal, vegetable or mineral, or a startling combination thereof... and sometimes you just need someone you can turn to, ask, or maybe just show your thingy.
you want someone else to micromanage your problems?
here is where you can turn for advice, whether you are a member of the morally bankrupt, or are just otherwise filled with some sort of turpitude that needs a little perspective from someone that isn't you.
just mail askpixie your question, and on a future saturday, an entry will appear on pixiemartin dot com with a special reply just for you.
And the disclaimer at the bottom of every single askpixie column apparently isn't clear enough, either.
( disclaimer: as you can imagine, askpixie is not a licensed therapist, nor is she a doctor of anything. she has, however, had enough problems in her life, and enough damn therapy, that she can pretty much handle most of what you could probably throw at her. and whatever she can't directly answer herself, she will do her best to find an answer for you elsewhere. most likely through google. unless otherwise noted, all thoughts and opinions expressed herein, therein, and whereverin you're looking, are © pixiemartin, 2005. you gotta problem with that, punk? i didn't think so.)
I guess the mission statement of the site is also a little vague, too:
pixiemartin dot com - proudly perpetuating & promoting a lifestyle of free-thinking, trash-talking, chagrin-filled, & mostly text-based infamy for the last few years or so, and unless otherwise noted, all content on this site is © yours truly.
I suppose that some people might read that as "pixiemartin dot com - serious, professional, unbiased, eloquent, and always factual information provided to the public since the year 2000."
Maybe I should just change the advice column information to read:
askpixie - ask me stupid questions and I will make fun of you here.
also, if you send me stupid email, i might also post it and make fun of you here.
p.s. stop asking me about thermal relaxing, idiots.
and the mission statement to:
pixiemartin dot com - offending assholes and idiots for a very long time.
Get a life, morons.
What's in your head?