Vacations Blog

There really is nothing to do in the towns of Santa Paula and Ojai – and that’s exactly why we went. We could have driven 3 hours to Joshua Tree, sure, or gone down to Tijuana simply so we could write ‘…is in Mexico!’ on our Facebook profile and then hightail it back to San Diego – there’s enough to do outside of Los Angeles, but it all seemed so – goal orientated.

If you go to a National Park, you feel the need to hike and that’s just silly and in no way relaxing. If we went to a museum, I’d have to act like I know what my girlfriend was talking about all the while wondering if the café would give me a beer.

See – too many road trips out of town come with immense amounts of pressure. So when I asked ‘what’s there to do there?’ when she suggested it, she came back with ‘not a lot – there are some shops in Santa Paula and a cool little Mexican restaurant’, I was sold. Shops meant she had something to do and tequila meant I did as well. Read More »

It’s time for another rousing edition of Travel Around the Internet! Brace yourself.

Here are just a few of the items that have shuffled across our inbox lately:

Disney Cruise specials and kids sail free!

Marriott wants to Twitter, email and Facebook you to Hawai’i! By all means, let them!

Read More »

OVERVIEW:
UpTake’s Director of Online Research and Knowledge (DORK) is looking for a personal assistant to manage his identity on social networking sites. If you are a twittering, blogging, online socialite with mad skillz, this is an exciting opportunity to work closely with an industry leading DORK.

REQUIREMENTS:
* You are the Emily Post of social media. Well you’re actually not anything like Emily Post because she would be way too uptight for social networks, but if she were born in 1980 or so and applied her craft to social networks, that would be you.
* Not only will you be able to return (on DORK’s behalf) and respond to all the ridiculous new high-tech ways of saying “Hi” on Facebook (e.g. Vampire Bites, Pie in the Face, Movie Quiz, Wedgie, Super-Duper-Wall) you must also be able to initiate barrages of new “hey what’s up, dude”? attacks to all DORK’s friends.
* Specifically be good at playing that which-celebrity-belongs-to-which-buttocks game. The DORK longs to be known as a celebrity-buttocks-guessing champ. Experience in outsourcing to lower cost and more buttocks-knowledgable countries is a bonus.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
Make key decisions and define policies including:

* Should the DORK be a link-hoe and accept links from anyone who offers? Or should he at least know the people he is linked to? Is it wise to play hard to get?
* Should the DORK reject people who he doesn’t want to be friends with, or just ignore them? Is there a difference? (Like, if you reject a request, do they get a message “dude, you got so flushed”?)
* Initiate weekly spam attacks against friends who have in the past sent more than three stupid application invitations to the DORK.
* Establish a policy for DORK’s family – when he sends a link request to his children, how much should the bribe be to accept?
* A side responsibility would be to help the DORK keep track of which lies about himself he told on which dating sites and figure out how to keep that girl from Lavalife from posting online date reviews about the DORK.
* If the DORK twitters more than 5 times in one day, does that mean he’s a narcissist?

COMPENSATION:
* If the DORK can have the feeling that Facebook is once again a useful tool for staying in touch with friends instead of being spammed by them, then you will have done a great job and will be paid handsomely.
* For each new real-life friend that the DORK actually knows (and doesn’t just have a link to) you will get a bonus.
* Each time one of the DORK’s online friends compliments him on his Facebook, LinkedIn, or My-Fashizzle web site, you will receive one ringtone.

We welcome suggestions on how to improve our service for you. Please email us your feedback – the good, the ugly, the things we should add and what needs to be fixed! We appreciate your input.

I need a personal assistant to manage my online identities. Between Facebook, Linked In and some online dating sites I won’t name (lest I reveal too much), keeping up with it all is getting ridiculous.

How many different ways can I get “pinged” on Facebook? I’ve been poked, super poked, bitten, given a wedgie, had a pie thrown at me, not to mention invitations to take movie quizzes, geography tests and guess which celebrity belongs to which buttocks. Reminiscent of 5th grade, there are also a few applications implying that someone might like me and I can find out if only I will disclose a few things about myself – like sending 10 friends an invitation that implies someone might like them and if they would only disclose a few things about themselves…

I think a person with experience playing tennis with a machine gun would make for a good Facebook Secretary. A key task would be to return the daily barrage of pings, pokes and put-ons. Then, since I have a secretary, the obvious next step for me would be to escalate! I won’t just be able to return fire, I will serve it up like I don’t have a day job. My connections will be so impressed with how quickly I can initiate ever newer, technologically enhanced ways to say “what up, dude?”

But I don’t want just a tactician, mind you. I want a professional administrative assistant - someone with a real strategic vision for who I want to be online. Should I be a Linked In slut with 500+ connections and accept and seek every connection possible? Or should I at least know the people I am connected to? And how should my Linked In relate to my Facebook? Just because I worked with you that doesn’t mean we are friends.

A good secretary would be able to recommend a course of action to me by answering key questions, like what happens when I press “REJECT” on an invite. Does the sender get a “YOU WERE FLUSHED!” message? If so, I will continue to keep them sitting in my request list unanswered as I have for the last two years. If not, could someone please tell me that so I can flush these people and clear up the clutter in my inbox?

As far as the dating sites go, wow, that is a-whole-nother realm. Could I really expect to hire someone with the ability to keep track of all the lies I tell about myself? And could my Facebook secretary help keep away the fear that someday the woman from Lavalife will be able to post a Date Review and share it with all the mutual-to-three-degrees-of-separation “friends” we share across five social networking sites?

Oh Facebook Secretary, how did I ever live without you?