In Which I Explain How Twitter Chats Work, Because You've Gotta Join Mine! #CardiComedy #Dogs

But first, a real-live conversation from last week, in my kitchen:

Eldest Child: So, which day this week can you take me to a hiring session for my summer job?

Me: [Thinks aloud.] Well, Tuesday's out, and Wednesday? Wednesday I've got a Twitter chat at 8 p.m., so no.

Husband and Eldest Child: [Cut off mother, mid-thought, snickering.] A Twitter chat?? Are you serious?? What the heck is a Twitter chat??

Me: [Decides not to expend energy answering patronizing questions.] I'll drive you on Thursday. Remind me, okay?

Okay, so first of all, my family members are dorks. ;) Second, Twitter chats are fun! Third, I'm gonna start hosting one - called #CardiComedy - on Sundays from 7:30-8:30 p.m. EST, and I hope you'll attend!

What is #CardiComedy?

Essentially, it'll be an hour of me, making dumb jokes about my own pet experiences, and throwing crazy, dog-related questions out for attendees to answer, in real time. I envision a canine-centric, interactive comedy hour, where we all get to know each other better over a few well-deserved laughs!

Why should I attend #CardiComedy? I have other stuff I could be doing at that time.

• Because it's free fun!
• Jon Farleigh and Dewi will be there. Have I mentioned we'll be sharing silly pet photos, too?
• You'll get to know other dog people and expand your horizons on Twitter (and maybe beyond).
• There will be prizes. Yes, I said PRIZES! Stuff for your dog, maybe a gift card for you - I have plans to give away some of both, on occasion, and you must be present to be eligible. More on this later...
• (Celebrity) special guests. Laurie Eno of The Daily Corgi, anyone? (I always tell her she's the "Oprah Winfrey of Corgi Nation [which technically spans the globe]." So, yeah, I'd say she has some celebrity!) I'm thrilled to announce Laurie will be a VIP guest at the first chat. Yay!
• You don't have to get dressed up. In fact, you could wear a paper bag and we wouldn't care!
• You'll have stuff to talk about at work on Monday. (Or not. But you could, in theory.☺)

How the heck do I attend #CardiComedy on Twitter? What if I don't even have a Twitter account?

To attend (Twitter user):

1. Log into Twitter.
2. Locate the #CardiComedy chat.
• Enter #CardiComedy in the Search field (magnifying glass icon at top of page).

• On the Results for #CardiComedy page, click All to see everyone's tweets.
  
  Note: Anyone who tweets about the chat (before, during or after) must include #CardiComedy in the body of their tweet. That's how we all keep up with who's attending and what they're saying. This is the hardest thing to remember in a chat. If you forget the hashtag (and you will), you'll be like, "why isn't anyone replying to my tweet?" And then, you'll remember that you DIDN'T use the hashtag, and be all, "crap! who's looking at my tweet?!" And (if you're like me), you'll waste a pile of time deleting the first one and doing it over. (So, my point is, when you mess up, just know you're not the only one who's ever messed up, okay?)
3. Get comfortable (remember to bring your camera, if your pets will be nearby) and enjoy the conversation!

Non-Twitter users: Just skip #1. You don't need an account to find and follow Twitter chats, silently. You DO, however, need an account if you want to actively participate, or enter contests.

How the heck do I follow the conversation? It's happening so FAST!

The Hard Way

You know that "refresh" (circular arrow) icon at the top of your browser window? Well, you'd need to click it every 30 seconds or so (depending on how many people are tweeting using the hashtag #CardiComedy) to refresh the feed. It can be done (I've done it, more than once), but there's a much easier way...

Using TweetDeck (Easy!)

Note: TweetDeck is a tool built by, and located within Twitter itself. You must have a Twitter account to use TweetDeck.

1. Go to tweetdeck.twitter.com.
   Note: You'll see your Twitter "home" page, and also, split into columns, your messages, notifications and activity (refer to the image above).
2. On the left menu, click the search (magnifying glass) icon.
   
3. On the "Choose column type" page, select Search.
   
4. Search for #CardiComedy.
5. Click "Add Column" at the bottom of the box.
   Result: You should see a new "#CardiComedy" column at the far right of your existing columns.
   
6. Sit back and watch the tweets update in real time. (Really, you don't have to refresh or do anything!)
   

How do I interact in the chat from TweetDeck?

To compose a NEW tweet: Click the compose (quill and paper) icon in the upper left corner of your screen.

To interact (reply, retweet, favorite) with an existing tweet: Simply hover over or click the tweet in your #CardiComedy column and VOILA! All the action icons appear at the bottom of the tweet!

What if TweetDeck breaks down?

If this happens, which is rarely, but it can, I suggest using HootSuite.com as an alternative. If you need help getting that program up and running (it's not nearly as intuitive as TweetDeck), I can try to help. Just send me an email.

Okay, I'd love to attend #CardiComedy; when's the first chat?

Sunday, January 26, 7:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. EST (4:30 PST)

Will you come?! I hope so!

So, you think they'll come? Can we get down now? Is the mic off?

5 Reasons Why (I think) 95% of the People Didn't Caption My Dog's Photo

Thanks to Laurie Eno at The Daily Corgi, whom I persuaded* (with no less than NINE** adorable photos of Jon Farleigh and Dewi driving sitting in the front seat of my car) to add the link to my "out-of-the-ordinary" caption challenge (to benefit CorgiAid) to her Facebook fan page (with somewhere near a trillion likes)... 

[pauses to inhale]

...Dewi's photo-captioning post from three days ago is now the 6th most viewed post I've ever published.

So therefore, it's only natural that I've been fretting mulling over the possible reasons why only five percent of those who paid Dewi's photo a visit actually submitted a caption!

I'm sorry; have we met?
...because you left without giving me something ridiculous to say!

And now - mostly to make myself feel better - I'd like to offer just five of the several possible reasons why (I can't help but think) so many of you left...without so much as a peep!:

1. Your "commenting" hand has inexplicably fallen off. (ouch)
   
2. You are a professional dog-photo-captioner and didn't want to "show up" the nice people whose captions could never be as awesome as yours.
   
3. You were going to leave a caption, but then you thought to yourself, "If that comment-grubbing hussy really wanted to make a donation to dog rescue, why didn't she just do it, without dragging her poor derpy dog and me into it?!"
   (To which I'd say, "That wouldn't have been nearly as much fun, you silly!")
   
4. You accidentally wound up on my blog after searching for "rainbow clip art."
   
5. Your dog ate your comment. 

Might one of these pertain to your experience? Think I'm on the right track, here?? ;-)

THERE IS GOOD NEWS, THOUGH!

Even with the above-mentioned commenting "issues," I've still received lots of captions and am over halfway to my donation goal of $50! Yay!

WANT TO JOIN THE FUN AND HELP ME REACH MY GOAL?

Great! You still have through this Friday, February 8, to leave a caption, OVER HERE, please!

THANKS, y'all!

* Actually, it wasn't like that at all. Laurie is much too professional and on the up-and-up to succumb to  "persuasion" with adorable photos of corgis in cars. 

** Not all nine of the photos have been published to The Daily Corgi or its social media appendages. Only two of them have (so far) - HERE and HERE.

Look! Bonus photos of Jon Farleigh and Dewi sharing a doggie "cupcake" for Jon's 3rd birthday!

All That and a 17-lb Bag of Dog Food

Note: There is a bonus link (to some hilarious pet photobombs) at the bottom of this post. So even if you don't have a blog and can't participate in this blogger pet food drive, please have a few smiles on me. Consider it a gift for your time and trouble (scrolling down the page). ;)

ALL THAT because in publishing this blog post and linking up to the blog hop (below), the charity arm of Pedigree is donating a 17-lb bag of food to an animal shelter. (And being that it's 104 F outside my door right now, I'm awfully glad I didn't have to lug that bag out of the grocery store myself.) :)

So according to Laurie over at The Daily Corgi (who was the first other blogger to clue me in to this worthy cause),

"For every blog post about the campaign between now and June 30th, Pedigree will donate a 17 pound bag of food to a shelter."

So what does this mean to you?

Well, it means that if you're reading this, like to help shelter pets and have a blog, you have ONE DAY to get your blog post up and linked to the blog hop!

You can even copy and paste this "official" image (and that handsome one above) into your post, if you want:

And that's it!

Except for this bonus, Friday-guaranteed-smile link: 45 Amazing Animal Photobombs (courtesy Huffington Post) 

This is just one of the 45 photos. :)

I think my favorite, though, is slide #45. :)

Thanks, everyone!

Have a great weekend!

This many bags of food have been donated so far...

Help me; I think they think they're famous.

I'm so grateful to Laurie Eno at The Daily Corgi for asking me to be a guest on her blog today. If you haven't seen it yet, you should go over there. I did an interview and I might have said something you didn't know already.

Anyway, the urgent point of this post is to let you know that all this extra publicity might have created two hairy monsters, who I'm afraid have doubts about whether their own poop stinks. This is how they behaved when I told them about their guest appearance on TDC:

With indifference...

Did you just say "fetch the rope"? I'm taking that as a yes.

You're so boring, you're making my eye twitch.

...And belligerence.

I'm going to scream and then hold my breath until you throw my rope!

Yeah, I stole it from him because I'm bigger than Justin Bieber. 

What have I done?

BlogPaws Lite - An Introvert's Recap, Part 1

Okay, first of all, there were many other bloggers at BlogPaws and several of them are posting some great in-depth, thoughtful and practical (put-it-to-use) stuff on their blogs. If you're looking for detailed breakout session recaps, or the full, Thursday through Saturday experience, I urge you to go check out some of these other great sites!

On the other hand, if you want to see/read about what Jon Farleigh, Dewi and I experienced in 23 hours (of which eight were spent sleeping), please, stay here! 

Still here?  Great!  Let's go!

First Stop

The dogs and I arrived at the hotel after a three-hour, traffic-laden drive (during which the dogs were crated in the cargo area of the car). You can just imagine what they were like when I released them from their cramped quarters. Nevertheless, we made it through check-in and not one stranger got bowled over by a Corgi. 

See the little "paw" on the carpet in front of Dewi? They were my assurance that I had not accidentally shown up at the wrong hotel. 

Second Stop

Because of traffic, I conveniently [insert heavy sarcasm] arrived a few minutes before lunch. A fully catered, sit-down, eight-to-a-table, two-course, you-could-not-blend-into-the-wall affair. (Imagine the first day of 7th grade, but you don't know anyone, and you somehow missed first through third periods and had to go directly to the cafeteria without stopping at your locker. Yeah. That was me.) I debated skipping lunch, but I was starving, and I paid for it. And I saw this on the tables:

Cheesecake: "Eat me! Eat me!"

So I used a lifeline, and phoned a friend:

Laurie Eno from The Daily Corgi!

Jon Farleigh and Dewi refused to turn away from us. 

To all my Corgi friends: Laurie is REAL and she only has TWO arms! And in addition to being a great writer, super-blogger and Corgi-lover, she is a super nice person! I'm so thrilled to have had the chance to meet and talk to her, in person, about dogs, cats, life and bloggy stuff. It was soooo cool that Jon Farleigh and Dewi got to hang out with her, too.

So, yes, Laurie saved me from my wallflower ways and not only did I get to sit down and eat, but I got to eat with Laurie, and several other really nice ladies (including my conference "shadow" Sarah) from Oldies but Goodies (OBG) Cocker Spaniel Rescue.

Third Stop

The hotel room to pee (me, not the dogs). Then, the dogs and I went outside so they could pee.

Fourth Stop

My first breakout session: The Wonderful Widgets of Oz, facilitated by the adorably capable Lauren Spencer of Fetching Communications.

Okay, so although the dogs were allowed (even encouraged) to come along for the breakout sessions, I quickly learned that managing two energetic (and happy) Corgis on leash, while also attempting to look in the direction of the speaker, listen and take legible notes, was impossible. So I just listened as best I could.

Meanwhile, the nice lady at the end of my row invited Dewi to sit in the chair beside her.

Jon Farleigh, don't even think about getting up here.

In case you're wondering, the session was about the benefits of and how to add popular (think Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube) social media widgets (badges) to a blog/web site.

Random fact learned: Did you know that YouTube is the second largest Web search engine, behind Google? Want to increase traffic to your site? Upload your pet's videos to YouTube and then add a YouTube widget to your site. (I have one in my sidebar.)

So maybe I did learn a thing or two at BlogPaws, but the best thing that happened in the "Widget" session had nothing to do with the presentation at all.

Unfortunately, though, I've run out of time! (boo)

Stay tuned for Part 2!

The Post Most Likely to be Reblogged at The Daily Corgi (aka: My Most Popular Post)

Blog Superlative #2 - Most likely to be reblogged at thedailycorgi.blogspot.com (or any of Laurie's social media satellites).

(Also known as my most popular [the most page hits] post.)

For those of you who aren't familiar, Laurie Eno's blog, The Daily Corgi - which just celebrated its second blog-iversary - is, in my humble description, an international internet staple for Corgi-people (owners and "window-shoppers" alike), both breeds (and mixes) included. Quite simply, if you love corgis, you must bookmark this blog. That being said, when Laurie feels behooved to reblog a corgi photo, video (or, in some cases, an entire corgi-related blog post), the original owner should just go ahead and expect a metaphorical "moment in the sun." I am no exception.

 In fact, Laurie shared (on The Daily Corgi's Facebook page) my top three most popular blog posts ever.

(Lesson: With 6,497 "likes" on Facebook and growing, The Daily Corgi has some serious blog clout. And I'm proud [and grateful] to be associated with it.)

*****

So here it is:

With 398 pageviews (and 20 comments) since its original publish date of June 27, 2011, my most popular post is:

Angel-faced, poop-eating squid-dog is also a Good Citizen (with the help of Oscar Mayer's miraculous powers)

If you read last Friday's post to the end, you might recall that I mentioned the dogs and I would be attending AKC all-breed conformation shows this weekend (as spectators to cheer on Jon Farleigh's sister Georgia). (I also promised photos from the event, which, incidentally, will have to wait until another day because I'm still sorting them out and mulling over them.) Anyway, what I did not mention - because I was chicken - was that Dewi and I would be taking the AKC Canine Good Citizen (CGC) test - being offered to the general public - on Sunday afternoon at the show venue.

Some of you - who've been following the blog for a while (at least since February) - might remember that I had a bit of a struggle with Dewi in his Basic Obedience class. But in case this is news to you, let me summarize: Dewi is a brilliant little spaz dog, who loves other dogs and people more than they might love him. On the last day of obedience school, however, under the influence of an Oscar Mayer wiener, he transformed into the obedient dog I paid $90 for him to be, and graduated like a champ.

But enough background.

So at 2:12 p.m. (not that I was cognisant of the exact time) yesterday, Dewi did it again. That is, despite huge odds against him in Vegas (okay, not really, but I wouldn't have bet on him) and in spite of himself (and my huge nerves), he passed. He is a Canine Good Citizen. :) (Yay!)

Now, let me tell you what happened before the test
(remember the test was administered within a dog show venue crammed with hundreds of dogs and people):

1. Dewi dragged me halfway through the parking lot toward the first dog he laid eyes on.
2. Once inside the venue, Dewi continued to pull toward the faces (and butts) of most every dog in our path.
3. I had serious doubts about going through with the test.
4. Dewi spotted a familiar dog (Jon Farleigh's sister) and lost all his marbles.
5. I decided that humor would be the best response to Dewi miserably failing the test. (I might as well give the evaluator a good laugh, no?)
6. Dewi's fairy godmother (aka: Oscar Mayer wiener) popped out of my bag.
7. Dewi temporarily forgot where he was and performed a brilliant sit-stay.
8. I slipped Dewi some fairy dust (courtesy of Oscar Mayer "pharmaceuticals").
9. I repeated #s 7 and 8 several times.
   
   30 minutes and 1.5 wieners later...
   
   
   
   This is Dewi's brain on crack Oscar Mayer wiener.
   
   
10. I plunged my left hand into the wiener baggie and coated it with "Eau de Smoked Hot Dog."
11. I gave Dewi one last hit of crack fairy dust wiener the second before entering the test ring.
12. The test evaluator reminded me of the "no treat" rule and then (somewhat playfully) motioned for me to show him my open palms (which I did). He also (visually) examined my person for pockets/treat dispensing devices.  

So let me just recap
- for those who might have a dog with similar temperament to Dewi and have aspiration to get your dog CGC certified:

• Attend obedience training with your dog.
• While in obedience training, experiment with drugs treats.
• When you find one that makes your dog look at you with the expression in the above photo, stockpile it (if needed) and use it ONLY when you need a miracle from your dog.

 *****

By the way, I am over the moon at the prospect of meeting Laurie in person at the pet bloggers' conference, BlogPaws, in just NINE DAYS! Can you say "Corgi Power?"  ;)

See you tomorrow with Superlative #3!

My Five to Seven Blog Superlatives (or posts, which in my opinion, are super-something)

Since I'm already being selfish this week, I've decided to go ahead and throw in some narcissism, too. :)

But before you roll your eyes and click the "x" at the top, right corner of your screen, please hear me out.

So there's a blogger challenge weaving its way through the sphere called My 7 Links. I'm not listing the "rules" here because I'm blatantly not following them. Not to diminish them in any way, as I've read several legitimate, beautifully written and informative posts out there, like Kim's and Pamela's and Kristine's.

It's just that I have a burning desire to share some of my "super" posts with you (well, that and I might be too busy to write anything "new" this week) and, frankly, waiting for an "invitation" just isn't one of my strengths. That and I'm just a tad rebellious. (So rebellious that I'd choose to wear the most religious [aka: holey] underwear in the drawer just to "show" my mother, and the police officer who found my crumpled body after the crash, that I couldn't care less about how skanky I looked on the stretcher.)

But where was I?

Oh yes, so starting tomorrow (as I've already challenged your attention span for today), and through Friday (or maybe early next week), I will be reposting (from the archives) my

MOST SUPER POSTS EVAH

 (IMO, not necessarily yours), as follows:

• Most likely to make you wonder whether you've accidentally clicked into the Hallmark company's blog.
• Most likely to be reblogged at thedailycorgi.blogspot.com (or any of Laurie's social media satellites).
• Most likely to get me reported to the AKC or alienated by every serious dog-person who once followed my blog.
• Most likely to cause spontaneous farts, urination or computer screen ruination.
• Most likely to have been written by someone with a more serious, caring personality.

*****

So there you have it. Aren't you glad my kids are away for the week!?!

Happy Monday!

(Oh, and a token dog photo - for those of you who just skipped over everything I just wrote.) :)

Quick! Run for the hills!

Jon Farleigh and Dewi - Dogs of the Day on The Daily Corgi

I know I just posted about Dewi's Daily Corgi Cardi Cam appearance last week, but today both Jon Farleigh and Dewi are The Daily Corgi's Dogs of the Day (and they can only be Dogs of the Day once in their lifetimes).  So please go check them out!  :)

Thank you!  Blog friends rock!