I Love You a (Facebook) ´Bot!

Ok, while Ím triggering the Facebook sensors, I might as well go for it. I’ve been on a roll the last two posts, might as well keep going.

Apparently, therés just Something about me and my posts that trips the Facebook ´bots and makes them nuts.

When I began designing adult coloring pages in 2016, I got into a heck of a lot of trouble and put into the Facebook pokey. “Pokey” – my grandmother´s old-fashioned term for “jail.”

(Btw, for all yáll stampers and colorists sitting there at your keyboards howling with laughter, you go right ahead and laugh. I KNOW YOÚVE been in FB jail, TOO.)

In order to get onés artwork recognized and purchased, adult coloring book artists have to distribute their work into the coloring groups on Facebook. That’s very important. The more the better.

An artist creates the post on their page, then shares it into multiple groups. We just don’t have the time to hold down jobs, take care of our families, create art, then individually post into each and every group by creating a new post just for that group, so we share into multiple groups all at once. It´s a wonderful feature of Facebook sharing.

Unfortunately, spammers like it, too. And abuse it.

Then the rest of us get into trouble.

And, for those of you smart alecs who want to point out that I could be considered a spammer, too, Íd like to point out one very distinct difference….free coloring pages are a staple in the adult coloring community. We give away free pages, and the colorists color them and share them. It´s a legit and expected part of the landscape. It´s pretty much considered an “essential service.” Cańt say the same for the spammers.

I cańt tell you how many times Íve been put in the pokey for sharing my coloring pages (free, btw) into the adult coloring groups. Too fast, too many, wrong way, this way, that way, the other way.

I guess I tripped the spam sensors and the bots snagged my butt and threw me where I couldn’t cause any more trouble for awhile. I got to sit there and cool my jets til the next time they nabbed me for going too fast.

Apparently, an awful lot of other artists and colorists have been nabbed, too. And, not being stupid people, they’ve come up with some rather ingenious ways around the ´bots. But I couldn’t tell you what those are, though, so dońt ask (Ím clueless). Dońt bother to ask them cuz I don’t think they´re gonna spill.

I gave up. And I moved onto being a stamp designer with a design team. THEY can post into multiple groups and get nabbed by the bots while I safely sit back waaaayyyy over here, eat popcorn, offer my sincerest sympathies (and very helpfully giggle).

(For the above image, go to StampAddicts.com. Available as a grey rubber stamp. Title: “Robot Love.”)

https://www.stampaddicts.com/7431-robot-love-stampaddicts

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Moooooooommmmmmm, He Called Me a……….

As you may be aware from reading some of our goofy family stories, our youngest, Rainier, is 4-ish and has a language delay. It creates a lot of difficulty for us all on a regular basis when we try to make out what he’s trying to tell us. 

Well, yesterday, he made himself known, loud and clear…an entire six-word sentence!

He and Bubby were playing the Wii, a cute innocent little tank game where these tiny tanks toodle around a simple field and shoot at each other and blow each other up to cutesy doodley-do music. 

You’d think that would be a very safe, innocuous game for those two to play, and everyone would be happy and no one could get hurt. 

Not so at our house. 

Bubby constantly gets really mad if Rainier blows him up. Rainier does, too. 

Doesn’t matter how many times I try to tell them that’s just part of the game, they still get mad. 

They’ve recently taken to using epithets of extreme disgust to apply to one another to really express their unhappiness with each other. They learn them from various sources.

They also like to play another digital building game called Roblox. There are a lot of different characters in there that go by all kinds of crazy names. Bubby, being our advanced vocabulary kid, soaks up this terminology like a sponge, then uses it on his little brother at the opportune moment.

They were playing the tank game on the Wii, someone got blown up, and someone got mad.

Rainier very unhappily yelled out, “Maaaaaiiiiiiii, Bubby called me a NEWB!!!”

Tooty-Toot, Maisy!

Sherry West, SherryWestArt, 2019

When our daughter was small, we read her the Maisy the mouse books by Lucy Cousins.

In one of them, Maisy has a train.

Somewhere in the text it reads, “Tooty-toot, Maisy!” whenever the train blows it’s whistle.

So now, whenever someone is gassy, we all yell “Tooty-Toot, Maisy!”

Gabriel, a very typical seven-year-old boy, who just finished a bowl of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, is sitting in the large Lazy-boy with his little brother Rainier.

From way over there, I heard the very distinct sounds that send little boys (and their siblings) into gales of laughter.

I told him, “I heard that!”

Gabriel then said, “Imagine if You made a sound like that!”

Tooty-toot, Maisy!

Meatballs & Bananas

Our youngest, Rainier, is a very late bloomer in the vocabulary department. He’s just starting to take to the idea that words are for describing things, conveying ideas, thoughts and feelings.

His latest and greatest words are “banana, poop and meatball.“ He loves the reaction he gets from everyone when he actually uses words to describe things, and especially the not-so-positive reaction he gets when he combines unlike words and concepts like “banana” and “poop.” We hear this combo used to describe Everything All. Day. Long. Then he goes off in gales of giggles at the silliness of it.

We’ve tried so hard for so long to get him to use language, and now that he’s actually using it, albeit the wrong way, we are loath to try and shut him up, so we don’t circumvent the great progress he’s made. We’ve been dying for him to be able to speak, but now that he’s starting to, we are kind of wishing he’d wouldn’t…at least, not so much.

He and his older brother, Bubby, like to play tanks on the Wii. There are two little tanks on a field on the tv screen, and the boys shoot each other’s tank and blow each other up. They love it. They get really mad, too, when the other one blows HIS tank up.

Rainier says “Me!” when he’s saying it’s His tank, and he’s blowing Bubby up, and says “Bo” when he’s talking about what Bubby’s tank is doing, and if he blows it up. He also puts them together and says “Me-Bo!”

He says this all the time, so much so that he sounds like he’s calling Bubby a “Meatball.”

Just for fun, I told Bubby we‘re just start going to start calling him that, since that’s what he’s called all the time anyway.

At that, he scowled, then grumpily and frimly declared, “I am Not a Meatball!”

At this, Rainier immediately burst into peals of giggles and yelled, “Meatball!”