I think I wrote this before 2009. I'm not sure. I looked up the Inherited Values site with the Wayback Machine today. My friend, Deanna, created, ran, everything, the site. I wrote for her for awhile. Mostly posts about hobbies and collectibles.

I try not to gamble or collect things because I know this is a hazardous area for me. I seem to be one of those people who become obsessed with everything, at least for awhile. I also like to try almost everything – everything is fodder for my curiosity. I especially like arts, crafts and history.

On Flickr I have my photos of abandoned farm houses and many other abandoned or just old places. I have two Flickr groups: Ontario Rural Ruins and Canadian Rural Exploration.

Does the house in the photo look haunted to you? To me it has the mystery, romance and bluntness of history and craftsmanship. With a side of weathering and pure determination to survive the elements. I do have some feelings about the paranormal but I don’t look for them in an old house or building. I have yet to feel anything spooky when I explore. Though I did once shriek when I thought I had stepped on a toad in the long grass.

There are some things I collect: bone china posies, postcards and odd other things which aren’t coming to mind right now. I don’t keep them very organized or catalogued and I don’t join groups with other collectors with the idea of trading or buying more. I just like the randomness of a great find. I should have been an archaeologist, except I’m allergic to dust, mold and mildew. To me, the value of a collectible is in the finding of it as much as the beauty of it. I shop at thrift shops but not gift shops.

I love history. History I can reach out and touch is as close to time travel as I may ever get. As a Pagan (Earth Witch) I feel connected to history, it’s traditions and the foundations it has given us. The invention, ingenuity and thriftiness that early people had to develop to survive, that is what I see when I look at old objects and old buildings. I also treasure the art and crafts which have endured into the present. Objects which we no longer use and may not even know how to use any longer. Sometimes I feel a sense of loss for the road not taken and the knowledge lost to us. I like to read about odd crafts, new crafts and hobbies too as these are our own contributions to what will become history in time.

When not out taking photos of derelict farm houses I am writing on the web. My own little monster project is Word Grrls. My main site is ThatGrrl.ca. Most of my other projects link from there.

If you Twitter I am @thatgrrl. If you StumbleUpon I am thatgrrl and if you Tumblr I am also thatgrrl. Nice how that all works out.

In the end, I'm glad it was a site I wrote for and a site that did pay writers.

I have awards and accolades:

• A member for over 15 years
• Published at least 300 articles
• Had at least 100 simultaneously featured articles
• Had at least 300 followers
• My articles were read over 100,000 times

Currently my articles have been read 236,022 times.

I wrote about this campaign in 2015. I wish it had not been contaminated and instead had continued. Why do some people feel threatened or challenged by something created to be positive? In my original post I did include all the image files. I'm just adding one to this post. There are just too many for one post.

The site is Go Make it Happy. I was happy seeing a big, consumer oriented company like CocaCola using ASCII art. Even though it’s computer generated – there is a wonderfully large amount of it.

If I were a more sane person I would have split these into several posts. Instead I have left them all (over 90 image files) below the “read more” line. I wanted to not only share them all but, preserve them all too. So this is an archive of the ASCII art I found on the CocaCola Make it Happy site. It’s possible they will add more. I wish I knew. I’d like to see it all saved. Campaigns like this tend to last like a fad and then disappear. I’d like to see the ASCII art survive.

I have a few favourites and I thought to just post those. But, how could I show all the full dorkiness and fun of the collection. Some of it reminds me of the old movies advertising hot dogs and popcorn at the drive-in movies.

Update about the Make It Happy Campaign

Coca-Cola has pulled its #MakeItHappy brand campaign, which it introduced during the Super Bowl, after being tricked by pop culture blog Gawker.

The campaign aimed to dispel negative comments on the Internet by enabling users to tag negative comments with #MakeItHappy, which Coca-Cola then turned into cute, happy pictures using ASCII lettering code.

Coca-Cola responded to this debacle with a statement: “It’s unfortunate that Gawker is trying to turn this campaign into something that it isn’t. Building a bot that attempts to spread hate through #MakeItHappy is a perfect example of the pervasive online negativity Coca-Cola wanted to address with this campaign.”

I remember when all this was going on. It was sad to see what Gawker thought was clever, smart, bold, attention grabbing, whatever. Gawker did not last long after that. Was the Coca-Cola thing part of that... maybe?

I'm trying to figure out what actually a standard emote collection would be. Happy, sad, mad, etc? Or anything goes as long as someone thinks its clever, funny? I did find guidelines for making a Twitch emote. That's useful but I don't use Twitch. Still, its something to start with while making plans. (I've paraphrased to keep it simple).

I'm thinking about using my stick figure ASCII art girl/woman as emotes. I would need to make more for the different emotions or themes. That's why I'm trying to figure out what they should be. If it works out I thought I would try offering them for sale online. If it just costs my time, how can it go wrong? Or, not far wrong.

Standard Emotes

• The image must be in a .png format
• A single PNG between 112 x 112px and 4096 x 4096px, or three image sizes: 28 x 28px, 56 x 56px and 112 x 112px. For example:
• Images must be square shape (e.g., same pixel height and width)
• The file size cannot exceed 1MB
• A fully transparent background.
• Ensure you have viewed the emote at 100% resolution to check that the art has clear lines and, if you are including words, that the letters are correct and easy to read. Make sure that lines are sharp (no unnecessary blurring or feathering)