Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Social Media Scams The Anti Aging 3 Min video Wrinkle Cream Makeover on Facebook

this is with the bags  and the gentle application



OMG  the Bags have disappeared in under 3mins
#SocialMediaScams   While the internet affords everyone who is so inclined a platform to sign up and be present for a thrilling moment of virtual identity, that 20 second momentary glorification, when someone actually takes the time to Like, or Comment, or Share a Post, has also opened the floodgates to the paranoid, the selfserving, the pontificating, the opinionated, and the biggest of all theatre, the art of thievery and deception.

While most of you may never encounter the routine of ill begotten scams on social media, I admittedly have been folly to some of the most egregious.  But then again, you cyah play mas and fraid powder.  (Translation for my non Trini audiences,  if you are as engaged on social media, as I am in my daily work,  then you will be subject to the  scams, flams and ill begotten maladies that come with the territory)

Social media will follow you into your bedroom habits.  Technically Google, Facebook Twitter and every other social media portal have compiled their algorithms,  really as a Trini will say, -  how to maco yuh business- , from the posts you share to what is the last thing you do before bedtime.
Thus, for a neophyte like me, I am virtually,  a social high profile engager.  People I don’t even know, know more about me through my social media activity.  If you really need to find me, most likely a message on Facebook, would be the quickest way to get my attention.

With my engagement I share about social media.  I share  my experiencegrace.info The Social Media Entrepreneur business updates,  and highlight new client services,  I share updates on things of interest.   I share stories that may be of public interests.   I share about my nationality, my family, my beliefs and my fancies.

Here is the actual theatre of a scam The Anti Aging 3 min video   Wrinkle Cream Makeover on Facebook #InstantlyAgeless https://www.facebook.com/840217082700704/videos/843272062395206/

Now for every #60ish, or maybe those like me, who will admittedly share that they still would like to preserve any fragment of youthfulness to their dying day.. oh yes ! Such vain glory!  If a video is so believable to depict a creased up face becoming almost 20 years younger in under 3 mins, then there must be valid truth to it. 

So in my threads, I see these older women wrinkled and using a dab of face cream and all the wrinkles disappear in less than 3 mins of video airplay.
In social media, video is the most convincing merchandizing advertisement for reaching large audience following.

I who share my business endeavors as a social media entrepreneur find this to be a curious offer.  And I who am closing in on my flourishing 60s would love to restrain any folds and swells and curls of maps of wrinkles on this artifact of human display, the face of the aging woman.
For suspecting individuals ONLY, as I know most of my #60ish friends, just happen to be... well just too intelligent and sophisticated...   would you be inclined to investigate if your read a headline like this?  This is an article feature and in it the typical video on facebook is shared.



The Social Media Scam Heist Effect
Facebook streams this sponsored video and it just incidentally populates my feed repeatedly.   This is called the psychology of social media mind games. 
The video is less than 3 mins.  In social media, this is about the typical grab attention span of most of the social media visuals.  If you can’t tell the story in under 3 mins, you will lose your audience
It is very credible.  You are seeing what looks like the actual face of a pretty aged looking female, transform from bloated under eyebags to seemingly no bags.  This is called the Blaine effect!  It is beyond magical
Then you are enticed... Or bamboozled   The reality is, to try this for only $4.95

The Scam FuXXery

I did it. I placed the order $4.95 for this sample.  OK.  I felt compelled to prove the theory.  It was part of my social media research.
The ominous signs were as follows, and I should have just stopped.. But I was in research mode... nothing to do with vanity... Right!!
To place the simple order, there were multiple pages of additional services to add on… which I declined
Then even at the last page of the ordering process, after completing the first payment by card of $4.95 there was an additional incentive to get more service as a subscription.
After a final NO to service add ons, the order was placed
Then the follow up customer service call came.   The  representative  requested  a confirmation of the credit card used so that I  will be eligible for an add on of $6.95.for the extra bonus eternal youth potion.

The plot thickens... so with a firm NO... I defer to give any card number
Within 2 weeks a package is delivered by USPS  and unlike the sample item,   it is a cream in a jar
Using the same techniques shown on the facebook video, with just a spot on the finger, and a dab on the eyebags, the cream sample is applied
3mins, 5 mins, 20 mins,  4 hours , 5 days, 3 weeks .. NOT A DAMN CHANGE IN MY 60ISH face aging contours
But, after my morning online bank review about 30 days after the Anti Aging product purchase an $88.95 deduction is posted from some unknown IN BEAUTY Service

Called  the Customer Service Number provided by the bank, and the hired help is adamantly stating that the order I placed was for a monthly subscription
With every effort to refrain from screaming into the CSR’s ear, but realizing, he is trained to be call support at his daily, hourly wage,  I tell him to please find himself a new job.  That the company he works for is being reported to the Federal Trade Commission for fraudulent marketing.  It would in his and his family’s best interest to look for a new job before the holidays

The Social Media Entrepreneur ReAction
#BUSTED
File Fraud Report with Bank
Cancel Bank Card, Just in case, the anti aging company intends to resubmit for my aging subscription at $88 per month
Request refund from bank, which could take up to 2 weeks
Report the company online to Better Business Bureau
Report the company online to Federal Trade Commission

IF IT LOOKS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, THEN IT PROBABLY IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE



Thursday, January 15, 2015

Trinidad and Tobago Carnival! a Tsunami of Revelry, Music, Dance, and the Best Escape to Reality


Where the Prime Minister, the Beggar, the Thief and the Priest Converge and Fete Together as One. Dat is Carnival!


For epicurean pleasure in the splendor of masquerade, Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is the world's jeweled oyster. Without this annual feast of gluttonous music symphony and untamed insanity, our people will perish. We are Carnival and our life is Theater


Trini Bacchanal
The first element of Trini (abbreviation for Trinidad & Tobago) Carnival is Bacchanal. It is an occasion of wild and drunken revelry.  It is spectacular costumes, it is infectious music, it is partying "all night long" and it is wanton and carefree abandon.
The Carnival Vapse.
Whether Carnival falls in late February or early April, a universe of carnival followers becomes swept up in the momentum,  loosely termed the Carnival vapse.
Behind the closed curtains of Trini Caribbean families, being Carnival whipped, is as bad as being caught up in a cyclone. The sudden impulsive urgency to leave home, family, responsibility and flee to the shores of Trinidad and Tobago have wrecked many a happy marriage. Hot and torrid romances have been dissolved by the sleuth of a Carnival vapse
In the monsoon of emotions to get to Steelband Panorama preliminaries, to attend the Calypso competitions, or play de mas, brave and upstanding citizens have been leveled to warahoon status .
In urban dictionary, warahoon describes dem wild indian who use to live in trinidad long time ago look at them warahoon running like asses. 
Unless, you get to the soil of Mother Carnival, Trinidad and Tobago, and suckle in her bounteous pleasures, you find no remedy for relief.
Carnival, The Energy, the Music, the Mas
Carnival is as an energy force. There is paranormal feteing.   Prior to Carnival Mardi Gras Monday and Fat Tuesday, as celebrated by our New Orleans reveler compatriots, there are band launchings, there are celebrity events.    There are all inclusive parties, there are offshore, onshore, by the pool, around the Savannah, in the North Stand and through the Grand Stands, parties to attend. 
As the solemnity of Christmas ends, by the dawning of the New Year, Carnival is the most practiced community fellowship for Trinis inside and outside the island grounds.
Calypso and Soca are the popular musical songs and melodies exchanged between the performers and their devoted fans.
Wining
Wining is not  sipping  Merlot,  Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio.  Nor is wining, "Whining" as is proverbially misappropriated.. 
Wining is the roll of the waist, with the cock of the back, gyrating to the right, left and centre, The lower body swerves at the hips in downward and circular pelvic motions, and rhythmically oscillate to the dance of the pagans.
Carnival is Culture
The feteing starts on the heels of the Christmas season.  The national musical instrument of Trinidad and Tobago, the steelband features prominently in panyard exhibitions to orchestral competitions.  It all culminates on the Savannah stage in the most symphonic rivalry of musical showmanship.  
Panorama is when  steelband orchestras from the north and south corners of the island compete for the best arrangement, acoustic sound, tune and delivery to their most discriminating audiences. Renowned world musicologists are invited to judge at Panorama semi finals and finals. 
Hugh Masekela shared these words during his 2014 visit to a Trinidad panyard:
"You sounded great…thank you very much…you do not know how lucky you are …there are very very few countries in the world where people get opportunity to do this much music together… I know you take it for granted…but it's a wonderful situation…I hope it never dies…it's a very very rich heritage. Thank you very much.
Carnival the Celebration
Sometimes when yuh at Carnival, yuh partying non stop. The weekend of Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago yuh start feteing from Friday, Saturday, Sunday till Jouvert Morning. Sometimes, you doh even have time to check yuh own pulse -.  describes a good dose of the Carnival celebration
  • Jouvert
Jouvert is the early morning beginning of the Carnival Monday Mas. Much like the Halloween ghouls, ghosts,and goblins in the United States, but without the religious pandering, everyone gets dirty, nasty, slimy and muddy. There is black face, white face, blue and orange face.
 Body mud color is the costume du jour. There is no political correctness. You can be a celebrity, or not. Everyone, black or white, Indian, Hindu, Muslim, Chinese, Greek, Lebanese, or Syrian, become a nobody-anybody. 
The only criteria of normalcy required is to be insanely festive and happy. 
  • Monday Mas
Trini Carnival is the The Greatest Show on Earth. Monday Mas is where the sightings of pretty Mas is premiered. The talents of the great colony of artists who design costumes for masqueraders in Carnival bands come alive. The epic stories of Greek mythology, the ancient wars of the Roman empire, the fallen Dynasties, the Sea Monsters, the Galaxies of the World, the indigenous Indian Tribal dress, the kings and warriors of Africa are depicted as Mas costumes. The largest masqueraders ball in any part of the world takes place in Trinidad and Tobago on the streets of the capitol city Port of Spain, and its outlying towns and rural venues.
The landscape of people, colors, sounds and gaiety are intoxicating. No one is a spectator. Everyone, whether in costume or not, is consumed in the drunkenness of fun, dance and non stop merriment.
  • Tuesday Carnival Laniappe 
On Carnival Tuesday, there is profusion of every type of synergy and harmony and a myriad kaleidoscopic colors in every shape, form and fashion. Bands of thousands of masqueraders come out in full regalia. Accompanying the thousands of masqueraders are the trucks with the music. Alongside the trucks, and the masquerades are the people, the tourists, the spectators, and the Carnival jumbies. It is an orgiastic explosion of fun.
Then by Tuesday nightfall, Carnival takes her leave. Along the streets, remnants of glitz, glitter, wings, headpieces, lifeless and strewn are swept up by the engines of trash collection vehicles.
The feast of the Gods of Bacchanalia takes a purging exit. The Carnival is Over.
Carnival is the Experience

Brazil Carnival showcases their Samba Dance Schools, New Orleans glams the avante garde and fierce outrageousness during their Mardi Gras celebrations, Trinis Play Mas without ceasing.
Trinis have a World Treasure Resource. its the Majesty of Carnival.
What happens at Trini Carnival stays with you for lifetimes..

Thursday, January 1, 2015

My Top 10 Discoveries on Social Media Engagement


Here are my top 10 discoveries on social media

1. Person to Person conversations are so Yesterday 

Instead of conversations,  I can script a post to say my thoughts, themes, ideas, philosophies, discussion, and disregard the arguments in nano seconds of typing.

2. Technology is more entertaining than it is boring

For a gregarious introvert,  the oxymoron of personalities, I am more fluid in my virtual communications.

Open communication shared with others is a daily exercise of new and informational exposure.

It is very engaging to see the personality types exposed by the candor of their reflections. People display their political persuasions,  their religious enthusiasm, or their atheism. There are the stereotypes, the misinterpreted, the bigots and the zealots.

3. Maintain neutrality or don't feel the mandate to pontificate

The public exercise of virtual freedom is not a space for open warfare.  In the fractured schematic of the virtual world,  there are;  the dictator and spectator, the communicator and relator, the orator and berator.  In the expose and the narrated, the truth and the fiction, the traveled and the traversed, the philosophical and the unsophisticated personality types are sharing in the popular culture of virtual reality.

4. Viral is relative

Stars and media thrive on viral excess.  To have star power and become a brand like the Kardashians,  any and everything that can arouse twitter and  reaction are viral worthy.

Kim Kardashian poses with her butt implants for a cover shoot.  It is newsworthy.

Nicki Minaj and the Anaconda salacious video antics are viral material.

The less clothes worn by Rihanna and Miley Cyrus for public events, that's viral value.   This is news,  viral and epidemic

Viral is momentary.  The stars get their fame and until their next spectacle event is publicly posted,  their viral fortune continues to expand.

5. The economy of virtual spending

 Online grocery shopping is more expedient and ever better bargains can be easily found by performing specific searches.   Either store pick up or home delivery, these choices are better than the picking, parking, loading frustrations of instore purchases.

 One of the best online purchases for 2014 was the Overstock.com Barbie Doll Dream house.
The labor of love for my granddaughter Raylynn by her Dad to put this together Christmas day was beyond priceless.  But the joy for Raylynn and her look of complete bliss, are beyond words or money.


6. Isolation and Introspection are not because of loneliness.

The choice to experience a rich virtual education does not diminish the absence of human encounter.

When social media  posts share the nostalgia of homelands far away, there is connection. In the misery of all that seems trivial, when  you are uplifted with a kind affirmation,  the essence of harmony of lives becomes more evident.

7. Sharing is Caring

Sharing pictures,  and posting about common interests introduce people to one another.

For some they are entertained, others may need to politicize.  To some, praying and seeking faithful are shared interests.

8. Virtual Optimization is Visibility with personalized hashtags

Online exploration of vacation destinations has excited my travel curiosity.   The pictures to world destinations with sun, sand and beach are my most favored posts.  My hashtag #LifeisaBeach is  my virtual tour posts of destinations to visit.

#Ihopeyoudance is a favorite post that I regularly share.  With many dancing styles, the line dancing with the over 55+  to the newest hip hop movements with ages ranging from 5 to 95 are my zest potions to share with all.

#Familying with immediate members of family, with friends and those who are no longer strangers are the bonding connections that are continued in my posts of shared and common interests,

9. Virtual is the new Actual

Being socially engaged  is not just a virtual experience in social media, it is my highway to the world or people,  places things to do and things to see.

Virtual is the new Actual

10. Be authentic and Just be You


People who are engaged are individual and unique and esoteric and normal in their day to day lives and activities.

For those who are uncomfortable with radical issues, doctrines, ideologies or dispositions,  social media will be a dubious challenge.

For those who are enthusiastic about being the person they are and can value all that is diverse and all encompassing,  the authenticity of self is all that is really needed.

Engagement in virtual reality and the experience of social media and social networking  are filled with exploration and discovery





Sunday, December 28, 2014

Nostalgia, when Tradition and Reality collide...the yearning of Christmas of yesteryears

fondest family Love and Blessings
As the Season of Christmas neared, the fond farewell to the olde, the yesteryears of family gatherings and the thrill of  Christmas anticipation were remarkably replete in forgotten memories.

The baking, from the sweet bread, the white bread, the sponge cake, and the fruit cake were the virtual cravings to my empty palette..

 Many family friends and colleagues posted pictures and told stories of the magic of smells coming from the family homes and kitchens.  There was bounty and abundance and varieties of holiday feasts.  The pictures were tastes of homesickness that were agonizing.

The cuisine,  the breakfasts, the lunches, and the dinner spreads were all too many.  Everyone shared the sumptuous feasts that families overextend themselves to bestow consumptive indulgences on all tastes and palettes.

And in perspective, the sentiment of tradition pierced deeply in the solace of invisibility.

The meaning of tradition is all too real when the tradition of meaning will more than likely become extinct as years go by and memories are no longer treasured.

Why does the song O Holy Night bring tears to congregations when sung at a midnight mass service?  In the nostalgia of the ethereal hope that the Savior message of the Christ born occurs,  this song evokes imagery and pageantry of the celestial.    The melody of the words, "O night Divine,  when Christ was born" it renders a bewitching spell of angelic harmony of birthing and renewal.

So it happens for many Catholics and other Christian denominations and even to strangers who become families.

The tradition of ritual and Church is perpetuated in the repetition of the liturgy, the doctrine, and the romance of the sacred.  All of the splendor and majesty that comes with the Christmas theme,  with  Hannukah, Kwanzaa festivities, and other festive holiday practices are steeped in holistic reverence.

Even the ritual of the materialistic excesses, the shopping, the buying, the gifting, the expenses, and the displays are typical and requisite holiday occurrences.  They are the traditional norms today.   These are the themes of most commercial spectacles of tradition.

For the tradition of holiday gestures to be replaced by the insularity of modern isolation, it becomes a reckoning of the axiom:   Out with the old,  In with the new.

To reminisce on what made a home for the holidays is to recall the stature of the "homemaker".  

In my personal idea of tradition, the homemaker was Mammy and Daddy.  The essence of the holidays was the work, the preparations, the baking, and the family sharing.  These were the most precious gifts I have ever known.

The homemaker is for me the presence of the intangible.  Is this not the Christmas story?  Is this still the message of Christmas?  This humble birth in a manger story,  a symbolic theme of Peace and Goodwill is the defining message of the Season.

In the perception of the mercenary traditions of now, busyness is the norm.  The things that we have are mere tokens of opulence.  There is a perfected farse that we no longer need to belong.  It becomes natural to be apart because we have become so proprietary.  All the busyness of our sophistication, the talents we have, the things we own, and the insularity that makes us distinct from others, enable our separation.

The nostalgia of tradition wanes.

As I reflect on the paradox of the manger story,  the lowliness of the birth in a manger,  the woman Mary.. who despite all fears and doubts and criticisms accepted her chosen calling,  the Joseph, partner, who companioned and provided intimate stewardship to family and legacy, and the life source of birthing, the child, the innocence, the meek, the gift of the Presence, the lure of sentiment is aroused in promise.

Sentiment is not love.

While there is the challenge to constrain sentiment, practicing love distills even the murkiest distancing in life's path of obstacles and challenges.

The cherished memories of the warmth of home,  the traditions of the family shared, and the making of a home, without much of all the things that today represent value and worth,  are the anchors of history that justify tradition and legacy.

Now, it makes sense.  The feeling of nostalgia, when tradition and reality collide.  and the reason for the Season becomes singular endeavors of private exclusivity.  

In discovery, to become home and to welcome others to share the gift of home are deeper and very lonely sentiments.





Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Social Justice is not Black and White. Looking at fear, divide and conquer, and the psyche of the cult of media

In the aftermath of the death of Freddy Gray, Baltimore explodes.  But this picture of a little black boy offering a bottle of water to a police officer, who may perceive him as a potential threat, given the current state of repeated incidents /killings epitomizes a palpable moment of reconciliation.

Were this only, the hope for all  to see each other as needing each other...
I reshare this blog #SocialJustice after dealing with my own emotions after #MichaelBrown.  Now those same emotions are as raw as it was just 6 months ago



Social InJustice
As a mother, the ache in my being for any other parent who suffers a loss of a child is daunting. To lose a son, by murder by an officer of the law is unconscionable. To lose a son because he is marginalized, because of the color of his skin is irreparable. To lose a son, because the scales of justice are now tainted in his blood, and even the mere act of reparation in a court of law is compromised in a jury's verdict is inconsolable
.
I stand with the Mother of Michael Brown and the people of Ferguson in a grief that is unsustainable.

We are psychologically drowning in hurt and pain and we all are emotionally scarred in the extremes of social justice.

We are demanding that we only see this through the microscope of Black and White.
We are incising the vitriol of Hate and fueling the war mongering of prejudice.
We are perpetuating the psyche of divide and conquer.
Media is drowning us in the furor of our worst fears. If for the last 24 hours, we have been incensed by the atrocities of the verdict in Ferguson, we have now succumbed to the very power of the medium of our own worst fears.

Just perhaps, the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and so many who have been the victims of heinous societal injustices, are the calls for all to reclaim and demand the rights of human justice.
Human justice is not practiced in a courtroom as we can now attest.
Human justice begins in the birthing of a human, in the conduct we share with our fellow beings, in the respect we instill in our families. We are the forces of human justice by instilling virtue and value in our children and loved ones.

When we are all aware of the very potent opportunity we come into this world to share, we will not have to find the excuses to distinguish each other by race, or color or by what the world deems as value.
When we choose to revere our humanity, the lives of the victims of societies ills, will in fact, be honored in their memories.

To achieve social justice, let us not become slaves to the idea of Black and White, but let each of us awaken to our conscious experience of our highest being.

As Robert Nestor Marley sang and many other life prophets have proclaimed:
"Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war and until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. And until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is war. And until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained... now everywhere is war"

Friday, October 31, 2014

Carmen De Lavallade "As I Remember It" at the Kennedy Center, Wash DC Oct3014

‪#‎CarmendeLavallade‬ beauty finessed with ethereal charm.
 In her performance "As I Remember It" on October 30th 2014 to a capacity audience at the Kennedy Center, Terrace Theater Washington DC, her autobiography was told in memories voiced and displayed in film montages.


 No she did not need to wrench her now 83 year old vintage muscles, nor strain that elongated neck, nor master any extraordinary pirouttes or toe points. her story mesmerized the audience in captions of fleeting moments of video, photography and film.

 in a most intoxicating dramatization, she recreated Creation. God creating man/being in His own image and likeness in a very sculpted dance choreography, echoed by singing that resonated the fervor of the piece. In the next sketch she wailed at the penance of aging, talking to her fragmented body and its diminishing dimensions.

 All this done with one costume. A draping fushia sweater over a deep maroon full body dance leotard. 

The artistry of the tempered movements of the now aged Carmen, and the mirrored reflection of the young nubile exotic Carmen de Lavallade was the Dance of Immortality. With a stool and a tall back chair as her props, and a curtain of cascading rows of vertical miniture bulbs, the scenes were shadows of life moments with the many greats of performers, Pearl Bailey, Alvin Ailey, Josephine Baker and many more famed dancers, choreographers, producers of her era. 


She introduced us to the marriage of like spirits in her meeting her husband Geoffrey Holder. So potent was his magnetism that she married him four months after their first meeting. As the show ended, as she summarily concedes to the mortality of her humanness in poetry and dance, the curtains in the back reflect her dancing with her lifelong partner Geoffrey, with rambunctious exhilaration and feisty artistry. i was holding back a gush of tears... because all the memories still live on....

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Tessanne Chin Live at The Hamilton Wash DC Oct 28 14



Tessanne Chin, Winner of The Voice 2013 performed in Washington DC at The Hamilton Hotel. To a sold out audience of nationals representing Jamaica, and all ends of the Caribbean and new fans, Tessanne performed with gusto, with earthiness and with commanding intimacy.
This is my video, which was allowed by the announcer, with no flash. I was privileged to be Standing Room Only up front and personal to capture the radiance, the beauty, and the inviting persona of a truly endearing and richly talented artist




Sunday, May 25, 2014

Memorial Day Remember Your BLessings

#MemorialDay #RememberYourBLessings Blessed thoughts and Live in the richness of each moment in fellowship and love.. gcw written Dec 2011
Thought is the most powerful potion of life sustenance. Imagine the SteveJobs mind, ithink so iAm.
 Zuckerman thinks about a net world, and so it is.

 Gates thinks a program and Microsoft runs on every computer

These are just the cosmic forces exampling manifestation,,, and each of us has this limitless potentiality. 

When thought becomes so potent, that it manifests into an actuality, the impossible is possible, the unbelievable is believable, the unreachable is reachable, and the infinite is attainable.

To live each moment, each day, each year, knowing that my thoughts can breathe new life, a new existence, is to acknowledge the gift of creation. In its most complex definition, that our existence came to be is the wonder and awe of a genius Creator.

 As we step toward our destiny, may each of us know that we are greater than our fears.

We have opportunities beyond our imagination, we have the miracle of thought. 

I embrace the past with gratitude and humility.  I look forward to a future of hope and dreams.  
 I Live today so that my thoughts express the beauty of the Creator, who gives me life

Blessed thoughts and Live in the richness of each moment in fellowship and love

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