This post is actually a post I've had saved as a document on my hard drive for well over a year now titled "Meagan's Rant II" (the post explains what happened to my first rant, so keep going). It's mostly about Facebook (a.k.a. CaraLibro or Feisbuk), and is slightly antiquated as good ol' FB has done away with being a "fan" of anything and is now on a strictly like-based system. However, I feel most of my points are no less valid than they were however long ago it was I originally wrote this.
With enough poular demand, I might even let my first rant see the light of day... but without further ado:
Meagan’s Rant TWO
It’s been a while since I had a rant. The last one was triggered by having to wake up and go to work, and a half-awake daydream I had about me running the world. Nobody really read that one because I never posted it. I might go back and post it at some point because it’s horribly out of date now. But now I have a completely new subject to rant about – Facebook.
Some friends of mine convinced me to sign up for Facebook about a year and a half ago. On the plus side, it is a good way to keep up with friends who live far away. On the minus side, your friends who live ten minutes away sometimes post the minutiae of their daily lives, such as “I’m going to go take a shower now!”, “Breakfast time!”… you get the idea.
It has come to my attention that some types of people on Facebook really need to be removed. Here they are in no particular order. Enjoy.
TYPE 1 – The Drama/Attention Whore
These people are pretty darn easy to spot. They’re the ones who change their status from “in a relationship” to “single”, then make five or six other posts over the course of the next hour hinting about that change but never actually just SAYING, “Frank and I broke up, and I’m upset about it.” It’s like they want you to notice and ask them about it, but if nobody notices their world will fall apart so they have to make SURE someone notices.
Another variation on this type is the person who posts something like, “OMG I AM SO UGLY!!!” or “I hate myself and I want to die…” just so all their friends will comfort them with a flood of reassuring comments. These people need to die. Or at least get off Facebook and get a therapist.
TYPE 2 – The Vaguebooker
The Vaguebooker is a close cousin to the Drama/Attention Whore, and in fact some Vaguebookers ARE Drama/Attention Whores in disguise. The M.O. of the Vaguebooker is to post a status update just open-ended and vague enough to get people to ask a bunch of questions about what was meant. Such as “…is starting to get really excited about something special” or “How can it itch that much?” or even just “Ugh”.
TYPE 3 – The Multi-Profiler
Multi-Profilers are usually women. I say this, because one of the primary habits of the Multi-Profiler is to make profiles on Facebook for their children who are too young to read “so Suzie can play the games.” The real reason, however, is more like, “so Suzie’s mom can have control of several profiles, with which to get more points on Farmville/Mafia Wars/Petville/whatever the game du jour is.”
Multi-Profilers need to be banned from Facebook, and they need jobs and lives. And probably a therapist.
TYPE 4 – The Ego-Centrist
The Ego-Centrist is that annoying person on your friends list who responds to your every posting as though it were intended for them alone. The Ego-Centrist is not conscious of the fact that you have 85 OTHER friends on your Facebook. The Ego-Centrist does not believe in their existence. If you post something about how “some people really get on your nerves sometimes”, the Ego-Centrist will assume that you mean that they are getting on your nerves, they will get offended, and they will ask why you didn’t just SAY something to them.
A short time later you will remove the Ego-Centrist from your friends list.
TYPE 5 – The Moron
I really couldn’t think of a better name for this type. They are the much dumber cousin of the Ego-Centrist. They make the same mistake of taking your updates much too literally, but not as personally. For example, someone I know who has been married for upwards of 15 years just finally got around to changing her status to “married” on her Facebook profile the other day. A shocking number of Morons cropped up on her friends list and in her comments, congratulating her, asking her if they were going on honeymoon, and expressing their shock that she and her spouse had not been married all this time. Morons…
Admittedly some people, myself included, like to comment on these updates jokingly. I did in fact comment congratulating her on her “recent” marriage, but with wording and emoticons that made it clear I was joking. Many of her comment-leavers were clearly not joking. These people need to be wiped off the face of Facebook.
TYPE 6 – The Social Activist/Rabid Fan
I was originally going to separate these two, but I’ve decided to lump them together under this heading because it’s a variation on the same problem. Facebook allows you to become a “fan” of just about anything someone makes a page for… from TV shows, to books, to cities, to “making squares on the desktop by clicking and dragging the mouse pointer.” (Seriously, you can become a fan of that.)
The Rabid Fan is a fan of every trivial thing you can think of and many things that never would have occurred to you. He/she is a fan of “Why can’t my shampoo and conditioner run out at the same time?!”, “The uncontrollable laughter you get when you’re overly tired”, “Changing a word because you can’t spell the word you wanted to use,” and even, ironically, “Become a fan if becoming a fan is addictive.”
The Social Activist is a cousin of the Rabid Fan. The Social Activist seems to believe that if a large number of people become Facebook fans of the same cause/idea, it can change the world. These people think, for example, that if they can find 1,000,000 fans for “Repeal Obamacare!” on Facebook, it might actually get repealed. In actual fact, if they can find 1,000,000 fans for “Repeal Obamacare!” on Facebook, they will have found 1,000,000 people who are spending way too much time on their computer to actually effect any change in the world at all. You think Obama/Congress cares if you can get 1,000,000 people to fan “Repeal Obamacare!”? No they do not. Especially since 1,000,000 is kind of a drop in the bucket when you consider that an estimated 308,971,000 people live in the United States of America. Sure, become a fan of your social activism cause of choice, but then get off your computer and go DO something about it. Sheesh.
TYPE 7 – The Witty Wannabe
This is a fairly recent development on Facebook, but people have now discovered that when you can’t think of something witty and/or profound to put in your Facebook status, you can now get a random status generator to do it for you! This kinda makes me throw up in my mouth a little. The fact that you’re spending that much time worrying about having a witty/profound status update indicates that you’re spending WAY too much time on Facebook, which is probably why you haven’t got anything witty/profound to say… you haven’t DONE anything recently except be on Facebook, and updating your status with “…is on Facebook” would just be admitting to the world how lame you have become. Please go get a life. But don’t come back and post status updates about it, ‘kay?
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
March 29, 2013
June 25, 2012
Nostalgia trippin'....
Generally I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I love that it keeps me from having to do as much talking on the phone, which I actually hate doing. I love seeing pictures and funny stuff that people post. I hate seeing political garbage that people post (especially in election years). I love being able to easily keep in touch with people in far away places like Mexico. I hate knowing the minutiae of the lives of friends who live fifteen minutes away. My feelings on Facebook are very mixed.
Every now and then, though, Facebook does something interesting. Like allowing someone you haven't seen in about 19 years (and I'm 29, so do the math) to find you. In fact, it was 19 years ago last week that my family moved to Molalla from Fairview, just a couple of days after I finished fifth grade. One of the people that I was pretty opposed to leaving behind in Fairview was a kid named Andrew.
I think I met Andrew in third grade. I don't believe he was at the school before that, though I can't remember if he moved there that year or what. I'd been there since kindergarten. I think we had different teachers that year, but we were in the same TAG class and there the bonds of shared nerdery were forged. I have sort of a jumble of random memories of time spent with him, but overall a very pleasant sort of association. We actually were in the same class in both fourth and fifth grades, if I recall correctly, giving us even more time to practice our brand of mischief. Which I think primarily involved playing Where in the World is Carmen San Diego on the computer any chance we got. So Andrew, if you're reading this (since I link to this crap on Facebook), please don't kill me. We don't have any mutual FB friends so your dignity should be safe... Here are some of those random memories I was talking about earlier:
*Working together in TAG class to build a structure that, if I recall correctly, was made out of milk straws and marshmallows.
*Trips to OMSI. I always thought Andrew's parents must be millionaires because not only did they have a fancy house with leather furniture in it (and the first artificial Christmas tree I'd ever seen), but he also got to go to OMSI any time he wanted, pretty much. And his mom was usually pretty willing to take me along. I always liked his mom. Even when she sang along to Michael Jackson songs in the car. (This was the only place in my whole life I ever listened to Michael Jackson music.)
*I remember when Hurricane Andrew hit. Andrew went around for days bragging that he'd just destroyed half of Florida. For some reason I found this hilarious.
*Andrew always insisted that he was cool because his family was Finnish. This was back in the day when just about all the kids at school except two were generic, white-bread Americans, and thus I also thought it was very cool that his family was Finnish. I also thought it was cool that someone besides me had a last name that nobody could figure out how to spell/pronounce. Also his surname reinforces my theory that most if not all Finnish names have a repeating letter in them. (Perttu, Eicca, Paavo, Mikko, Kivilaakso, Niiranen. The pattern holds.)
*I forget what he did, but in fourth grade he somehow managed to have his face contact a curb somewhere between home and school and showed up at school with blood running down his face. I remember the teachers freaking out over it and him being all nonchalant. It was the greatest display of manliness my nine-year-old eyes had seen (at least from someone in my own age bracket). And I think last time I saw him he still had scars from that. (Do you still?)
*One year, I think it was fourth grade (but possibly fifth), Andrew and I took first and second place in the school's geography bee. He only beat me because I couldn't remember the name of the volcano that had been erupting in the Philippines. Well, I'll never forget it now - Mt. Pinatubo. He won a Carmen San Diego board game, and generously offered to let me play. I think we decided it was kind of boring, though, and we ended up doing something else entirely that afternoon. But I would have been completely furious if I'd been beaten by anyone but Andrew.
*I have never known anyone else who could draw accurate maps of most (if not all) US states from memory. I remember in fifth grade for Valentine's Day we had these little heart-shaped books that we made and had to pass around and everyone had to write something nice in everyone else's book. Andrew drew a state in everyone's book. And he drew Illinois in mine, because he said it was his favorite state to draw. I think I may still have that somewhere in a box.
*Andrew's mom (who I believe is named Karen) actually taught me how to swim. In Blue Lake. She took us there quite a bit too, it seems. But I think he actually lived pretty close to Blue Lake, so that wasn't really a huge ordeal.
*Fairview Elementary thought it was cool to torture fifth graders in April by making them learn the maypole dance and then having them perform it on May 1st. Most of the fifth graders thought it was torture because they had to be partnered up with and dance with someone of the opposite gender. Andrew and I were partnered up together. I remember practicing in his driveway and laughing about it with both of our moms looking on like we were insane.
*I actually did see Andrew one time after we moved. His mom drove him all the way out to Molalla, and he and I spent an afternoon hunting down the feral kittens living under our front porch. I think both of us got scratched quite a lot that day, but we caught some kittens (all but one of which we eventually tamed).
What really blows my mind, though, is that when we moved to Molalla I was almost exactly the age that my son is now. And suddenly I'm having all these memories from a ten-year-old perspective, which is a mental place I haven't visited in a long, long time, and remembering how I saw the world then. Also interesting since I just moved Damian from the only school he'd ever known (Molalla) and brought him to Gresham, about six miles from where I grew up in Fairview. I remember that first summer in Molalla as being one of the most boring times of my life, because I didn't know anyone, there were no kids around, and I hadn't been to school there yet so I didn't have any friends to call (and I think Fairview might still have been long distance from Molalla back then, before the dawn of EAS). If it hadn't been for the Molalla Public Library (and the mother of my future husband, but that's another story) I think I would have gone completely mad. Overall I think Damian's handling a remarkably parallel situation much better than I did. Of course, he's not hormonal yet. ;-) Though we did have this dialog this evening after I'd tucked him in bed.
DAMIAN: Auughh!!! My blanket reeks!
ME: Yeah, that's because it smells like boy. I keep telling you every morning that it smells like boy in here and you gotta let some air in!
DAMIAN: Man, I didn't realize that men stink so much!
Well said, my child... well said. ;-)
Every now and then, though, Facebook does something interesting. Like allowing someone you haven't seen in about 19 years (and I'm 29, so do the math) to find you. In fact, it was 19 years ago last week that my family moved to Molalla from Fairview, just a couple of days after I finished fifth grade. One of the people that I was pretty opposed to leaving behind in Fairview was a kid named Andrew.
I think I met Andrew in third grade. I don't believe he was at the school before that, though I can't remember if he moved there that year or what. I'd been there since kindergarten. I think we had different teachers that year, but we were in the same TAG class and there the bonds of shared nerdery were forged. I have sort of a jumble of random memories of time spent with him, but overall a very pleasant sort of association. We actually were in the same class in both fourth and fifth grades, if I recall correctly, giving us even more time to practice our brand of mischief. Which I think primarily involved playing Where in the World is Carmen San Diego on the computer any chance we got. So Andrew, if you're reading this (since I link to this crap on Facebook), please don't kill me. We don't have any mutual FB friends so your dignity should be safe... Here are some of those random memories I was talking about earlier:
*Working together in TAG class to build a structure that, if I recall correctly, was made out of milk straws and marshmallows.
*Trips to OMSI. I always thought Andrew's parents must be millionaires because not only did they have a fancy house with leather furniture in it (and the first artificial Christmas tree I'd ever seen), but he also got to go to OMSI any time he wanted, pretty much. And his mom was usually pretty willing to take me along. I always liked his mom. Even when she sang along to Michael Jackson songs in the car. (This was the only place in my whole life I ever listened to Michael Jackson music.)
*I remember when Hurricane Andrew hit. Andrew went around for days bragging that he'd just destroyed half of Florida. For some reason I found this hilarious.
*Andrew always insisted that he was cool because his family was Finnish. This was back in the day when just about all the kids at school except two were generic, white-bread Americans, and thus I also thought it was very cool that his family was Finnish. I also thought it was cool that someone besides me had a last name that nobody could figure out how to spell/pronounce. Also his surname reinforces my theory that most if not all Finnish names have a repeating letter in them. (Perttu, Eicca, Paavo, Mikko, Kivilaakso, Niiranen. The pattern holds.)
*I forget what he did, but in fourth grade he somehow managed to have his face contact a curb somewhere between home and school and showed up at school with blood running down his face. I remember the teachers freaking out over it and him being all nonchalant. It was the greatest display of manliness my nine-year-old eyes had seen (at least from someone in my own age bracket). And I think last time I saw him he still had scars from that. (Do you still?)
*One year, I think it was fourth grade (but possibly fifth), Andrew and I took first and second place in the school's geography bee. He only beat me because I couldn't remember the name of the volcano that had been erupting in the Philippines. Well, I'll never forget it now - Mt. Pinatubo. He won a Carmen San Diego board game, and generously offered to let me play. I think we decided it was kind of boring, though, and we ended up doing something else entirely that afternoon. But I would have been completely furious if I'd been beaten by anyone but Andrew.
*I have never known anyone else who could draw accurate maps of most (if not all) US states from memory. I remember in fifth grade for Valentine's Day we had these little heart-shaped books that we made and had to pass around and everyone had to write something nice in everyone else's book. Andrew drew a state in everyone's book. And he drew Illinois in mine, because he said it was his favorite state to draw. I think I may still have that somewhere in a box.
*Andrew's mom (who I believe is named Karen) actually taught me how to swim. In Blue Lake. She took us there quite a bit too, it seems. But I think he actually lived pretty close to Blue Lake, so that wasn't really a huge ordeal.
*Fairview Elementary thought it was cool to torture fifth graders in April by making them learn the maypole dance and then having them perform it on May 1st. Most of the fifth graders thought it was torture because they had to be partnered up with and dance with someone of the opposite gender. Andrew and I were partnered up together. I remember practicing in his driveway and laughing about it with both of our moms looking on like we were insane.
*I actually did see Andrew one time after we moved. His mom drove him all the way out to Molalla, and he and I spent an afternoon hunting down the feral kittens living under our front porch. I think both of us got scratched quite a lot that day, but we caught some kittens (all but one of which we eventually tamed).
What really blows my mind, though, is that when we moved to Molalla I was almost exactly the age that my son is now. And suddenly I'm having all these memories from a ten-year-old perspective, which is a mental place I haven't visited in a long, long time, and remembering how I saw the world then. Also interesting since I just moved Damian from the only school he'd ever known (Molalla) and brought him to Gresham, about six miles from where I grew up in Fairview. I remember that first summer in Molalla as being one of the most boring times of my life, because I didn't know anyone, there were no kids around, and I hadn't been to school there yet so I didn't have any friends to call (and I think Fairview might still have been long distance from Molalla back then, before the dawn of EAS). If it hadn't been for the Molalla Public Library (and the mother of my future husband, but that's another story) I think I would have gone completely mad. Overall I think Damian's handling a remarkably parallel situation much better than I did. Of course, he's not hormonal yet. ;-) Though we did have this dialog this evening after I'd tucked him in bed.
DAMIAN: Auughh!!! My blanket reeks!
ME: Yeah, that's because it smells like boy. I keep telling you every morning that it smells like boy in here and you gotta let some air in!
DAMIAN: Man, I didn't realize that men stink so much!
Well said, my child... well said. ;-)
November 24, 2009
Blog not moving after all!
It didn't take me real long to figure out that I don't like WordPress that much at all. So I shut that one down, and now I am back here and plan to stay. :-)
Had the Chamaco's conference today. Academically he's fine. Behaviorally... he's seven. His teacher and I discussed our plans to secure his coat to his body with a staple gun. No, just kidding, but I got the impression that his teacher was about to consider something drastic. She suggested sending him to school without it and letting him freeze, in that sort of "I'm joking but I wish I were serious" way. Who knew a kid could be so obnoxious with a coat?
Most shocking to me was the fact that he had perfect attendance this trimester... 54 out of 54 days, he was in class like a good little monkey. I don't think that's ever happened before.
Anyway, I'm hoping to get to have a nice chat with the CTG tomorrow morning since I haven't hardly seen him in a couple of weeks... sad! This having a life thing does not leave much time in my schedule for stalking gas station attendants.
And for those of you who missed the announcement over on the other, short-lived blog, I am back on Facebook in a limited sort of way. No games, no silly time-wasting survey things (unless someone is in the hospital and I'm killing time in the waiting room or something, maybe)... just I post a status message, read yours, then I go buh-bye. Don't invite me to join your mafia, 'cause I won't. Nor will I tend your farm.
Song o' the Day: "So Cold" by Breaking Benjamin. I highly recommend seeing the video for this song here if you missed it because you didn't read the other blog. I do love a good music video, and this is one of those cool ones that sort of tells a story but leaves a lot of unanswered questions. (Like, what did that dude do to get into this situation?)
Bonus Song o' the Day: You get an extra today since the other is actually yesterday's and was posted on the other blog. Today's song is actually "Without You" by Three Days Grace. It's from their new album that came out in September called Life Starts Now, and it's actually a very good album. And I like the cover art.
Had the Chamaco's conference today. Academically he's fine. Behaviorally... he's seven. His teacher and I discussed our plans to secure his coat to his body with a staple gun. No, just kidding, but I got the impression that his teacher was about to consider something drastic. She suggested sending him to school without it and letting him freeze, in that sort of "I'm joking but I wish I were serious" way. Who knew a kid could be so obnoxious with a coat?
Most shocking to me was the fact that he had perfect attendance this trimester... 54 out of 54 days, he was in class like a good little monkey. I don't think that's ever happened before.
Anyway, I'm hoping to get to have a nice chat with the CTG tomorrow morning since I haven't hardly seen him in a couple of weeks... sad! This having a life thing does not leave much time in my schedule for stalking gas station attendants.
And for those of you who missed the announcement over on the other, short-lived blog, I am back on Facebook in a limited sort of way. No games, no silly time-wasting survey things (unless someone is in the hospital and I'm killing time in the waiting room or something, maybe)... just I post a status message, read yours, then I go buh-bye. Don't invite me to join your mafia, 'cause I won't. Nor will I tend your farm.
Song o' the Day: "So Cold" by Breaking Benjamin. I highly recommend seeing the video for this song here if you missed it because you didn't read the other blog. I do love a good music video, and this is one of those cool ones that sort of tells a story but leaves a lot of unanswered questions. (Like, what did that dude do to get into this situation?)
Bonus Song o' the Day: You get an extra today since the other is actually yesterday's and was posted on the other blog. Today's song is actually "Without You" by Three Days Grace. It's from their new album that came out in September called Life Starts Now, and it's actually a very good album. And I like the cover art.
November 15, 2009
The brand new stupidest thing anyone has ever said to me....
This must be a red-letter day! You guys get a new alias to guess at, and I got to marvel once more at how dumb my fellow humans can be sometimes. Aren't we lucky? :-)
Meet Barney, so named because he is often in the company of many children (but without the creepiness of having a giant purple dinosaur head). Barney came up to me this afternoon and said, "So we were going to invite the Chamaco to (other kid's) birthday party, but you're not on Facebook anymore." (Naturally I have left out Other Kid's name, because that would make Barney readily identifiable.)
I wasn't sure I had heard him correctly. Of all the stupid reasons! Okay, first off, that sounded kind of like a diss. "You're not on Facebook anymore, therefore your kid isn't cool enough to have at our kid's party." Or maybe, "Since you're not on Facebook anymore, it was too inconvenient to contact you to ask if your child could come to our child's birthday party, because phone-dialing/emailing would have been required." And probably it's more a case of the latter, which is equally retarded and here's why: I know Barney has a cell phone. He's always carrying the thing around. Phones call people, and I do believe that Barney's particular phone does internet as well. His phone likely emails people. Secondly, my phone number/email address are readily available in the church's phone directory, of which everyone received a copy at the beginning of the year. I pointed out to Barney that they have these things with buttons on them called phones, which can be used to contact other human beings, and of course he pulled his out to show me that it in fact does not have buttons. It has a touchscreen. So does mine. I can still call people. Nice try though, Barney.
I remarked upon this before in my now-defunct MySpace blog (that blog in fact was the beginning of my withdrawing from MySpace/Facebook), but I want to know when humans (in particular Americans) got so afraid of not being in constant contact with the rest of the world 24/7. I'm only 27 years old, not old by any stretch of the imagination, and I can remember a time when all phones had buttons. Furthermore, all phones were stationary objects attached to the walls in your house. Al Gore hadn't invented the internet yet (ha ha!), email didn't exist (for that matter, neither did Facebook and MySpace), we listened to music on these rectangular pieces of plastic called "cassette tapes" that we shoved inside a large box called a "cassette player" or a smaller, portable box called a "Walkman", and if someone called your house and you weren't home, the phone would just ring there by itself until they got bored and hung up. And they called back later if they still wanted whatever they wanted the first time they called. And surprsingly, the planet kept chugging along in its path around the sun, spinning merrily away on its axis with a 35 degree tilt, and we actually found ways to keep in touch with the people we cared about. Sometimes we sent letters. On paper. Via a system called "the United States Postal Service". (Speaking of them, I bet those guys really wish you still remembered how to do that, because they're hurting for business.)
But back to my original point, there is absolutely no reason on earth that Barney couldn't have gotten a hold of me if he'd actually wanted to. Be real here.
And then someone else came up to me asking if I'd add her again as a friend on Facebook because her Facebook crashed and she lost a bunch of her friends and I told her I wasn't on Facebook anymore and the look of shock on her face was priceless. And then I had to explain to her why. *sigh* Kids these days... So I'm going to send out some emails here in a bit to people who seem to have found it fantastically hard to contact me without Facebook, and if you're reading this because you got one of those... congratulations! You remembered how we used to do stuff prior to Facebook!
Probably I'm too young to be this nostalgic, but I kind of miss the 80s, and even the early 90s. My family got internet in 1996, and it ate Caveman Fred not too long thereafter. I still remember that fateful afternoon when Caveman Fred came home, tossed me an envelope and said, "Here, I got this from the phone company. It's called internet. Install it and make it work." (Like most kids born after 1980, I heard things like that a lot from my parents.)
Seriously, though... if Facebook and MySpace are what is representative of society today, I withdraw my membership. There's more to life than Mafia Wars and FarmTown, people! (Hey Wong! Does that statement earn me a spot under your rock?)
Meet Barney, so named because he is often in the company of many children (but without the creepiness of having a giant purple dinosaur head). Barney came up to me this afternoon and said, "So we were going to invite the Chamaco to (other kid's) birthday party, but you're not on Facebook anymore." (Naturally I have left out Other Kid's name, because that would make Barney readily identifiable.)
I wasn't sure I had heard him correctly. Of all the stupid reasons! Okay, first off, that sounded kind of like a diss. "You're not on Facebook anymore, therefore your kid isn't cool enough to have at our kid's party." Or maybe, "Since you're not on Facebook anymore, it was too inconvenient to contact you to ask if your child could come to our child's birthday party, because phone-dialing/emailing would have been required." And probably it's more a case of the latter, which is equally retarded and here's why: I know Barney has a cell phone. He's always carrying the thing around. Phones call people, and I do believe that Barney's particular phone does internet as well. His phone likely emails people. Secondly, my phone number/email address are readily available in the church's phone directory, of which everyone received a copy at the beginning of the year. I pointed out to Barney that they have these things with buttons on them called phones, which can be used to contact other human beings, and of course he pulled his out to show me that it in fact does not have buttons. It has a touchscreen. So does mine. I can still call people. Nice try though, Barney.
I remarked upon this before in my now-defunct MySpace blog (that blog in fact was the beginning of my withdrawing from MySpace/Facebook), but I want to know when humans (in particular Americans) got so afraid of not being in constant contact with the rest of the world 24/7. I'm only 27 years old, not old by any stretch of the imagination, and I can remember a time when all phones had buttons. Furthermore, all phones were stationary objects attached to the walls in your house. Al Gore hadn't invented the internet yet (ha ha!), email didn't exist (for that matter, neither did Facebook and MySpace), we listened to music on these rectangular pieces of plastic called "cassette tapes" that we shoved inside a large box called a "cassette player" or a smaller, portable box called a "Walkman", and if someone called your house and you weren't home, the phone would just ring there by itself until they got bored and hung up. And they called back later if they still wanted whatever they wanted the first time they called. And surprsingly, the planet kept chugging along in its path around the sun, spinning merrily away on its axis with a 35 degree tilt, and we actually found ways to keep in touch with the people we cared about. Sometimes we sent letters. On paper. Via a system called "the United States Postal Service". (Speaking of them, I bet those guys really wish you still remembered how to do that, because they're hurting for business.)
But back to my original point, there is absolutely no reason on earth that Barney couldn't have gotten a hold of me if he'd actually wanted to. Be real here.
And then someone else came up to me asking if I'd add her again as a friend on Facebook because her Facebook crashed and she lost a bunch of her friends and I told her I wasn't on Facebook anymore and the look of shock on her face was priceless. And then I had to explain to her why. *sigh* Kids these days... So I'm going to send out some emails here in a bit to people who seem to have found it fantastically hard to contact me without Facebook, and if you're reading this because you got one of those... congratulations! You remembered how we used to do stuff prior to Facebook!
Probably I'm too young to be this nostalgic, but I kind of miss the 80s, and even the early 90s. My family got internet in 1996, and it ate Caveman Fred not too long thereafter. I still remember that fateful afternoon when Caveman Fred came home, tossed me an envelope and said, "Here, I got this from the phone company. It's called internet. Install it and make it work." (Like most kids born after 1980, I heard things like that a lot from my parents.)
Seriously, though... if Facebook and MySpace are what is representative of society today, I withdraw my membership. There's more to life than Mafia Wars and FarmTown, people! (Hey Wong! Does that statement earn me a spot under your rock?)
November 1, 2009
Cade la pioggia (blog in English - Hakuna matata)...
Interesting thing... depression seems so widespread recently. And yes, I understand, the economy sucks, nobody has any money except for a few elite scumbags, the politicians are corrupt, yadda yadda... it's a bad, ugly world out there. Or is it?
Ron (who I don't think needs an alias, but if he would like one he should let me know and I'll come up with something cute and edit this post) asked me today how things were going for me lately. I had to admit they've been going pretty good. I mean, lets face it... I've got a job (or three), I've got an apartment, we have food, I am keeping up with my bills... despite the fact that I'm still living below the federal poverty line, I'm actually doing better for myself than I have since my ex-husband left me about six years ago. The budget is tight but doable, we're not going without anything we actually need and we've got some of the stuff we just want. That's doing pretty darn good for the here and now! And as the air gets a bit of bite to it, I'm looking forward to spending my first winter of about the last 8 in a home with both a heating system and insulation. I do not anticipate going into the bathroom this January to find my shampoo has frozen, and I'm looking forward to that not happening. So aside from the fact that I still sleep by myself, pretty much everything is the happiest it has been in Meagan-land in recent memory.
Not so everywhere, however. I know a lot of people are suffering, and the case to hit closest to where I live is a friend of mine... for the purposes of this blog, we shall call him "Emo Steve" (which, incidentally, was also the name we gave to a dinosaur at Prehistoric Gardens this summer... I think it was the ankylosaurus). Despite the fact that I have dubbed him "Emo Steve", I actually do like the guy most of the time... he's one of the few people I know that can hold up his end of a language-based conversation. He does, however, tend to be angsty and agonize a bit more than is strictly necessary and lately he's been more morose than ever... enough to make my defunct emotional antennae start sending out feeble squawks of warning. So I sent him a text asking if he was okay, he sent back what I thought was a rather curt reply (though it's hard to tell over text) thanking me for caring and ending with "Have a good night!" which, besides being rather faux-cheerful, is EmoSteve-ese for "quit talking to me"... I think. "Have a good night!" is his usual text-conversation-ender phrase. (But I usually have to send one more text back just because I am that sort of person.) So I quit talking to him. Some days I curse my social ineptitude. And some days I am just very grateful for Wong, who is less emo and easier to read since I've known him about three years longer. And some days I'm just really glad that I still sleep alone, even though I find that troublesome on some nights. :-) Sleeping alone sucks, but sometimes I think not sleeping alone and then having an extra whiny person around during the day would suck more.
Earlier on I was thinking about el Día de los Muertos, which is a rant/brain dump I visited once many many moons ago on my MySpace blog. For those of you who might be monolingual English speakers or otherwise not in the know, Día de los Muertos means "Day of the Dead", and it's a pretty common celebration in several Latino/Hispanic cultures, though mostly in Mexico. It dates back to an Aztec festival a few thousand years ago dedicated to their goddess Mictecacihuatl (Say that three times fast... or even once!), who was known as "the Lady of the Dead". "Day of the Dead" is a bit of a misnomer, though, because the festival actually lasts two days. November 1st is called Día de los Inocentes or Día de los Ángelitos, and November 2nd is the actual Día de los Muertos (or in some places, Día de los Difuntos, which pretty much means the same thing).
Really I think that the Latin-American cultures in general have a much healthier view of death than we Americans do. Death is seen as the natural endpoint of the life cycle... you're born, you live a while, then you die. No getting around it, no tiptoeing around the subject, no cute euphemisms... death is just part of life. You know... the last part. But they also believe that one night a year, the souls of their departed loved ones come back to visit. On November 1st, the souls of children and babies who have died return, and the souls of deceased adults return on November 2nd. And they celebrate this. I think it's a cool idea, really. (For a cool Día de los Muertos tie in, hop on YouTube and look up Seether's music video for "The Gift". It's set in Oaxaca, Mexico and has a Día de los Muertos theme, complete with a little ghost girl. It also has Shaun Morgan, who is the hotness.) In America, on the other hand, death is scary and we don't like to talk about it. When someone dies, we invent cute little euphemisms like "passed away", "departed this life", "kicked the bucket", "bought the farm", "shuffled off this mortal coil", etc. Really when people do that I'd like to shuffle them off this mortal coil. Making up cute phrases does not change the reality... dead is dead, and if we'd collectively come to grips with that it might make our lives a bit easier. But then, many Americans don't believe in any sort of afterlife either, so I guess death is scary when this is all you've got. I say if this is all we've got, just kill me now, TYVM.
Ron (who I don't think needs an alias, but if he would like one he should let me know and I'll come up with something cute and edit this post) asked me today how things were going for me lately. I had to admit they've been going pretty good. I mean, lets face it... I've got a job (or three), I've got an apartment, we have food, I am keeping up with my bills... despite the fact that I'm still living below the federal poverty line, I'm actually doing better for myself than I have since my ex-husband left me about six years ago. The budget is tight but doable, we're not going without anything we actually need and we've got some of the stuff we just want. That's doing pretty darn good for the here and now! And as the air gets a bit of bite to it, I'm looking forward to spending my first winter of about the last 8 in a home with both a heating system and insulation. I do not anticipate going into the bathroom this January to find my shampoo has frozen, and I'm looking forward to that not happening. So aside from the fact that I still sleep by myself, pretty much everything is the happiest it has been in Meagan-land in recent memory.
Not so everywhere, however. I know a lot of people are suffering, and the case to hit closest to where I live is a friend of mine... for the purposes of this blog, we shall call him "Emo Steve" (which, incidentally, was also the name we gave to a dinosaur at Prehistoric Gardens this summer... I think it was the ankylosaurus). Despite the fact that I have dubbed him "Emo Steve", I actually do like the guy most of the time... he's one of the few people I know that can hold up his end of a language-based conversation. He does, however, tend to be angsty and agonize a bit more than is strictly necessary and lately he's been more morose than ever... enough to make my defunct emotional antennae start sending out feeble squawks of warning. So I sent him a text asking if he was okay, he sent back what I thought was a rather curt reply (though it's hard to tell over text) thanking me for caring and ending with "Have a good night!" which, besides being rather faux-cheerful, is EmoSteve-ese for "quit talking to me"... I think. "Have a good night!" is his usual text-conversation-ender phrase. (But I usually have to send one more text back just because I am that sort of person.) So I quit talking to him. Some days I curse my social ineptitude. And some days I am just very grateful for Wong, who is less emo and easier to read since I've known him about three years longer. And some days I'm just really glad that I still sleep alone, even though I find that troublesome on some nights. :-) Sleeping alone sucks, but sometimes I think not sleeping alone and then having an extra whiny person around during the day would suck more.
Earlier on I was thinking about el Día de los Muertos, which is a rant/brain dump I visited once many many moons ago on my MySpace blog. For those of you who might be monolingual English speakers or otherwise not in the know, Día de los Muertos means "Day of the Dead", and it's a pretty common celebration in several Latino/Hispanic cultures, though mostly in Mexico. It dates back to an Aztec festival a few thousand years ago dedicated to their goddess Mictecacihuatl (Say that three times fast... or even once!), who was known as "the Lady of the Dead". "Day of the Dead" is a bit of a misnomer, though, because the festival actually lasts two days. November 1st is called Día de los Inocentes or Día de los Ángelitos, and November 2nd is the actual Día de los Muertos (or in some places, Día de los Difuntos, which pretty much means the same thing).
Really I think that the Latin-American cultures in general have a much healthier view of death than we Americans do. Death is seen as the natural endpoint of the life cycle... you're born, you live a while, then you die. No getting around it, no tiptoeing around the subject, no cute euphemisms... death is just part of life. You know... the last part. But they also believe that one night a year, the souls of their departed loved ones come back to visit. On November 1st, the souls of children and babies who have died return, and the souls of deceased adults return on November 2nd. And they celebrate this. I think it's a cool idea, really. (For a cool Día de los Muertos tie in, hop on YouTube and look up Seether's music video for "The Gift". It's set in Oaxaca, Mexico and has a Día de los Muertos theme, complete with a little ghost girl. It also has Shaun Morgan, who is the hotness.) In America, on the other hand, death is scary and we don't like to talk about it. When someone dies, we invent cute little euphemisms like "passed away", "departed this life", "kicked the bucket", "bought the farm", "shuffled off this mortal coil", etc. Really when people do that I'd like to shuffle them off this mortal coil. Making up cute phrases does not change the reality... dead is dead, and if we'd collectively come to grips with that it might make our lives a bit easier. But then, many Americans don't believe in any sort of afterlife either, so I guess death is scary when this is all you've got. I say if this is all we've got, just kill me now, TYVM.
And mindful of the fact that tomorrow I won't have a Facebook, I started the weaning process today and did other stuff. For my 26th birthday (which was the one that happened in 2008, for those of you who don't know), I was given one of those big picture frames with lots of little holes for you to put snapshots in. My grandma has one of those that she's had for YEARS and she's never put her own pictures in and it still has the pictures of the pretend families that are in there when you buy it. We won't let her change it now... those guys are part of the family. We've named a few of them. Lest I should arrive at that point, though, I decided I'd better put pictures in mine. So this afternoon in my Facebook-free time, I got down my box of snapshots, sorted through and found the ones that I would most like to put in the frame. I was about 9 pictures short of filling it, so I found one of my old abstract pastel drawings and stuck it back there to fill space until I have more pictures that I like. Because really... I'm only 27. My life story is still being written, and no doubt many fascinating photos will be taken sometime between now and my death (which I will happily embrace when it comes, by the way... no tiptoeing for me!). So I'll fill that space when I come to it, and until then there is cheerful abstract art and a piece of blue construction paper. But here's a picture of the frame:
That was quicker than I thought...
I'm done saving my pics off of Facebook. Upon reflection, most of the pictures I had on Facebook were stuff I probably don't need anyway. I did save the ones I took of the moving-in process here at the apartment (we've been here almost eight months now... crazy!) because that was an important and momentous life process thingie, but aside from a few special pictures most of it was fluff.
Which brings to mind something else I hate about social-networking sites - comment whores. You know exactly who I'm talking about... those people who post a bunch of pictures, then in either a status message or a bulletin board post say, "I just put up a bunch of pics... go comment on them!" or something to that effect. Like comments enhance your worth as a person. I don't know.
"Wong" told me this morning that I have now joined a special group of elitist @$$holes (clever, no?) who shun all social-networking sites... yes, he is a member of this group. I asked him if that meant I get to hide with him under his rock now and he said maybe. ;)
So anyway, back to the original subject, my Facebook account closes at bedtime tonight. I'm leaving it up long enough for a few people to find the messages I sent them telling them where I'm disappearing to, and then off into the ether I go. I'm hoping I'm going to ultimately save myself a lot of time by not being on Facebook, and I think it'll probably work because I've spent less time typing this blog than I spend on the average Facebook session (and yes, I do type very quickly, thank you). I realize this is probably my own failing, but given a host of tiny applications to toy with, I will toy with them, and therefore I need to get off Facebook. Sorry to anyone who might feel I don't love them anymore.
Which brings to mind something else I hate about social-networking sites - comment whores. You know exactly who I'm talking about... those people who post a bunch of pictures, then in either a status message or a bulletin board post say, "I just put up a bunch of pics... go comment on them!" or something to that effect. Like comments enhance your worth as a person. I don't know.
"Wong" told me this morning that I have now joined a special group of elitist @$$holes (clever, no?) who shun all social-networking sites... yes, he is a member of this group. I asked him if that meant I get to hide with him under his rock now and he said maybe. ;)
So anyway, back to the original subject, my Facebook account closes at bedtime tonight. I'm leaving it up long enough for a few people to find the messages I sent them telling them where I'm disappearing to, and then off into the ether I go. I'm hoping I'm going to ultimately save myself a lot of time by not being on Facebook, and I think it'll probably work because I've spent less time typing this blog than I spend on the average Facebook session (and yes, I do type very quickly, thank you). I realize this is probably my own failing, but given a host of tiny applications to toy with, I will toy with them, and therefore I need to get off Facebook. Sorry to anyone who might feel I don't love them anymore.
October 31, 2009
Well that didn't take long...
I said there would be noise, and behold there is noise! I'm running an all-Seether playlist at the moment, and for those of you who might like to shut it off as quickly as possible you'll find the pause button located to your right directly underneath the "About Me" section.
And now your bits of randomness for the night:
I almost tore off the fingernail on my index finger on my right hand today, and now that finger is very tender and it's a bit difficult to type. I did it while gutting pumpkins. Don't ask how.
I'm to the point in my phasing out of Facebook where all I have to do is get my pictures saved elsewhere. I give it two days, max.
By blogging right now at 23:24, I am putting off going to bed merely because I do not want to. If I were to remain awake much longer, however, I would feel the need to start working on one of the three work-related projects I am actively procrastinating, so soon I will go to bed so as to not have to work. Sometime before Monday, however, I am expected to translate the new report cards for grades K-5 so teachers can start filling them out. The idea of doing this makes me throw up a little in my mouth, because I know it will be boring, will take probably a minimum of six hours, and most of the things on the report cards will be made up "Teacherese" terms that are incredibly difficult to translate. (And they wonder why I don't want to become a "real" teacher...) Also sometime in the near future, I need to read the manual to get my CDL and finish reading "Positive Discipline for Preschoolers", both of which make me sleepy.
You know, I always just talked to my preschooler like he was a normal person. He grew out of being a preschooler, and he seems to be mostly fine (and with an above-average vocab for his age bracket, I might add) so why do I need to read a whole book telling me how to say "knock that off" in a way that sounds positive so I don't damage some child's fragile ego? In my opinion, kids in general don't hear the word "no" nearly enough anymore, and the word "no" is enforced even less. *sigh* If I think on that subject too long, I start having fantasies where I quit the education field all together, start a rock band, and tour the world in an extremely child-unfriendly manner.
Yeah... that'd be fun. *sigh*
And now your bits of randomness for the night:
I almost tore off the fingernail on my index finger on my right hand today, and now that finger is very tender and it's a bit difficult to type. I did it while gutting pumpkins. Don't ask how.
I'm to the point in my phasing out of Facebook where all I have to do is get my pictures saved elsewhere. I give it two days, max.
By blogging right now at 23:24, I am putting off going to bed merely because I do not want to. If I were to remain awake much longer, however, I would feel the need to start working on one of the three work-related projects I am actively procrastinating, so soon I will go to bed so as to not have to work. Sometime before Monday, however, I am expected to translate the new report cards for grades K-5 so teachers can start filling them out. The idea of doing this makes me throw up a little in my mouth, because I know it will be boring, will take probably a minimum of six hours, and most of the things on the report cards will be made up "Teacherese" terms that are incredibly difficult to translate. (And they wonder why I don't want to become a "real" teacher...) Also sometime in the near future, I need to read the manual to get my CDL and finish reading "Positive Discipline for Preschoolers", both of which make me sleepy.
You know, I always just talked to my preschooler like he was a normal person. He grew out of being a preschooler, and he seems to be mostly fine (and with an above-average vocab for his age bracket, I might add) so why do I need to read a whole book telling me how to say "knock that off" in a way that sounds positive so I don't damage some child's fragile ego? In my opinion, kids in general don't hear the word "no" nearly enough anymore, and the word "no" is enforced even less. *sigh* If I think on that subject too long, I start having fantasies where I quit the education field all together, start a rock band, and tour the world in an extremely child-unfriendly manner.
Yeah... that'd be fun. *sigh*
The birth of the blog...
I always liked blogging. I did it a lot on MySpace back when MySpace was cool and people actually went there.
Then came Facebook. Facebook was cool for a while, and then it started dawning on me that nobody really cares "what I'm thinking" (at least I assume that's the Facebook question in English... I always Facebooked in Italian and the question is "cosa stai pensando"), much less "what I'm doing right now" (à la Twitter), and if they did care they could call me/text me/email me/IM me and ask. I'm really not that difficult to contact. I've come to think of Facebook mostly as a vehicle for sharing photos, and I think there are alternatives for that which I intend to be exploring here pretty soon. (Flickr, Picasa... these are words I have heard.)
But I still like blogging, and I no longer have a MySpace, so this blog was born. I figure I'll e-mail the address of the blog to people who might actually bother to read it, and if nobody does that's fine with me, but at least I won't be forcing my trivial bits of madness down society's collective craw like one does with Facebook. But here I can write and if you don't like it, stop reading.
So here's the rules, kids!
#1) I refuse to censor myself in my own blog. I'm going to say/write whatever I'm thinking, and if you don't like it, you don't have to read it. I will endeavor not to name names to protect the guilty parties if I'm having a particularly vicious rant, but that's the most censoring you'll get out of me.
#2) If you read something you didn't like, don't bother posting irritated comments at me. Your fault for reading it. Such comments will be moderated right off the blog.
#3) Should I happen to post in a non-English language that you cannot read, don't come crying to me. See rule #1 and realize that sometimes I don't think in English. Don't worry... whatever I wrote was likely not important and likely not directed at you.
#4) Posts will be sporadic. They may occur every day, twice daily, or weeks in between. If you get tired of checking just to see if I wrote anything (assuming you actually care), subscribe or something. There's probably a button for that, but I'm new here so I don't really know.
#5) I like black and purple. Deal with it.
#6) I like rock music. Again, deal with it. I will get a music player on here eventually, and it will be noisy. You can find the stop button, I'm sure.
Then came Facebook. Facebook was cool for a while, and then it started dawning on me that nobody really cares "what I'm thinking" (at least I assume that's the Facebook question in English... I always Facebooked in Italian and the question is "cosa stai pensando"), much less "what I'm doing right now" (à la Twitter), and if they did care they could call me/text me/email me/IM me and ask. I'm really not that difficult to contact. I've come to think of Facebook mostly as a vehicle for sharing photos, and I think there are alternatives for that which I intend to be exploring here pretty soon. (Flickr, Picasa... these are words I have heard.)
But I still like blogging, and I no longer have a MySpace, so this blog was born. I figure I'll e-mail the address of the blog to people who might actually bother to read it, and if nobody does that's fine with me, but at least I won't be forcing my trivial bits of madness down society's collective craw like one does with Facebook. But here I can write and if you don't like it, stop reading.
So here's the rules, kids!
#1) I refuse to censor myself in my own blog. I'm going to say/write whatever I'm thinking, and if you don't like it, you don't have to read it. I will endeavor not to name names to protect the guilty parties if I'm having a particularly vicious rant, but that's the most censoring you'll get out of me.
#2) If you read something you didn't like, don't bother posting irritated comments at me. Your fault for reading it. Such comments will be moderated right off the blog.
#3) Should I happen to post in a non-English language that you cannot read, don't come crying to me. See rule #1 and realize that sometimes I don't think in English. Don't worry... whatever I wrote was likely not important and likely not directed at you.
#4) Posts will be sporadic. They may occur every day, twice daily, or weeks in between. If you get tired of checking just to see if I wrote anything (assuming you actually care), subscribe or something. There's probably a button for that, but I'm new here so I don't really know.
#5) I like black and purple. Deal with it.
#6) I like rock music. Again, deal with it. I will get a music player on here eventually, and it will be noisy. You can find the stop button, I'm sure.
With that being said, enjoy my little world and your trip through the dark and scary corners of my mind. Here... have your own personal tour guide:
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