Nobody Cares

Unless there is someone out there in this wonderful and fake world of the internet that you simply cannot bare to stop stalking, harassing, talking to, checking up on, or "poking" then there is really not any reason for you to be spending half as much time on facebook (or the internet in general, really) as you do.

Your youtube links of kittie videos, shared posts of politcally-motivated articles about the "serious issues of the day" , or invitations to join campaign petitions that hopes to "stop bad things from happening" are really truly boring most of your 2, 3 or 4 hundred friends.

There is the (very) small occasion where incredibly insightful stuff is written and/or shared by a small population of people out there.  They might make some really good points that NEED to be pointed out, for the sake of: humour, or perhaps inspiring the human spirit.

So, if you don't have something pretty fucking terrific to say or share, don't say it at all. Think twice: quit publishing notes & blogs, stop inviting me to your events, end wall-spamming, and "liking" things that really aren't all that likable in the first place, don't bother wishing insincere Happy Birthdays, and put off posting links to songs or comedians or kitties because really, really - nobody cares.

This is a modified creation from 11/12/08.
what a bullshit blog hey?!

Chapter 42: 21St Century Technology & the De-Evolution of the Human Species

I sit here writing this on my 1st laptop. It is used and 2 years old and I have had to plug it in to charge once already. And it's nearly 1 AM.

Why?

The world has gone insane, that is why. I would be much better off sleeping right now. I would have a much more productive day tomorrow. Alas, here I am. To send a message to you. No, not a text message. Unless you are reading this on your bbm, then maybe your pants just vibrated a minute ago - then you got this "notification" as a message alert.

Fucking terminology. 21st Century technology has not only changed the way we think and do things, but also the way we think to do things. We think in terms of "notifications", "apps", "alerts", "events", "posts", "tweets", and the lord knows about how many of my "friends" I dream about "poking". Fine, deal with the mental double-meanings and such. But dammit! Don't forget how to spell! I know teachers are stressed - and the American system/media/teachers/youth collectively likely have a large influence on our misgivings here in Canada. But nevertheless. Uda punk dat neva learn'd how 2 spell and its making us all look retarded as a nation. Or else you are just lazy.

Bus rides used to be pretty entertaining. In my early years of uni I would watch kids giggle as they "texted?" back and forth for the duration of the commute. Heads 2 inches from the screen and both thumbs going like mad on the keypad, it reminded me of some crazed mouse devouring its first piece of cheese in a year! Bug-eyed and wily-haired, these kids would seldom even look up to see if they missed there stop. "Hey buddy, it's your stop!" So he would bumble his way off the bus not realizing til after the bus pulled away that his stop wasn't for another 6 blocks. Fun times.

But now us kids drive. And by "drive" I mean straddling dotted lines, weaving through traffic in school zones, coasting through red lights & stop signs, and rounding those near-miss-lefts. All with 1 hand permanently attached to that little plastic device. And then we complain that our insurance is so high.

I have a relative that is additcted to his bbm. He is essentially a cyborg, with the device as good as fused to his wrist. I would hazard a guess that he is staring into the thing or punching that little lcd qwerty keyboard on average 8-12 minutes every hour. Personally, I find it rude when relatives come over and they are this distracted by the things they would rather be doing, but whatcha gonna do?! It's acceptable. It's the new norm. Forget real people. They are just in the way.

The internet is where it all began. Being connected. Integrated and devastated. The internet first arrived in Alberta in 1993. (Same time as that tyrrant named Ralph, I think). It is incredible to think that in 90 years society went from horse & carriage to instantaneous mobile technology. Instantaneous debauchery. Is that a bit of a stretch? Then why is there a thing called "sexting". Or a better question might be "Why am I so good at it?!" But aside from mobile devices, the internet opened the floodgates to a new wild world of everybody wanting to know everything about everyone. Pervs! MYOB!!! So when a person isn't busy drooling over the latest installment of World of WarCraft, then they are likely looking to connect with someone, in some way, shape, or form (even if it's Matilda the Troll).

When a person isn't "gaming" or "creeping" they could very well still be looking at material that is inappropriate. Howtotakeovertheworld.com or something, might be inappropriate. And as a result, these people have a new (lower) level of what they consider respectable in today's day & age.

Myself? I like to connect. I try to stay out of trouble from those things in the interweb that have made me...as bad as I already am today... Instead, I link interesting articles, post satirical comments, or import blogs for those of you who might know me, and might be interested in reading what I have to say. I love the fact that the 1 for me might be only a few keystrokes away. But it is also frustrating to me that she can be sooooo effing far away when she doesn't keep in as good as contact as I would like her to, especially when it's as easy as it is. But I don't let it get to me. I can only do so much after all. And I have blogged extensively about this as it is already. It is only because I want to get better connected with those that I care about that I even got this laptop. My pal down in New Zealand? I don't even know if he survived the earthquake on Boxing Day... I have a friend in Ethiopia who I would love to talk to on Skype one day and another in Mizzourah. All around the world there are people out there that I care about, and it would be good to stay in better contact than I have done thus far... Then the amount of mobile device usage for txting and msging explodes when a person has a hope in hell of building a relationship that might lead to something with the least bit of passion or intensity. Wall posts, then texts, then "sexts", then skype --- all technological mediums in which today's society has become so fucking dependent on to simply connect with people.

Even though I now have a laptop, I am going to be sure to not abuse this technology. Since Brad Paisley came out with his Time Well Wasted record, I have thought that to be a pretty reasonable attitude. But very recently I have decided that more and more of my time is not worth wasting. I want to be with real people and do real things and prioritize my time better as I head into the new year. Let's see how we do...

A few last thoughts:

1. I am somewhat convinced that there is a good probability that electro-magnetic radiation coming off of these 21st Century devices may lead to more cancers

2. I have another post like this that's different but same. It talks more about how we allow ourselves to be portrayed to others in how we use technology and language.

3. I am concerned for the standards and morals of the bulk of the world's populations, if the proportions of populations making poor decisions with their technology outweighs those that make good ones.

4. I understand that communication is key in the developing world economies, but if a person must choose between a new cellphone to get the market prices of a crop and a treadle pump so that he may provide water for his crops, then how can he choose?!?!

5. A blog called iMe is in the preliminary stages. Expect it in another 2 years.

My time was better well spent before the onset of the internet.

My time was better well spent when I was 6.

Chapter 53. People...

PEOPLE, as Social Beings

That word looks funny. It's like the more you look at it & think about it, the stranger it looks. Maybe that makes sense, since PEOPLE are in fact such a funny species. "Haha" Funny? No, more like odd funny. Their habits, routines, expected behaviours and responses. All whack. Those of you who know me well know that I am horrible for constantly generalizing groups of people - it doesn't necessarily have to be any one race, sex, age, class...it's just something that I have been called out on more than a few times. And I accept that as I, myself, am filled with these stereotypes of the whiteboy engineer from a middle-class family still living at home reaping the benefits and privileges that come along with being born and raised in a relatively healthy suburban neighborhood in one of the richest places in the world. (insert witty NOFX quote here). But beyond these cultural stereotypes, I think that I am also ready to generalize the entire human race.

People are overt. They are needy. They are nosey. And for some reason, people just can't seem to help but to seek praise & attention. This is what is natural to them. I suppose it's because they have a soul. A soul is what makes a person different than a machine. This is the premise of Yevgeny Zamyatin's 1920s dystopian novel "We": the human population only ever gets into any of its predicaments because they lack the clarity to see that their soul, imagination, and feelings are getting in the way of realizing the critical path to eternal happiness. By having souls, people (before having any hopeful perspectives about their world around them utterly obliterated thanks to media-induced apathy) have hope in seeing a better world through each other. So by putting oneself out there & allowing his or herself to become vulnerable to other people, that person is conceding to the fact that they have hope in that another person might be able to fill that hole in their soul.

There are a few people out there who have always refused this social aspect of the human experience. Trust me, I did engineering for ever so I know. But even besides my unique group, there are friends who have always been accepted by the masses, yet for whatever reason, felt it was within their own best interests to avoid contact with most other people at all costs. These anti-socials are still very good people and highly respected, and I believe, would be optimistic about the future - despite not "putting themselves out there" for others to poke into their lives and complete them. (yuck - he didn't just use a Jerry Maguire Quote, did he?!)

Poke. Okay sure. Let's go there. People are constantly poking their noses into other people's lives on facebook. One of facebook's trademark's is in fact the "poking" feature itself. It's a way to say to someone, "Hey, I'm checking you out! What is it in your life that's going on that makes you seem so happy! And if you're not, what is it that I can bring to the table to make your life more fulfilling?" This is what facebook exists for. For people's necessity in putting themselves out there and seeking feedback from other people that will either make you feel good about yourself, or your realization of the utter power you have in being able to delete someone from your life with a click of the button. (and also finding out that the Great Lake Swimmers are coming soon to a venue near you!)

Mobile devices work in just the same way: it's putting yourself out there so that other people can invest their time into you.

People are also affected by degrees of separation because of these souls that exist. Compassion and sensitivity allow people to empathize to the hardships of other people. If your sister is sick, you respond. If your sister's husband father is sick, you respond. If your sister's husband's father's healthcare worker is sick, you respond. This is what's natural. It extends farther than you would believe - as far as you allow yourself to open your eyes to the world around you. Poverty and War. It can affect you. You might even react (and do something, or not) if you let it affect you enough. This is what people do.

I am trying to convince myself that I have more to write on this matter, but I think that really all that is left to say is that I don't think this social aspect of people is a bad thing. And I am not offended that most people will not be reading this blog. Take this blog as a simple additive to some of that BS that I have posted in the About Me section on facebook. Take it as an excuse for me to reach out only so far to some of the people I care about, but not enough to actually go out of my way to hang out with them, for example. I am not saying that I am overly anti-social, but rather, if you agree with this stuff I just wrote, you would let me know about so we can continue the conversation. I tend to at least make some attempt in keeping in touch with some of the most magnificent people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. But since it takes two to sustain a relationship of any sort, please let me know what you think as I am a social person too.

Even if you can't stand me.

Top 10 Things I Hate About Facebook

#10 - Retarded status updates like when people finish them off without any thought at all. (i.e. "Bob is...") If you don't have any thoughts in that pretty little head of yours, keep that to your self.

#9 - When people over the age of 30 add you as a friend.

#8 - The non-launching of an automatic music player on each individual's facebook profile. Cuz let's be serious: if you knew that the person likely had good taste in music, you would probably be visiting that person's profile more often - and for the music, and not all the Hot Pictures.

#7 - The girls that you hope to see on "online chat" never seem to be online. at all. ever.

#6 - Poking. If you wanna really wanna get with someone, just let them know it (in a really dirty/romantic message).

#5 -I hate it when people reply to facebook "events" as to whether they will be at said event or not. Cuz guess what? NOBODY CARES that you have other plans elsewhere or that you are living in another city. Why can't these people just ignore the facebook event invitations or decline them and carry on with their life instead of wasting the 4 or 5 seconds to "reply to topic" when they could be spending that time to turn off the effing computer??? To me it comes across as these people feel that they have sooo much better things to do than come to the event in their interesting & exciting lives. It comes across as these people feel like they will actually be missed!!! Well sorry, you're not gonna be missed.

#4 - Private profiles.

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ff

#3 - How when entering your personal info, the auto-complete essentially tells you what you like, even after the keystroke of just a single letter. Strung Out sings: "Everything in my life just thinks for me!". This is true thanks to today's technology.

#2 - My inability to purge out all of the hot girls from my facebook friends despite how much I really don't even like them. I did that with an ex, and her hot friends, but other than that, they are all still here. Yay for hot girls.

#1 - How it seems to eat up about 6 hours of my 8 hour work day...I mean...I wouldn't give MY troubles to A MONKEY ON A ROCK!!!

The Evolution of "HA"

flipper was a name of a hardcore band in the eighties. they came out with a song called "ha ha ha". unimaginably incredible lyrics are associated with this tune and i totally recommend checking them out. but the funniest thing has happened over the years since this band used this word so explicitly. namely msn and/or facebook.

HA! has become one of those incredibly overused words in languages all around the world. It is mostly commonly used as a way to respond verbally to funny things we witness. Other times it's used as a way to act conceited and say "So There! I told you so -- so HA!" But don't ever be confused with the alternative use of "ahhh!" which has an entirely other set of possible situations where it could be used to describe a sense of relief/enjoyment/enlightened understanding; or the abbreviated version: "Ah!" as in The Count's "Ah! Ah! Ah!" after counting from one to fourteen. HA! could never be used in this way shape or form.

The thing that gets me the most though is how web tools like chatting online or writing on walls, or even blogging has drastically change how much more people emphasize the sound of that word when they are actually saying it!

Just listen. People around you at work. School. Your family. Yourself. The enunciation of the "heh" and "ah" sound are unlike anything we've been hearing ever before. I used to joke how Canadians say "eh" while Americans say "huh?" (because they sound pretty clueless about most things) but now it seems The Whole World is just saying HA!

After all. Everything is pretty funny. That, plus thanks to the realization global warming, the know-it-all conceited Al Gores of the world are saying to us all: "We knew you were heading for a disaster like this, So HA! The joke's on YOU!!"

What can we do to end this overuse of this word? Perhaps invent a new word like "mraw!" or start using that Fozzie the Bear's "wakka wakka wakka!" Maybe we can all just choose to go offline. No more networking sites, no more being silly in emails, no more chatting on msn.

Maybe this is all just me, because all of the time I spend and idiotic things I say online. But I couldn't be easily convinced because in addition to this new emphasis on this damn' 2-letter word, I have noticed that people are starting to express them self as the do-er of an action. What I mean is that facebook's status updates are causing people to think in a way that they must now present them self as the new subject which is now doing some verb on some noun. I'd sure like to do some verb on some noun, but refuse to publish Just What That May Be online... So even off of facebook (which is actually seeing less of me these days), I find that people present themselves as explicitly doing something more and more often.

Well now that I have proven to myself how neurotic I in fact truly am, it's time to go update my facebook status. So HA!


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