Words

All in all its just another post in the blog

Pearls before Swine

Blogging, I just sort of hate the word, it’s just not pretty. Blog it rhymes with bog- where you don’t want to be, it rhymes with cog who you don’t want to be… well where I don’t want to be for all I know you might enjoy it. In which case I’ll try not to judge…much. I don’t consider myself a blogger in part because what I write tends to fall out of the popular definitions of what a blog is. I don’t write tech news or reviews, I am not waxing rhapsodic on politics or celebrity gossip; lets be honest here celebrity gossip is to Politics what porn is to erotica.

I write stories and not short ones, at least not by Internet standards where 300 words are thoughtful and detailed, my stories tend to log in at the 1000 word mark. You can’t read one in a commercial break, ideally after you read it takes a minute or two to digest, which is not the diversion needed by your average cube farmer. Hence why icanhascheezburger.com is popular, though I have to admit, it feels like America’s Funniest Home Videos for the tech minded. Now I do get time wasters, I did co-author the much-lauded Alliedchemical.com site, considered by experts as a fine way to waste time.

This is a different sort of entertainment, not better or worse mind you-just different. Very different for the net too, the thing about the blogsphere is that it’s lacking atmosphere. It’s not always about creating things as reacting to them. Book reviews, record reviews, Tech reviews, Political commentary and armchair spin. Which is awesome, it’s all these little glimpses into peoples lives, or their perceived lives; by day a average temp but at night he become a diabolical flamer, and protector of the American right, or left, or a Swedish exchange student with a thing for Garter belts. The point is a lot of the wonder of the blog age is a chorus of me too’s, yet another person giving their 2 degrees of difference spin on the most tread territory on the Huffington Post.

All the various and sundry social bookmarking sites aren’t aimed for anything outside of tech, politics, or celebrities, which given the vastness of the Internet is kinda small. Think about it: the ‘net is essentially a great library of all known human accomplishment, fact and fiction. And it’s all supposed to fit into: World & Business, Technology, Science, Entertainment, Gaming, Sports, Offbeat News, Comedy Videos, where is: Zen Insight, clever musings, sardonic prose, historical essay, hell what about lifestyle? Or religion though truth be told they have sort have merged as of late.


Not to get all Mcluhan on your ass, but the medium does definitely have an effect on the message, take for example T-9 text messaging. Which for the Luddites in the audience is a format that picks words for you when you text from your phone, based on the likeliness of it being the proper word. So you don’t have to continually hit the same key to get the appropriate letter. In T-9 if you want to say “Cool” the word that comes up is “Book” do they change the word, no. Instead book becomes a synonym for cool. Likewise in T-9 there is no question mark, nor is there a direct and easy access to it, in fact on my phone to type a question mark in text I have to go 3 sub levels down. People are lazy –so what do they do stop asking questions instead it all becomes statements. Yeah like that won’t have any negative repercussions down the road.

Another strange concept is the same one that politically minded tend to fall into; the idea that talking about something is the same as doing something. It’s not, you can spread awareness all you like but until someone takes action based on that awareness you have accomplished nothing. It’s the liberal trap that I see happen all the time, friends who are CNN addicts, read the NY Times every day (even if they live in Indiana), They destroy parties playing armchair politico, and see themselves as insider. The problem is if it stops there they might as well be discussing Star Wars, substitute Darth Vader for Bush and the Palpatine for Cheney and the story still holds, of course that does make Condoleezza Rice- Jar Jar Binks. At the end of the day it’s the actions that matter, words are great but what’s preached needs to be practiced too.

I labor under the notion that an atmosphere that can support everyone will appear, so I sit in my far too cold basement, listening to records, typing on keyboards, staring into screens, writing words to fill the vacuum. Dancing the dances all the cool social networking kids do. I practice my preaching, and give generously to causes that tow my personal line. Even in a vacuum there is work to be done.

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