Screen Time & Links

Well, seeing as I'm currently rendered brainless from too much TV (ouch, yes, I know, TV Turnoff Week* - I'm sorry gods of Intelligent Media Land or Adbusters and my own higher self), I may as well forgo my pretentious pseudo-intellectualism and just deliver a few links to my one reader out there in cyberspace (thanks A!).

One of the best new finds was the funny and educational Things I Hate blog by Ramit. Alas, the last blog entry is dated sometime in July of last year, and an email from Ramit in response to my query revealed he is now too busy to blog there. However, Ramit also runs an up-to-date blog about personal finances, I Will Teach You to be Rich. RIP Things I Hate. The (blog) love affair was brief.

Other blogs -
Get Crafty founder Jean embarks on a personal challenge to host 25 dinner parties in 12 months based on the idea that dinner parties build community. Pretty entertaining read so far. And nearly inspired me to throw my own dinner party. Alas, still too lazy.

Also check out Naptime Writer, a recently-signed book author (and literature Ph.D.) who writes while her three year old son naps. Clever and feminist (check out the discussion on chick lit in the archives).

Finally, I love the website design of Clock Crew. I actually have no idea what this website is about, but the design is really cool. (Note: link from Dinosaur Comics, where the site was attributed to one Zombie Lincoln, who designed this poster).

* TV Turnoff Week is this week, from today until April 29. Good luck observing.

Welcome once more to this humble blog.

Welcome to the internet, the great 'wasteland,' as one of my professors once put it. The internet, he said, is a wasteland.

He meant for finding useful information, I think. What about Web 2.0: Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, Flickr, Blogger, Delicious, digg it, and all that other stuff? And Stumble. (BTW, I have no idea either what Delicious and digg it are or what they do. And I still don't know how to subscribe to or use RSS feeds- confessing to computer/internet illiteracy is so en vogue now).

On the one hand, it's ironical. We use the internet to communicate, we communicate presumably to share and so to feel close to people, but... by hiding behind a screen. I don't get it. Yeah, people can be scary, at least I think so, and I'm quite socially inept. So what of the bright young things that aren't? What about "normal" people, i.e. everyone else, what's their excuse?

I want to figure things out. I want to take the formal logic I learnt, FOL, and apply it to everything. To make sense of stuff. I wonder if I really had the patience and intelligence I would need to do that, would it actually work at all?

Like, why are people stupid? I know, it's mean & elitist to call people stupid. It probably reveals my neo-colonialist elitist education with capitalistic and classist tendencies.

And then, why do stupid people make up the majority of people in the world? And then make a bunch of decisions that everybody has to live with? I'm not even talking about politics, although you sure could go off in that tangent. I'm talking about things like ads (their existence in general, but also the way they choose to sell us things), and low quality magazines, and just poor decisions in general... being close-minded.

I'm going through something. Learning, growing, changing: the new age mantra. Evolving, even, if you're feeling especially optimistic.
The point, the point, the point.
The nagging voice in your head: no point, no meaning, you make the point, you make it significant.
How then? Little things? Try and be a better person, try and document things, try and remember, try to cling to what is vanishing.

You know what? I like blogs. I like reading blogs by people I know (or know of) and people I don't know. I guess it's a voyeur thing, like much of the internet. The interesting part is that people want to be exposed too (or maybe that's just called expression and communicating). See this is what I don't understand. What's the difference exactly between personal expression, well a phenomena I'll just refer to as 'hiding your paintings beneath your bed and showing them to no-one' and taking those paintings, sticking them on your wall, and trying to get them seen by as many people as possible, however you can (exhibits, etc?). Something to consider: by exposing your stuff (ideas, art, writing, etc) you are opening up to judgment. Clearing the ground for judgment, so to speak. So exposure is always a risk, at least for me.