The Second Chapter

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”~ Winston Churchill

The next part of this crazy journey since the fire is off to a good start. And just in time before Christmas.

I am so glad to be out of the hotel life. I found a new place to call home. And there’s so much going on around here that it appears to be even more social than SGC ever used to be.

But here I am and this is where I am to stay until SGC rebuilds.

Today I bought a new desktop computer which happens to be an “All In One”. I will admit it didn’t make too much sense to me at first, but I caught up.

There has been a really good response to my needs. I think that people are beginning to understand that when I say that I lost everything — I mean “everything.”

Dishes, towels, and soap and other assorted toiletries keep coming in. I also received a brand new television, a microwave, and other things. So after that, I connected internet services. But I had blasted away the data on my cell phone. I am happy that I don’t have to worry about that any more.

Things are really looking up and forward at this point. I am able to return to this blog and write as much as I want again.

I am looking forward to getting through the rest of 2018 and enter into 2019 with a new chapter in life, ever hopeful that it will be more positive.

There are some other stories that I am contemplating discussing on this blog. More of the same head-shaking nonsense that I have come across. Life does not stop because of tragedy. And apparently neither does stupidity.

Merry Christmas.

800

“Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.”~  Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Last night I was looking at this blog and its stats and there were a few things that I noticed.

First and foremost, since the beginning of this blog I have now reached a total of 800 individual posts.

This being the 800th post. I find it amazing.

And in that time, there are 145 of you who decided that this blog’s content was important enough that you wanted to keep up with it and subscribed for whatever your individual reasons were.

There are blogs out there that have so much more for sure. But then there are blogs that have so much less. And I am grateful for all of you being here and sticking it out. Especially over the last three years or so that this blog nearly went silent and was on the edge of disappearing into extinction.

It is true. There were times where I thought about just deleting the entire blog website.

But I did not, and so here it is.

The other thing that I noticed was the list of countries where this blog website had been accessed. To me, seven years is a short time. Especially knowing the fact that this blog has reached every nation on the planet. With the exception of about seven countries in Africa. And the Federation States of Micronesia.

There are tiny islands are also not accounted for. For example: South Georgia Island. A tiny island that is claimed by the country of Argentina. Population of only thirty people! I don’t expect anyone to just happen to cross this blog from there any time soon.

Bigger surprises were countries like: China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba just to name a few. All of which had at least viewed the blog webpage ONCE.

Greenland was also a country that had not viewed the blog webpage for the longest time. But I guess it happened over the past year. So thank you, Greenland.

It was funny about Greenland because at the time nobody from there had read the blog webpage. And I thought about trying to draw them in by putting their country in the list of tags and then talk shit about them in the blog posts. Thankfully, I didn’t have to.

Maybe I should for the Federation States of Micronesia to get them on board????

At some point around 2015, I stopped writing blog posts about different live music shows that I went to. It didn’t appear that they were getting a lot of traffic. And that greatly decreased the traffic to the site. I’m not sure if that was a mistake or not. I know that a number of you who are subscribed to this blog are from the music scene, but I just could not tell if that was something that people were reading at all.

As with everything in life, this blog constantly evolves because of time, source material, and the thought of “Will anyone actually read this?”.

There was a lot that kept me busy in life in between 2015 and 2017 that I was not able to write as much here as I used to. Maybe it can pick back up again?

Now that I don’t have that burning desire to just delete this entire beast, I can once again come back and fill it with content. I still struggle to figure out what will make it and what will not. But that’s for another time.

This is 800. It seems so crazy! But in all of its insanity, thank you to all of you. Hang in there. There is more to come.

Dear Musicians: I’m On To You

Well then. I may be late for the party, but I find myself a way there. And that is the most important part of it, is finding yourself at the finish line no matter how long it has taken you to get there.

I may have been born at night, but it sure as hell was not last night.

Music is my life. It is in my soul. It has always been there, and it will forever remain.

And because of it, when I find myself surrounded by musicians in my social life, it is astounding to determine those who are fake and those who are real.

For those of you who are fairly new and for those who have foolishly forgotten by now… it is no secret that if I find something in music that I really like.. then I am 100% all for it to the point that I even promote it during my own time. I live it, breathe it, rinse and repeat.

I understand in the music business that there is a product that needs to be sold to the masses. It is a musician’s dream come true for their material to spread like wildfire, and perhaps even go viral for just a day.

The more the merrier as they say.

I am not against anyone in the business trying their best to do that and be successful at it. In fact, as I said… I will do all that I can to help make that happen if I can, if I am totally into it.

But I am on to you. I really am.

Today’s example goes international.

A band was brought to my attention from South America. And I had only heard ONE of their songs and I enjoyed it. So I did what any other human being would do, and started to follow the band on social media from top to bottom, left to right. And stuck it out with the band even though there was not much to offer in the way of merchandise. Plus coming from another continent I thought would be kind of tricky.

But the band was nice to talk about it. They gave several different options and offers that would include international shipping. And dummy-me, I took the bait. Not to say that I did not want what I paid for, but I had no idea of the shit storm that was soon to follow.

A storm that would turn me off of bands in general.

It took over two months to finally arrive from South America. And I wasn’t thrilled about it at all. But then again, it wasn’t like there was something I could do about it any way.

So from the beginning, the South American band wasn’t in a good light when it came to merchandise.

The second round came within a week of receiving my first shipment. In fact, I was asked if I wanted some other merchandise in that week BEFORE receiving that first shipment. And again…. dummy-me goes and buys more. Now I’ve spent more than $50 (including international shipping) on stuff that I bought, but haven’t received in hand.

Eventually the first shipment arrived. The second shipment came just as slow. About two to two and a half months after ordering so easily through PayPal.

Second shipment I was more content with than the first for whatever reason. And then just DAYS after receiving the second shipment, I was again given some particular “special offers” that wouldn’t last for very long.

Guess what? I fell for that sense of urgency. Shipment #3 took yet again TWO FRICKIN’ MONTHS. And yes, I was approached during that two month period with offers of something else.

I finally told this band, “I want a t-shirt and maybe the CD. And that’s all. Nothing more.”

To which I was given this rotten wrap-around about how t-shirts are so expensive and everything. And the blame went to shipping costs from South America. Whether or not that is entirely true, I do not know. I do not have a t-shirt yet.

But more and more and more and more options and offers kept coming. After three in a row, I really needed to stop and take a break. But the offers took no break. I began to feel like if I kept saying “NO” that they would stop altogether.

Needless to say, I am not a fan of shipments taking so freakin’ long. Nor am I enticed or interested in watching a “special concert” via the Internet and paying for it. If this band wants to perform for me, they can find a way to come to the United States of America and do it live in person. I mean after all, isn’t that the musician’s way of life? Isn’t that their ultimate dream?? Travel the world and spread their music to as many people as possible. Isn’t that the point of it all???? If not, it used to be at one point!!!

Here’s where it all fell apart for this South American band. Even though I was a huge fan of the one song that I found on YouTube, the live performances were an entirely different thing. And it was unsettling.

There was some teaser videos made for their performances online. Excerpts of performances from the past that were live. This band sounded awful. Absolutely horrible. And it was so full of cringe.

Some bands sound fine when they play live. Others (like this one) not so much. I understand that bands will not sound like a copied self from the studio. But if you can’t sound remotely close, there’s a big problem!!

Ever since, I have been wondering if I was going to be filled with regret to support what I could consider a “lost cause” in the end.

Just recently I saw that the band was posting photos of fans with their merchandise. To which one fan from the USA had like 30 signed photographs or prints. I exclaimed with a bit of envy of the person, and the band took that as an opportunity to jump me privately.

They were going to offer me various combinations of photographs/prints.

Three photos for $11.90.. international shipping included.

Then it went on from there:

Seven photos for $16.90
Ten for $20.90
Twenty for $27.90

Umm… it got worse from there. The original post was of 30 photos. Wanna know how much 30 of them would cost? $37.90

And the band chooses which 30 photos will be sent. Keep in mind they are not signed or autographed. As you can expect, they are leaving that up to the imagination that signing them would be extra.

However… if I wanted to be the one who selected the photographs, they were $5 each plus shipping. Suddenly, just because I want to choose… $37.90 turned into $150 PLUS shipping.

What in the hell??

They sold it as urgent. This time I did not fall for it. The moment that they realized I was not  going to buy anything, they stopped talking to me.

I went back to the person who had been contacting me all this time and I went back through every time that they had contacted me. I read over the contents of the conversation and suddenly realized that the evidence was right in front of me. This band never contacted me to say hello. They never contacted me to find out how my day was going. Every time they reached out, they were attempting to sell something.

All the times that I had attempted to initiate contact, was met up with silence and them ignoring my messages.

Let me repeat myself by saying that I fully understand that bands have something they want to sell. And that’s how their career works. But there has to be a level of reciprocity between musicians and their fans. At some type of level musicians must communicate with their fans. How else are they going to know what their fans want?

It is very clear that there is no reciprocity by the way of communication. Either you discuss buying some of their merchandise or purchasing the opportunity of watching them in their live streamed gigs…. or you don’t talk to them at all.

That is bullshit. I am on to you and every other band that has done me like that!!! I’ve received something from other countries. South America, step up your game or lose your career.The separation is soon coming.

Surprising Sundries #01

“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”~Voltaire

Truth be told that the idea for this came from the beautiful YouTuber “TorrinPaige” … Sundries are about to become a thing here.

I’ve been spending a lot of free time watching YouTube videos from a wide variety of topics and subjects. And of course I have my rather large list of people that I subscribe to that come out with their daily/weekly content that I am never able to catch up on any more which causes me to think that I may want to cut back on some subscribers.

But something else caught my eye as of lately. There are a myriad of different styles of videos posted with a common theme, tags of any kind seem to be the most popular. But coming in right behind the tag, is the ultimate Q&A video. Viewers will post questions that they want to ask the video creator whether that is delegated to either the comment section of said video or taken up as a collection on other social media websites. Such as Facebook or Instagram.

Allegedly the following video would be of the content creator going through the list of questions and answering those questions in that video.

From what I have experienced this season, is an explosion of Q&A videos being posted. Most, if not all of them, going far beyond the fifteen, or even twenty minute mark in length. Depending on their subscriber count plus their followers.

And as I sit there watching, my mood changes from interested to astonishing disbelief.

I will totally admit that I can NOT keep up with everyone and everything. Neither can I keep up with “the rules” any longer. What is prudent? What is not acceptable?? How do you know what is what???

I will preface the rest of this message by saying that I totally do understand that if a person desires privacy that they are allowed to obtain it. Therefore, at least online, there may not be a whole lot of information available from someone. And that is their choice. In which it is totally fine.

I literally watched a YouTube content creator make two videos (cutting it into two parts) because they received well over 200 questions from people.The total elapsed time for the two videos combined was over a half an hour. A lot of them of course were the same questions asked over and over again. But I think that is really to be expected.

The content creator was female. Described as a model, doing hair care tips. The questions that kept coming up time and time again where:

How old are you?
Where are you from?
What is your relationship status?

The two videos were poorly edited as the creator kept reading these questions and you could see her getting frustrated by the look on her face. And she would totally ignore it. And then they kept coming up again and again and again. Finally, she no longer ignored it and instead kept looking up at the camera and saying that she would NOT answer any of these kinds of questions. And she further commented that she did not understand why these questions were repeatedly coming up. She finally reached the point of no return by looking at the camera angrily and repeating herself that of these three questions she would not be answering them.

Minus “Where are you from?” which was a general location by state. I understand that. I would not want just anyone coming into the town or city that I lived just because. But then again for those of you who have been reading this blog for a while already know its happened!!

Over and over and over again however, YouTube content creators are refusing to answer these similar questions. Not just once, not just twice, not just three times did I watch Q&A videos of this manner, but SIX DIFFERENT YOUTUBE CONTENT CREATORS!! (Not all women either.) 

Has society reversed itself and gone back several decades to a time when it was not socially acceptable to inquire these things? Are we back to keeping these kinds of things to ourselves??

Clearly, the content of the Q&A belongs to the content creators and they have every right to answer or not answer any questions proposed to them. But as I said, the videos were poorly edited. For example:

“Joe Blow asks ‘how old are you and are you single?’… I’m not going to answer that!”

I thought that we were finally allowed to ask questions of people and those people have the right not to answer. So it did come across to me that the creators were going about it and being very rude in how they approached that they did not want to answer the question.

I don’t think that you can fault Joe Blow for their question. But just thwarting it off like that every single time, was just a serious turn off for me.

If you don’t wanna answer certain questions, why not skip them altogether? Or better yet if one slipped into the video, why not edit it out??

So then tell me what is the protocol now in late 2016. We are getting so close to 2017. Do we keep our questions to ourselves or what?

One More Facebook Hoax

“Global Warming: It is a hoax. It is bad science. It is high-jacking public policy. It is the greatest scam in history.”~ John Coleman

Here we go again.

Most recently, the hoax has come up on Facebook that Céline Dion is dead. Or was killed in some kind of automobile accident or something like that.

I find this hoax to be particularly funny.

She was just on American television today. She’s NOT dead!!!

And if you know someone who has posted on their profile that she is dead? Then their profile has been compromised.

It promises a gruesome and gory video of the so-called accident and swears up and down that only people who are 18 years old and up should click on the link. But when you do….. there’s nothing. Instead, what you have done is allowed this “bug” or whatever to access your personal information without you knowing about it.

So a couple of things:

1- You’re an idiot to think that.

2- If someone tells you that its on your profile, you’ve been compromised. Take the necessary steps to recover your personal information.

3- Don’t be shy to WARN others that YOU can see the post because most likely, if someone’s profile is compromised, then that person doesn’t have any idea that its there….. unless you say something.

http://www.contactmusic.com/article/celine-dion-hoax-singer-isn-t-dead-after-facebook-app-claims_3926096

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.

Numbskull Award For September 2013

“I’m living life as best I can – but I’m not exempt from failure and making bad choices.”~ LeAnn Rimes

YOU’VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME?!?!?!??!!?!??!??

So apparently whatever-genre-singing-star-she-is-now LeAnn Rimes went on a feudal tidal wave on Twitter over the weekend.

She’s apparently had enough, and now wants “her truth” to be known. That’s right, HER truth. Not the truth of anybody else.

What the heck is that supposed to mean?!?!??

I have no earthly clue. But its HER truth.

And wouldn’t you know it, a few of her Twitter followers attempted to help her in her posting fury.

Some even made neutral comments, but LeAnn Rimes just would not let it go. Because its HER truth.

Ladies and gentlemen, subscribers, blog readers, and visitors…… THIS IS A TEXTBOOK EXAMPLE OF THE DEFINITION A ROLLER POSTER!!!!!!!!

Instead of realizing that what she was doing was only hurting herself, she continued on in the same behavior to garnish attention to whatever it was that was bugging her. She wants attention to HER truth.

I understand that Rimes has a ton of problems and issues, but get off the cross, we need the wood. There are people in this world who have far worse problems than LeAnn Rimes. Since I made the choice to NOT follow her any more, I have no idea what’s going on with her and her issues. And secondly, I do not care. 

In a world where people who are in the limelight are always screaming bloody murder about their privacy being invaded and what not, LeAnn Rimes takes her situation and pulls it inside. Instead of telling people to leave her alone and allow her to handle her problems…… she GOES to people with them!!

LeAnn Rimes is losing it more and more each and every time that I hear about her. The news NEVER gets any better for her. And that’s partly due to the fault of the media. The other part is LeAnn HERSELF!!!!

Damage Control is nothing but a dream by now. Unless she hands over her Twitter account to some publicist or something. Nobody is honestly interested in HER truth. Not when she lies to herself.

Poor LeAnn Rimes and her antics.

http://www.fishwrapper.com/post/2013/09/22/leann-rimes-twitter-tweets-brandi-glanville-feud-dumb/

Catfished

Is she who she really says she is?

“Unfortunately, I ended up kind of getting sadly duped, in a way. I haven’t had an agent in 10 years, and now I’m doing some of the most interesting films I’ve ever had an opportunity to play in.”~ Daryl Hannah

There’s this television commercial where a woman is talking with someone and she says that she is on her way to meet her boyfriend that she met online, who is a French model.

Out pops this homely looking guy who looks quite nerdy and awkward and he forces a French accent when saying “Bonjour!” and they walk off together.

Lately though a different story has come up in the news. Notre Dame football star, Manti Te’o evidently has been ‘catfished’ in a recent relationship that he had with a woman. Yet now there’s speculation in this unusual story of whether or not he was in on the entire deception because he had said that this woman had died. And the photograph that she used, was actually someone else’s identity of someone who is in fact, still alive.

urbandictionary.com defines ‘catfished’ as “Being deceived over Facebook as the deceiver professed their romantic feelings to his/her victim, but isn’t who they say they are.”

This kind of thing happens on a daily basis to many people. We just do not hear about it as much. Now its a hot topic. But honestly, deception via the Internet is more commonplace than one would like to think. We may not fall victim to someone who is lying about a relationship, but lies and deception are everywhere!

The Internet has become a safe haven for those who are callous in their desires to keep their lives secret. I am not saying that it is a bad thing to keep things your private life private, but these people who are duped by others are nothing but victims because the perpetrating person INTENTIONALLY lies and makes up this fictional characterization of themselves and professes intimate and romantic feelings to someone who is unsuspecting of their lies.

I was once a victim of this scheme a long time ago.

I was in communication with a woman who was professing romantic feelings towards me from west central Iowa. She claimed to care about me, and told me that she was someone who used to be in the medical field and therefore she would know how to take care of me and all of my needs, since I was in a wheelchair.

She taunted and teased about driving to where I lived at the time, to see me. But I called her bluff. Not on what she had been telling me, but rather the fact that she and her roommates were going to just drop everything in Iowa and drive all that way to see me in person two states away.

Little did I know that this woman and her roommates were notorious for spontaneous road trips like that. So when I called them out on it in the chat room, the following morning, they were on the road.

She and her roommates actually started the long drive to find me. And I thought that I was only moving the relationship to the next level since we were about to meet each other face to face. She and her roommates took me back to their place and allowed me to stay for a week. And that week actually ended up being ten days, due to heavy snow that fell in the area.

But the woman honestly had no interest in me. I spent more time talking with the others who lived with her in the house. They would hold a house party for many people to come by and meet me, since I was not from that area. Keep in mind, these people were all found in a chat room for people in Iowa. Which I probably should’ve mentioned earlier, but they didn’t discriminate against you if you were not from the state. The house though was legendary for their chat room house parties. People sleeping where they had passed out from a night of drinking.

After the first party in the house, I would learn really soon that the woman who had professed a romantic feeling was in a contest to see how many men she could convince to fall in love with her. I wouldn’t actually say that I had those exact feelings, but I was interested at the time to have “someone special” in my life. And knowing that she was not going to discriminate against me because of my physical disability was a winning factor.

The ride home was terribly excruciating as she had brought her TRUE boyfriend with her, who was also in on the game of seeing how many women he could get to fall in love with him via the chat room on the Internet. By the time I had arrived at this woman’s house, I was number six, and she had been working on two other men… numbers seven and eight. And her true boyfriend was way behind with only four women that he had deceived.

Is she too good to be true?

Then less than two months later, I was in communication with a woman from Des Moines, Iowa and she professed romantic feelings towards me and the desire to meet face to face.

I was to spend Friday evening through Sunday morning with her at my home, then for two weeks I would travel back with her to Iowa and spend more time with her. It would end up that this woman was not really who she said she was at all. And instead of spending two weeks in Iowa, I spent three weeks there. Trapped in her house without any means of escape or rescue.

But there were definite red flags that I failed to recognize, along with her lies. I knew that she had two children, and I knew that her mother was still alive. But I did not know that they were all living in the same house together. If it wasn’t for her mother spending hundreds of dollars for a plane ticket back home for me, I probably would’ve been held captive for much longer than three weeks. I felt horrible that this woman’s own mother dipped into her retirement funds to get me the hell out of town.

I knew that she was working at a hospital. But I didn’t realize that she would work every day for twelve days straight for 12 hours. And there other things about her that I THOUGHT I knew, but didn’t know the full story or the entire truth of what she had told me.  Of course, she would only tell me the things that she believed I wanted to hear.

Probably the only great thing that came out of the three weeks of imprisonment was that during one afternoon on one of her days off of work, I got to meet several members of the heavy metal band, Slipknot, without their masks on.

Needless to say with those two experiences, I highly doubt that I will ever return to the state of Iowa again.

As I said, there were warnings and red flags.

If you can learn to recognize them early, then you can help protect yourself from being catfished.

If for whatever reason, you are in communication with someone that interests you and you have spent a lot of time talking on a personal level with one another, and they refuse to show you a photograph of themselves… that’s a dangerous sign. Either they are extremely insecure on their looks OR they are not who they say they are.

That was one thing that this woman kept from me, until about two days before we had decided on meeting one another. Instead of calling the whole thing off and walking away from it all, I thought that I would be nice and carry on with the meeting and travel. Clearly, that was something I shouldn’t have done.

I’ve also requested a photograph before and I would be deceived by receiving a photograph of some random model that I was not aware of until it was almost too late.

This is why I’ve made it a rule when it comes to interacting with someone that you have involved yourself in a relationship with. And it doesn’t matter whether or not if its romantic or just a friendship. With the invention of video chat programs, such as Skype, you are able to see one another and communicate. If what you are seeing during your video chat session does not add up or equal to other photographs that you have been told is that person, chances are that you are being lied to.

Another way to tell that you are communicating with someone who just wishes to deceive is the lack of personal information. If you have expressed feelings for one another, there’s no excuse to keep secrets from one another.

I came pretty close last year on Facebook to being deceived when I added a woman to my Friends List. But once I sifted through her photographs and none of them were matching up, and I was asking questions that were random and not really all that personal…. she blocked me, saying that I was being too pushy for information.

Another way that you can tell that you have been victimized by someone is a faked death. Or in some other cases, that person up and suddenly took an extremely long “vacation” and by the time they return, you’ve almost forgot about them.   This tactic is used when the person who is supposed to be the victim of being catfished is getting too close for comfort for the liar, and its their way of getting out of their sticky situation. They fake their own death and they disappear from the Internet and just start over again with a brand new identity and hope that you are not able to track them down again.

There are some really sick people out there on the Internet. And there’s honestly nothing you can do about it once you’ve realized that you have been duped. Well, the only true thing that you can do is walk away from that person and refuse to let them continue to spin their web of lies and have you believe them. Its not easy to swallow when you realize the truth. I know, I’ve been there. But at that point, the damage is done.

Keep in mind that there are so many other danger signs when it comes to finding people’s true virtues or their desires to be deceitful. Knowing them and recognizing them can save you a lot of heartache, and in some cases, it can save you a lot of your personal time, energy, and yes…. even money. 

I do not know the whole truth behind the sensational story of Manti Te’o. And we may or may not ever really know. If he was behind it all, then he will have deserved the scrutiny that comes with it. If he was a victim, then I am guessing that sympathy towards him will come pouring.

Know your boundaries. Figure out the warning signs. If something seems weird, then it probably is deep down. And there’s nothing that says that you cannot investigate and ask questions to the other person. If they are unwilling to answer your questions about them and their life story, then do you really need them in your life??? Probably not.

You actually deserve someone in your life at that magnitude who will be completely honest with you, and you should be completely honest with them in return. Life is far too short for lies and speculation and distrust.

 

Internet Security

“Never think you’ve seen the last of anything.”~ Eudora Welty.

Well, let’s face it. We should probably add this phrase to the list of oxymorons. Is there such thing as Internet security?

In some cases yes, there is. But most cases, no there is not.

Probably the number one thing we overlook as far as having our security online is the infinite ways of mass communication. Sharing sites, social networking sites. Even though you are told that you are secured- you really are not.

I am not referring to some high-tech illegal hacking ring somewhere thousands of miles away. I am talking about right here at home, the neighboring state, even in the other room.

Confused yet?

The information that we pour out into the Internet via e-mails, message boards, social networking sites, and other ways of mass communication drops that curtain of security and allows others to come into our lives. Even though we are not embarking on a journey to pass out our credit card information, we are sharing with others the OTHER kinds of information that sometimes we feel is safe.

After all, you would never had known I was wearing underwear with holes in it, if I had not told you so. Right? And no, I am not going to turn on any camera and prove it either! (Freaking perverts.)

These social networking sites are the worst. This is my main point. It allows us to say whatever we want to say, knowing that others are going to see it and read it. On a few rare occurences, they do strike back at us.

Photographs being uploaded of us soooooooo drunk the weekend before that now we are embarrassed that it ever happened. Or even some random rant that we scream at the top of our lungs about something, only to find out that we were wrong in the first place. Its out there and its there for forever.

The best thing for us to do is to not say anything. That is, if you are looking for absolute total security. But then again if that is the case, what are you doing on the Internet??

Some people WANT to be seen and heard because they have something to say. And I will say, that’s a good thing. Even I can come up with a gem of a statement a time or two, sprinkled here and there.

Those who have something to share, usually do. Its those who say things just for the sake of being seen. Those are the people who end up getting burned because they opened up their flood gates and allowed all of this information that was personal about them to become known and exposed.

And of course even for those who have decent commentary and important issues to talk about, their words get twisted because of the lack of sincerity that is taken when read. Including the absence of vocal inflection. We cannot tell just how serious a person is about something because we cannot HEAR whether they are shouting from the mountain tops or just casually speaking up.

It happened to me as of recently. One comment that was “heard around the world” and back again to the point where I had heard being said to me. Unfortunately when it was repeated back to me, the person who told me did not realize it was I who had started that comment.

Always think twice when using the Internet for communication. Don’t be so shy to edit yourself, and for crying out loud… proofread yourself!!!! Nothing says “boring” more than a message that is filled with errors. And seriously though, if you are unsure about something that you have written then don’t send it. If you have any uncertainty about whether or not you should be talking about it then chances are you probably shouldn’t be.

 

Talking To A Nobody

Since the invention of the electronic mail and instant messages, the various ways of communication have been better and more convenient in times past. Or has it?

Nothing says it faster than typing up some random message and having it sent to the person it was intended for in less than a few seconds. Its quicker, its faster, its “instant”.

So then why is there so many problems? It is because of the absence of a real person in the flesh that you are supposedly corresponding to. A person can be as insignificant as the next one when it comes to dealing with communication via the Internet. Or they can be as large as any moonlit sky in the night.

We should all know by now that “faster” does not necessarily mean “better”. Not in this case. The Internet has reached its way to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The opportunity for them to sit down, write an e-mail, and then be on their way again has opened the doors to what I call, “Fast Talking”.

But there is a huge problem. Almost to the point where I would dare to say that the Internet is flawed. The messages we are sending to one another doesn’t always carry its point across. It gets mixed up and then havoc appears. That one message that you just sent to carry on your conversation, just turned into the first bullet fired of World War III.

And all of this happened inadvertently. Have you figured out why yet?

It is because you are talking to “nobody”. Actually, you are talking to no body.

A few nights ago, I was reading a message thread that got really heated. Several people were involved, but”no body” was there. And I could see, as the outsider of all of this mess just how it came to be. And then in the middle of it all, I read this post (paraphrased):

“Without anyone there, to show body language or voice inflection, a person’s ‘tone’ can come off totally different from that person’s intention, depending on how the other person receives it and reads it. It becomes particularly difficult especially if one person does not truly know the other in which they are engaging in conversation.”

Okay that is grossly paraphrased, but still the point gets made. And I honestly could not agree with the statement any more than I do!

For years, I had been struggling in communication with a friend. Whatever I would say, I would receive back the answer, “whatever”. To me, that was just about as mean and cruel as it could get. I felt as if whatever I was telling them was only falling upon deaf ears (or eyes in this matter).

But as time went by, I started to get to know them better and better. Eventually, I would find myself in the same position of actually talking to them, using our voices to communicate. And then, with inflection, I heard them say “whatever”. Suddenly, it did not seem so mean to me. I knew what they were intending on communicating and I did not take it as personal as I once had.

Amazing, isn’t it? Something as simple as a voice that is missing from a conversation can totally turn the tide in which the waves have been crashing. One simple component of a voice. That’s all it takes.

We have got to be careful what we say, and just how we say it on the Internet. I have actually reached a point to where if I am writing an e-mail, I will go back and look it over. Not only will I correct any typos or grammatical errors (if I catch them), I will read it to myself and see if it sounds how I had originally intended it to sound. If I find just the slightest doubt within myself that whatever I wrote may not come across the way I would like it, I edit the whole passage.

I’m not saying that is what you must do. I am saying that is what I do. And a lot of the times, it works out better. I do still get snagged from time to time because I am still learning more about the person with whom I am communicating with. Commonly it DOES matter whether or not you know the person and how much you know them. If you’re a smart ass like I am and you are constantly using humor to express yourself, well… your humor often may be missed and the next thing you know you are on running damage control, trying to save yourself and the conversation from collateral damage.

Does anyone remember what it was like WITHOUT the Internet? With each day that passes by, many of this younger generation has no clue what it was like to have to either sit down and write a letter and affix postage. It was either that, or you would have to pick up the telephone and dial that person. At least then, you had voice inflection.

Now with cell and mobile phones with the capabilities to chat, send e-mails, and everything else in between- a majority of us still get caught up in this tricky and delicate situation of either misreading or being misread.

Personally though, when it comes to communication, give me the telephone and I will dial someone that I want to talk to.

Super, what?

Today is Super Bowl XLV. (That’s “45” for you non-Romans.) And yet I find myself not much in the hype of the big game, or at least not getting involved in it all. I have to be honest, the NFL is not one of the things I ascribe to.

But don’t get me wrong. I am like any other warm-blooded male who enjoys his sports. It just happens to be that this is not one of them.

My mood has been the same all day long. There’s been no crescendo of jubilation or any countdown to kickoff of any kind. And I understand that there are many out there who have been waiting and waiting for this day to come.

Locally however, the apartment complex in which I live in, they have been struggling with management to let them be able to access the community room in order to watch the game. Our community room has a television, VCR/DVD, several dozen books, furniture, tables, chairs, and six computers. Its there for our use in the first place. But since the great remodel job of 2006, its been closed to the residents on the weekends. A bit unfair, but I’ve adapted to the fact that we must be crammed into our tiny apartments like caves for the weekend. So in a sense, it is a great victory for us living here.

As far as just having it opened for the Super Bowl, I’m not so sure I agree with that. But as they say, one step at a time. The struggles and tribulations of the community room is best served for another time, another blog.

I have been given the understanding that there will be food. So I suppose that would be one good thing about it. One thing about being a bachelor is that I can take the opportunity to partake in the munchifications and nobody will say anything about it. Finding places like that to eat, that is on the outside of the home is always a bonus in my book.

But here we go back again to the game. Its not giving me any interest at all. The Super Bowl takes a common football game which should last about two and a half, and up to three hours and stretches it so far with special commercials and what they consider “Halftime Entertainment”. Including the pre-game, the pre-pre-game, the pre-pre-pre-game, the trophy ceremony and oh…. on top of that, the post-game.

And did I mention, they get some goofball to sing our National Anthem and turn it from a two minute and ten second moment of patriotic pride to a four minute church hymn?

Altogether, a heeping pile of five to six hours in total length.

There’s almost a guarantee to have nothing else on television. For those of us who do not have cable or satellite, you know what I am talking about. Options are absolutely nothing on this day.

Yes, I know the commercials are amusing and sometimes hilarious. But believe me, you’re not missing anything because those commercials will be re-broadcast again throughout the rest of the month. Plus, there’s always the Internet. So that argument is out.

I think that instead, I’ll just stick to my sledge hockey. (Sled hockey as its called in the USA.)