Better Now

Okay so I'm much happier and well-adjusted since we just had a church meeting tonight. Many good things were shared.

Just remember to take all this crap on my blog with a grain of salt :)

Why I do what I do

Top reasons why my blog is not famous:

• I don't stick to one topic.
• I mostly write about myself. Hah. AND I LIKE IT.
• I alienate everyone on one issue or another. Either I am too liberal, too Jesusy, or generally way too opinionated.
• I don't try to publicize it.
• I try to leave out proper nouns so my business contacts don't find my crazy mental meanderings on the world wide web.
• I am vague so I can mock, parody, criticize, or otherwise question people or things that I encounter.

According to Micah, a blog is nothing less than masturbation. Yes, I just said that. But hey this is the era of global corporations. If they are going to dominate the world through unbridled capitalism and sheer greed, I am going to have my little corner of the universe and say things that make me happy.

Drew had a good point the other day. He said that everything in our world is designed to make us feel empty. Companies do this through their marketing to make us think we need and want what they have to offer. Incidentally, the result is we feed the emptiness with more emptiness when we consume what will not and cannot satisfy.

Anyway let's go back to analyzing this blog. Top reasons I like it ANYWAY!!

• I can change the font and colors and stuff as much as I want. Aesthetics are everything - admit it.
• Publishing is just plain fun. It's like sending a memo to your investors. It's like putting a hot wax seal on a handwritten letter to your lover. It's like planning a party or having a drug intervention. Think about it...*
• (I need to interrupt this blog broadcast by saying I am at Stone Wolf Coffee, and they just played Rhinestone Cowboy followed by the theme song for Three's Company. I was loving this place till 5 minutes ago. lol)
• Writing for me is a way of working things out. I can't think clearly about something until I start to write about it.
• (Let me interrupt again to say some guy just came in and is sitting right where I need to plug in this contraption! But he's cute. So I will forgive him.)
• I blog for the same reason people talk to themselves, or laugh at their own jokes. That's it.

* When I say "Think about it" what I really mean is, "Don't think about it."

What's true?

Two interesting things in my inbox today:

Urban Word of the Day
www.urbandictionary.com

August 08, 2006:
wikiality
Reality as decided on by majority rule.

Based off [wikipedia]'s 'majority rule' fact.
Featured on [The Colbert Report] July 31, 2006.

Wikiality refers to the changing of reality or truth via a Wikipedia-like system, allowing the public to change facts as long as there are others that agree.

and

The international news agency Reuters has withdrawn a photo of Beirut following an air attack after American bloggers pointed out "blatant evidence of manipulation." Reuters admitted that the photo had been doctored to make it appear that the city was more damaged than it actually was. You can click here to see the picture ...

I'm fascinated by all things related to citizen journalism, blogging, and the democratization of information... because it relates directly to truth, perceptions, and reality. I mean, isn't it crazy-interesting that truth is becoming such a fluid concept? Maybe it always has been. And do we need to protect it? Can we?

Maybe if I go to grad school someday I will study this. If I had to say what I'm most passionate about, it's probably helping people around the world have a better quality of life through art and technology. That's why I get as excited about people blogging their experience and interpretation of events as I do about kids doing competitive ballroom dancing or learning to play an instrument or sing. They're all vehicles to hope, I think, and there's real life along the way.

Ditching MySpace

So yeah. I'm on MySpace for just a few more days. The reason I am telling you, my faithful (little, maybe non-existent, nebulous but very loved) blog audience this is because... once I get rid of that distraction, if I do put time into anything, it will be into making this better. Yeah baby! I may even get another domain name someday. But that's getting pretty serious. For now the point is really to cut DOWN on time-wasting, not increase it.. so I definitely won't be doing that before the fall. (Please shoot me if I get too into the blog before my work is done.)

Raleigh Bloggers

So tonight I went to a serendipitous little gathering of the Raleigh Bloggers. Well, it really wasn't serendipitous at all, it was quite planned, but it was funny how I heard about it. I can't remember why but I came across Josh Staiger's site and started commenting like crazy and then even IMing him out of nowhere (HA) and decided this would be a fun thing to attend... and it was!

We talked about all kinds of technological things. They are very smart and you can ask them questions like "what's the best X" or "why hasn't Bill Gates developed X" and they will give you insightful and funny answers. :)

No but really.. they also inspired me to maybe make my blog more of a real writing enterprise rather than just a personal (and quite random) diary. (Not that they said anything about that, but just the meeting itself inspired me that way.) But I love the whole diary thing because I'm obsessed with the freedom to do whatever I want. I don't want to get too serious with this thing, and I certainly don't want to write about certain things and not other things because of what anyone expects. But maybe I could slightly invest more of myself in real punctuation rather than the ever-popular "..." and such. Actually none of you care about this (why are you reading this paragraph!) but yeah. I'm thinking of renaming this thing "sloppy stream of consciousness" because that would be more accurate. I really don't stop to think before I type but hey. It's the internet, and everyone's complaining about alienation and loneliness and stuff. I'm just tryin to keep it real!

Jasmin, I am going to try to recruit you for this group because it was a 4:1 male to female ratio. And you know you love blogging, and you love Raleigh! Admit it!! :) Wow I think you may be the only other girl blogger I really know... since my cousin Julia dropped off the face of the planet with her Xanga (yo what happened?) and Susan never got too into it (though she did quote me directly in her top banner which is funny and great). What are the statistics on gender and blogging?! Has any research been done on this?

Micah, are you gonna start your blog before... well, before Thursday I guess? Are you guys going to have internet access down there in Greenbo?

Blogging for the Dixie Chicks

Chicks Magnet

Identify potential dream job - Cheeeeck.