Interconnectedness

I got one of those invitations to be LinkedIn to a social networking page. I recognized the person, so I said yes. Later that morning, that same guy, who is a sales rep for a database service we use at work called to see how we were doing with the service. (I had previously spoken to him and complained about the interface of the database.) This led me to ask him, “what’s the benefit of the social network?” I can if he can just call me up, I don’t need to be “connected” to him. He explained that people that one of us is linked to is vetted, in a way. I scratched my head, knowing some people with hundreds of MySpace “friends”,e.g., are no more connected than people one night see at a bus stop.

I’ve gone to parties, and because I tend to be the one who tends more to Lydia than her mother on those occasions, I’ll not have a substantial conversation with anyone. I’ve gone to these father/child breakfast things at Lydia’s day care, and except for a couple dads I’d talk with previously, I didn’t really get to know any of them. We are in the same room, but there’s no real connection.

So how does one get to “know” people? I’m on a couple listservs at work, and just by people asking questions and answering them, I get a feel for the way their minds work. Certainly, I’ve got a sense for people via their blogs, but especially when I’ve exchanged music with them. I was reorganizing my music over the weekend – using drawers I bought at a library auction – and the mixed CDs of Green and Dymowski and Burgas and Brown (come back, Kelly!) and Brown and Bacardi all show up in the same drawer. I’ve never met any of them (well, except for Green), but I feel that I know them better than people I’ve seen face to face recently. That’s both kinda weird and kinda nice.
***
I’m enjoying listening to discs from Thom (two discs) and Tosy.
ROG

Songs That Move Me, 100-91

100. As – Stevie Wonder.
This song is good until it gets to the “preach” segment; then it’s transcendent.
Feeling: as though I were at a revival meeting.

99. Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor.
Based pretty much on the strength of the vocal alone. That octave leap on “Nothing”, e.g.
Feeling: longing.

98. No More Tear-Stained Makeup – Martha and the Vandellas.
I wish I could find the lyrics to this Smokey Robinson-penned tune on the Internet, because there’s a lyric couplet in the second verse has a line that’s really a mouthful. On the Watchout LP.
No More Tear-Stained Makeup -Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
HERE.
Feeling: Like singing along.

97. I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow – Foggy Mountain Boys.
The hit from O Brother Where Art Thou. It’s the quality of Dan Tyminski’s vocal, along with the harmony vocals and the instruments, that work for me.
Feeling: what a hoot!

96. Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen – Santana.
The first part wouldn’t have made the list, but that the second half seals the deal. I may have become aware of Santana from the Woodstock movie, which I sat through twice.
Feeling: transcendent.

95. Papa Was a Rolling Stone – the Temptations.
It is that lengthy, luscious introduction that Dennis Edwards acknowledges added a bit of an edge to his voice when he finally got to sing “It was the third of September.”
Feeling: that I can finally exhale when the vocal comes on.

94. Losing My Religion – R.E.M.
Such a musically delicate song for such moving lyrics.
Feeling: doubt.

93. Cannonball – the Breeders.
It was loud and infectious. But what made it is the modulation of key early on. On a 4-song CD.
Feeling: I’m alive.

92. Takin’ It To the Streets-the Doobie Brothers.
The first song I heard with the Michael McDonald vocal. It became a more predictable sound eventually, but when I first experienced it, it felt fresh. From the first greatest hits LP.
Feeling: as the title says.
HERE.
Also, this version from No Nukes.

91. What’s That You’re Doin’- Paul McCartney with Stevie Wonder.
It came out at a point in the early ‘80s that Stevie started getting squishy (I Just Called to Say I Love You), so this was more to form. Much better than the OTHER Wonder/Macca song on the Tug of War album, Ebony and Ivory.
Feeling: Stevie’s back!

ROG

100 Things That Bug Me

Not only do I show my lack of imagination by doing another meme, I cop it from guy I copped it from LAST week. I even stole some of his answers, in italics, as well as some of the answers of the person HE swiped the meme from; those answers are marked with **.

It’s one hundred things that bug me, annoy me, or fill me with rage, no particular order, except I didn’t move Jaquandor’s responses.

1. The notion that we need a whole new format for home video already. DVD is fine!

2. “Common courtesy” gone uncommon. “Excuse me”, “please”, “thank you”.

3. People who seem to be oblivious to how much space they take up in a limited area, such as a supermarket aisle, with the cart and the person positioned so no one can pass from either direction.

4. “Right on red” means stop, yield, go.

5. People driving with cell phones. It’s not that it’s illegal in NYS that bothers me; it’s the fact that almost everyone who has almost hit me going right on red had a cellphone in his or her hand.

6. Bicyclists who bike badly, riding on the wrong side of the street, or wildly on the sidewalk, barely missing pedestrians. Makes it harder for the responsible bicyclists.

7. The Religious Wrong, I mean Right, for too many reasons.

8. Poor signage, especially accompanied by a snippy sales clerk who doesn’t know why one can’t magically discern where the bathroom is.

9. Disgusting public bathrooms.

10. Cigarette butts. On the very first earth day, I picked up over 1000 cigarette butts from my high school lawn, and they’ve been the bane of my existence ever since.

11. People who pass me on the road while I’m riding the bike, then make a quick right turn so I can nearly plow into the passenger-side door.

12. Yielding to pedestrians at crosswalks just isn’t SOP in Albany, NY.

13. New CDs or LPs that skip.

14. When I buy a favorite food item…and then forget about it until it’s gone moldy and nasty. That bugs me.

15. Plastic “clamshell” packaging. Not only is it environmentally unfriendly, but it’s a strain to open.

16. The largest Wal-Mart in the company is in Albany County, NY.

17. Movie trailers that give away too much.

18. The current President of the United States.

19. The current Congress that, until recently, showed few cojones in dealing with the POTUS.

20. That there is almost certainly enough food and medicine in the world, but that distribution and money allow so many to die of hunger and treatable diseases.

21. The Supreme Court’s recent decision on the death penalty.

22. The number of people released on DNA evidence after sometimes decades in prison, 17 of them in Dallas County, TX alone. I should be happy they were finally exonerated, but their lives are all but ruined.

23. Drunk drivers.

24. Most canned vegetables.

25. Marshmallow Peeps. Oh, how horrible.

26. Those smokers hanging outside their buildings forcing me to run through.

27. Redesigned web sites that are more difficult to use than it used to be. NYS DOT, this means YOU.

28. John McCain. He’s no more a “straight-talker” than anyone else, he thinks that the problems the world faces right now are to maintain the same policies from the previous eight years that enabled, exacerbated, or outright created those problems, and it strikes me as odd that people whose distaste for Hillary Clinton includes the notion that she’s essentially been running for President since 2000 don’t notice that McCain’s been at it even longer.

29. Revisionist history.

30. Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part 1. A bunch of pissing jokes.

31. Dirty movie theaters, especially sticky floors.

32. The international conspiracy to get people to buy the same thing more than once; e.g., releasing individual seasons of a TV show, THEN the box set with “extras”.

33. Global warming and our seeming inability to do anything about it.

34. People who are upset with something a person does, but they don’t tell that person. Almost inevitably, it leads to a larger confrontation later.

35. One-party rule. Does not matter which party.

36. Oh, and thanks a lot, you Homeland Security nitwits, for making it more annoying for us to go to Canada. I’m sure that tons of stuff that would have been blown up by terrorists otherwise is still standing because you’re all vigilantly giving people like me the skunk-eye when we try to come home.

37. Continuing with that theme, thanks a lot, you Homeland Security nitwits, for making flying even more of a complete pain in the ass than it already is, because there [will] be some flying in my future at some point.

38. Political pundits and talk show show hosts who seem to think if they can talk louder and/or more frequently than the other person, they are somehow factually correct. A special award to Nancy Grace, who does it even when no one else on the set.

39. People who act like a bad movie adaptation of a book or comic or TV show or something somehow destroys the original.

40. Guys who give me a weak handshake.

41. All those prescription drug ads that are driving up the cost of medicine.

42. People who are excessively proud of themselves for not owning a TV.

43. Internet scammers, credit card skimmers, identity thieves, and other people I have to take extra security measures for.

44. People who insist that having my daughter attend public school in Albany is tantamount to child abuse.

45. People who complain about someone’s harmless (at worse) or useful (at best) mission that they don’t get and complain that he should be doing something else. Example: a guy goes around correcting signs that have bad grammar and a bunch of folks say, “Get a life!” That IS his life; why does it bug you so?

46. Bad grammar.

47. People who think that the mere act of saying the words “Excuse me” confers upon them the right to just barrel through wherever they happen to be, without waiting for response or acknowledgment or for the people in front of them to just plain move.

**48. Internet “celebrities.”

49. Waiters/waitresses who just don’t listen.

50. People who ask for “honest feedback” but don’t really want it.

51. The elevators in my office building that close, then open again for no reason, then close again, making a whiny noise.

52. People who call at work who launch into what they want without even identifying themselves.

53. My armoire. I never asked for it, but we got it when the child was born. I like putting my socks and underwear in drawers, not this monstrosity that doesn’t keep them in right.

54. “Permanent press” shirts that aren’t permanent press.

55. I hate it when I’m leaving the house with my backpack, come back to the house to get something I forgot, then lock the door, leaving the backpack inside.

56. Paper cuts.

57. Mail-in rebates.

58. Loud cell phone calls on public conveyances.

59. Sunburn. Especially now.

60. People who don’t curb their dogs, the results of which show up on my lawn, my shoes…

61. Most meetings, especially the top down ones, where they say, “Does anyone have anything else to say?” Of course they don’t; the leadership’s droned on for 90 minutes, and your fellow minions just want to get out of there.

62. A whole bunch of people, including Paris Hilton and Perez Hilton, whose purpose in life is beyond me.

63. Most movie cliches that Roger Ebert has pointed out, e.g., you can just tell from the music that the buddy of the lead character is going to die.or be seriously hurt.

64. People who complain about the “war on Christmas”. Don’t worry; Christmas has won.

65. People who can’t take a compliment well.

66. Trying to find a parking space around Washington Park in Albany when an event (Tulip Festival, Corporate Challenge run) takes place there.

67. Lewis Black did a piece on this on the Emmys – the tease for another show DURING the show you are watching. Do you want me to watch the show I’m watching NOW or not.

68. People in cars that make right turns from an extreme left lane. (Atlanta, at least in 1995, was notorious for this, as is Boston every time I’ve been there.)

69. Not enough places offer free WiFi.

70. When the price of something doesn’t include some obvious things. You get a quote for getting a tire changed for $50, but then there is a disposal fee, balancing fee,
etc. and ends up costing $90.

71. Businesses that charge sales tax on items that don’t require sales tax.

72. My old phone bill. I never DID understand what the heck half those charges were, and it turned out to be far more expensive than the original quote.

73. People who boast about how stupid they are.

74. Open casket funerals.

75. Yard work. Just because I mow the lawn twice a week – and I have to, if I don’t want to borrow a power mower – doesn’t mean I like it.

76. Wet socks.

77. Insert my usual rant about people who refuse to use their local library here. Reading! For free! Why wouldn’t you do this?!

78. Corporate officers who make 200 times the average worker and the business isn’t even making money.

79. Micromanagers.

80. Haggling.

81. People who play the one-up game. They always have to be busier, more tired, and more stressed than you are.

82. People who think what they see on TV must be true and accurate, even when they are watching FOX News.

83. Bill O’Reilly.

84. Littering, especially when the garbage can is FIVE FEET AWAY.

85. Iceberg lettuce. Why do we still cultivate this stuff? It serves no useful purpose whatsoever. It’s not particularly vitamin-filled, it’s lacking in flavor, it’s just plain icky.

86. People who honk in traffic. OK for the toot to wake up the driver asleep at the wheel, but the laying on of the horn just aggravates the other drivers, making me (on the bike) VERY nervous.

87. Countries that still insist on whaling.

88. Non-instinctive Internet shopping carts. And they wonder why they have so many abandoned carts?

89. Most automated phone systems.

90. Allergy season.

91. Forwarded e-mails that direct me to send it on to three, five, ten people. Sorry, I’ve already deleted it.

92. Misplacing my glasses, mostly because I need my glasses to FIND my glasses.

93. Waking up in the morning, stumbling to the kitchen, turning on the light… – and only then discovering that I’d never put the previous night’s leftovers away. Even when food was a lot cheaper than it is now, I hated having to throw out half a tuna noodle casserole because I forgot to put the thing in the fridge.

94. Sports programming that offer unrealistic running times. The World Series games in three hours, including a 30-minute pregame? Dream on. The Masters golf tournament always ends past 7 pm ET, as do the 4 pm ET NFL games.

95. Bullies.

96. People who tell me my life’s an empty void without some technology (blackberry, iPhone). Maybe it is; I’ll let you know if I get one (an iPhone, not a life.)

97. Government entities who were designed to protect the people but end up helping the entities they were supposed to be regulating (FCC, FDA: guilty as charged).

98. Wine snobs.

99. Forgetting the good dreams.

100. My ability to be drawn to the negative.

OK, so there are one hundred things that annoy me. No tagging, here. If you’re inclined, have at it. ROG

Deadly

Weird. There have been lots of famous or semi-famous people who’ve died recently that have been in some way significant to me. In addition to the ones I’ve mentioned, there was Dick Martin, who not only hosted Laugh In but directed a number of fine shows, notahbly the Bob Newhart Show. then there was the guy who wrote the Star Trk theme, Alexander Courage.

Then yesterday, Bo Diddley with that rectangular guitar;

Even if you didn’t know the musician, maybe you remember this commercial:

Also dying yesterday, Yves St. Laurent, who was paired in an ABC News story yesterday. Fashion just isn’t my thing, but even I surely knew the name.

But the recent death that touched me most was not famous at all. it was the death
of Kathina Thomas
, a 10-year-old girl killed by a stray bullet not two miles from my house. It made me sad and angry and a tad bit nervous. My condolences to the family.

ROG

Take a stroll through my mind

From time to time I read these blog improvement posts such as the best time of the year to post to your blog and This is the MOST IMPORTANT BLOG POST of 2008, so READ IT!
This is the easiest thing you can do to attract clients on the web, and it’s free, and fast.
I think these have value, and sometimes I even do them, though not always.

The harder thing is to find the balance. Mr. Dymowski wrote about some of this in his 10 things he’s learned about blogging, such as the balance between doing the blog and networking, or avoiding the blank page. Well, sometime during the month, I got unbalanced, maybe literally. I was away for three days at a work conference and I decided to write nothing. The upside is that I didn’t have to haul the laptop – which is REALLY slow – or go bother people to borrow their computers. And since I had content written for the days I was away, it didn’t have an immediate effect on the output.

So much of the time when I’m blogging, I write about what strikes the muse. So I might write a post about Flag Day – indeed, I already have, and you won’t see it until June 14. I’ve also finished my post for June 20 and August 10. Really. But without writing regularly, I found writing to suddenly become onerous.

Think about an exercise routine. You do it every day, or three times a week, and you take off a few days. If you’re like some people, it’s hard to get back into the groove. In fact, because I’ve missed riding my bike when I was away in April and again in May for the conference, and I didn’t feel well a couple of days, and it was cold and/or rainy a couple days, and Lydia was running late a couple days, I’ve ridden my bicycle far less at this point in the year than I have in previous years. Once I get derailed, it can be very difficult to get back on track.

Well, the same thing was true for blogging. I’m usually working at least a little bit ahead – I’m writing this on Friday morning before Lydia wakes up – but for the three days of the Memorial Day weekend, I had to get up and write something for the blog. What I realized: I HATE GETTING UP AND WRITING FOR THE BLOG. And, stupidly – you might think – I was writing at least some of those nights before, for a future post, because that’s where the muse took me.

Now, you might say, “Well, just pass on that day.” The trouble is that, to quote Billy Joel, “I go to extremes”. It was more like, “I think I’ll just quit blogging. Forever. Period.”

But that didn’t work, either. How do I explain this? All the things I used to sit around thinking about writing about, before I started blogging, would float in and out of my head, with no place to go. It was cacophonous, all the storylines in my brain. The GREAT thing about the blog is that it severely lessens the noise in my head. So, even if I don’t post it – and there are failed posts, posts I’ve written, but for whatever reason I never published – I still need to WRITE about. The blog is the methodology of publishing it, as it were, but the actual writing, removing certain stories from my mind into the keyboard, is a grand psychological release.

I saw Iron Man last weekend. My brain has composed what I THINK is a different POV on the movie. But until I actually write it down, and a musical I saw, and something that happened at the Greek festival, and some amazingly stupid and costly thing I did, it remains as an out-of-tune symphony in my head.

Specific to Memorial Day weekend, while I could have blown off two of the days, I could not have blown off the third. For that was the 26th of the month, and I seem to have a “contact with God” to write about Lydia on that date. (Which reminds me, I have this Will Eisner thing to write about.)

So I hope this view of my pathology makes sense. I believe it was inspired, at least a little bit, by this post from Mr. Velez. Thank you, Anthony.

ROG

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