Spread 'Em

Just spent $4 on a bag of pork cracklins and a regular sized Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

I feel like the foreign convenience store operator should have said, in a thick accent, "please spread your buttcheeks, sir," then he would have proceeded to pull $4 out of my rectum.

Still stinging.

I'm Okay

Strange how I react to the question, "how are you?"

Even stranger, how I react to the response, "I'm okay."

"I'm fine," is, in general, off-putting.

I'm not much for pleasantries, canned speech, or pointless discussion. If you ask me how I'm feeling today, chances are, I'm going to tell you, "I'm really tired. I was up too late, and I haven't eaten very well today."

I may venture on a huge discussion if I had a particularly interesting night. Fair warning.

The point is--when I ask, I really want to know! Please, don't short change my interest in your life and well-being with fine or okay. I hope there is, at least, a personal follow-up.

I may, subconsciously, pay attention how many times I get a canned response to such a question. If I stop bothering to ask, it would likely be because I feel like our discussions are pointless, fruitless, or just plain boring. It isn't an act of pretense or pretentiousness; I tend to keep my mind occupied with concepts and ideas, and never bother to devote a lot of time to things I find little value in. It is personal, but it is solely devoted to improving the quality of both our lives.

If I seem somewhat intense or intimidating, imagine how wonderful it is that I bother to ask; I don't often pay attention to the world outside my door without a reason. I don't know about customs, colloquialisms, or social and cultural acceptability. It is not that I don't care about these things; these are not instincts, and I have not found any personal value in learning such things.

I still love you, but I know there is no point in saying anything but what I must say to you.

Abrupt ending.

About Digital Storytelling

George Carter should appreciate this. This was a project done for video class a few years ago. I've actually received an honorable mention for "most engrossing short film."

I still laugh at some of it; it was a really fun project.

About RSS - Again

Actually, this was a clever trick I didn't know about.

Weblog feeds are structured the same as RSS feeds, so you can dump a log address into your reader, and get updates on your reader.

Hot.

Thanks for that one; it can be a real pain in the ass trying to get updates from your favorite sources, when they don't have a dedicated feed linked on the site.

Interesting feedback: you can add RSS feeds and logs directly to your iGoogle page. Useful if you like to consolidate your browser space.

About Google Docs - Part Two

It might not be too mind altering for me to hit the same subject from another angle.

I'm sure it won't, actually.

I've been instructed to log about the experience of "participating in a collaborative document on Google Docs," but I reflect on a familiar experience, yet I believe I'm expected to gush about it like it was the most exciting thing I've ever done. Maybe I'm overreacting, or I might be reacting realistically, as I was asked to comment, and not provide anything--well--of substance?

Background? Right on. I've collaborated a lot over the years. I've rewritten pages via email. I've collaborated over etherpad/piratepad. I've collaborated via whiteboard using individual colors. I get it, it's a bit more convenient, because it's an actual word processor being used by the whole group. But I don't honestly feel like it was a compelling practice; what we did. There was nothing but a relatively limited and uninspired experience writing the same thing as everybody else.

I suppose I get to check that off the assignment list, but I was hoping it would go somewhere.

Fortunately it was familiar ground.