Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

I know of two large online communities (in the tens of thousands of users) that have disabled the ability to privately message or email other users, and have outlawed the discussion of personal contact information on the boards. This seems to me to be defeating the purpose of a community per se, by not allowing connections to happen organically and grow to possible real-life friendships or networking. It also adds yet another layer of anonymity? Non-accountability? If you KNOW you’re never going to be held accountable for your online posts in real life, why bother to be helpful?

I read a thread of an attempted real-life meetup from one of those boards, where, since they were unable to share cell numbers or exchange names, it failed miserably and those people who tried to make it were discouraged.

Information is like water. It seeks its own level. If it is blocked in one direction, it will make another path – one that those board owners won’t be able to control so easily.

Sometimes I feel like life’s just a big jigsaw puzzle, only we’re missing that handy picture on the box cover that tells you how it goes. But every once in a while, if you look closely, you can catch a glimpse of the overall pattern.

Enlightenment is usually only temporary and then it’s back to living in a big jumble again. But those moments are so worth it.

I read something like this in a book once, only it had to do with a character finding nirvana while studying glass bricks. Wonder what that was.

My dream last night: I was going fishing. I cast my line into the water but realized there was no bait on it. So I affixed some Koosh-looking bait and cast again, but realized there was no hook. So I attached a hook, and cast again, but realized I needed a sinker. So I attached a sinker and waited patiently. I got a nibble, and with perfect Wii-developed The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess skills, I hooked my catch well and reeled it in. It was an enormous bass, the largest ever caught in the world. And because I was patient and adaptable, I attained it.

How trite.

Because I’m getting so many hits for people searching for “fight club paper,” I’m going to include the text of my paper in this entry so that Google can index it and suspicious profs can look it up. Suck it, intellectual property thieves. (more…)

Say what you will about Starbucks… I have a burr grinder from them that I bought a couple of years ago. It fell victim to my husband’s mysterious curse of breaking my coffee equipment (“Oops, I dropped it”). Definitely broken via abuse, definitely out of warranty. I called Starbucks to order a replacement hopper and they’re sending me one totally free, not even a shipping charge. Probably in hopes that I’d give them some good publicity. Which I will. Bing.

One of my communication professors has recently published a book on the subject of Powerpoint presentations. Having had him for two classes, I can testify to the awesome-tude of his Powerpoints. Check him out if you get a chance. I’m not making a dime off this; just passing on something helpful:

Save Our Slides by Dr. Billy Earnest

A friend of mine messaged me tonight – he had this log of an instant messenger conversation from May of ’05:

me: I just had a dream about you
me: you had kidnapped my husband and were driving a hay ride around my neighborhood
me: and I couldn’t tell whether you were your right age or 12
me: you told me there were 6 keys to success in college
me: a sound mind
me: a strong heart
me: intestinal fortitude
me: something something
me: and one big old titty for either hand
me: then I woke up
me: and said WTF

Last week I found out that my usually very dependable for-pay email forwarding address wasn’t delivering any of the emails that my daughter’s teacher was sending me. She mentioned a newsletter at our parent teacher conference, and I was all, “Whaaaaa? Newsletter?”

Then earlier tonight I realized that none of the email to my college address was actually being kept on the server. So I tried changing the forward, which activated a black hole swirling vortex of doom which sucked who knows how many emails down with it. None of my test messages went through for a good hour, anyway.

Oh, and here’s an O’Henry moment: Yesterday, as we were setting up for the class presentation, my cell phone rang with its insanely loud Wii Sports theme and I freaked out, thinking my professor was going to walk into the room any moment and hear my phone ringing and find it unprofessional. I hit the “Ignore” button as quick as I could and switched off the ringer.

Turned out it was my professor calling to say she was running late to class.

Bonus geek points for my classmate who recognized the theme, though.

This was the same prof that I had the nightmare about last spring. The one where I forgot to wear my shoes to class and she was horrified. I told her about it a couple of weeks ago and she laughed and laughed. Man, that was a horrible dream. I was seriously traumatized.