October 3, 2012

• A random blog entry!

  Random Thoughts for a Wednesday

  (I’ll attempt to make this brief. No links will be provided.)

  I’m just gonna type and see what comes out of my head. (You know, like a lot of bloggers do every day they post something!)

  XANGA ACTIVITY
  I want so much to be more of an active Xangan, (and more a part of some undefined “community” I always hear tell about). As a creative, I just can’t post for the sake of posting. I’ve got ideas. But the preparation takes so long sometimes that the opportunity passes or I lose interest, or the idea gets filed under my things to do list.

  A lot of  bloggers post opinions. I’ve got those. But who cares what I think? I have an ahole too. But I don’t feel like farting all the time.

  I just simply can’t “retweet” something. (Using the verb as a metaphor for copy/pasting something somebody else thought up first). And I’ve possibly worn out my welcome as it is by reposting older entries over and over again. If I don’t post though I feel like I’m missing out. I’ve always compared Xanga to a big party where everyone knows each other and has a great time, but I’m off in a corner somewhere, alone.

  I find It’s quite difficult to be eternally creative. I work pretty much all the time during the day (electrical control panel design is precision work, and one needs to have his mind on what he’s doing when he’s specifying parts, creating documentation, or applying electricity to an untested product for the first time.) I’m sometimes pretty tired out when getting home. (Most days I don’t particularly want to fire up a computer either after working on one for 10 hours straight.)

  I didn’t post “double digits” last month. (Over 10 entries in a monthly period.) This must mean I’m “slowing down”, since I posted 12 entries in July and 14 in August. I’m amazed when I look over my Xanga archives and see that I was able to post almost 50 entries a month at one time. In the beginning, Xanga was easy for me. And it took a lot less than the time I used to expend as a group moderator on Yahoo.

  I haven’t “returned comments” for many I received over the last couple of weeks. I don’t know why I find myself obsessing over this either. (possibly because OCD is my 2nd middle name)

  I can spend almost a half hour or so “researching” a Xangan who might have left a three word comment on one of my entries, looking through their archives in an attempt to find the “person behind the blog”, then writing them a longish hopefully friendly comment in thanks for their readership, friend requests, subscriptions, etc. I look forward to “correspondence” with these bloggers. Then I forget them when they never return. Oh, yeah. They might return. Next time I get on the Top Blogs page, I may get another three words. I could leave dozens of 3 word comments a day, but I usually write about half a dozen comments. I know I’d rather receive a comment which actually says something than just an emoticon. So I figure others might appreciate the same.

  PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES
  Tonight is the first of three scheduled presidential debates.
  Snore.
  I’ll DVR the debate and fast forward through most of it, just like in 2008. My conclusion after watching one debate four years ago was that all the candidates seemed to be able to do was repeat bullet points from their stump speeches, and the most presidential person I saw was moderator Tom Brokaw! I’m already decided. Hope I’m still around in four more years though. I’m predicting the “Cat Fight of the Century” when the Dems nominate Hillary and the Repubs nominate Sarah Palin. That’s gonna be fun.

  47%
  Every time I hear or see the number 47% I chuckle. That’s the amount given by American presidential hopeful Mitt Romney of Americans who rely on government “handouts”. First thing I think of. Roughly 25% of Americans are children under the age of 18. Most don’t even work yet. And they don’t vote either. I’m about to join a pretty large group of Americans who receive social security. (It’s almost a decade away, but I always like to “be prepared”) I’ve been paying into the fund for a long time, so I don’t consider being able to receive “benefits” to be on the dole. There are a lot of aging baby boomers in the U.S. who already worked a good 25 years or more. If the amount of elder citizens receiving federal benefits of any kind, including Medicare, is roughly 10% (and this is a “no links post” so I’m not checking right now.) then that’s about 35% right there. Just love it when numbers are thrown around without substantiation.

  HONG KONG HARBOR COLLISION
  Two ships collide. 38 people die. Crew members are arrested. Countless news articles and pundits question: How did this happen?

  The life jacket is under the seat.

  Nobody ever listens to the flight attendants and ship stewards as they’re telling us about safety regulations when we’re about to depart the airport/dock. People are excited or bored, they’re texting, surfing, talking, ordering drinks at the bar. They forget all about the instructions, if they were listening in the first place. When tragedy strikes, if you don’t know what to do, you will most probably fall into the water and die. Not to diss anyone who perished in the accident, of course. It’s just that we seem to take so much for granted. The Hong Kong Harbor is pretty active. I live near one of the most active harbors in the U.S., but we don’t have a need for ferries. That said, not a lot can be done in the two minutes it took for the Lamma IV to sink.

  POT LEGAL AGAIN IN SOCAL
  Not really. The city council’s ban on marijuana dispenseries is off. There are over 1000 “dispensaries” in the L.A. area. All of a sudden they were “illegal.” Now, they’re not. Not according to city laws anyway. The sale of marijuana is still a federal offense. Our governor recently signed a law into effect which lets our illegal aliens get driver’s licenses. I live in a country where conflicting “laws” don’t make any real sense. Personally, I wish marijuana was just LEGAL. Everywhere. And sold and taxed like everything else that is legal.

  BULLYING THE ANCHORGAL
  In Wisconsin, a TV anchorperson received an email from a “concerned” citizen dissing her weight. The guy was concerned she was sending a negative message to kids because she’s overweight. She mentioned it on the air. She feels she’s been “bullied.” She’s getting support on her Facebook page. Is it just me, or does it seem that EVERYBODY seems to be being bullied these days? (Even the bullies claim they’re being bullied back by the bullied.) Heck, I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve read entries right here on Xanga (endlessly) where disparate bloggers feel they are being bullied by somebody. Am I out of the loop? Are people so coddled that a difference of opinion is considered “bullying”? There was that one blogger who accused moi of bullying them because they felt I was “telling them how to blog”.

  Hell,  I was stuffed into quite a few trashcans as a kid. I’m not devastated by that fact, nor have I developed any mental instability because of it.

  IRANIAN RIAL DEVALUED
  The rial is Iran’s currency, and the money’s worth has fallen over 30% in the last week. Guess those sanctions are working, eh? I, for one, wonder whether or not Iran really has “nuclear” intentions at all or if this is just another excuse for American warmongers to go swinging that big stick. 

  Oh well, better post this, since the day is half gone. Who knows I might want to actually post an entry with original content later on tonight.

  Or maybe not.

  • 2:39 pm
  • 12 Comments