I had a dream last night where everyone in my d&d game used chicken fingers instead of figurines to denote their location on the map. The halfling and gnome characters were represented by chicken nuggets instead of entire fingers.
What does it mean?!
An open letter to the guy on the train this morning listening to The White Stripes with no headphones on his Galaxy SIII:
Dear Sir,
Stephen Covey, rest his soul, has a great aphorism, which starts out "Seek first to understand." If you are at all interested in being a decent human being, that's a pretty good phrase to start with. I understand it as a reminder to remember you're not the center of the universe, and to recognize that in any situation there's more going on than you can immediately see. If you strive to understand another person's perspective, you will often find that you share common ground, which can allow you to arrive at a mutually agreeable solution to almost any challenge.
Interestingly enough, one of the stories that Covey told in association with this aphorism involves an experience he had on a train. Isn't that funny?
So I'd like to apologize to you for saying you were "really fucking annoying." I had just been woken up from a fairly deep sleep by Jack White's voice, which I'm sure you'll agree is roughly equivalent to someone waking you up by sticking the tip of his semihard dick right in your ear.
Or maybe you wouldn't. I guess you probably actually like The White Stripes, which is weird, but whatever. I like a lot of weird stuff too, so I don't want to judge someone's taste.
Anyway, I feel bad about being surly right after waking up. After all, I was sleeping on the train. Maybe I'm doubly rude for swearing at you, and for sleeping in a public place near where you were going to listen to music on your phone.
Speaking of which, that's a nice phone, the Galaxy SIII. Expensive, right? You'd think a phone that expensive would come with headphones. Or that someone who could afford a phone like that could ALSO afford a ten-dollar pair of headphones from CVS.
But maybe I'm making judgments based on my own perspective. I'm assuming based on your phone (well, and your complexion, and your apparent gender, which maybe makes me an asshole because now that I'm writing this out I realize how many unfair heteronormative patriarchal assumptions are packed into the next statement) that, like me, you are a relatively wealthy white male. I have literally five pairs of headphones that work with my phone. Which was why I didn't worry about loaning you the pair I had in my bag and then going back to sleep.
I just probably could have done it without swearing at you, for which I actually do feel really bad. That was uncalled for. So, sorry.
And thanks for giving me the headphones back as you got off the train. That was actually really nice, considering I had gone back to sleep and you totally could have just walked away with them.
Guys! I'm trying to use this thing more! I do read LJ, like every single day (on the potty!), but finding the time to post things is hard.
I quit Facebook a couple months ago. Actually, I quit Facebook last August, after the election-centered echo-chamber of lies reached such an incredible volume I simply couldn't stand it any more. It was like watching a vast crowd of idiots standing on the edge of a canyon, all screaming their opinions into the void, all hoping to hear them bounce back louder and stronger, and not a single one of them listening to the person next to them. Eight hundred goddam friends, and not a one interested in being thoughtful, or even in, like, basic fact checking.
Facts are important guys. They help us know what all the things is.
Anyway, FB was shocking and exhausting, because I know that most of my actual friends actually are thoughtful people who are interested in things like the truth, and not being dickheads. But Facebook (like the rest of the internet) does something stupid to the parts of people's brains that enable dignity, patience, and self-awareness.
But then I actually just up and deleted my FB account a few months ago because I realized I hadn't done anything with it other than mass-delete notifications from my email in something like 9 months, and that, as a result, I had missed literally nothing of import.
I sort of had a theory at first that I was going to be the first of many hundreds of thousands, and that Facebook would soon be going the way of pets.com, but upon reflection I'm changing my mind.
I thought that pretty soon, everyone would be sick of the enforced "hey everybody look at me" superficiality of the Facebook format, and would retreat to more curated communities (like Livejournal, and, oh my god, email lists) where smaller networks engage in actual discussion.
Facebook is like a nightclub, where everyone you know goes. Some of those people you really love, some you like, and some you just tolerate. But you greet everyone the same way – "Like!" – and while you might have the occasional interesting exchange with someone, it's just too fucking noisy to actually have a conversation, and even making plans to get together outside of the club is hampered by the format.
Nightclubs are fun! But eventually most people reach a point where they just want to get drunk with three or four close friends in their own kitchen, and maybe not even put on shoes. Or maybe, just maybe, they want to do something by themselves.
And that metaphor is actually what made me realize I was wrong. The reason people quit going to nightclubs for their social interactions is, by and large, a function of maturity. Which is not to say that people who continue clubbing into middle age are immature – only that maturity manifests for many people in a way that leads them to value fewer, more significant interactions.
The people for whom FB was originally created – college students – are at the perfect level of maturity for it. College is all about noisy, superficial, highly populated social networks. Maintaining a friendship with someone who lives in the same building as you and takes the same classes is a zero-effort proposition. It's awesome! If you're a college student.
So now here's my new theory. Facebook is popular because we're a civilization if lazy goddamn children. People are going to continue flocking to Facebook, despite the fact that I've never heard anyone express any feeling about it other than frustration and a vague sense of obligation. It's probably the only high-value brand that actually subtracts value directly from its users lives.
But no one wants to give up the sense of belonging they get from being "surrounded" by people. No one wants to give up the idea that they're "keeping in touch with their friends" by getting semi-regular updates on the parking situation and what they had for lunch. And it's certain that most people aren't going to give up their soapbox on the edge of the canyon.
Navy Seal Gabriel Gomez thinks it's disgusting that Obama politicizes his military accomplishments. That's not something a Navy Seal like Gabriel Gomez would ever do. It's just not the Navy Seal way, and since Gabriel Gomez was a Navy Seal he would totally know. So vote for Navy Seal Gabriel Gomez.
Kotaku has a teaser video for the PS4 at that link there. What it tells us is that the machine will be. . . black. And maybe squarish? But that's not what I want to talk about.
Watch the video with sound on. What's that fleshy clapping noise during the first ten seconds. Is that. . . Is it someone masturbating just off screen?
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