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For the week of june 1, 1997
A long day. A tiring day. Went to visit some cousins today. Got to play with their webtv box. Not too bad of an implementation, though the keyboard was a bit small and the remote not too nice to use.
The problem i found with it was that it was boring. Okay, well, first of all, the resolution really isn't good enough to have a fun time reading email or web pages. But besides that, there's really not much fun to be had during a family browsing session. Sure, it's novel the first few times you see it, but after a while it's about as much fun as watching lint.
The web, it we take it for what I believe it should be, is about content. ANd I believe that the philosophy that people should take towards it is that people will have to find their own content. Will have to forge their own paths, and will have do the learning on their own. To have a group of people have to sit around and get towed by the person with the control is silly. Those people probably aren't going to be learning. They won't be going at their own pace. They won't be going their own way.
No, webtv is a decent idea that just can't catch on. I suspect a whole lot of sales of these suckers, and a whole lot of returns.
Then, came home, and went to see Addicted to Love with Mike and Kathy and kathy's friend from school. Yes it was cheesy at times. And it has the word "love" in the title, which should have doomed it to sap. But I like these kinds of movies, so i really enjoyed it.
What I found so interesting is that there wasn't one character they the audience (or at least I) felt any sort of bond with. Sure, you were in love with the couple at the beginning. Then you hate this putz, but then you like him because you feel sorry for him, then you hate this other guy since you thought he was nice but he ended up being kinda mean, but you see that he's mean all in the name of love so you end up liking him again.
Not so much an emotinal roller coaster, but they mess with your head a lot.
Funny. Love's like that.
Something about being in this house, about being home just makes me... tired. I can't really explain it. I suppose the whole "home time" argument makes sense. I'm not working with people who hold the same hours that i do any more. This place shuts down in the evening. But still.
I woke up this afternoon at 1:15. Back at school, i would feel guilty if i didn't get up before 11ish, but here, there's really nothing to do, and therefore it doesn't really matter what I do with myself, whether I'm up at 11 or noon or 1. The same amount of stuff will get done during the day regardless.
I really have to find something to do with myself. Where most people will be starting their summer work tomorrow, I'll still be making calls. On the one hand I really don't want to be doing any work, and yet, on the other hand, i know that i'm going to go crazy if i'm not doing anything.
I should take the time out this summer to learn all of the things that I've been wanting to learn, to do the things i've been wanting to do. but it's so easy just to sit on my butt and think about being productive that i don't think i'm ever going to get to do anything.
Depressing.
I keep saying that i'm going to clean my room. That's never going to happen. Bah.
I'm also starting to miss all of my friends. All of those wacky people that i hang out with up at school. I don't think i ever really realized how much they impact my life.
Heh, was just looking through my bookmarks and found a web horoscope. Mine:
Multiple interests pull you and your loved ones in different directions. Establish clear priorities and make time for each other.
Loved ones, eh? Familial? People around here. I think i spend enough time with them anyway. And as for the rest of the loved ones in my life, they're scattered all around the country. I miss them all. How sappy.
Feh, get a job or something.
Have to do some writing for a web project that i've been asked to write for (my, that was a poorly worded sentence). I've got some good ideas of what to write about, but can't seem to sit myself down and start writing. When i wake up in the morning. Definitely. I should get to sleep now.
And i'd better start getting productive tomorrow or i'm going to have to kick my ass.
(you know, it's nice having this place to write. in writing things down here, it's almost as if i'm promising someone that i'm going to do something and am therefore more likely to actually do it. neato.)
Herein lies the fundamental problem with being at home. I can get quiet, I can get peace, and I can get free use of the phone line only after midnight or so. Which means that I'm going to be up late doing whateer it is that I do here. Which means that I wake up late the next day. Which means that I've wasted all that time.
Which means that I really have to think about what I did for three hours tonight. Spent a whole lot of time looking through web pages. Unfortunately, not many of them held my interest, or didn't seem to, since I can't, for the life of me remember what it is that I saw.
I'm thinking of tightening my view of these online journals. And I know what's wrong with a lot of them. Real life is inherently boring. I was watching a movie with my father earlier tonight and I realized how boring movies would be if they actually followed real life, step by step.
Even things like The Real World or Road Rules, those serial "real-life" type programs on MTV really aren't real in the sense that they just take the jucies bits and pieces from a given time frame to present. Anything more and people just wouldn't stand for it.
Web pages are the same way. While putting your life on-line (not to be confused with the more noble "putting your life on _the_ line") can be an interesting experiment, make sure you have something to say. More importantly, make sure you have a story to tell. Is telling the world about how you got on the bus in the morning, sat next to a guy eating a tuna sandwich, got to work, did some work, and then came home really going to be interesting?
Spotlight a moment, spout some feelings about the experience. That's a story.
Unfortunately, I don't have any stories for the day. I have a meeting tomorrow about a job working for my old school district doing computer stuff, and then I have to set up a meeting with someone next week who might have work for me doing industrial show type stuff (conferences, meetings). Should prove to be an interesting summer.
Also got my first piece written for a web-type publication that should be opening up pretty soon now. It's exciting being a part of something new that's opening up. Hope it goes places. Should. There are a ton of talented people on board. It's quite exciting for me to have my stuff up there with the work of people I've admired since I first got into this latest batch of web stuffs.
And speaking of which, Jordan and I are going to register a domain. Gotta do it. Had a bit of trouble with the DNS server tonight, but I think everything was cleared up in the end. Don't really want to spend the money since, in general, I don't enjoy spending money. But, as lyn said to me earlier tonight,
"well you could spend it on worse"
What's money if not to spend it, right?
And seeing as I just fell asleep in front of the computer for about 20 minutes I think it's time to turn this darn thing off. Gonna check to see if openwindow.org is up and running yet, and then it's off to bed.
*phew*, it's not ready yet. I don't think I could stay up long enough to look through it if it was ready. I'll check back when I wake up.
I was about to write something about how slowly this week has gone by, about how time seems to stand still in the summertime. That was, of course, until I realized that it was really Thursday, and I thought it was only Wednesday.
Even my Dilbert calendar was a day behind.
So I went to the library today. That was fun. Got me a copy of Bill Gate's book The Road Ahead in which, I imagine, he'll talk about how he's going to make more money and buy the nation's highway system. That, coupled with Neuromancer will make for some interesting summer reading.
While I was at the library, I was listening to kids talking and laughing behind the stacks. Now, not wanting to feel like an old fogey, I really must say that I was suprised at how loud an obnoxious they were being. I honestly remember being told, as a child, that the library was a place that people went to study and that I should be dead silent when I was there.
Now it's the parents who are loud. Loudly talking to their friends about this book or that one that they just read. Loudly telling their kids to shut up.
What this society needs now is to reteach some of that respect stuff. People don't care enough to do much these days. Very rarely do you see people take responsibility for their actions. Very rarely do you see people genuinely concerned that their actions will affect other people.
I think I'll stop here before this turns into a full-blown rant. These things just get to me.
openwindow.org opened today, with a piece that I wrote. Now, there's really nothing that spectacular about the piece. That I can be part of of something that I've admired since I first read it though, now that's pretty cool. Somewhere out there is a big chart of the connections between all these web pages. People that are constantly linking back and forth between each other. Who know each other. I respect these people. I respect their pages and their words.
To be on the fringe of that really means a lot to me.
(heh, sleep time now yes)
Hands hurting too much to go in depth about my day, so I suppose that it's a good thing that I really didn't do much today. A lot of messing around, reading. I'm really getting into this reading thing. Forgot about it for a couple of years there, but I'm getting back into it. The new domain hasn't been registered yet, but we're still waiting. Not sure exactly what we're going to do with it, but it should be fun.
Talking to a friend today, she was telling me that work this summer isn't going as she planned. Rather than falling in love with the job with plans to continue it as a career, she's finding that perhaps this isn't what she wants to do.
Better to get that out of the way now than to realize it after you get out of school, eh?
Myself, I'm going to be trying a few different things this summer. Lots of part-time work. Last summer taught me that the only benefits to a corporate life is free stuff. Hopefully this summer will be equally beneficial to my life education.
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