BuzzKillJoy

Ten Minutes isn't as easy as I thought it would be.
It's just ten minutes. It's taken me a few days to have another ten minutes.

I find it almost completely amazing that the way that we perceive ourselves and how other perceive us is so totally different. Usually we believe that it's the person perceiving us that is wrong.

I'm not sure why that is. I mean, we are here, inside of ourselves all of the time, complete with internal dialogue to keep our personal universes grounded and afloat.
Who should know us better then ourselves?

And it's so hard to know someone else on the inside, seeing what goes on behind the face that looks out on the world. Getting to experience a personal reality sheathed in a membrane of skin.

I say this because I've been looking at myself and thinking that I'm pretty OK.
A lot of good qualities, which I won't list. It was brought to my attention that there when some parts about me that I kind of glossed over, didn't see, oblivious to.

I haven't been nice. I haven't been aware of how I might effect the moods and feelings of those around me. I usually don't go around spreading joy and good cheer.
I guess a 'BuzzKillJoy'.

My wife brought this to my attention. Well, I guess she's been bringing it to my attention for about 6 years now. I'm only starting to get it. Did I mention that I'm a bit slow? When I look back, down the street of my life, I guess a lot of people have been telling me. And these are people that I should have been listening to. These where people who were very close to me and knew me most of all. I working hard to change all of that. It's not easy, but I think I'm making some ground.

Anyway, this really got me thinking about people in general and how we interface with the general social reality. How much of our true selves do we really let out?
How much is us? How much social convention? How Much Fear? I for sure don't know, but as I look closer at myself I think that maybe I'll keep my eye on you as well.
I've been finding answers in the strangest places.

That's my ten minutes for now.

..... Does that make me a 'Twit'?

(Note: This post was written two days ago for a different blog site that I was trying to set-up. It didn't work, so I took it down and came here. Comments made about setting up a blog pertain to 'logger'.)
I keep hearing about this ‘Twitter’. People keep saying, ‘Are you on Twitter?’ ‘You should be on Twitter.’ ‘ If you were on Twitter, I could send you Tweets.”. Even listening to NPR, hear them talking about Twitter. I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. I’m a little unsure about these social networking things. I have a Myspace account, but I’ve never posted on it. I have a Facebook account and I do use that a bit. I hate instant messaging, I hate computer chatting, I don’t own a cell phone. I just don’t see the point. I’m not sure I ever will.

Which is strange, as I’m in the computer field, I do graphics, video editing, web site design and coding, marketing. a whole bunch of computer related things, that would make you think that all of this stuff was right up my alley. It took me 15 minutes just to figure out this blog thing and I’m not even close to being able to customize the look of it. I have the skills, I’m just not sure at this point were to put them.

Anyway, back to this Twitter thing. So I go and make myself a Twitter account. First, it took me about 20 minutes just to find a user name that wasn’t taken. I had to pick something so obscure that I can’t even remember what the hell it is.And it’s not like that sent me some automatic email to remind me of these things, luckily my computer at work saved it for me. I have to remember to log in tomorrow and find where it is and write it all down. Then I’m confronted with this CAPTCHA thing.

I really to loath those thing. 95% of the time they make me want to poke my eyes out with a sharp stick and go become a beggar in the streets of Mumbai (remember how we use to call that Bombay?). I fill out this form and then I get the CAPTCHA thing wrong, so the form reloads and I get the CAPTCHA thing right but when the form reloads it erases some of your information, so it doesn’t go through. It takes about 10 tries to get everything sorted out and working. You should see the vein in my forehead after I’m finished signing up for something. The ones on Google are the worst. I mean these are suppose to be some of the most creative, brilliant and enterprising minds that we have. Frankly, Im a little worried.

When I was a kid I was promised a jet car, food in a pill, living in space. No one ever promised me the Internet. I want a jet car and all I get is a Segway or this new PUMA thing that looks like death on wheels. Damn Internet, if I had Al gore here, why I’d kick his ass for inventing the dam thing! Well, maybe not, I do use it almost everyday. Maybe I’d just give him a dope slap. I still owe him for inventing Global Warming.

Anyway, Twitter. So I finally get all signed up, with a user name I can’t remember and everything loads. So I sit there, looking at that little thing that spins around up in the upper right hand corner of Firefox. It’s not spinning. I look down in the left hand corner, it reads, ‘done’. That’s it? ‘What am I doing?’ staring at this screen wondering what all of the Twitter hoopla is about. I found two people I know through my email account, though I didn’t likethat Twitter went and looked there by itself, so I clicked their names and later on got emails informing me that I was being followed by these same people. Later on I get another email informing me that I’m now being followed by a podcast! So now I’m a little freaked, so like anyone can just come along and follow me?Just what we need, a little more paranoia.

I remember years ago, when I was just a scoob living in NYC, I’m walking on the Upper East Side, along Central Park, but outside of the park on 5th Avenue, when who do I see, but Roy Schieder (for you youngings, he was the sheriff in the JAWS movies, I think he was also the Captain in Event Horizon, though I may be wrong about that one.), so I do what any young kid with nothing better to do might do, I started following him (Early Twitter I guess!), I must have followed him for about a mile and every now and then he glances back and catches sight of me and turns his head and keeps walking. After a while I realized that I was making him nervous, so I let him be.

So, I do a bit of reading and find out that there’s these Twitter Apps, not quite sure what they do yet, but I took special interest in that anyone could make a Twitter App and they said that it wasn’t too hard. I have to look into that, because I have a great idea for an App. It’s kind of an anti-social App, which I think is OK as we now have all of these people staying in their house hooking up with people on-line on these social networking sites, which is kind of an anti-social way of being social. What’s wrong with going outside and having a chat with your neighbor? It might be good if we actually lived in Outer Space, like they promised me when I was a kid. Then people could keep in touch with each other over vast inter-stellar distances. I digress.

Back to my App, after you installed it, it would place a new button right next to the ‘follow’ button. Only this button would say ‘Stalk’. It would let you follow someone, without them know that you were following them.

Ok, I’ve had more then my ten minutes. I even found my Twitter name: cellxent. So come look me up, maybe follow me and maybe I’ll follow you. Though I may ‘Stalk’ you for a bit first.

Be Well,
Buddy