End of Hiatus

When I wrote my last post here on MM, I was gearing up for what ended being a very busy fall. In the last three months, I have put together two magazines at work and have been working with some folks on redesigning our college’s web site.

So I didn’t really put a concerted effort into blogging – and imposed a hiatus, of sorts, on doing so.

“Life intervened,” to use a phrase from my dad’s blog.

I have missed blogging. There’s been more than one occasion when I’ve sat down to write something – I had gotten several paragraphs into a few topics. But not at any one of those points did I consider posting what I had written.

I guess my heart just wasn’t in it. I was too distracted by work. Or by the holidays. Or by praying this stupid healthcare bill would just die and go away.

Distracted by the economy. Distracted by our weird cat who is trying to eat a piece of twist -tie right now…

Hold on while I go take that away from her….

OK, I’m back.

Distracted by Twitter. Well, I got rid of that last week. I decided that I had no need for it. It was too different of an animal for me to get into. I just didn’t see the point in it.

Distracted by Facebook. I spend way too much time on Facebook. Kinda reminds me of college when I spent way too much time on bulletin boards and downloading Doom plug-ins. Except Facebook goes to entirely new levels to suck you in. Whether it’s updating my status while I’m waiting in the dentist’s office or getting on Mafia Wars first thing in the morning – I think it’s time to reign some of that in. So this week I’m trying an experiment.

I de-Facebooked a few days ago. No I didn’t anything crazy like delete my account. I just haven’t logged into it for going on four days now. I’m trying to see how long I can go before I start to have Facebook withdrawal.

Now that the holidays are said and done and the crazy fall semester is said and done, I’m hoping things will slow down a little. I’m hoping to get back into blogging on a regular schedule.

I was reading something recently that successful bloggers have to have a focus. That nobody wants to read things that don’t have some sort of message.

I agree with that – to an extent. But at the same time, that wouldn’t necessarily hold true to the title of this blog, Methodical Mayhem.

At the same time, I think that bloggers should have the right be a little off the proverbial wall. I’ve never really considered myself to be totally on the wall to begin with.

So focus, schmocus.

You may find a little more structure in posts to come here on MM. That’s really yet to be seen. But I do have some topics in mind that have been rattling around in my cranium for a few days or weeks, so keep an eye out.

There’s interesting stuff to come - especially in the next two days.

Is, Was, Thinks, Feels, Wonders, And Possibly Even Says

I realized today that I've let certain things go a little too far....

By that I mean, especially, Facebook. Somewhat, blogging. But mostly Facebook.

There was a time when my friends and I would spend hours on the *cough* Internet... or really a dial-up computer to Clemson-area bulletin boards. The one I distinctly remember was called the Mechanics Garage. I always envisioned these being run out of dark basements, something like the Warlock in the latest Die Hard movie had. Some nerdy dude, with a sinister laugh, doling out Castle Wolfenstein knock-offs, the newest freeware version of Duke Nukem or Barney the Dinosaur plug-ins for Doom. It would take four or five hours to download a 1 Meg file. Such was the life of a computer game geek in the early 1990s.

Then there was Gopher and FTP. Brand-spanking new ways to download even more crappy games and waste more time.

Phase 3 was discovering interactive bulletin boards. I heard about this one called ISCA and decided to check it out. I ended up spending the better part of six years on it before it folded in the early 2000s. At one point, you could get on there and talk to any one of more than 1,000 people. The last time I logged in, there may have been 25 people online.

Along came the World Wide Web. This was cool. When we could get it to work. On the dialup accees to the Engineering VAX, we could run this program called Lynx and read all kinds of cool stuff from around the world. I cited a Department of Defense paper on Hezbollah that I found online in a paper for my Political Terrorism class once and my instructor asked me, "What's this? WWW? How did you access this?"

Then the levee broke. Graphical web browsing. You would hear that someone had gone in and put something called Mosaic on the the third computer over on the fifth desk in the second floor computer lab; or on the fifth computer from the door in the library lab. Massively cool stuff. Trying to get the same stuff on the computer in the apartment was another thing. Dial in to the VAX, start Winsock, initiate your TCP-IP stack, start up a SLIRP connection - I may be missing a step.... and I'm taking a long time to get to the point of this post, so to wrap this paragraph up - I've discovered that my newest computer toy has given me a totally new outlet and new outlook.

A friend of mine from church wrote an interesting article on Facebook a few weeks ago that was published in one of the local weeklies. It was on how she has started to think in terms of status updates.

What's your status?

I am thinking that .... I am going to sleep.... I am frustrated about... I'm wondering when someone is going to...

Ok, yeah. I've started doing that pretty frequently lately. I will see, hear, or experience something that I will then react to with a "that would make for an interesting status update or an interesting blog."

Now I know people who are on Facebook that could care less about getting on it more than once every couple weeks. I know people who spend several combined hours on it throughout the day. Left to boredom, I could probably spend the better part of at least several continuous hours on it.

I have the potential to spend a lot of time on it since I keep up a few Facebook pages for our college -- post photos, update events on them,etc. But I'm usually content for a few minutes on it to skim first thing in the morning, on my lunch break and once I get home from work. Then probably at least a little time at night.

So, again, I'm constantly going over in my mind "What would be a status update that would be funny, or interesting -- what could I say to make people laugh? what could I say to get a reaction out of a particular person?"

I got a Blackberry a few weeks ago that has Internet access. I realize that could potentially be a bad thing. I'm already checking Facebook on it when I get bored waiting on a prescription or pumping gas, situations where there is no real risk of death involved.

Today I was driving down one of our busiest thoroughfares in G-vegas when I noticed a local bank had, programmed into their big LCD along the roadside, a screen that said "Say no to TARP". My first thought was "Awesome! Gotta mention something about that in my Facebook status."

So I reached for my phone -- and then I realized: No, this is bad. I'm reaching for my phone to update my Facebook status while I'm driving. Not good. On various fronts.

I immediately put the phone back. Although once I got to where I was going I broke the phone back out and keyed in a new status before I had the chance to forget to do it.

Not that anyone really cares about what I think about the bailout or about opposition to TARP from an actual bank.

So despite the fact that I may not always be in a position to update my Facebook status, it appears that it's become a new outlet for my creativity to unload at random times.

I probably need to get a new hobby to keep my mind off of letting people know that my mind is on Facebook rather than on going to bed. Maybe I can talk my wife into letting us get a dog. Good luck to me on that though.

Oh, I just forgot. I've got an Atari 2600 emulator in the living room. Maybe if I start spending more time on that, I'll forgot about getting on Facebook so much and letting the world know that I just got a new high score on River Raid. Who knows.

One of Those Moods

I'm in one of those moods where I can't seem to get into the work groove his morning. I know I shouldn't take time from work to peruse silly stuff on YouTube and read the news of the weird on Fark.... but I'm just in one of those kind of moods.

We spent the weekend doing as little as possible. Being lazy is such a good thing sometimes. And despite the fact I was up until 3 am last night, I still feel pretty rested. There is a lot to be said for being able to sleep in until 10 am two days in a row. Those of you who have kids I know don't get the opportunity but on rare occasions.

So far this morning I have added four tasks on my little Today's To Do notepad that always resides on my desk. I have no intention of doing them until after lunch. I need to get this MySpacing, Blogging, Farking, and YouTubing out of my system. I'm thinking Chik-Fil-A will knock that right out.

I found this on YouTube a little bit ago -- man this brings back some college memories. You can't imagine how much influence Beavis and Butthead had over me and my friends until you see some of our videos (which are held in an undisclosed location and kept under lock and key). Anyway, here's a little Beavis and Butthead to liven up your day.



And if this posting hasn't made a whole lot of sense, I apologize. I'm just in one of those moods.

Good Riddance to 2007

2007 was just one of those years that I'm glad is over.

2007 sucked - big time.

I can't really thing of anything that will cause me to look back fondly at that shitty year, other than:

• We did have some friends that had children in 2007. Obviously, that is a true blessing and we're incredibly happy for them.
• My parents did move down from the frozen tundra of Indiana to now just be 1 1/2 hours up the road in Charlotte.
• My sister found out she was pregnant. They're expecting in February.
• I made some new friends at work.
• My wife and I celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary.
• Neither of our cars had to have any major work done on them. In past years, we've always managed to have something go seriously wrong with one of our cars.

Still, 2007 pretty much sucked. To top it off, it ended on a heartbreaking, totally shitty note with Clemson losing in overtime, nonetheless, to Auburn at the Peach Bowl. Damn.

I do find myself actually wanting to make some resolutions and stick to them this year. I hearby resolve to:

• Lose 25 pounds this year, start exercising, and stop eating so much junk.
• Spend less time watching TV and more time with my wife
• Make better financial descisions and not be so wasteful by buying crap that we don't need or big meals that we can't afford
• Actually use my vacation time to take my wife on a real vacation
• Start putting together a down payment on a house

So here's to 2008. It can't be any worse than 2007, but let's hope it's a lot better.

Something About Nothing

I don't know if it's writer's block or because I've been so busy lately. Maybe it's the wicked heat that we've been plagued with the last couple weeks.

I've sat down to blog three or four times over the last couple weeks and every time I do, I get about three or four sentences in and I'm like "....eh, I really don't have anything productive to say right now" or "I've got more important things to do."

Maybe the fact that I'm blogging right now at 2:15 am is due to the full moon outside.

Whatever the case may be, and as scattered and dysfunctional this post is, I'm still not sure where I'm going with this post....

So once I get my brain back in gear, I'll post something more interesting in the next few days.

Some topics I am pondering though:

• Why Fred Thompson hasn't announced his candidacy for president as of yet... Come on man, just do it. You've got my vote.
• George Bush's revolving cabinet doors.
• Why Wal-Mart insists on only keeping just one or two checkout lanes open late at night. And why they won't enforce the 10 items or less rule in the late hours. This really grates my nerves.
• I dare say Papa Johns has the best -fast- pizza
• I found a new gas station of choice today with gas selling for $2.38. That made my day

So, again, I'll be back in a few days hopefully. For now, I'm signing off.....