Things I Want, but Don’t Want, To Do
I have been struggling lately with a problem I don’t have an easy answer to. There is something that I do in my life that I enjoy doing. Without being to clear about what it is or involves, it is a function I play in a group that I am involved in. I do want to stay unclear about those details since I don’t know who I know that might read this, and since I am involved in several different groups that I play a function in then that leaves this open enough for me to be comfortable. Although that also means that this could be about you, if you know me, but I won’t tell.
So, I am involved in and I love doing it. There are just people and parts of it that I do not like about it. That is the root of my problem. When I have to do or say something that I do not agree with, but my function requires it of me and it can be really annoying. I think I could even get past that and live with that to a degree. The real problem is that with the certain people who I have to deal with. People can ruin almost anything.
So there is one particular person that I can live my life without. I have to deal with this person but really have gotten to my limit of not wanting to. It isn’t that this person is a bad person or really harmful to me or the group, but I just don’t get along with them. I know it isn’t just me either, other people have talked to me about them and they have similar opinions.
I guess my real issue is that I enjoy being in the group but I don’t know if I want to stay in and deal with the issues that I am having to deal with. Leaving the group isn’t something I want to do, for many reasons, but staying might kill me. Really it is an issue of me wanting to do something that I no longer want to do. This makes no sense, but when do I ever.
TIL: Digital Music
This isn’t as simple as it sounds really. Most people have their favorite media for music, which is normally directly related to the decade they grew up in. The biggest argument that I know of is over the quality between a vinyl LP and a CD. I am not even going to go into that one at all. I have met people who don’t want to go away from their LP but do buy CDs, but only if they can’t get the album on LP. I have met people who want to stay with tape, even some that are obsessed with CDs to the point that they won’t own any other format including digital. You could say that I am in the age group that would like the CD, but I don’t really. The real problem with CDs, that vinyl and tape don’t really have, is that they are real easy to mess up. One mistake and you have destroyed your album. So why do I like digital so much?
Well it is, in my opinion, the most resilient format that we have had for recorded music to date. As well as being the most diverse format, having the ability to be the best quality, and the most playable. Let me explain.
As I have already said, CDs are the worst format for really lasting. They scratch easily, and one scratch can ruin the disk. Newer ones are made out of softer plastic, and left in on the dash or the wrong place in a car, you can cause enough melting to make it unplayable. There are a number more ways that you can turn that $14 investment into a number of useful things. A toy to throw around, a target for you BB gun, even art if you are creative enough. Now to move to CDs biggest competition in the physical recording world, the LP. Compared to the CD the LP is more sturdy. Vinyl is harder to break than a CD, minor scratches don’t destroy the whole thing, if there is a major scratch it doesn’t destroy the whole thing but maybe one song or one half of the album. This said there is issues with it as well. It still can be scratched even if it isn’t as easy. There is a big issue with size, not only for storage but for playing. The quality is limited, it is difficult to transfer a LP to a different format, there is upkeep cost for the player, vinyl can melt, but worse of all is that vinyl can warp easily if not stored correctly. Tape formats are the worst. Not only is tape very limited in quality, but tape wears out from being played, IT CAN BE EASILY ERASED, and the player will actually completely destroy your album when it starts to wear out itself.
This is what is so great about digital media, and music for the most part. The file is only limited by the media you put it one. While you might have it on an unreliable media, like a HD or CD, but you can easily back it up to another media even media type. The file itself, if treated correctly can last a long time. A corrupted file can be easily replaced by a previous back up of said file. This makes the music itself more resilient than the previous formats. The quality is only limited by how you can get it, how it was recorded, and how much space you have to store it. You can even downgrade the quality if you wish to do so, I don’t but have known people who did. I am not even talking MP3 here. I started ripping my CDs into digital backup before MP3 was an option, and now am using AAC for the most part. A file can be converted and changed, so if you have .wave files and you start having trouble finding something to play them, it doesn’t take much to convert those files to .mp3 or AAC and keep the quality the same. This allows for this format of music to easily change with the times. The most important thing is that this is the most playable format. There is just so much you can put on a LP, CD, Tape, 8 track, reel to reel, and so on. Digital music gives you options. I have over 11,000 songs on my iPod, even more on my computer, and I can put that music to other mp3 players, computers of mine, flash drive, burned to an audio CD and so on. The ability to put my music in a place where I can listen to it is amazing, more so if compared to the other formats that came before it.
The best thing to come out of this change in music is my kids. My 8-year-old son has every song that has been bought for or by him since he was born. The likeliness for him to hang on to the majority of that music until he is my age is starting to look better every year, and so much more than when I was his age. There is music that I had and will never have back. One of which was a odd little known artist that I wore a tape out by. I have never been able to find it again. I was only 6 when I got it and still remember it well. This is something that is starting to go away. My kids don’t own a CD and hardly understand why they would need to use one, and really they don’t need to. They are growing up now in a place where they will not have to many times that they will have to pick music they want with them due to physical space that the media takes up. It will be their choosing to not back their music up or deleting it themselves that cause loss of it, not flawed media making that choice for them. Sure this has its flaws, as everything does, but I think it is the best for my music. I really should back mine up now that I have typed all of this.
UA: Cursor Invisible
So how well do you think you can judge where your mouse cursor is on the screen? Well you can find out really quick with this game. According to some experts, people who use their computers on a daily basis use their instinct for where the cursor should be based on experience more than they use visual tracking. Basically, they seem to know where the mouse is and remember its location more than they look at it.
This game is simple. When you click start you will have a black screen with three randomly placed, and random sized, white and grey circles. You will have three seconds to start clicking the circles before the cursor disappears. After it disappears you the timer will start and the score kept. You get three seconds to click on a circle. If you fail to click on anything in the three seconds or you click on the black space the game is over. My high score is 150 so far.
UA: When Can I Reuse This Calendar?
When Can I Reuse This Calendar?
This one is for those of you that just can’t get rid of ANYTHING.
If you have an old calendar that you found in your attic or at the thrift store, you can go on to this site and select the year the calendar was for originally and they will tell you what years match it. Now you can reuse that calendar, and rub the recycling nature of this into the faces of all those that told you that there was no reason to hang on to a decade old calendar that you would never use.
UA: Ransom Note Generator
I do not know why this site fascinates me so much, but it does.
Okay, this site is pretty simple. A text box and a single Google Ad. Type your message into the text box and hit enter. The site automatically compiles your message out of Flickr tagged photos. That is it, it looks like an updated version of the old magazine and newspaper ransom note. The only issue I have with this one is that they don’t have it set up to save the finished product as one picture of file. You can still use a print to PDF or something like that, since it is given on an ad free white background, but still. I know it would be more work for them, but I would like to see that out of this. Of course you can just copy paste the pictures into Word or Pages with a select all copy-paste.
It seemed lame to me at first, but I have to admit I have gone back to see what something would look like in this format. It is really kind of cool.
UA: Multicolr Search Lab
This great little tool from Idée Labs has proven itself to be very useful. It is very well implemented and definitely worth a look. I hesitated putting the UA label on this one, because it doesn’t really fit, but that is the only place I have set for posting about websites like this.
So what is it? Well this is a simple tool that searches the Flickr website for images in the “interesting” section by colour as the only criteria. When you first go to the link above you will see fifty pictures matching the preset colour choices. You can add and remove colours with the colour pallet on the right side and the picture matches will automatically update to match the new criteria. You can choose up to ten colours at a time.
Pretty simply really, although there is a lot going on that you don’t see. I have used this to find a picture to match a theme and it works great.
UFO
I am one of those people who is very interested in stuff that is now labeled paranormal or mysterious. Now what I believe or don’t isn’t important for this post, and honestly why would you care. This post isn’t about that stuff, although you probably thought so because of the title. No, this is about the term and use of “UFO” in both the world of “believers,” “skeptics,” and those that are indifferent to both.
Plain and simple, I am tired of the use of UFO as a descriptor for an alien spacecraft. All parties seem to use it as that. If you say UFO to someone who never even thinks about it, that is what will come to their minds. I don’t see how this ignorance can spread so widely. UFO means Unidentified Flying Object. Thats it, nothing more and nothing less. If I see a balloon floating in the air, it is a UFO until it gets close enough for me to identify that it is a balloon, at which point it is an IFO. That is a term you don’t hear much, an Identified Flying Object.
Both the term IFO and UFO were terms coined by the US Airforce to easily convey whether they know what an object that was seen was or not. “Did you see that? It was one of ours” this is an IFO, “Did you see that? I don’t recognize it” this is a UFO. Seems easy enough. So when the Airforce started taking reports for claims of people seeing things in the sky that could not be identified they tagged it as a UFO since it was seen in the sky, so it must be flying, and they didn’t know what it was, so it was not identified, and it was obviously an object of some sort. Well this tagging caught on to the “believers” and they have run with it ever since.
All I am asking is that we use the language that we speak correctly. If it is an alien space craft and you know that in your heart, then it is already identified by you and is no longer a UFO. I see UFO’s all the time. I am sure they are high-flying planes, meteors, or satellites. I don’t think any of these are alien spacecraft, and I have never seen anything that would make me think I had ever seen one, but they are still UFO’s because I couldn’t tell you for sure what they are. I can make an educated guess, but until I know what they are they are still UFO’s. See how simple that is. You take a term and use it properly and it kind of makes you feel better inside, others might think you are nuts at first when they hear you doing this, but that is when you have to opportunity to educate them on the proper use of the terms and spread this knowledge.
If we all share information with proper explanation then we will all be better off.
UA: Is There a Zombie Apocalypse?
Sometimes the best sites are the simplest. Above you see the title of the site isthereazombieapocalypes.com. The title is what the page is about. The title is the question the page is the answer. That’s it, one of the best sites out there. Like I said, simplicity is sometimes the best way to do something.
Lost in Thoughts of Friends
I don’t know why but I am back at this mind-set where I am not truly convinced I have any friends. I got over it for a long time there, but it seems to come back like a bad rash every so often.
It isn’t that I think that I don’t know anyone that would claim to be my friend, I just don’t believe them. Why should I? After all why would anyone want to be friends with me? This isn’t so much as an esteem issue, although that is a part of it of course, but it is a matter of something I can’t completely explain. I am just not a good friend and don’t understand why anyone would want to be one. I can start by giving reasons.
1. I don’t volunteer to come over and hang out as often as expected. I love doing so, but seem to just forget about it. I am always concerned about showing up when someone is busy or not there, and then I just end up not going at all. The excuses outweigh the desire at some point and that seems to be the end of it. I can’t expect to be invited every time, but will show up when I am without fail. Well if I can.
2. I don’t talk on the phone much. When I use my phone it is for getting something done not to socialize. I will chat on it a little, but if it is becoming a conversation I would prefer to drive over and talk. If that isn’t an option then I will talk on the phone.
3. I have nothing to offer as a friend. Other than being a little selfish, I don’t have much, I don’t make good money, and I am not the best looking fellow on earth.
4. Personality: we could go for days on this one. My personality varies in ways that I only wish I could understand and explain. To start I am argumentative, annoying at times, over bearing, and judgmental. While this is true, I will sometimes be completely submissive for no reason and get upset when people around don’t understand that. I have been told by most that I am creepy, weird and a jerk. These are not hard fast rules, but it seems that these are the first impressions I give.
5. When I have something to say it is important! Now it really might not be important, but if I am unable to tell someone and have them listen, then I feel strongly that it is.
6. ME! I share about me. Anything that is said I can find a way to relate. I don’t find this an issue with anyone, the issue is that I vocalize it.
7. Honesty can be an issue. I like to be able to tell anyone anything at anytime. I don’t like the idea of holding back or worrying about how it will affect someone. If I have something to say I generally will. It comes off as annoying and rude when someone first meets me, but most get over it and realize that it is just the truth as I see it. I have tried more recently to have some discretion about my comments, but I still will not lie or give half-truths.
8. I am needy. I am, and I don’t pretend that I don’t know it. I don’t have a whole lot of friends. Out of the friends I have only one comes to my house, and he only does so a couple times a year. I end up coming off as being too attached to people when I do get the chance to be around others. I don’t leave home often enough so this doesn’t happen often.
9. Religion is really a big one. My views on this subject seem to differ from everyone. I study theology and philosophy in my free time and these studies in thought and life only confuse, and change, me that much more. Although I like where I am and where I am going in my life, with these studies increasing that, it seems to cause arguments and bad feelings with people with hard set rules on their religion.
10. Politics: see religion. This is similar to the last, with one big difference. I don’t care about politics. I find all sides of opinion closed off from whatever their opposing side might be. I also agree with some point made by almost every side. These views never go well around friends that care.
Now I am sure there are plenty of people who could add to this list, but this is the stuff that I think about the most.
I guess what I am really thinking is important as well. I only know of two people who really seemed to connect with me to a point that I never feared losing them. One was my wife, yes past tense so we know how that turned out, and the other my best friend. Now I am still good friends with him, and he seems to understand me better than anyone, but I don’t see him much. I don’t seem to do a lot along the lines of trying to make friends. I don’t like that. I don’t know if it has become a trust issue with my past history of losing her, or just a development of being alone for over a year, but it is there all the same.
Generally, when around others, I have thoughts about why they would have me there. How is this benefiting them? Am I here out of pity for my situation? Do these people with opposite opinions of my own actually enjoy my company? I know that I should just enjoy myself but I can’t without these thoughts. After the fact I think of everything I could have done wrong to push all those involved away. Did I say too much? Did I cross this line? Did something I said or did come off poorly to someone? Where my actions too submissive? Where my actions too involved?
You might be thinking that this is stupid. Why in the world would someone have me in their home and think of me so poorly? That is the rational thoughts I have at some point to fight this, but they don’t always win? I have lost most of my friends over time due to different reasons. There was the divorce which was a big one, there have been opposing views, change in life styles and locations, and so on. At the end of my divorce I know only of two people who I knew that I could still call. At this point there are a few more than that, but this doesn’t change my opinion. I have seen how fragile friendships truly are. The only one I know is stable is my best friend, but we have been through a lot, and if there was anything that you tear us apart, it has already happened.
It comes down to this. I meet someone, over the course of a year or so we become friends. It is at that point that I need to question that friendship. Is this person going to drop me with no thought because of something I do or say? Are they going to cut communication when I step over a line? Are they going to decided after some vested time that they don’t like me? What if this one person brings me into a group of friends? If they drop me as a friend, what will the people they have known longer do? It is these types of things that turn into the issue in total. I do feel that I am just better off in a dark cave with no human contact at times, but then again I normally feel that I am there already.
I might be selfish but I do want people to hang out with me. I want friends that want to make an effort to come out or call. Living in a life where I am the only one making that effort EVER can get a little depressing. I truly know that I am not missed when I am able to log out of IM’s, and not go to work for a few days, not informing anyone of it, and then not having anyone notice or try to contact me. I did it for over two weeks in spring, and a few days in fall. I wondered both times, if I died, if anyone would try to contact me. How long would I be dead for before the body is found? Morbid thought, but I know that in spring I disappeared for two weeks without a phone call or message or email or anything really from anyone. Makes me think, how close are the friends I have, and how stable is our friendship?
UA: Raindrop Melody Maker
It has been awhile but I am back with a great new addition.
