What can I say? Blogs are suckin...
Yes, that's the news of the day. I haven't posted in over a month (I think? I didn't even look at the date on my last blog post but it was a long time ago) and I'm just going to post about how no one is posting anything. And this is the first time I've checked ANYONE'S blog in a long time.
So I guess the blogging craze in our time and in our group has finally died down. I remember the good old days (I guess they were good). Back when you checked Annette's blog multiple times a day because sometimes she would go crazy and do a 3-update day. And you'd always be waiting to see what game Kerr was now playing or how much he got beat up on the ice that day, or what he decided to cut down in the middle of the night.
Or what about that month where my roommate Charlie Nasworthy started a blog, wrote like his life depended on it, and then just about dropped it a month later? Or everytime you went to a church function and hung out with all those uber cool folks that we love, and then went back home after the weekend and refreshed the blogs all day and for the rest of the week waiting for the updates to see if they would write about what you guys all went out to do?
I'm not advocating a new insurgence of blog posting. It's past that time. We're in a world of myspace'ing and facebook'ing. A world where you can type "Hi! How are you!?" on someone's wall for the world to see. It's boring and it sucks, but it's lazy and that's how we like it. We also enjoy Superpoking each other, except now I hate it because they added the built in timer, so now when I want to try to level up and get new actions (50 POKES TO GET NEW ACTIONS!? WHAT IN THE WORLD), it tells you, "You Superpoke'd too soon ;)" Get off my screen with your stupid smiley, facebook. And take your lame pokes, too.
One day I got an email from my cousin David (the Moluffin), and he was talking about revisiting old blog posts, and he sent me a link and said, "Check out this gold." Turns out it was my blog post about the road trip to Montana. So I read through it again. And it was gold. Those were the days. The days when we cared enough and were bored enough to write our entire lives out on the computer and post it on the internet. And for some reason everyone read it (I'm sorry for all of you). But now it's all about posting 1,001 pictures of our latest road trip and just saying, "Here are pictures of my road trip!" Or joining a lame-o facebook group called "People that have caring attitudes but don't really give up the time they need to the widows and orphans and also eat with their left hands while they type on facebook with their right LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!" Did I already mention lame-o? Doing it again is ok, too.
Where am I going with this? No idea. I didn't really even have anything to talk about. Life goes along the same as always. You go to work, and when you get home you're glad you're not at work, and you really don't feel like TALKING about work, much less typing the whole crappy day up. And I think that's where we've all come to. Desiree just recently posted about what was probably the worst day she'd had in a long time ... but then she didn't describe it. You know why? Because why would you want to rehash the worst day of your life ... in type? And now I'm starting to wonder why we EVER used to do that.
What about blog posts where you cut/paste an IM conversation snippet that you thought was funny? Well, I don't do that anymore because I never chat online anymore. Seeing the trend here? I don't know when it happened, but the computer is less and less the place that I spend any of my time. I don't hate it. Then again, I work on broken computers day in and day out and the idea of spending all the rest of my life on them isn't too appealing.
And Youtube. Oh, youtube. How I hate you. Sure, there are plenty of videos out there that I've watched and been like "wow, that was pretty cool," but for the most part it is SUCH a waste of time. I can't recall the number of times you'll talk to someone who's been on the computer for a while, and you ask what they're up to and they're "Youtube'ing". Like, just following one link to another link to another link through masses of videos. I mean, how many loud baby burps do you need to see? Music videos? Videos made by random people set to music? Video blogs? AMAZING VIDEOS!!?!?!!!??! Home videos? When did we get to this point? It's like 3 minutes of television over and over and over. We can't even concentrate on a 30 minute sitcom anymore. Seriously, WHAT HAPPENED!?
And when I say that, I also wonder what happened to me. Because not too long ago, I would have been that guy that sat there for hours and hours playing games online, or surfing the web for absolutely no reason. Now I check my email and www.ocremix.org for interesting music talk (which I rarely find these days) and that's it. I wonder what's changed. I'm not really sure. But I know I'm glad. Even when I'm bored with nothing to do, I know that at least I won't be glued to the computer for hours on end.
David had a great new ideology not too long ago. He was talking about how when you sit around all evening and watch TV or play video games, it's almost because that's what you "default" to. Sure, sometimes there is a show that you really enjoy so you make the time to see it, or there's a game you just bought that you really want to play through. But the rest of the time, you usually end up thinking, "Hey, what am I going to do tonight?" And after some slow deliberation, you decide that you're lazy and that sitting on the couch watching an entire evening on Must See TV is the thing to do. Even if you don't really enjoy the shows, or the shows aren't very wholesome (which shows are?), or what have you. But what are your goals? They don't have to be longterm, end-of-life goals. Short term goals work just fine. What is it that you want in your life? Sometimes the goal is, I don't know ... finishing college. But is that all? So when you finish your homework for the evening, you've really sorta reached your "finishing college" goal for that day, and it's off to the couch?
Just as an example, say you've been thinking about your friends ... church friends maybe, in particular. And you think, "Hey, I haven't talked to them for a while, and I want to keep our friendship close and I really care about them." So then, what can you do? Sit down and write them a long email telling them what's going on and how much you care about them? Give them a call and lend them an ear? What about your spiritual life? Do you yearn for the Kingdom? It's hard to do as a young person, I feel, and sometimes it seems way off. But God's promises always are fulfilled no matter when they happen. There are plenty of examples in the Bible where someone prays for something at it happens instantly. Elijah and the fire from heaven, Jesus healing the sick right when they asked, etc. But there are plenty of things where God promises that something will happen (Abraham's heir, the rulership of kings in a dynasty for a certain number of generations, Jezebel & Ahab, etc) that doesn't happen instantly, but somewhere down the line it ALWAYS happens when it's a promise from God. But sometimes we get bogged down and forget that the Kingdom is on its way because time has been moving on and on for a long time. Days, weeks, months, years come and go without the fulfilling of His promise ... but it WILL be fulfilled. How much do we believe that? Is it enough that we want to do more to understand Him, to read the Bible and study His truth, pray and meditate? Is the Kingdom of God one of YOUR goals? Or is Must See TV your main goal?
The whole point is: there is always something that can be done to better yourself, and it's not always something you won't enjoy doing either ... but it's so much easier just to say, "well, I just feel like sitting on the couch and vegetating. And you know what, I NEED this. It's been a long day, and I just want to do nothing." I think that's a sad excuse. Take a nap if you're that screwed up. Don't fill your brain with garbage. Figure out what your goals are in life and do everything you can to achieve it. There isn't much time left to decide that you'll get around to it tomorrow!
Again, this whole post took a turn I didn't expect. But it really just kept to the core aspect that I started off with. There isn't a whole lot going on on the internet anymore with the old group of bloggers. And I call this "a good thing". Get out there and live your lives, and do it the right way.
So I guess the blogging craze in our time and in our group has finally died down. I remember the good old days (I guess they were good). Back when you checked Annette's blog multiple times a day because sometimes she would go crazy and do a 3-update day. And you'd always be waiting to see what game Kerr was now playing or how much he got beat up on the ice that day, or what he decided to cut down in the middle of the night.
Or what about that month where my roommate Charlie Nasworthy started a blog, wrote like his life depended on it, and then just about dropped it a month later? Or everytime you went to a church function and hung out with all those uber cool folks that we love, and then went back home after the weekend and refreshed the blogs all day and for the rest of the week waiting for the updates to see if they would write about what you guys all went out to do?
I'm not advocating a new insurgence of blog posting. It's past that time. We're in a world of myspace'ing and facebook'ing. A world where you can type "Hi! How are you!?" on someone's wall for the world to see. It's boring and it sucks, but it's lazy and that's how we like it. We also enjoy Superpoking each other, except now I hate it because they added the built in timer, so now when I want to try to level up and get new actions (50 POKES TO GET NEW ACTIONS!? WHAT IN THE WORLD), it tells you, "You Superpoke'd too soon ;)" Get off my screen with your stupid smiley, facebook. And take your lame pokes, too.
One day I got an email from my cousin David (the Moluffin), and he was talking about revisiting old blog posts, and he sent me a link and said, "Check out this gold." Turns out it was my blog post about the road trip to Montana. So I read through it again. And it was gold. Those were the days. The days when we cared enough and were bored enough to write our entire lives out on the computer and post it on the internet. And for some reason everyone read it (I'm sorry for all of you). But now it's all about posting 1,001 pictures of our latest road trip and just saying, "Here are pictures of my road trip!" Or joining a lame-o facebook group called "People that have caring attitudes but don't really give up the time they need to the widows and orphans and also eat with their left hands while they type on facebook with their right LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!" Did I already mention lame-o? Doing it again is ok, too.
Where am I going with this? No idea. I didn't really even have anything to talk about. Life goes along the same as always. You go to work, and when you get home you're glad you're not at work, and you really don't feel like TALKING about work, much less typing the whole crappy day up. And I think that's where we've all come to. Desiree just recently posted about what was probably the worst day she'd had in a long time ... but then she didn't describe it. You know why? Because why would you want to rehash the worst day of your life ... in type? And now I'm starting to wonder why we EVER used to do that.
What about blog posts where you cut/paste an IM conversation snippet that you thought was funny? Well, I don't do that anymore because I never chat online anymore. Seeing the trend here? I don't know when it happened, but the computer is less and less the place that I spend any of my time. I don't hate it. Then again, I work on broken computers day in and day out and the idea of spending all the rest of my life on them isn't too appealing.
And Youtube. Oh, youtube. How I hate you. Sure, there are plenty of videos out there that I've watched and been like "wow, that was pretty cool," but for the most part it is SUCH a waste of time. I can't recall the number of times you'll talk to someone who's been on the computer for a while, and you ask what they're up to and they're "Youtube'ing". Like, just following one link to another link to another link through masses of videos. I mean, how many loud baby burps do you need to see? Music videos? Videos made by random people set to music? Video blogs? AMAZING VIDEOS!!?!?!!!??! Home videos? When did we get to this point? It's like 3 minutes of television over and over and over. We can't even concentrate on a 30 minute sitcom anymore. Seriously, WHAT HAPPENED!?
And when I say that, I also wonder what happened to me. Because not too long ago, I would have been that guy that sat there for hours and hours playing games online, or surfing the web for absolutely no reason. Now I check my email and www.ocremix.org for interesting music talk (which I rarely find these days) and that's it. I wonder what's changed. I'm not really sure. But I know I'm glad. Even when I'm bored with nothing to do, I know that at least I won't be glued to the computer for hours on end.
David had a great new ideology not too long ago. He was talking about how when you sit around all evening and watch TV or play video games, it's almost because that's what you "default" to. Sure, sometimes there is a show that you really enjoy so you make the time to see it, or there's a game you just bought that you really want to play through. But the rest of the time, you usually end up thinking, "Hey, what am I going to do tonight?" And after some slow deliberation, you decide that you're lazy and that sitting on the couch watching an entire evening on Must See TV is the thing to do. Even if you don't really enjoy the shows, or the shows aren't very wholesome (which shows are?), or what have you. But what are your goals? They don't have to be longterm, end-of-life goals. Short term goals work just fine. What is it that you want in your life? Sometimes the goal is, I don't know ... finishing college. But is that all? So when you finish your homework for the evening, you've really sorta reached your "finishing college" goal for that day, and it's off to the couch?
Just as an example, say you've been thinking about your friends ... church friends maybe, in particular. And you think, "Hey, I haven't talked to them for a while, and I want to keep our friendship close and I really care about them." So then, what can you do? Sit down and write them a long email telling them what's going on and how much you care about them? Give them a call and lend them an ear? What about your spiritual life? Do you yearn for the Kingdom? It's hard to do as a young person, I feel, and sometimes it seems way off. But God's promises always are fulfilled no matter when they happen. There are plenty of examples in the Bible where someone prays for something at it happens instantly. Elijah and the fire from heaven, Jesus healing the sick right when they asked, etc. But there are plenty of things where God promises that something will happen (Abraham's heir, the rulership of kings in a dynasty for a certain number of generations, Jezebel & Ahab, etc) that doesn't happen instantly, but somewhere down the line it ALWAYS happens when it's a promise from God. But sometimes we get bogged down and forget that the Kingdom is on its way because time has been moving on and on for a long time. Days, weeks, months, years come and go without the fulfilling of His promise ... but it WILL be fulfilled. How much do we believe that? Is it enough that we want to do more to understand Him, to read the Bible and study His truth, pray and meditate? Is the Kingdom of God one of YOUR goals? Or is Must See TV your main goal?
The whole point is: there is always something that can be done to better yourself, and it's not always something you won't enjoy doing either ... but it's so much easier just to say, "well, I just feel like sitting on the couch and vegetating. And you know what, I NEED this. It's been a long day, and I just want to do nothing." I think that's a sad excuse. Take a nap if you're that screwed up. Don't fill your brain with garbage. Figure out what your goals are in life and do everything you can to achieve it. There isn't much time left to decide that you'll get around to it tomorrow!
Again, this whole post took a turn I didn't expect. But it really just kept to the core aspect that I started off with. There isn't a whole lot going on on the internet anymore with the old group of bloggers. And I call this "a good thing". Get out there and live your lives, and do it the right way.
posted by Karl at 11:12 AM
6 Comments:
That was a whole lot of randomness.
I say we're just old.
My feeling is that if no one is going to read my blog, why bother to write something.
what Annette said :)
A couple of thoughts:
1) So did you finally stop smiling?
2) This must finally mean you're no longer dangerous according to Marshall's saying (or whoever said it first) about single folks in the church with an internet connection.
3) I check a lot of blogs daily still. However, being old, I generally tend to write something when it seems truly important or I'm trying to work through my thinking on some complex religious or life topic. If people read it, cool. So I think blogs have some usefulness still if people want them. They just gradually change their utility as you change.
And really, it's called: you have a life now. Enjoy it... :)
Make more music, Karl with a K! More music, less blog!
Larry “Liontamer” Oji
Head Submissions Evaluator, OverClocked ReMix
Creator, VG Frequency
http://www.ocremix.org
http://www.vgfrequency.com
Blogs (and their bastard spawn, vlogs) are tools, like anything else that man invents. They can be used for good or for evil (usually for both).
I found a good use for YouTube (see the "rakkav" and "teamim" channels). The problem is that these days people are more interested in being amused (for good or for bad reasons) than in being edified.
I also found a good use for my blogs (the ones that are working; my Yahoo blog no longer is very well). Again, they are tools. I write because it's therapeutic to me and because it helps me teach something to others.
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