Posted
by Matt Armstrong
February 9, 2009 at 9:10 p.m.
A Return To Form
http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e... guys. What's.. up? How are those tricks? What is happening? If it is possibly hanging, how is that going for you? Yeah.... call me tin roof. 'Cus I am rusty.Hoo boy, it has been a while. Let's look back and see when I last posted..... Jesus! Nov. 26th, really? Wow. A lot's happened since then. I mean, wow. Comiculture Vulture has posted in the meantime. That's saying something! But looking around at the "new" layout (remember, I've been away), and the new talent that are posting to the reader and staph blogs, I have to say it doesn't look like many of the old timers are posting either. Now, I know for a fact that there are more blogs on Lawrence.com than Caption, My Caption, Flying Fork, and Scene Stealers (BTW sidenote, are they still having their Oscar viewing party? That was fun last year.). And Godjilla stills posts plenty, from fucking New Orleans of all things, you know, for that real hometown Lawrence feel. I wonder why the people like myself that used to post a few times a week have slowed down, in some cases to nothing? Allow me to float a theory.Back in November, the stunningly gifted comedian Patton Oswalt (I mean that; the man shits Cable Guys) posted on his Myspace blog an entry announcing that he had signed a book deal, and entitled it "A Blog Defeats a Book", basically going through that he was stepping away from blogging in order to focus on a book. As he didn't take blogging seriously, it was still a time sink that could have been spent on his book. And that thought stuck with me (as many of Patton's quips do, just see how many times a day I refer to grabbing "a failure pile in a sadness bowl" when going to lunch). Because think about it, how many hours have I spent hammering away links and images to place them, lovingly have you, in a blog post, when I could have spent that time working on The Adventures of Admiral Seashanty and the Mysterious Mermaid Murders? Holy shit, write that down. I gotta get working on that.That's not to say that I haven't been posting because I've been working on some epic tome. Because I haven't. I'm much more of the Moleskein full of single page treatments type of writer (read: hack part time blogger). In the time between entries, there's been holidays, new years, the whole black President thing, and possibly most importantly, Christian Bale losing his God damned mind (hellooo, new ring tones!) and David coming back from the dentist. 10 points for the high kid!And this is what I'm getting at. The wonder of the internet is perhaps it's biggest curse. There are so many ways to exhibit yourself, and they continue to get smaller and, oddly, less personal. We went from obtuse BBS message boards, to rambling and self important live journals, to Friendster piles of actual friends, to Myspace glut and the introduction of vapid knee jerk shotgun marketing, to semi anonymous Facebook, with it's poking and walls and minor personal information; and now to Twitter, which is purely based around the idea that you are meant to spray thoughts, links, "mini-blogs" (ugh, such an ugly phrase), and jokes randomly into the ether, with no real relevance to your personal life. Sidenote: It's easy to identify the people that twitter about their real life however; they're the ones with 4 people following them, and 2 are their co-workers trying to keep ahead of layoffs. The web based doses of you have been broken down and packed so tightly that it gets harder and harder to get your point across. Facebook and Myspace have become so commercialized that the arena of personal broadcasting has been reduced to status and mood updates. Twitter is basically an isolated status update, limited to only 140 characters (I've permanently changed my other updates to a link to my Twitter account, saying "This is where you will find that part of me", in a sense. It is ridiculous to do it three times.). In the face of a challenge like that, it gets near impossible to really express yourself. You're left either posting things like, "I want to go back to bed.", or something random, and hopefully entertaining, like, "Vivica A. Fox: a lady AND a sentence. Mmm hmm. I know I have." (®Lonely Sandwich). Wonderful.That's not to mention how our distractions have learned to travel with us. Right now, within 5 feet of me, there are 5 devices that will allow me to check my 3 email accounts. A phone, a computer, an iPod, a PS3, and a Wii. I got an iPod Touch for Christmas, and let me tell you, it is fucking amazing. There is so much technology is this thing, it gives me a genuine feeling that I live in the future. However. The Apple app store is the definition of a drain, both on time shopping, time using, and on the ravenous beast that is the wi-fi on your battery life. It is thick and meaty with potential productivity destroyers.What if it dies?! Heaven forbid! There may be a solid 12 minutes where I'm not entertained!Basically, dear, sweet, beloved readers (that's right, all ten of you); I'm sorry I've been so absent. I allowed myself to get sucked into the new communication methods without discipline, like a young man with an open tab on his 21st birthday. Please refer to the picture at the top of the page for my self opinion. There are so many tools at our disposal right now to stay in touch with each other, it's hard to know what standard to march under. Are you a Myspacer, or a Facebookie? Do you Tweet? Do you stand by your man and still e-mail and IM? It doesn't matter in the long run. All of these services are just fighting for our attention right now to see what becomes the next standard; see who's venture capitol lasts the longest. And in this market, that's a short ledger to take advantage of, I'm sure. Personally, I think this may be a step to permanent, instantaneous publication that futurists have been predicting for so long. That could be a beautiful thing if it's handled right.Thank's again for keeping my lazy ass around.-m@
and 3 others
Comments
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matt (Matt Armstrong) says…
PS: I Twittered 3 times while writing this.
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
Welcome back, Matt.
pistachio (anonymous) says…
See, THAT'S what children are for. To dope up and giggle at. Thanks for getting my clock ticking, comrade. Personally, I don't trust these gizmos, especially when they gang up on you and demand to be used all at once. We've seen man vs. gizmos before, and man usually loses. Remember those evil metal bugs in Day the Earth Stood Still? Those were your Twitter Pods' cousins, and who's to say they're not all planning to come get you?One word: SkyNet. Other words: the Borg. Keep an eye on those things, Matt.
godjilla (Jill Ensley) says…
I actually don't feel like I post that much. And one of the reasons is the very thing you're talking about. This site feels completely overwhelming now and I don't check it half as often as I used to. Also, why bother when Scene Stealers is just gonna shove me off the main page in a few hours and Gavon steals my linkage. -Jill, from Fucking New Orleans!
godjilla (Jill Ensley) says…
Also, the site absorbed my clever code joke at the end. it hungers for code.
PatrickJoseph (Patrick Giroux) says…
The Borg are already here! Anytime I see someone with a Bluetooth earpiece, I wonder what the Hivemind is communicating.
PatrickJoseph (Patrick Giroux) says…
I have found that I've gotten attached to Twitter. I can keep up with friends that I don't see very often, or at least I can keep up with when they really want a coffee. I think I'd go crazy if I had twitter updates connected to my phone, though. It isn't the place to posit complete thoughts. (or correct grammar)
chewyfally (Falestine Afani Ruzik) says…
Welcome back, daaaahling.I'm slowly (and by slowly, I mean quickly) becoming obsessed with Twitter. And by obsessed, I mean yelled at by the husband for how much I use it. I actually shut the computer down (twice) last night, only to hastily start it back up again to facebook/twitter during the KU/Mizzou game (which we will not speak of). When the husband got mad enough, I put the computer away and sent Twitter updates from my phone.I have a problem.
gavon (Gavon Laessig) says…
Matt, you forgot to mention your XBOX 360 and DS and sentient crystal which allows you to mind-link with Krypton.Also, Jill, I think I'll do a post on that little known octuplets dame. Have you heard of this crazy dingbat? Beat you to the punch again, Ensley!
chewyfally (Falestine Afani Ruzik) says…
I propose we throw all your e-mail checking devices in a pit and let them fight to the death for your love.It might look something like this: http://tinyurl.com/5rrfjaScrew the 360! Long live the PS3!
pistachio (anonymous) says…
Good point, Patrick. I am now officially afraid of Bluetooths (Blueteeth?) too. And stupid T9 is always trying to put words in my mouth. Every time I try to type "shit" it says "pig8" like that's a real freaking word or something. T9 was probably invented by SkyNet.
DOTDOT (anonymous) says…
Huh. Mine says shiv for shit, dual for fuck, econ for damn, indebom for goddamn.The fact that I didn't know this already is more baffling to me than wondering what an indebom is.
matt (Matt Armstrong) says…
Indebom is a really common Indian name. Makes you wonder who's writing all that T9 code, huh? And my T9 knows me better than anyone. F, S, G, and C all come up with the appropriate terms, followed by their many, many colorful variations.
pistachio (anonymous) says…
The T9 code on my last phone was written by a prude. Even though it had a function to add a word to memory, it would conveniently "forget" the swear words. I bet I added the F word about 20 times.The new phone seems to think that all words, real and imaginary, are of equal importance. My previous phone would probably be offended to know that its replacement uses the word "abort" a lot: abort message, abort call, etc.BTW I typed "indebom" in New Phone and it came up as "hoedcoo".