Tag: random

I miss blogging

I’ve been writing this post in my head for something like 2 or 3 months, but that’s just how difficult sitting down to post has become. And it’s one of the reasons I miss being here.

I know it’s an odd sentiment. We’re about to enter the year 2014. Even Jason Kottke declared the blog dead. Everybody prefers Facebook and twitter and tumblr and other sites missing capital letters and vowels and… common decency. And the realty is, if I want to blog all I have to do is log in and write something. There’s even a few posts from this very year proving that the capability is still very much mine.

But it goes beyond that. Over the past few months I started paying attention to the spiral downward of one of my previous favorite bloggers and it started to bother me. Not that I felt sorry for her situation – she clearly has brought it upon herself. Rather the fact that it’s all come to this… does that even make sense?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I actually miss the community and activity that revolved around blogging. Whether someone became famous or was just a guy across the Internet, there was a connection – many connections in fact – that could be made. Ads were a way to pay for hosting and branding was strictly for corporations. Bloggers (and readers) were excited to unveil new designs and every comment had the potential to start something.

At this point I’m obviously babbling. The thoughts were probably coherent weeks ago and instead it’s all just trickling out in little snippets. I’m not saying that posts galore will soon follow this vapid filler, but simply trying to convey the notion that the move away from individual blogs towards the insipid little blurbs that find their way to Facebook or the witty but hollow tweets and constant re-posting on other sites makes me sad.

Argh. Anyway, let’s just say that in the coming year I’d like to communicate more. Maybe that’s here. Maybe it’s over the phone. Maybe it’s via physical letters. Whatever the method, I need to find the connections that I used to find via this site.

Hope you had a good year and the next one is even better.

Spring has sprung and so has…

We got back from Florida about 2 weeks ago. I say “about” because the difference is a matter of hours and for some reason that makes it seem inaccurate to me. Probably because I remember being rather proud that we pulled into the driveway mere seconds before the clock said 5PM. Like that was some sort of deadline – part of a race against our perceptions of when we would arrive at various destinations throughout the trip.

As I was saying, we got back from Florida 2 weeks and 6 hours ago… crap… I forgot about the time change. Should I add an hour or subtract one? Ugh…

Once more – it’s been 2 weeks since we got back from Florida. Not too surprisingly, I still don’t feel totally at home. As usual, our suitcases have not been 100% unpacked (not much need for the warmer weather apparel that currently fills them). Kayleigh has not made the transition back to sleeping in her own room as smoothly as desired (can’t exactly blame her, but it’s still killing our nights for the most part). And work has left me in a perpetual state of semi-confusion.

Maybe it’s more of my own inability to adjust back to not sleeping on my own. For most of the vacation I was in a separate room from mother and child, which allowed me the opportunity to watch movies, read blogs, and listen to music with complete impunity late into the night. Now I struggle to return to the previously cultivated schedule that shifted sleep patterns to more appropriate times – opening up the mornings for real activities rather than whatever I would attempt while half-asleep just before midnight. Almost everything night for the past 2 weeks I have stared at a screen willing myself to write about our Southern adventure only to realize my eyelids had no intention of co-operating.

So I’m thinking that the start of Spring is a good time to try to shift my habits once again. Stop trying to squeeze something out of every last second in the evening – sometimes it’s best to just let go and get a good night’s rest. That way I’ll be refreshed to take on each new day and whatever snowfalls it may bring… Seriously, another 2-4 inches?

Maybe it’s time to head south again…

Sunday morning thought #3

I’m not sure where “eating the entire bagel and not just the inside” ranks as a development milestone for most parents and their kids, but for me it’s just a couple notches below walking and talking. The next one will hopefully be “puts sunglasses on right-side up” or “does not demand a side of butter with every meal”. Actually the latter one is not likely to stop for at least a few more years.

Awesome

Where do I begin? There’s these Russian women showing gratuitous cleavage while farming, cleaning, working in a machine shop, etc. Interested yet? Yeah, not really. But then some black metal music kicks in and… well… some Stalin zombies attack them. Have I got your attention? What if I told you that only one man could save them – Mikhail Gorbachev clad in a loin cloth with a shield and battle axe… And then it starts to get weird.

Bet you want to watch now:

There is so much awesome going on in that video it hurts. Hollywood has failed to bring me anything that cool. It makes Shoot ‘Em Up look like a documentary on childcare. When will the full length feature be coming? Not too surprisingly this was discovered on a blog entitled Awesome Robot (via Culture Kills). Now that’s a blog I need to be following!

Last night I had the strangest dream

The Woman and I threw a party. But all of the guests seemed to be random selections from Facebook. I mean, they were all friends, but I only recall one couple that we see regularly. Otherwise it was old high school and college friends of mine whom I haven’t had much contact with lately. Not that strange, except I was stuck running all around taking care of things because The Woman had left.

That’s right, she left. Can you believe it? In the middle of our party she insisted on going to the hospital. Something about having to give birth. This is probably the point at which the dream starts getting weird.

For some reason we not only planned this rather random party at the end of her pregnancy, but I had to leave her in the middle of labor to go home and take care of the guests. And so she handled giving birth to Miguel all on her own. Yes, his name was Miguel. That might seem strange, but if you saw him you would say that Miguel was the perfect name for him. After all he was a 20 pound Hispanic boy.

So perhaps there was some indication of infidelity that would explain my lack of interest in the birth of my son? Nothing that I can recall – perhaps random ethnicity had become the norm…

Anyway I ditch The Woman at the hospital to find most of the guests having left except for 1 friend whom I try to convince to stay – because I’d feel really guilty about leaving my wife and newborn at the hospital for a party that had already ended… At this point things become hazy so it is possible that the party did continue. For sure both mother and son made it home safely that night at which point I spent the rest of the night trying to locate Miguel after misplacing him last repeatedly, thus cementing my “Father of the Year” award.

This was either a message that I’m not ready for a second child or that I need to go to bed earlier…

Very superstitious

Is cutting off a hearse bad mojo or something? It seems like it should be. Then again, maybe it should be good mojo – you’re delaying the dead, so maybe karma can help you out.

I didn’t cut him off after all, I was just debating whether or not to pull out when I decided getting hit by a hearse would be an hysterically, ironic way to die. Actually, the hearse ended up cutting me off further down the road. Now that’s gotta be bad mojo.

Of course he also made me miss a light because he took so long turning. Maybe no mojo was involved. Maybe he was just a dick.

Random phone call from a stranger

An unrecognized number popped up on my cell phone. Figuring it might be someone calling me from a different phone than usual, I picked it up.

Me: Hello?
Stranger: What’s up, bottom-feeder?
Me: (laughing) Not much, who’s this?
Stranger: Is this Ted?
Me: No, this is Thom.
Stranger: Uh, lemme see, XXX-XXX-6482?
Me: No, 8462.
Stranger: Oh, geez, sorry for calling you a bottom-feeder.
Me: No problem.
Stranger: Have a nice night.
Me: You, too.
The Woman: You see, answering strange phone calls can be fun.