It's a Cubicle World

I work in an atrium building so you can see into the offices on each floor.  Riding the elevator up to my floor, I see that almost every floor is populated with cubes.  Most of the people I know work in cubes.  I work in a cube.  This is nothing new, offices using cubes to house workers has been going on forever. They site all sorts of reasons for why they do it, trying to pass it off on the employees as if it is a benefit to them.  The truth, though,  is that it's cheap to use cubes.  I don't blame them at all for this, I'm all about cutting costs.  I honestly don't care about having to work in a cube, I don't feel like it demeans me or anything like that (as seems to be the case with a lot of people).  I do have a problem with my office using cubes, though.  I have a feeling that most of my problem is that I wasn't always in a cube.  When I first started working here, I had my own office.  This office was located down at the end of a hallway, and there was nothing else there.  The only reason anyone had to be down that hallway was to see me, and I don't get a lot of visitors.  This meant that I had pretty much zero distractions, and the only noise was that which I made.  My productivity was great.  I could focus on what I needed to, and I didn't have to deal with anything going on around me because there was nothing around me.  I had my own office for a while, and then they moved someone in with me.  This wasn't too bad, though the distractions did increase quite a bit.  Every time she was on the phone, had a visitor (she had a lot due to her job), or just wanted to talk to me, that would hurt my productivity.  As a result, the volume of work I could do took a hit.  That lasted for a while, and then we all moved into cubes.  Now I've got people all around me.  The lady next to me, she's great and I like her, but she's on the phone all the time (work and personal), and she's loud.  I keep turning my music in my headphones up, but that only does so much.  I've got a lot of foot traffic coming by now, and people feel like just stopping by to talk.  I've got people that just yell over the cubes to each other when they have a question about something.  The guy next to me is constantly getting into arguments with people on the phone (he is the guy that reviews all the contracts, so he is making sure people stay in line, which they don't like to do), and he is loud too.  Basically, I have tons of noise and distractions going on.  As a result of this, my productivity is just shot.  I can definitely see how some people could benefit from being in a cube environment, but I'm a financial analyst for Pete's sake, and my job doesn't really see any benefit from others around.  Not to mention the fact that I work with confidential information, and am basically out in the open here.  Why don't companies understand that the cost savings of sticking everyone in cubes may not be greater than the loss of productivity?  Is that always going to be the case?  No, of course not.  Do I think it's the case for me and some other people here?  Yeah, definitely.  I don't feel like I should get anything special, I just want four walls and a door so that I can shut out the world and get some work done.

Oh, did I mention that the location of my cube is such that when the receptionist isn't at her desk I'm the one that gets the door? That happens a lot.

Can You Hear Me Now?

First off, let me get the happy new year out of the way. Happy new year! There we go. The holidays have been jam packed for me, and even though I've not been at work much, I've been pretty busy just running around, or with company over. For the few days that I had neither of those going on, I just sat around and rested. The break was not nearly long enough, but it was certainly a lot of fun. I hope that everyone else had a safe, and fun Christmas and New Year.

As for the topic of my post, I'm fairly certain that people are going deaf. Not only are they becoming hard of hearing, but it is their own doing that is causing it. A lot of people that I know have a hard time hearing things that are softer. They always seem to not hear the same things that I can. I don't think that I necessarily have better hearing that I should, but that they have worse. The primary cause of this, is often what they are having to turn up: music and television. They spend a lifetime of listening to loud music, and blaring TV sets, and as they get older they just turn them up even more, perpetuating it.

One of the biggest problems I have with bars is the noise. They are usually quite loud, and I have no desire to sit there and have my ears assaulted. If I'm out at a bar, I'm going to want to talk without having to shout. Most of the places I go have a fairly low level of noise, usually. There are people talking and rustling around, but they don't blast music, or turn the TVs up past a sane level. Last night, however, that was not the case. One of my usual places, a place I visit pretty much weekly, was overrun with crazy OU and WV fans. Instead of being able to watch my Mavericks and Stars in peace, I was subject to a barrage of cheering and a speaker system blasting the TV broadcast loud enough that I'm sure the apartments down the street could hear it clearly. Of course, I'm sure that the only reason they needed to achieve such a volume was to compensate for their loss of hearing. Had these fans grown up appreciating sound in moderation, there would be no need to turn the dumb thing up so loud.

I know what you are thinking at this point: "Jeremy, if you're just going to complain about this, why don't you just not go to the bars in the first place?" That's simple, I have a good time going out with friends. Also, I just like to complain. Really, though, do yourself and your hearing a favor. Turn the volume down a bit, and start enjoying your tunes and your shows at a more reasonable level.

This post was brought to you by the crotchety old-man Jeremy.

Hate Ads? Don't Just Get Over It

I think we're all well aware of how I feel about advertising. What is interesting, though, is that while I completely despise it, I'll admit that it is the bad apples that are spoiling it for everyone else. If it weren't for the annoying car commercials, I wouldn't mind TV ads all that much. If it weren't for flashing banner ads, I wouldn't be so opposed to online ads. It is because these forms of advertising exist that I hate it. Jeremiah Owyang writes about how people that hate advertising need to get over it. I don't really agree. His first point is that it isn't going to be going away. I'm fine with that, and I'm not so stupid as to think it would. What I want to go away are the ones that fall into his other point about the shotgun approach. Ads are like shotguns, in that it just gets thrown out there, and even if you weren't the ad's target, you still might get hit. These are the ones I want to go away. Obviously, these won't just disappear altogether, but I'm all for it moving more towards what he calls the laser approach. When an ad has a precise target, and that target is all that is hit. When this is precisely tailored, you get a situation where everyone wins. The consumer, me, only sees items that are of interest. The advertiser doesn't waste money shooting their ad to everyone, even though not everyone is interested. This means that a much higher percentage of those that see the ad are likely to buy their product. If I see ads for refinancing, I'm just going to tune them out. This means that someone just wasted money for me to see their ad, and have absolutely zero chance of getting a customer. This is why I have no problem using all of Google's personalized services. If they are going to show me ads, I want them to at least be something that interests me. And really, those little text ads they do, they don't bother me at all. I rarely even notice them, and have actually even clicked on a few because they are relevant to me.
Now I did say that I don't wholly agree with him, and here's where I don't. He says to just "get over it" to those of us that despise ads. I don't think that we should, though. If people simply accepted that ads are there, and didn't complain about them, then there isn't as much incentive for advertisers to change things. Sure they still have the driving force of attempting to make more profitable advertising, but without consumers giving feedback, they won't have all the data to go on. Of course, this battle would be won a lot easier if there weren't idiots in the world that actually did try to hit the bouncing monkey. I stand by my opinion, though, that if we don't like what they're throwing at us, we shouldn't just sit patiently and hope that they change it, we should help to try to facilitate the change.

Easily Distracted

As is often the case, when I find something, get myself sidetracked off of it for whatever reason. This is exactly what happened when I was going to post about an article that was sent to me. The article was on MSN Money Central, but I noticed that it said it was originally from the Christian Science Monitor. I didn't want to post to something that was just an exact reprint of something else (I don't mind posting to a blog or something because it at least adds some commentary), so I decide to get the link for the original. Once I got there, I found that they split the article onto two pages. This is not a long piece, by any means. There is no reason to break it up. This practice pisses me off like you wouldn't believe. I seem to be finding it more and more often while reading online. It seems like places are splitting things across multiple pages with no real justification (for the user, that is, I'll explain in a sec). I have seen lists of things posted where they stick each item on its own page. It isn't even done in a slide slow fashion, like Forbes will do, but rather just their full page is used. So I'll see something that has 5 pages, each one full of crap. Ah, and there is reasoning I said I'd explain. You see, when they break it apart across multiple pages, that means that their site is generating more hits. Every time you click the next page, it is another pageview. Not only does this inflate the numbers they'll show for their site, it inflates the numbers for ad views. When you make someone go through five pages, that is five times more views on the ads than would have otherwise been received. Personally, I think it is a horrible, despicable practice. All it does is aggravate the reader. Honestly, would anyone say that they'd prefer to have the content on multiple pages instead of one? I'm to the point now that if I see they've spread the piece out across multiple pages, I just stop reading it. The only exception is when it is actually a longer piece that is broken up to not be so daunting, or when the content is just really superb. What about you guys? Anyone else pissed off about this practice?



Oh, and for those of you curious, here is the article. I'm linking the MSN one for obvious reasons. I've lost all interest in wanting to talk about it, though.

Addicted to Video Games? Then You're a Moron

I just read an article saying that the AMA wants to classify video game addiction as an official psychiatric disorder. This is a load of BS. Seriously, people, come on. Kids that spend all day playing video games, and forgoing other things don't suffer from a psychological problem. They suffer from a lack of self control, and parents that probably don't discipline them. If the kid learns that he or she can play games instead of doing homework, and the consequences aren't that bad, he's just going to keep doing it. The other thing is that these kids are getting some social interaction, just not in the traditional sense. Sure they aren't meeting up with people in real life, but if they're logging eight hours a day on WoW, then that's eight hours that they're talking and interacting with others. Don't get me wrong, they still need to have some real life socializing or else they'll be weirdos, but you can't claim that they're being reclusive if they're playing an MMO. Obviously, if they just play single player things it's a different story. Also, people need to understand the video game culture. A lot of people that spend a lot of time playing games are good people. Just because there are some that don't know the meaning of the word moderation doesn't mean that this is some sort of illness.
Parents these days are pansies when it comes to making their kids obey them. And kids these days are filled with the notion that adults aren't meant to be obeyed. There are quite a few clips out there of some 12 year old yelling at his mom and calling her all sorts of horrible things cause she's trying to get him to stop playing a game. And she does nothing! Instead of unplugging the computer and smacking the crap out of the kid as she should, she just takes it. It's no wonder kids are "addicted" to games.

Intarweb Making Us Stoopider?

Andrew Keen just put out a book trying to persuade people that this Web 2.0 thing is dumbing us down. His arguments include thing like, due to the inability for many amateur content producers to do proper research the content they create won't be as good as Big Media. Also, the funds that drive much of traditional media are required for really good work to be achieved. Then there's the thing with people watching clips of people getting kicked in the balls, or monkeys throwing their poo over and over again. I don't know if I agree with everything, but he does make some valid points. Personally, though, I'd have to say that the internet does just the opposite for me. I often times see something mentioned in the main media, and then use the internet for further research. True, you can't trust everything you read online, but there's a lot of it that does come from reliable sources. Reliable in that in the past they have been correct. I also think that the things offered from the Web 2.0 concept allows Big Media to become even better. If you consider something like PC Mag or the ilk to be part of Big Media (they are a print company, after all), then they have benefited greatly from blogs and the like. Instead of having to wait until the next issue goes out, they can break stories as the happen.
I think that the reason the internet might be making you dumber is if you take everything you read as fact, and don't acknowledge that blogs are a good supplement for professional things, and not necessarily a replacement. Relying solely on sites like mine is probably not a good idea. There are high caliber ones out there, though, such as TechCrunch or Ars Technica. These are basically professional journalists using an online format instead of a traditional one.
I'd also argue that the internet is a little bit late on making people stupid. People have been getting more and more dumb before the internet became popular.

Another Confirmation of the Reality Distortion Field

There were a couple of announcements that came out of WWDC yesterday. One is that the Safari web browser is now available for Windows, and the other is that the iPhone has an "innovative" way of allowing third-party development. You would probably think that these two announcements should be more unrelated than they are, and you'd probably be right. This innovative solution is nothing more than running a web ap via Safari on the iPhone. This means that developers can make AJAX apps for the phone. I think this pretty much fails to even come close to a comparison of being able to properly develop applications. Jobs calls this solution "new" and "sweet." I call it "stupid" and "lacking." This is yet another example of why so many people bash on Apple. They keep such a closed system that it limits what anyone can do with their devices. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but don't claim to allow outside delevopment via a web browser. Just come right out and say that you are not going to allow third-party apps and leave it at that. Telling people that this is a "sweet solution" is just insulting our intelligence. Worse, though, is that people are buying it! Alex Hung claims that making a proper SDK is "hard," and that Nokia and Sony Ericcson are exaomples of this. I'm sorry, but last time I checked neither of those companies are in the business of software. Apple may say that they are a hardware company, but they are heavily involved in the software side of things. The reason they didn't release an SDK is not because it is hard, it is because they don't want to open up their device to the potential of being unstable. By allowing outside development, they allow the possibility of someone making an application that could cause problems on the phone. This would create the perception that there is something wrong with the phone, which Apple wants to avoid. Hey, I don't blame them. Like I said, I just think they should be honest about it. A better take on this, in my opinion, comes from Ed Burnette at ZDNet.com. I think he sums it up nicely with this.

“You can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps!” Thanks Steve, we’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.

Yeah, allowing Web 2.0 apps on a web browser: Genius! Oh yeah, and don't forget that any Flash app is out of the question. Maybe that "fully functional" web browser on a phone isn't so full after all.

Seen Anything Good Lately?

When I first bought a domain and started writing, I would give little reviews of movies quite often. This was largely driven off the fact that I watched an insane amount of movies. This meant that I wasn’t really spending time doing much of anything else so I didn’t have anything else to write about anyway. In more recent times, though, I’ve really cut back on how many movies I watch. I have that Blockbuster Total Access thing, and have actually had it for a few years now. I love that they do the change your envelope for a rental thing, that basically means that if I wanted to, I could be watching about 2 or three movies a day. That’s crazy. I have been going out less lately, but I still haven’t been doing many movies. I probably only watch less than one a week now. I do miss watching and reviewing, though. Even though my reviews usually just consisted of me pointing out all of the negative things in the movie. I guess I shouldn’t say I reviewed as much as I criticized. The problem was that there are just so few good movies. Especially this crap that they put out now. There is so much wrong with these movies that it is really easy to just tear them apart. By contrast, I recently watched The Philadelphia Story with Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, and James Stewart. This is a movie that was made in 1940 and is leaps and bounds better than what we have today. There is great acting, good humor, and a really good story. Why is it that we don’t have quality stuff like that anymore? Look at this summer. Nearly every movie that is coming out this summer is a sequel to something, or looks so horrible that it probably should have never been made in the first place. Those two aren’t mutually exclusive, either. Why do so many people say how disappointed they are in the crap that Hollywood gives us, yet this stuff is still getting made and making millions? Why are we having record breaking movies coming out that really aren’t that good? Stop going to see the crappy movies, and maybe then we’ll stop getting them. If you feel like you just have to go see something, at least wait a few weeks so the theater gets the money instead of the studio.

Careful, Your Stuff Might Have Your Name on It

In case for some reason you haven’t heard yet, Apple is now offering iTunes Plus, which has the EMI music catalog DRM-free. This is definitely a good thing. The DRM-free part, that is. Granted, you’ve been able to get unprotected tracks from a variety of other sources for quite a while now. The difference is that iTunes has the following of the masses. I don’t want to talk about the fact that there are DRM-free tracks now, though, it is the reaction that people are having to them. More specifically, the reaction to what these tracks contain. Embedded in the music files are the name and email address of the person that bought them. This makes people uneasy, and they are all upset that this information is in there. Now, two things. First, this is not something that is unique to the iTunes Plus tracks; it is in every track you buy on iTunes. Second, this information can only be seen if you have access to the file. Now, in theory, shouldn’t the only person that has access to your music on your computer supposed to be you? Are you worried that you aren’t going to be able to share these files with everyone because they have your info in them? I could be wrong, but isn’t distributing music out to a bunch of strangers still a no-no? Don’t get me wrong here, I’m a firm believer that the idea that illegal music sharing creates horrible things is complete BS. I’m just saying that I don’t see why you should be upset that these tracks contain your info. Is this really different than the file properties on a Word doc you make that have your name in the created by item (assuming you’ve registered with your name)? It is just pretty stupid to be upset about having your personal information in something that is, for all intents and purposes, private.

The Google Van. Quick, Hide the Cat!

I can't say I always agree with Scoble, but I think he's on the right track with this one. People have been making a huge fuss about the privacy concerns due to Google's new Street View on their maps. If you aren't familiar with it, you should definitely check it out. Head to New York, NY for an example. The feature allows you to look around the streets with a pretty decent amount of detail. Anyhow, a lady raised a big ruckus because you can see her cat sitting in her window, and she felt like this was somehow a major breach in her privacy. What she, and all these fearmongers that are jumping on board with it, seem to forget is that it is perfectly legal to photograph things that are visible while just driving down the street. It is amazing how many times people rise up to defend photographers that get told they can't take pictures of people in public, yet fail to see how this is the same thing. Do a little research next time, OK?

On a side-note, Scoble talks about not wanting marketing firms to have all this info on him and what he buys. Personally, if an advertiser knows all about me and will start sending me coupons about things I need or like instead of just getting spam, I'd be all for it.

Want to Meet a Nice Girl? Sue!

Apparently when you find a business that doesn’t sell what you want, you sue them. At least, that’s the thought process of Linda Carlson. She is suing the online dating site eHarmony because they don’t offer Man seeking Man or Woman seeking Woman options. She sees this as discrimination against gays and bisexuals. She and her lawyer are hoping to get this as a class action suit and seek damages for all those who were denied the service of the site because they were gay. To all of this, I say, “What?” Does this not strike you as absurd? The site caters to a niche market of heterosexual daters. How is this different than sites that cater to gay daters? What about racial specific dating sites? Should all us honkies sue Asian Friend Finder too? The ridiculousness of people today just makes me mad and sad at the same time. Why is it that today everyone sees litigation as the first and best option?

Life's Not Fair

Marybeth Peters is the Register of Copyrights at the U.S. Copyright office. She’s held the post since 1994 so she has seen a lot in terms of the current copyright issues. She recently talked to Ars Technica about the issue of fair use. Consumer groups are always citing fair use and the Sony Betamax case as reasoning for wanting to be able to copy DVDs. Particularly, every three years when there is a review hearing for the DMCA to examine if any exemptions should be allowed. Every three years it’s the same story, too. The EFF asks for the exemption, and the panel says no. Their reasoning is that based on the “true meaning” of fair use, an exemption is not required for DVD copying. They say that since the content is available through other means (such as VHS tapes) that there is not a legitimate reason for ripping a DVD. Also, they say that the Sony case was limited to time-shifting content from free broadcasts. She says that ripping DVDs is place-shifting, and that it is done for a convenience factor. Neither of those is covered under fair use.All of this means that consumer rights groups are going to need a different strategy when trying to get the right to rip DVDs. I’d love to see them use the argument of being fair and nice to the consumer is in the best interests of the media companies. That is not likely to happen, though. Mostly because the media companies don’t see it that way. After all, there is a reason that you have to sit through those stupid anti-piracy ads at the beginning of DVDs you legally bought. The reality of the situation is that if they made it legal for you to rip DVDs piracy would not suddenly flourish. All it takes is one person to break the encryption, rip something, and then upload it. Now that one thing has just rendered all copy protection on discs useless. I can assure you that there is at least one person that rips just about every movie out there and uploads it. On top of this, ripping something isn’t exactly hard. I can find and download programs that allow me to do so in less than five minutes. All that the media companies are doing is making it an inconvenience. If I download a ripping program, rip my DVD, and stick that on my media server to watch throughout my house, how does that hurt them? Why is it that I technically have to break the law to do that? Why is it that having a copy on my hard drive so I don’t have to go find the disc so scary to them? They say that it is to combat piracy, but piracy is rampant already. If piracy is already so widespread, do they seriously think that it will be more so if they allow ripping?

If Corky Decided the News

TechCrunch has an article covering the news venture of MySpace. They lauched it about a month ago, but still have yet to garner much interest. The system works by MySpace gathering stories, and then dividing them out into categories. After they have been divided out, users can visit the different category pages and vote for stories a la Digg. From the sound of the artilce, it doesn't look like they've been able to get any interest at all.

But the front page of MySpace news shows most stories with zero votes. Two
stories have a single vote. None have more than that. Perusing through the
various categories shows the same thing - page after page of stories with no
votes or other evidence that anyone is visiting the site.

I don't know if I should really be all that surprised by this. MySpace consists of two types of users. There are the morons, and the people that are there because their friends are there. The first group is too stupid to even comprehend what important news is, and probably rely on their idiot friends or PerezHilton for world events. The second group, the ones that aren't morons, aren't likely to use MySpace for their place to read the news. More than likely, they are already visiting sites like Google News, Digg, or have an RSS reader for this. To top it all off, to prove just how dumb the admins are MySpace are, they have hardly any advertisement for this new service. According to TechCrunch's article, they don't even have a link for it on their main page (Disclaimer: I can't verify this since I've blocked MySpace). If this service ever does take off, I expect it to be driven by the first category of user so the likelyhood of anything decent showing up is pretty slim.

Tech Support, How May I Help You?

I'm somewhat of what you might call a geek, or a nerd. As such, I often get called upon to provide assistance to friends and family on matters of computers and the like. Now, if I am physically with whatever object you need help with, I've got no problem at all helping you out and doing whatever needs to be done. The problem comes from when I need to start providing remote assistance. I hate having to provide support over IM or the phone. It's not that I don't want to help the person, or even that I don't want to take the time. Really, I'm more than happy to help you, that's not the problem at all. The problem is that if I am not sitting there in front of the thing, my tech ability seems to just go out the window. I can remember just about everything, except I'll always manage to forget something minor. Also, most of what I do to fix things is just an instinct of what to do. That is useless when I'm on the phone. So my problem with providing remote help is that it usually makes me look like I don't know what I'm doing. I've got a real knack for walking someone through something, telling them with all confidence that it will work, and then the dumb thing doesn't. This happens more often than I'd like to admit. Usually, I can ask some questions, or think about, and realize what I did wrong. Usually, the problem is that I missed something. If I do this once, I am usually forgiven. After the second time, they begin to lose faith. I feel pretty bad at this point, because it has probably been about 30 minutes, and I still haven't fixed your problem. I feel really bad because I know that if I were there with you I could have the stupid thing done in under five minutes. I'm always impressed when people have the patience with me for me to go over something three times until it's right.
Tonight I was helping a friend get her wireless router set up. I was trying to get her to set a password and secure the thing so that she wouldn't have everyone leeching off her and slowing down her network. This took a number of tries between her card not supporting all encryption types, my forgetting to tell her she has to specify which key is used, and my trying to figure out if the default setting on her router was open or shared. Eventually, after much of her patience, the thing worked.
So, the next time you want to ask me for help, remember that I don't mind helping, but you might have to deal with my brain dropping the ball. If I get to souding agitated, know that it isn't you, it is that I'm mad at myself for not getting whatever it is working yet. The best thing you can do is have me fix your problem in person. I'll have you setup in no time, and will walk you through it so that you can learn how to do it. All I ask is that if you need help with Excel please, please, understand the concept of selcting multiple cells. That is all.

Sure I'll Buy Your CD, I'll Need to See Some ID First

So if you want to sell your used CDs to a store in Florida, you're going to have to turn over finger prints and ID. Florida just joined Utah in having laws that are in place to supposedly stop the sales of counterfeit CDs. Whether or not this is actually a large problem hasn't actually been shown. In addition to having to make their customers feel like criminals, store will also have to hold the CDs they purchase for 30 days before being allowed to resell them. On top of all of this, stores will also be required to secure a $10,000 bond for the right to do all this. How these laws get passed is beyond me. This is just another example of the music industry's greed and desire for power.

Exxon Posts More Record Earnings

I'll be the first to tell you that I am a fairly strong believer in capitalism, and allowing companies to make crazy profits if they deserve it. However, when I see that Exxon is once again making record earnings while the price of gas continues to rise, I really have to wonder. From the article, it looks like the main reason that they are able to make such gains is largely due to cost savings. That is all well and good, but if this company is going to tell consumers that the price of gas is rising due to increased cost of oil, and increased demand, why then are they able to post such huge profits? When you look at another large company that is usually hated for making money, Wal-Mart, you see that they are making money hand over fist, but at the same time the price of my groceries is actually getting lower. Sure, you may say that they are able to do that because they treat their workers like crap, or because they get a bunch of freebies from the government, but the fact remains that they are passing those savings on to the consumer, albeit just barely. If Exxon is able to keep such a tight lid on its costs, does it not make sense that it should also be able to keep a lid on the prices it charges? I mean, they essentially say that the cost of production is decreasing, while they are also increasing their prices. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that they should just be giving us the gas for free, but the least they can do is not tell consumers that the price of oil is skyrocketing so they have to increase the price of fuel while at the same time they make record profits. They should at least just honest and say, "Hey, we're charging more for gas because we can, and there is not much you can do about it."

Texting Making You Lazy?

Ars Technica has an article about a new study by the Irish State Examination Commission that states that teens' writing skills have decreased due to the rising popularity of using text messaging. This is contradictory to a study from the University of Toronto that found the use of text messaging does not hurt writing communication. From personal experience, I think I agree with the Irish. Perhaps it is just that people have become lazier, but the lack of decent grammar and spelling that I see in emails, chats, and text messages is absurd. Now, I'll give you that it is easier to type "ur" instead of "you're," especially while texting from a phone, but that is no excuse to carry that same behavior into your other communication. As an aside, try using the intuitive text option on your phone, such as T9, when texting. This way, you can still use proper words and punctuation without a major hit to efficiency. That said, I'm willing to cut some slack when I get a text message that is like that. However, if I see an email that contains that type of writing, you re just being an idiot. Holding down the shift key before hitting the i, or at the start of each of each sentence, is not a difficult endeavor. Periods are also your friend, feel free to use them at the end of complete thoughts. Email is definitely a place that this does not belong, but it really shouldn't be showing up when you post a message on my Facebook either. You are sitting at a computer with a full keyboard in front of you; use it.

Politics the MySpace Way

I think the best response to this article over at Reuters is, "Noooo!" Apparently, MySpace and Mark Burnett are teaming up to create a new reality show that focuses on creating a politician that represents the young people of America. This has got to be one of the worst idea ever. Lets be honest, the youth in America are a bunch of idiots. On top of this, the part of the article I found most frightening is this part.

The process begins with the close to 100 million unique users who flirt, discuss and attack each other on Rupert Murdoch's online social network MySpace. Those people decide the winner, the losers and their issues on the new show.

That is good thinking. Let the same morons that have five videos load on their page at once and post pictures of themselves in their underwear decide who a good candidate is. I take that back, they probably could pick a good candidate to represent them, but the thing that is bad is that they also get to pick the issues? Do we really need that? If you know me personally, you know that I hate MySpace with a passion. I've gone so far as to not just boycott the site, but actually have the myspace.com domain blocked on my hardware firewall. The thought that these same people are going to be picking someone to represent them is repulsive. Older people already see my generation as a bunch of degenerates (which most are, but that is true of the older generations too), do we really need to just reinforce this? I can hardly wait to see what kind of idiot they wind up picking. I could just be exposed to the wrong groups of young people, but I seem to just encounter a lot of complainers without anyone ever offering realistic alternatives. Even when they complain about things with which I agree I still think they look like idiots. Things will be nice once we finally install my friend into office. Doty in 2032, baby.

Pissed

Oh, I forgot to mention this in the first post so I figured I'd make another. Yes, I realize it has been all of 2 minutes.

When I was setting this thing up, I was first just going to grab a yourname.blogspot.com type of address. My first choice for this, of course, was southboard.blogspot.com. Given that Southboard is the name of my site. However, some chump has already taken that. How in the world did someone else get that first on here? More importantly, if they are going to steal my name, the least they can do is have the decency to add a post that is more recent than December, 2005. I mean, for crying out loud, even I am not that bad.