20 Aug 2004
One of my more favoured pasttimes is the purchasing of stationary; as nerdy as this may seem, it’s something I actually enjoy quite a lot. Following discussions (where discussions is synonymous with email sessions, but hey, I am a geek as well as a nerd, it would seem) had regarding… well, many things… but the use of paper as an outlet came up.
I’d been meaning to get my hands on a nice notebook or two for some time now, and it was with some glee that I moved upon Officeworks in Clarence St. this afternoon to make this purchase. As far as Officeworks stores go, that one kind of sucks… the range just isn’t there. That said, I did find what I was looking for.
See, what I want to know is why the accountant people get such cool notebooks whilst the rest of us suffer ring-bound crap! Seriously! Accountant people AREN’T that cool! We (Ben was along for the ride, or something) discovered a range of notebooks akin to what I was looking for (a properly bound pad, without any dodgy ring crappiness), IN THE ACCOUNTING AISLE! Well… it wasn’t exactly labelled as such… but it was HIDDEN in amidst all the ledger books and other such boredom inducing stuff. I think the accountants want to keep these pads to themselves.
*insert conspiracy theory here*
Yes, anyway. I ended up getting two A5 pads, weighing in at 168 pages each. So that was cool.
What happened next? Hmm. This bit is kind of weird. Jokingly or not, I haven’t asked, but Ben (in the course of conversation, not just randomly) raised his hand to his mouth, saying “Oooh, a diary!” in mock-shocked tones. I shrugged it off, without giving a direct answer, I think… but yes, that is what one of the two pads is for, if the world must know (which of course it DOESN’T, but I don’t mind sharing that much).
See, what I’m struck by is how this can be construed as any different to the maintenance of a ‘blog site. This IS essentially a self-censored, abridged, restricted online diary. The three conditions there exist simply because I am aware that the world has full access to all content posted on this resource. More on that in a second — My point for now is that I’m yet to have anyone comment on this with shocked expressions and mocking tones (I’m not saying that’s what Ben did, because I don’t know for certain and didn’t think to find out at the time, but there IS a stigma attached, so it would seem, reflected in this mock/or not mock opinion conveyed), despite some saying they don’t understand WHY people would ‘blog (which I think is perfectly understandable, and I agree with some of their reservations).
So what makes this website any different from a paper diary? Structured content, for one. Paper is infinitively more intuitive. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Graphics tablet? Pfft. It doesn’t FEEL the same. (heh, I was eyeing off some 110GSM paper this afternoon, but restrained myself). Structure has two aspects, though. This website isn’t searchable as yet (well, not via the interface most users here see — my local mirror has had experimentation done with varying degrees of success), but it could be with moderate effort. Everything is also sorted by date, and has permanent reference links.
Now, if I wanted searchable, dated content, I’d probably be using a system designed for such, i.e. NOT paper. But I don’t. And really, that demand can’t make what people do with paper that different to what hundreds of people worldwide do with weblogs. Personally, I try to keep my whinge sessions here to a minimum, both to avoid giving offence, and to avoid narcissistic trappings which such things can provide, especially if others begin to comment (ultimately fuelling the fire)… that said, I read many webloggers pages which aren’t like that, and are effectively a diary openly published to the world.
There is something about that I admire, I think, that they can be so open (or at least “open”) about their life. But then there are other websites which leave a sense of “get over it” hanging in the air. Like one weblog I read, about a guy whose relationship with his girlfriend ended two and half years ago. There was a lot of content on there, so I didn’t read all of it. I skipped about a quarter of a year at a time, but the consistent theme was this one girl, and his ensuing depression. Okay, I’m not going to speculate as to whether he “should” or “shouldn’t” be depressed — that’s a matter for him personally. If using the web as a medium for expression assists him, then great. I don’t think it was, though. After two and a half years, I think that other things need to be explored.
I know I’m guilty of using this publishing medium as a “sympathy net” at times, although it’s not something I’ll deliberately set out to achieve when writing content. Disclaimer out of the way, I’d like to direct your attention to a blog article posted a few days ago.
“Is that what blogs are about? Selfish desires.” – that provokes some thought for all personal (i.e. non-professional only) blog sites. Something I’m now aiming more to actively avoid, because I hadn’t thought about it too hard, and it’s a very valid point IMHO.
Apparently, though, the use of private expressionistic writing is something which is odd, unusual, taboo, undiscussed. Thoughts, anyone? What difference, if any, is there between private and public diary entry, online or otherwise? Is there a stigma attached to mediums or modes of writing?
19 Aug 2004
I had an interesting product sample land on my desk today (in a fairly literal sense: I honestly have absolutely no idea from whence it came!), which can only be described as gimmicky in a moderately useless way.
It’s a mouse. Which is okay, in and of itself. It’s quite a nice mouse, as far as these things go: it feels slightly lighter than my existing A4 USB thing, it moves more smoothly (hey, it’s a newer mouse, it’s to be expected)… nothing spectacular, but still, very usable.
For your admiration:
“Ooooh.”
What is that red thing, I hear you enquire?
That’s what I’m wondering, actually. The packaging on this mysterious object advertises it as follows:
Labtec
Wheel Mouse
with Light
The word “Light” is in red.
Note that in this instance, “Light” does not mean “Optical Mouse”.
Observe:
You’ll note the presence of a futile red LED, as well as a black mouse ball. Wonderful!
The mouse itself is decent (hey, it was free, no complaints from yours truly), but really: this is almost as bad as iiNet’s false value-adding schemes! Ah well. It’s not quite false advertising, but the implication is certainly there.
I’ve seen 5-unit pricing of optical mouses at $16 in the last six months, so surely it can’t be that much more expensive to ACTUALLY manufacture the real product! I’d imagine these would go for about $11 retail/unit, and down to $7 or $8 for OEM dealers. It’s a measly $8! I don’t see how that’s worth risking the wrath of upset consumers who purchase your product in error, but maybe that’s just me…
19 Aug 2004
Well, I’m fairly happy at the minute. Physics fell in a screaming heap from the 6th floor of SAH, landing in a somewhat diminished state on the adjacent Kent Street.
Reports that this caused traffic delays of up to fifteen minutes are unconfirmed, although it has been ascertained that traffic in certain parts of the city is moving at no more than two meters per minute, or so our correspondant, Joshua Street, writes from Circular Quay.
—
That aside, I now have a magnificent fourteen Studyhall periods per cycle, and no Physics to boot! Wooooooo!!! Chances are, had you met me in person this afternoon, this would have already been apparent to you from the ludicrous grin pasted on my face, but hey. Sincere apologies to anyone I distracted, who was previously trying to get work done in studyhall Period 4.
So, anyway, here it is:
Highlighted entries denote new studyhall periods.
I like!
18 Aug 2004
Really! Just been pre-occupied with things, that’s all.
And this is take two, as Mozilla crashed. Actually, why am I typing this in Mozilla? Konqueror has nice spell checking and stuff! I’m normally pretty good, but a second opinion can’t hurt, now can it? *switches browsers*
Ah, that’s better. Haha, “Mozilla” is showing up in red text… no, we’re not anti-competitive ;)
Yay. So, about… life. Seminar presentation. I’ve already bitched to half the world (so it seems… half my world, anyway… probably more!) about how poorly I thought it went, but hey, for the other part of my world (the purely-connected, non-“Met” half), I’m ranting here, too. Feel free to ignore me if you think I just need to STFU and get over it.
Yeah. This seminar was meant to go for ten minutes. Mine went for fourteen. I’ve never been great (read: utterly hopeless) at timing things, especially of this nature, and brevity has never been a strong point either (phonecalls should be billed in 30 minute blocks, not per 30 seconds!). This, however, was appalling. As I said, it went for fourteen. That isn’t too bad, in and of itself…
Had I finished. Knowing full well that my timing was probably way out, the seminar was prepared with designated “exit points”, for use in a scenario such as… oh, say, the one that occurred. Essentially, there were premature conclusions which wouldn’t appear premature should I have to use them.
All that is based on the presumption that I actually DO think to use them… oh, yes, that old “thought” thing. Evidently too much. So I hit a break in presentation, and asked how long I had gone for: they said 14 minutes. I thought I was perhaps just over 10, 12 at the most. It shouldn’t have been panic inducing, but then, I’d just endured a pointless 30-45 seconds of DVD footage due to impossible cueing (my frog, the buttons on the front of those things are fiddly. Give me a remote anyday.), and knew I needed to make up for that somehow. I don’t know. I basically forgot that nice conclusion which was glaring fiercely up at me from the sheet I held less than a meter from my face.
That, of course, isn’t the thing which annoys me most. If my stupidity doesn’t affect the overall quality of content delivered, then that’d be no problem. Unfortunately, without my use of an appropriate conclusion, the whole thing falls down somewhat. The study of ONE appropriation, no matter how in-depth or well presented that may be, does not constitute “a range of” other contexts.
I looked over the presentation again, and I’ve estimated that were I to run the full length of my prepared content, it would have gone for approximately 25 minutes. Damn, my timing sucks. I say “prepared” content because I should have liked to go longer… perhaps I’m not a public speaker for a reason? ;)
Despite all that, I continue to agree with others who have described this assessment as one of, if not the most enjoyable assessment they’ve ever undertaken.
But it’s over. So that probably means I should stop working on it, and focus on myriad other assessments building up, hey?;)
Oh, it’s not so bad. A moderately huge business thing on Monday, which I’m a tad nervous about, an English listening task on Wednesday, which I could care less about, but not by much, and a Modern History essay which is due Thursday. Then a week? Maybe two? I don’t know… until yearly exams. Bleh!
And a certain Herr Goldrick is trying to convince me to do HSC stuff. I’m uncertain why. Apparently is shall “reassure” year 12. More so than paid staff shall? Bleh. I don’t see why a certain person continues to be employed. It’s funny, seeing he’ll be present for their rehearsals, and yet Goldrick is convinced that I need to be there because I was there for the trials. Yes, well, certain others who shall be witnessing aforementioned rehearsals WEREN’T there for the trials, because they had better things to do with their time.
Grrr.
To go off on a complete tangent, my parents are going to New Zealand tomorrow evening. (YAY!) This’ll probably mean a several-hundred fold increase in productivity, for various reasons (namely that there is no pressure to “appear” to be doing work of any particular kind — time management CAN occur unheeded, thankyou very much). The lovely LCD device is going with them, in the hope of attaining a tax break… I don’t know how all that stuff works, so I won’t speculate further…
That’s the last few days in a nut-shell. Today was a write-off. Absolutely. Apparently Heath is upset about the en mass desertion of his school, but given that they’ve never had an established “Bring your school books and work in case it rains” policy, I don’t think he has any right to be.
I left it too late to escape, and subsequently lost a day which could have been spent tending to assessments. St. Andrews Cathedral School embraces academic achievement and efficient time usage. What a joke. Six hours of absolute nothing. Sure, we did work in physics, the one subject I’m adamant about dropping. Wonderful. Other subjects? Oh, I’m sure I could have worked, had I come prepared with BOOKS.
I’d like to take this opportunity to extend my gratitude to the administration of the school for their astounding short-sightedness in dealing with this situation. Duty-of-Care and truancy is one matter, actively refusing parental permission to release students so that they may possibly make some use of their day is quite another.
Apparently he is angry. Well, so am I. I value my time more than that. I was looking forward to this carnival, but I can cope with it being cancelled — I’d like to be able to get work done in it’s place, though.
“Normal school day” was a fond catch-cry of administration. I certainly hope you don’t consider that normal. This isn’t like broadband, there is no such thing as a “fast churn” process between schools. Not that I’d really consider moving, anyway — I do love SACS, despite all its capricious oddities. This sort of thing does irritate, though. Yes, the situation was unavoidable, but the response left much to be desired.
Hah, the male parental unit is a source of much amusement. In the morning, whilst hopes of escape still dwelled in the echelons of the imagination, I called the parentals in hope of them calling and ensuring some means of ess-cap-ee. He was in a meeting, but sent a TEXT message as a permission to leave. You have no idea how hard I fought not to fall off my chair laughing.
“I give permission 4 josh 2 go home now that the carnival is cancelled”
No joke. I haven’t laughed so hard because of a text message EVER! Mrs. Earle found it just as amusing, hehehe. That element of humour made the day lastable, methinks ;)
Anyway. I’m off to compose an essay. Or something. Hooray for ridiculous SMS messages!
15 Aug 2004
It’s not completely devoid of substance, but it is far less than I had planned for. I’ve been on a nervousness induced high all day, and I think I’m starting to crash. Probably a good thing, if the myths about sleep are to be believed.
So I think I’m going to be ditching a text. Dammit. This is so uncool. AHHHHHHHHH. Pfft. No, I’ll go overtime. Screw them. The Matrix stays, dammit.
LALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR THAT OVERTIME BUZZER
If it’s engaging enough, maybe they’ll forget. But that’s assuming a certain standard of work, of course. Yep, I’m screwed. BLAH!
For those who hadn’t guessed/been listening to my inane rantings, I’ve got an English seminar presentation to give tomorrow. I’m so thankful we have 10 minutes, because that’s way more than what they’d usually give us, and from a logistical point of view, that makes sense… however it doesn’t stop me from wanting more.
Haha. And if they do make me want to stop? The irony will be, my presentation shall end not with a bang, but a whimper ;) You’d have to be there…