The Day the Internet Stood Still

Once upon a time there was a website.  It was very small and very few people knew about it.  Five or so years pass and 1/14 of the world population is part of that website.  Think about that; 500 million users.  Those are just the users.  It’s likely that the majority of the world knows about the site.

I joined Facebook very early on.  I’d say only a month or two after it came about.  Back then it was just a blip on the radar.  The big site at that time was MySpace of course.  My Facebook account sat, unused for nearly two years before I came back to it.

Once MySpace lost footing, Facebook moved in for the kill.  Then, as if all at once, it exploded.  Thousands became millions.  Millions became hundreds of millions.

Just a quick side note: It’s a phenomenon full of irony.  Tell anyone that they’re being watched or eavesdropped on and they get pretty ticked off.  In fact, so ticked off that they’re going to make that their status on Facebook.

“I can’t believe this crap, the government is tracking my every move?? I’m getting a burger at Shakey Bakey’s anyone else wanna join me? lol xoxo ”

Yeah.  We’re so defensive about our privacy and yet, we toss it around social networks like some old jacket that barely keeps the cold off.  I know very well that what goes on the web basically stays on the web. Forever.  So I decided that I’d post things I was comfortable with people knowing.  Believe me, there is a lot more info out there about us than we’d like to know about.  Privacy was never a concern for me though, like I said.  Just thought I’d mention it.

The problem for me was time.  The time I spent on Facebook was bad enough.  What I was doing was worse usually.  You see status after status of people doing things you’d like to be able to do.  Go on a vacation, go to a concert, have a night out (just the two of you), sleep in, get a great workout in.  You get the idea.  It was time spent benchmarking myself against other people.  It made me feel like I had to be someone else I guess?

A few weeks back I changed my stance a good bit and decided I’d post only nonsense and science links.  That worked out pretty good but it still wasn’t enough.  I had to kill it.  I’m going to compare it to Doctor Who scenarios because Doctor Who is just awesome. It was like closing that crack in the Universe.  Now it’s all just a memory.

Funny how Facebook works.  As I understand it – once you deactivate – all your updates, links, profile, etc just disappear.  They come back if you reactivate of course.  It is kind of neat how you can seemingly erase your existence.

So at 7am this morning I closed the crack.  My wife soon followed.  We’re locked away as a memory to the people we knew and as a memory in the system.  Though for all intents and purposes we never existed.  Cool huh?

Of course, we still exist.  We’re real people with lives, jobs and a family.  That’s really the moral of our story.  We were so drawn in by the lives of others that we could barely live ours.  It was always what we’d heard or read or saw on Facebook.  So, today is the first day in a long while we’re going to start living our lives.

I will miss the regular correspondence I had with some good friends but this is truly for the better.  This is where you will find me.  Right here, writing away every other day, living my life the best I can.

I can be reached at laserfloyd at gmail dot com.  I typed it out that way so bots and spammers can’t so easily get a hold of it.

Geronimo!

Vincent and The Doctor

I’m reading mixed reviews about this episode of Doctor Who.  I’ll say it though; this is my favorite episode of the season so far.  It’s also been a couple of years since I’ve written a Who Review.  This one is worthy.

Vincent and The Doctor

For most of the episode we’re following The Doctor, Amy and Vincent Van Gogh around.  We learn early on that Van Gogh is being tormented by some invisible monster.  Turns out it is an actual creature that only Van Gogh can see.  This renders The Doctor only able to see it when using a random device he found in the TARDIS.  It sort of works like a rear view mirror for seeing monsters?

Now, I understood, right off, the purpose of the beast.  Van Gogh is fighting these ‘things’ that no one else can see.  The metaphor is there.  Some of us battle demons that others can’t see.  The creature seemed out of place at times and I wasn’t sure how it would tie in at the end.  Despite that slight out of place feeling, it did fit well enough to get the point across.  I think some shadowy faceless figure might have been better.  That’s one ONE nitpick.

Matt Smith is really setting in with me as being The Doctor.  Tennant was amazing but Smith isn’t shabby at all.  Hats off to him.  The character of Amy is really growing on me too.  Forget that she’s an attractive red head.  Her character seems to really test The Doctor almost to the point of bossing him around at times.  Tony Curran really smacked the nail on the head in his portrayal of Van Gogh.  I really love the scene where they all hold hands and he actually describes the Starry Night.

Where did this episode really hit it out of the park for me?  The end.  It’s not to say the whole thing was bust except the end.  The end is where it really just snapped together.  You feel yourself in the position of Van Gogh and how he must have been absolutely floored.  I’m not sure why but it struck a nerve with me. I’m not afraid to admit that scene in the art gallery had me fighting back tears.  Really, there isn’t a way to describe it for it to have the same impact.  You’ll just have to see the episode.  The ending will stick with you.

So, from what I read, there are people that thought it was just ‘ok’.  Other reviews I read say it had them bawling.  If the ending doesn’t make you even a bit emotional – you’re some kind of evil robot bent on world domination.  Dalek perhaps?

New look

I honestly didn’t have time to try and think of what to put into that space up top every other day.  It was a great theme to use (comicpress) but I digress.  It also broke any other categories I tried to post in.  DIGRESS!

So here’s the new look.  The header images you see are kinda random things we enjoy and I’ll be replacing them with better images eventually.  When we started this blog nearly 6 months ago we had an idea of what we wanted to do but it didn’t pan out.  Imagine that, our crazy lives allowing things to pan out just as we planned?! MADNESS!

So, yeah, the only thing that is certain for us is that nothing is certain.  That goes for you too.  Yes.  You. 

So we’re shifting our focus a bit.  She’s on a coupon savings pyramid domino effect thingy and she’ll talk about that but it’s rather ridiculous.  You’ll see.

My focus… I am not sure.  I was supposed to be the “health” aspect of this venture and while I’m interested in that, I’m more interested in getting out of debt.  Still, I want to come up with a creative way to hold myself (at least myself) accountable and to break out of some bad habits.

One bad habit is down though at least.  And due to things I cannot control at work we will call it: It which must not be named (becuase if I name it this post will get blocked at work because it’s a … uh, fame but with a “g”.  HA!

Anway, just found some shirts that say “Republicans for Voldemort”  I’m gonna buy one.  I also want one that says “Vote: The Doctor”  

The Fires of Pompeii

Here’s my review of the latest episode of Doctor Who (Sci-Fi 9pm EST)

We begin in the city of Pompeii and the Doctor & Donna soonn realize that it is “volcano day”.  This episode moves and a nice comfy pace but I find Donna hard to understand at times.  She has some major cockney(sp?) going on.  I still like Rose and Martha better but I’ll give Donna more time to grow on me.

The bad guys in this one were pretty cool, actually, very hot.  They were a race of fire/stone creatures called Pyroviles.  They’ve awakened and the Doctor is faced with a painful decision in the end, as is often the case.

Supporting cast in Doctor Who is always good I think.  They bring in a range of rookie and seasoned people to fill parts because they’re almost always limited to one or two episodes.  There are no commitments and it seems like good fun to be part of a good story.

I enjoyed this one a lot as there was plenty of humor and a good mix of dramatic moments.  There were also a couple of neat twists and turns.  We also get to see a darker side of the life of a Time Lord as well.  I find that interesting because it’s not always about popping in and out of time eras.  It sometimes comes down to creating or altering history.

This is my favorite so far of the season and they’ve progressively gotten better.  The first episode had it’s moments but the supporting role (Kylie Minogue) was really blah I think.  David Tennant is great as usual.  The second episode was much better and the most recent, better yet.  I hope for a good “Blink” type episode this season!

The wacky weekend

Had a great weekend actually.  The wacky part comes in the form of our kids being insane and playing golf (wacking a golf ball that is).

Our children are just wide open on the weekends.  They get up at 6am and go full speed until the evening.  Our oldest fell asleep early afternoon actually on Saturday.  That resulted in him getting up at 9pm and staying up till at least 11pm.

My golf game wasn’t nearly as bad as I had anticipated.  In fact all of our games were pretty good considering it’d been some 4 years since we played?  I won a $100 gift certificate for being the first to make a genuine par (no mulligans or re-tees!).  Thanks CB!  Funny enough though, I made par on the next hole too, a very annoying and looong par 5.  I got some much needed Sun and I’m basically sore all over.  Look forward to doing that again.  It’s great fun!

We did our 30 minute walk yesterday as part of our 5k training.  She gets shin splints as a result of the too much too fast we were doing.  So we’re taking it slow.  New shoes will help, hopefully we’ll have those soon.  Today we’ll run at the gym more than likely.  Then again, our youngest is sporting a cold it seems so we’ll see.

Wait, it’s Monday? WTB Friday, PST!

 [edit]

How could I forget the Doctor Who season Finale!?  It was great and tied up everything really nicely.  John Simm plays a great bad guy (The Master) and you really grow to hate him, yet, feel kind of bad for him.  The ending had a nice little twist to it also, especially if anyone watches Torchwood.  I have to add, that show is pretty good too.  I do feel a tad awkward during the makeout scenes that are of the, uh, male nature.  The connection it has to Doctor Who is good though.

The Angels Have The Phone Box

Ok there is something about me that some might not know: I don’t follow television shows.  Lost.  What?  American Idol. Who? 24. When? The Sopranos. Why?  Survivor. Where?   Ok I’m not THAT out of it.  I know about all of these shows but I just can’t get into following shows, until now.

The new Dr. Who is just frickin wowtastic awesome.  First of all it’s Sci-Fi which is cool and on top of that it’s British which is cool too.  The newest Doctor is played by David Tennant and he fits the part so well it’s just hard to imagine any other person doing it.  Now I’d seen Dr. Who in the past and it was decent enough.  The writing for the series now is just damn good.

The episode I reference in the title of this post is called Blink and it was just simply amazing.  It was bizarre and creepy and had a very good ending.  It’s a stand alone episode, meaning, you can watch it independent of the rest of the series and it still makes sense.  I’m sure it will get referenced again in the future.   Statues in an old house aren’t really statues.  They’re ancient beings with a very strange defense mechanism which also allows them to prey on their victims.  They kill in a very peculiar way as well.  The feed on your potential time energy by zapping you back in time any number of years.  By the end of the episode you’re thoroughly terrified of statues especially when the main players come face to face with the statues true forms.  The strobe light scene at the end was wicked.  The last time I saw sci-fi that good was Serenity.

The Doctor routinely references pop culture too.  He’s referenced Harry Potter more than once.  Which is funny because David Tennant was actually in The Goblet of Fire as Barty Crouch Jr.  He’s referenced  This is Spinal Tap by once turning a pipe organ up to “11″. 

It’s fun, cooky, great one-liners, good characters and good stories.  I highly recommend it.