The Island of Misfit Bloggers?

Wow, what a wake-up call! That post on Ford was my first to this blog in a year. Which, not surprisingly, makes me wonder how many blogs out here in the Interwebz lie neglected and gathering virtual cobwebs. The "dust" of inactivity, as witnessed by an ancient timestamp from the last time life was breathed into it can no doubt appear to be a hallmark of abandonment.

Perhaps a sign of how busy life gets? Or more likely a sign of how much of it plays out in other venues, most notably the 800-million user juggernaut that is Facebook or the upstart from behemoth Google.

Has the personal blog gone the way of the dodo?

Or will a pulse erupt sporadically as we bloggers remember we have our own customized corner of the aether to spout off however we see fit?

Time marches on...

A Noble Destination

Recent media reports focus on a Ford commercial that features an actual F-150 buyer providing their real answers to a staged "press conference" in a documentary-style spot. In it, the buyer, identified as Chris, states:

"I wasn't going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government. I was going to buy from a manufacturer that's standing on their own: win, lose, or draw."

That statement is seen as some as picking on GM and Chrysler, the two domestic manufacturers who did, in fact, take out enormous federal loans as part of an industry bailout. Both companies entered bankruptcy, anyway, in order to restructure and manage their crippling debt and labor agreements. Members of Congress are now investigating whether or not the White House may have put pressure on Ford to pull the spot. (Reuters covers it here.)

Regardless of whether or not anyone exerted pressure to pull the ad, it reflects a sentiment seen often in the research we've done in my "day job" (read that ironically, because it's been a full-time gig for a couple years now). Both shoppers and buyers have used language similar to Chris' ever since the bailouts took place. It's an active and honest factor in determining brand consideration for some automotive customers. Ford has been, and continues be, seen as what we call a "noble destination" in light of the bailouts. The reasoning behind it is simple: being the one company that weathered the storm on its own suggests that Ford is the manufacturer more likely to continue to be around through future difficult times. The ability to see trouble coming and adjust course to survive it, and even thrive as Ford has in recent years, represents additional emotional security for people making such a large purchase. This is true in any automotive segment, of course, though it is not a stretch to assume that it can be significant a factor when shopping for a full-size pickup truck you need to last for years, backed by a company that you feel will endure.

So, to the larger Industry and to the current administration I am compelled to offer the following: pulling this spot only draws greater attention to what buyers have been saying for the past few years, anyway. It's pointless to pretend that sentiment does not exist or somehow is not a factor in the decision-making process.

The actual Ford spot is below:

Future treasures?

Everyone has stumbled upon an old photograph while organizing or packing. We take a moment out to look at the image in our hands and try to remember when it was taken and what was happening when that instant was fixed in light and chemistry. A momentary nostalgic interlude from whatever task was underway when the memory was excavated and then the image is stowed away to be either properly archived or unexpectedly rediscovered in an unknown and possibly distant future.

How will that work in a world where everything is now bits instead of atoms? Digital cameras connect to computers which route the rasterized images into the cloud. No developing process needed. No paper required. No need to hold onto scraps of treated paper in shoeboxes. No pressure to find storage space for the physical when the cloud holds its essence.

Services will come and go. Even if Flickr survives forever -- or at least until our sun goes nova, at which point this becomes moot -- viewing requires deliberate action. We must seek out the images. We may stumble upon something in someone else's photostream, but only after acting on the intent to view a photograph. Will these digital avatars of our memories outlast physical images? Are we losing an opportunity for future surprise discoveries or gaining advantages that we haven't yet fully realized?

That'll be all, Danny.

I'm not sure why someone bothered asking Danny Glover his opinion about what's going on in Haiti. I am, however, relieved, that it provides an opportunity to point out that Mr. Glover is, in fact, batshit insane.

In a recent interview, Mr. Glover attempts to connect the apocalypse in Haiti with the failure to reach an agreement on climate change in Copenhagen by proposing that Gaia was pissed and therefore smote the Haitians. The implied logic is that because a cohort of jet-setting pseudo-environmentalists couldn't get their act together in Denmark, the Earth itself lashed out with a 7.1 earthquake that leveled the capital city in perhaps the single-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

I'd like to think that this doesn't require much in the way of analysis.

Another article that talks about this, complete with a link to the YouTube video of Mr. Glover's phone appearance on GRITtv is here. It takes a bit to pick up; the actual comments are closer toward the end of the clip.

I've enjoyed Mr. Glover's work in film. He's an engaging presence on the screen. However, I think this is conclusive evidence that we can count him out of anything having to do with politics, science or... well, much of anything besides acting.

"Just Another Day"

I meant to post this on Christmas Day. Not because it contains any particularly important theological insight or spiritual revelation, but because it fits with those sorts of occasions. I failed to post it on Christmas because I very much needed to take a day away from work, and apparently the only way to accomplish that is to completely avoid computers.

(iPhones are fair game, but are tougher for these sorts of entries.)

There are folks who would posit that Christmas and New Year's are just another day. Strictly speaking, they're right. Any Winter Solstice holiday you or others may celebrate are just another revolution of the planet as it spins around our sun. The sun rises and sets on that day just as any other. It's a sentiment that I fully understand, and in fact thought about as "Just Another Day" played over my car speaker as I drove down to visit friends and second-family members (many of whom are co-workers) for the holiday week.

However, that sentiment lasted only for a fleeting moment before it was replaced by the larger truth, as I understand it. This truth is that the days which we collectively deem as special or significant do have meaning, and that is the importance we imbue them with. For most of the free world, any random day is just that. While it may be someone's anniversary or birthday it is, to the rest of us, simply another day. Then there are those days which have gathered a collective standing: so many people impart significance upon a given day or days that they become special across broader populations. Businesses close as people declare a time that is to be set apart for whatever celebration or reflection is agreed upon. Traditions sprout and grow around these days, clinging to the occasion through the passage of time when they are, in turn, passed along to a new generation.

These days matter because we say they do. That's what I wanted to share with all of you: a reminder that the significance and meaning -- indeed the power -- behind our "sacred" days exists solely because it comes from us. There's no external force that declares them special. It's us.

We are our own power.

For that reason, it's not just another day. Chanukah mattters. Christmas matters. New Year's Eve/Day matters. They mean something because we hold them dear and collectively agree that they represent something.

With that in mind, I'll take this opportunity to wish you and yours a happy and prosperous New Year.

Virtual Nostalgia & Hand Grenades

I'm Alex Hare, and I'm a Hunter.

I ride my Stormpike Charger through the worlds of Azeroth, Outland and Northrend with my trusted Raptor sidekick, Dexter. My aim is keen and my tracking senses are legendary. My traps make my enemies wish they'd never crossed my path.

What's your game?

Alright, I've never been featured in a World of Warcraft ad. I'm what Blizzard would generously refer to as a "casual player." I have played since open beta, and was one of those who experienced the server land-rush on launch. However, with the day-job having become all-consuming (translation: I'm not writing much for anything other than work) I often go for a few weeks at a time between log-ins. None of my characters are level 80 (the current maximum), and my "main" -- the Hunter -- is only level 70.

This past week Blizzard started airing new WoW ads with Mr. T, featuring the "Mohawk Grenade" -- a more-or-less inside joke tied to his first WoW spot. I had heard there were actual Night Elf Mohawks in-game outside each of the starting areas, and thought it might be fun to find one. When I logged in, I noticed I had mail from Blizzard. Attached was a present for their fifth anniversary. I had to re-read the message. I knew I'd subscribed for a few years, but didn't realize we'd hit the 5th anniversary already. It inspired a brief bit of reflection on my time in meatspace over the past five years; those things which had changed and those which had not. Moving on, I decided it was time to take my Hunter for a quick spin and score some grenades.

Returning to Ironforge, I was reminded just how much I enjoyed that city. It's a perfect fit and feel for what one might expect of a race of dwarves, with its massive halls, Great Forge and proud background music; which is amusing considering "dwarf" is a completely fictional concept. Riding out of Ironforge my ram galloped down toward Kharanos, a smaller nearby town. Past the Thunderbrew Distillery, my Hunter's first hearthstoned "home." Riding along the road that passed through Kharanos, on through the frozen mountains of Dun Morogh, I found myself getting a bit nostalgic about my Hunter's own history. Onward, past a mortar team I fondly remembered them cracking each other up as they blew up target dummies during my Hunter's earliest foray into the wider world.

As I neared the Coldridge Pass, I felt as though I was genuinely having a homecoming of sorts. I nailed a couple of Rockjaw Raider troggs as I went through, payback for the hassle they'd given a certain red-haired dwarf during his earlier days as a hunter. I emerged from the tunnel and found myself staring at my own birthplace: the starting area of Coldridge Pass where I'd taken my first few steps on launch day. It was like I'd come home, seventy levels and five years later, having seen the furthest reaches and depths of Azeroth and the other world of Outland.

What I appreciated most about this trip down a virtual memory lane was that these memories of myself, as the Hunter, were just as real as those reflections upon the real world when I saw the Fifth Anniversary note. It was amusing and ironic to feel as though I'd lead some kind of double-life. One in Southern California, and one in the World of Warcraft.

Thank you, Blizzard. My quest for hand grenades yielded a pleasant reward of a fond memory of my time as a Hunter.

Now, time to help Mr. T. make Azeroth look gooooood.

Color me stunned.

It's official. I am genuinely flabbergasted: Filmmakers demand Polanski's release.

If I'm reading this correctly they're crying foul over the fact that he was bagged in Switzerland on his way to a film festival to receive a lifetime achievement award, because he has previously been allowed to travel in and out of the country freely. He even owns a house there.

So, let me see if I've understood the logic being applied here: these same filmmakers are fine with Roman Polanski drugging, raping and sodomizing a 13 year old child, and with his having fled justice for the last thirty years. He's admitted it, and justified his pedophile desires at the time. The problem these signatories seem to have is that he finally got popped by a country willing to extradite him on an occasion to which they knew he'd show up? I call that fair play, kids. If you want to nail someone you time your arrest to get them at a time and place when you're pretty damn sure they'll be.

In the case of the filmmakers, it seems like they think film festivals should be sacred. The night you get an award should be sacrosanct. The law can't touch you on your award night at a film festival?

I call shenanigans.

I'm still very interested in working in the Industry, but I did actually decide years ago that if I had a chance to work with Roman Polanski I would pass out of general principle. What does it say about these folks that they're backing him on a formal petition?

---

In other news, France passes tough anti-piracy measure. Ah, the French... soft on pedophiles, tough on illegal downloads.

Speaking of past lives...

Have you noticed that no one who believes they have had a previous life ever believes they were some anonymous random peon? Every one I've heard of imagines they were Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Napoleon or another famous figure. Nobody ever says...

"Hey, I think I may have been a victim of the Black Death back in 1349."

"You know, I honestly believe I may have been one of those innocent bystanders slaughtered when the first Crusaders finally reached Jerusalem."

"Man, you know what really sucked? That day when our village was completely slaughtered by the ancient Israelites."

"I miss the old days tending the ziggurat in Ur. That was the life."


Why is that? If past lives were possible, we couldn't all have been someone famous. Of course, given the overall expansion of the global population over the last hundred years or so it would be statistically impossible for all 6.5 billion people now living to have been someone else in the past; there just aren't enough dead people to go around.

And this is how my mind wanders on a Saturday night when I should be working...

Ah, the Internet: bringer of new guilt

I'm developing "match guilt." It's like TiVO/DVR guilt or Netflix guilt: a mental state created when there's so much of something which requires your attention that you don't have time to properly address it all, which only serves to create a further backlog that requires your attention. It's a self-perpetuating, spiraling form of obligation that has no true impact on your daily life, yet causes occasional bouts of low-grade anxiety or guilt.

Now I'm finding it in online dating sites. I've been on a free one for a few years now, mainly because the tests are amusing, though if I stay away for an extended interval I have no guilt. It's free, and there's nobody expecting me to contact them. On a paid dating site, like the one I joined a couple months ago, things are different. They send you matches night after night. I was rather busy when I signed up, and so left a lot of these women in the queue. Now there are four "pages" worth. I've weeded out the ones with no photos (because you can tell a lot about personality from the face) and the ones that weren't going to work. But that's the catch: the majority of these women are interesting enough that I can't simply eradicate them all. I could, though that would defeat the purpose of the exercise.

Now, there are four pages of women. After joining a paid dating service with the intent of meeting women, I now have a backlog of them. The larger it gets, the more daunting the sorting becomes. It does not help that after reading a few profiles my brain begins to glaze over.

Hence, match guilt.

Which will now have to wait, as I've work to do.