Event the first: during a phone call with my mom, she talks at some length about how well they do that thing with the credits in Mad Men. What thing? "You know, that thing they do, in the credits." No. What thing? "The thing they do, in the credits for Mad Men!" I haven't seen Mad Men, mom. "No, of course you have. You know what I'm talking about, in the credits." No, really, I've never seen the show, mom. Not even once.
Event the second: while in the car with my mom and Blume, she says to us "hey so what's his name will be in town next week." Who's that, mom? "You know, what's his name, who plays that guy on Mad Men. Unfortunately you'll be out of town, so I guess you'll miss it." What guy on Mad Men? "You know, the guy. The main guy." We've never seen Mad Men, mom. "You've never seen Mad Men? That can't be true."
At this point I think I ought to refrain from watching it just to see if she does it again.
Hee. My mom will do that with various actors, mention them all the time, whether I know who they are or not, and every single time, she'll call them "your guy." That is, when my mother finds a male actor attractive, she imagines him as my partner, or someone that I have a crush on, perhaps so she feels less skeezy herself.
"Oh, there's a new show on, with your guy in it!"
"My... guy?"
"You know, the one from [some other show]."
"I haven't seen that show."
"But you know, that guy, your guy, is in it."
"I have no idea what we're talking about."
Your condition (you = Becks) strikes me as a pity. I'm not a big teevee person because I am a snob, but since I guess the Sopranos came along, I feel like "event" shows that are actually good finally give me the chance to get in on that something-in-common-to-talk-about-with-people thing that's always worked for popular but shitty shows. It's fun, and I don't have to watch crap like "Friends."
Mad Men is pretty good and had me from the premiere, which I watched only because my dad was an ad man in the 60's. I'm going to the Times Square thingie tonight, yeeha.
Hmm. For me, movies and books are things that I'm most likely to consume years after they come out; I'm just not much of a moviegoer, and I'm always working through a long backlog of books and rarely reading anything that just came out. TV is the one medium that I tend to see in real time (though I'm usually one season late to the interesting shows, and catch up on DVD). And I've found it a useful way of keeping in touch with friends who are far away; dissecting the latest episode of BSG was always a ready conversation topic and a way of remotely sharing some experience. Mad Men in particular, though, I feel too ambivalent about to care about keeping up in real time. I'm still only a few episodes into season 2. I appreciate it in the abstract as well-crafted television, but the characters are all so off-putting that I find it hard to get attached enough to want to keep watching.
I wonder if I would have liked BSG better if I had watched it in something closer to real time?
5: Well, there's also the nice fuzzy communal feeling of everyone bitching at once when it gets bad.
Once a TV show crosses a line and turns into a "thing" (meaning appointment television endlessly dissected at parties and in print), my enjoyment of it tends to diminish.
If Frank Rich ever bases a 10,000-word Sunday column on The Venture Brothers, I may take hostages.
Rx: stop watching Mad Men until Season 3 is available on DVD. Or at least until you can download and watch the first half all at once.
Do you believe in magic? Doesn't matter. Magic believes in Unfogged. All over the old threads.
Just think how Neb will feel when his playlist choices break into the top 40.
Can't comment, too busy trying to catch up on season 2. Won't make it. Never watched 1. The first two episodes felt very harsh but the show is now seriously grabbing me. This is good stuff.
Last watched "Waters of Babylon" This is what longform TV can do. A immediate episode story;continuing the arcs and character development; and a thematic coherence unique to that episode.
I am still not feeling much warmth toward any of the male characters. Maybe the post-WWII generation was tragic for the males and maybe that is what Matt Weiner feels about his dad. I know it is what I felt about mine, asshole though he was. I have images in my mind of my dad staring into space like Don Draper, closed and lonely.
1) A television season takes a little time to get into gear for obvious reasons and perhaps since it is so easy anymore one should wait and start with something like the first three. Tonight felt preparatory.
2) I have to be candid and admit this household does not do communal. Although there is a widescreen that's never used we each watch tv and movies in separate rooms about ten feet apart. Very often the same show at the same time with doors open. There are various reasons:we don't like to comit or intrude on each others space, if she wanted to watch True Blood or I to watch Breaking Bad there needn't be negotiation. I also tend to comment as I watch and she hates that. I also cry like a baby and hate being inhibited. We also usually multitask on the computers.
3) We were talking and we do think there are advantages to watching a show once a week instead of in a lump. It provides time to adjust, analyze, build suspense tension anticipation. Even if one didn't know how the basketball playoffs turned out, ir would be a totally different experience to watch seven games in one day.
4 )Becks idea of event tv as homework or social obligation is certainly a problem for me. I have yet to watch the Wire in part bcause everyone tells me I have to. No I don't.
5) I do feel something similar with books and movies.
"[A]ppointment television endlessly dissected at parties..."
Do people ever grow out of that? I remember people discussing Twin Peaks, which seemed so silly then. I remember thinking that the only reason people were discussing Twin Peaks is that the media told us it was the "much talked about" New Big Thing, so of course people just had to watch it and talk about it. (You know, kinda like "I won't vote for Nader because he can't win because nobody'll vote for him because we saw on TV that Nader can't win because nobody'll vote for him.") Twin Peaks aired around that time that I started leaving my TV unplugged; besides leaving the Voices a way to worm through, the hype over Twin Peaks showed me TV is a mechanism to generate a fake top-down "consensus." (I should have caught on with The Partridge Family, but no...)
As for piminnowcheez's "something-in-common-to-talk-about-with-people thing," it seems anymore that I've been finding that in "I don't watch TV or read the TV-centered press so I have no idea what those people are talking about." E.g., 'I gather somehow that The Sopranos was a TV series about some Mafia guy, but I never watched it when it was on because I didn't watch TV; I eventually borrowed a DVD of the first couple shows from the library, but I only watched half of the first episode (on the DVD drive in my Linux box) before something important came up in real life, and then the next thing I knew the DVD was due back.'
But then I'm weird.
FWIW, this household has five TV's and and six working and worked computers (two work laptops, two personal laptops, and two full desktops) for two people. She is also into some handheld little game machines that I have so little interest in that I can't name or describe them. I have two physical (with real pieces) electronic chessboards, but I don't play anymore.
But there's only so much conversation one can get out of "I don't even own a TV", Entity. Whereas if you *do* own a TV, the things on TV keep changing from day to day.
I don't even own a mid-20th century advertising agency.
Sheesh, everyone understood the power of hegemony after Twin Peaks!
19: I confess I don't even own a mid-20th century advertising agency.
Get it right!
15: I finally found a chess program I can beat sometimes, if I allow myself to take back a very stupid move or two. I do that instead of things I gather we're supposed to "share."
Around the time I quit TV I also gave up on "making conversation" with real people. Real conversation doesn't have to be made; "nice" chit-chat is what the Internet is for.
Not having been accused of it, not having denied it, I had no need of confessing it.
Also, Twin Peaks started out well, but became awful and stayed awful at least to the end of season 2 (or wherever I gave up on it). I watched it in reruns, though I had a few friends who really liked it when it was running.
It's not even Friday. Cut the kid some slack.
Can I be candid?
I imagine the people I encounter on blogs as those who think they need to go out on Friday or Saturday night, gather with two or more friends, and negotiate over what to see. The consensus usually will end up being a current hit and rarely a Godard or b/w film noir or 80s slasher. I couldn't do that. Maybe that makes me selfish and antisocial.
But hanging with a crowd that had the same interests as mine would also be very boring. I like to visit the prog or horror or Korean movie blogs but I wouldn't want to live there. Too competitive.
22.1:Thats silly. Any modern chess program can be set to a level a ten year can beat, or a level that will beat IM's.
It used to feel phony, but the programmers have gotten very good at simulating patzers.
23: Not having been accused of it, not having denied it
Right, which is the standard setup for unilaterally using "I confess" for n-upmanship.
25: Most of my friendships are more flexible than that. Sometimes we watch Godard; sometimes we watch bromance. There's not a lot of negotiating necessary if you are interested in a lot of different kinds of things, different kinds of evenings.
27: I don't actually know what you're talking about. I do know about the whole friday thing, but since when did I confess become a part of "I don't even have"? I'm not going to read the archives to find out.
I confess I can't find it either. And it was not specifically in reference to "I don't even own", but rather just that people tend to use "I confess" to lead into "confessions" that they are actually proud of. Somewhere out of all that I reached too far and tried to make an (obviously failed) joke on top of your ad agency joke.
I would have to say that my biggest weakness is that I am too sincere to, and have better things to do than, make small talk with idiots. We're too reluctant to say that, in today's world, and it's a shame. Why do we act the way we do, all of us people who aren't me?
Re Twin Peaks, I wondered if Sherilyn Fenn was really all that without the careful makeup, lighting and choreography.
While candidness is happening, I'd rather borrow a DVD from the library and watch it by myself. It's easier than trying to find something good to pay $7 plus "refreshments" to watch in a theater, if I feel like I've missed something I can backtrack, and on my 'p00ter here I can always click pause and look up whatever I think needs investigation (like how old David Lynch was when Twin Peaks came out -- 44). And now that I'm middle aged I've learned to take it for granted that most people won't share my tastes and that I won't have much to make conversation about; again, that's what the Internet is for. (I was so glad back in the '90s to find this medium, and I'd still rather do this than hang out in bars or whatever.)
Anyway, few directors and actors ever were much good. I was suprised, in "The Assassination Of Jesse James [etc.]" that Brad Pit is actually learning how to act, but I wonder if Pechinpah could've gotten as much out of him as he did from Warren Oates in "Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia." OTOH, Gregory Peck might as well have been a mannequin even in "Cape Fear."
But anyway. 26: I imagine most 10 year olds can wipe the board with me then. Another reason I prefer playing the computer is that it can't actually smirk at me the whole time. It's something I do to pass time, it's not even much of a hobby. (You know, like the Internet!) Though I do wish I could get GnuChess to play with a "3d feel"; maybe I should try laying a monitor face-up on the floor?
I rarely watch either movies or tv fiction anymore; the formats are just too slow to deliver and I'm too impatient.
But spare a thought for those poor people trapped on my side of the Atlantic who do like to watch a big show like Mad Men, now having to wade through zillions of blog posts of how awful or awesome the new season is, without being able to watch it themselves, unless they want to resort to measures the music and movie industry tells us makes you almost as evil as Hitler and Bin Laden combined.
Take The Wire for example: it took ages for the BBC to notice that series and then the feckers programmed an entire season in two-three weeks, an episode a day and too late at night to watch directly. So you end up with a harddisk full of episodes and any interest ins tarting the series evaporates...
rather just that people tend to use "I confess" to lead into "confessions" that they are actually proud of
Ah, well that's certainly true. Although I confess I've [predictable joke redacted].
33: I got tired of being beaten up after school back in 4th grade.
But I confess that your biggest weakness sounds better than mine when one reads it on the Internet. I'm way too "shy" or maybe too "sensible" to confess my biggest weakness to all and sundry in the Blogosphere. Then too, once you've gotten past "I have an amazingly small penis!" what else can you say?
Then too, once you've gotten past "I have an amazingly small penis!" what else can you say?
Ask AWB. She's been there.
what else can you say?
"...laydeez".
I confess I want to be comment 33's BFF.
Mad Men is bringing up memories, I was about ten years old in 1960.
All the drinking. There was never any alcohol in my house, not even a sixpack or bottle of wine.
That my dad was a "mean drunk" dooesn't cover it.
He was mean sober: sarcastic, cruel, subtly insulting all the time. But usually smart and funny about it, which is why it was tolerable, even entertaining.
But put two beers in him and he punched somebody. Guaranteed, with four assault convictions in his twenties, and many more non-arrests. So he simply couldn't drink. Rarely violent sober. He mellowed a lttle, but not enough to drink.
Considering the time and place, there was something admirable about him stopping. But also something weird and scarey about that level of rage. As I have said, a near-professional boxer based on aggression.
Anyway I cringe a little when I see drinking or hear talk, and I wonder if I am half-remembering things from the mid-fifties.
While I'm asking off-topic questions (and before I try to get some sleep, finally), has Delumeau's _La Peur en Occident_ been translated into English and if so under what title? The closest I can find so far is _Sin and fear: the emergence of a Western guilt culture, 13th-18th centuries_, which the library catalog says is a translation of _Le péché et la peur_, which seems like a different but related book.
I remember people discussing Twin Peaks, which seemed so silly then. I remember thinking that the only reason people were discussing Twin Peaks is that the media told us it was the "much talked about" New Big Thing
Says the person interested in discussing Twin Peaks in August 2009...
My mom will do that with various actors, mention them all the time, whether I know who they are or not, and every single time, she'll call them "your guy."
Ah, that's like the Irish trick of referring to people as "yer man" - no ownership implied, it's just the equivalent of "this guy" or "this bloke".
Oddly, I was discussing Twin Peaks at a bar on Friday night. Not so oddly, locally, there was once a strip bar called Twin Peaks. I never visited it because, well, I don't go to strip bars like some people don't watch TV, but I was always incapable of passing it without giggling at the name, a name which wasn't just sleazy and dumb, but defiantly, exuberantly sleazy and dumb. The place has since become a really bad 24 hour all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. The end.
Is the Chinese buffet still called "Twin Peaks"?
No, now it's called "Splendid China Buffet" or something like that.
Do they have a secret buffet line fot Chinese people?
Or does it just serve them the same old shit on splendid china?
#50. Maybe they do! Not being Chinese, I'm not down with the ancient secrets.
Re Twin Peaks, I wondered if Sherilyn Fenn was really all that without the careful makeup, lighting and choreography.
I bid you good day, sir. I said good day!
50, 52: The safe code word is "avocado" in Chinese.
I find that watching it as it airs and then rewatching in marathon sessions is really the way to go.
I discussed Twin Peaks yesterday, but more in reference to the geographical location with a mention of the show. Apparently, it is the hot topic of August 2009!
Oh come on, I obviously didn't mean I never discussed "Event TV", only that "Twin Peaks" was the last time I did so -- and the year when I got hip to the hegemony behind the hype. Note too that it had nothing to do with the artistic merit of the show, and that if "that Entity guy's comments" became "an Event" around here I'd feel a little queasy about that too.
By the way, what kind of fasteners do bodices have?
12: I have yet to watch the Wire in part bcause everyone tells me I have to. No I don't.
I confess that this gets in my way as well. I'll read it, or watch it (whatever it is) when I want to, if I want to! Thankyouverymuch.
Perhaps that's a holdover from 12-year-oldhood, but I don't think so. I followed BSG, and have followed Heroes, more or less, whenever it manages to show its face. Some of this is the problem of 'appointment tv': I tend to watch live (weekly), and if the time is inconvenient, or moves around, I'll wind up shrugging it off.
Really, this is situational: for half a year or so, I had a date with friends to watch ER before going out to play pool.
Twin Peaks I never liked, and feel no need to say anything further about that.
By the way, what kind of fasteners do bodices have?
The kind that easily rip, of course.
OT: The discussion on this thread about people feeling more or less disconnected from the culture brought to mind something I was thinking about earlier.
I was thinking about sherry's post envy and noticing that, for myself, reading blogs is more likely to inspire random, generally unfocused feelings of envy than people I know in real life.
I know people that have more exciting lives or careers than I do (and, really, that isn't difficult) but with people I know it's easy for my to understand why I've made the choices that I've made, rather than the choices that they've made, and that I basically like where my life has ended up.
With blogs (or online reading in general) I feel like it's easier to notice one detail about someone's life or personality and think, "why couldn't I be more like that?" Without seeing the detail in context of the rest of the life.
I was thinking that this is the flip side of the flattening affect on blogs that makes it easier for people from a wide range of backgrounds to converse without those differences in background being constantly obvious. There are real advantages to being able to interact with dozens (hundreds) of smart people while being, some of the time, brains in vats. But it also makes it easier to obsess about some particular aspect of someone's online presentation and feel jealous, resentful, annoyed, or so on.
Not that I've been feeling particularly jealous of anyone lately, but I was thinking about that recently, and it made me think that, if I'm conscious of that dynamic it would be easier to deal with the times when online interactions do stir up negative emotions.
I was just curious if anyone else has had that same thought.
I'm not sure why this thread made me think about that, but it felt related.
I was just curious if anyone else has had that same thought.
Of course. I have said I don't fantasize about myself but I do fantasize about everybody else. It helps to enable the compassion, empathy, and magnanimity.
For instance, I have assumed for years that E/zra Kl/ein feels a little inadequate beside MY because of his state school education, slightly lower intelligence, lack of sophisticated charm, money, etc. OTOH, MY's arrogance and lack of caution has permanently closed some career paths. Who can tell how badly this stuff hurts inside.
The only truth I know about people is that Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet in his head.
61: You're just feeling insecure because you still watch TV.
You're just feeling insecure because you still watch TV.
Actually, while I have a TV, I don't have it connected to anything that would allow reception. So I only watch TV shows on DVD.
I think the fact that nearly all online personas are selections and presentations of the best of people leads straight to that jealousy. It took me a couple of years to realize that (I just figured everyone else had shinier lives than I do), and others had to point it out to me. Sherry discusses it explicitly, and my other friend instantly hated Facebook for it. Right off the bat, she couldn't stand seeing only the good pictures of people and hearing about their good times without also hearing about the tedious parts of their lives. It is like seeing the Cosmo or Real Simple versions of people's lives.
Now that I recognize it when I see it, I've mostly stopped being insecure and jealous. From the inside, it is hard not to do the same thing, only put up the good parts. I try to tell people I'm doing that, and I specialize in anti-climatic stories where I was ineffective, but I'm still not going to put up unflattering pictures of me. (I've stopped wanting to describe the fun stuff I do, for fear of perpetuating the same effect and I don't want to write about disappointments either, for fear of looking like a loser, and it has left me with less to say.)
For instance, I have assumed for years that E/zra Kl/ein feels a little inadequate beside MY because of his state school education, slightly lower intelligence, lack of sophisticated charm, money, etc. OTOH, MY's arrogance and lack of caution has permanently closed some career paths. Who can tell how badly this stuff hurts inside.
Fabulous.
61, 65: Yeah, I was just conversing with my best friend on this subject. For him, blogs, Facebook, etc., inspire jealousy and feelings of inadequacy; I feel envy but of the sort that just prompts fantasy. (As in, oh, it would be fun to live in NYC, let me know imagine what my life would be like.)
now, not know. D'oh. I fantasize about being able to type frequently, as well.
I've mostly stopped being insecure and jealous...
...specifically about online persona stuff. I have not shed all insecurity and jealousy.
(I've stopped wanting to describe the fun stuff I do, for fear of perpetuating the same effect and I don't want to write about disappointments either, for fear of looking like a loser, and it has left me with less to say.)
That doesn't sound like a good solution at all.
nearly all online personas are selections and presentations of the best of people
NOT MINE!
71: Righteous funk and boasts about your cock? You have better to offer?
nearly all online personas are selections and presentations of the best of people
Now that I think about it, this is one of the considerations that, frequently, limits my commenting. I don't like to comment unless I feel like I have something to add on a subject, which means, inevitably, that I'm far more likely to talk about subjects on which allow me to sound informed and sensible.
66:Whereas I nothing in my mind about tweety at all, because he never gives any usable information.
Or I don't pay attention.
I am not really committed or invested in these imaginings, but you have to have something, you know. You have to objectify in order to relate. Brains-in-vats without histories will not work.
Okay, there is the possibility that I am projecting my own misery and unhappiness onto others as some kind of ressentiment. There are reasons this isn't as useful.
I don't like to comment unless I feel like I have something to add on a subject, which means, inevitably, that I'm far more likely to talk about subjects on which allow me to sound informed and sensible.
This would be mostly why I haven't posted hardly anything at all for months.
I don't like to comment unless I feel like I have something to add on a subject, which means, inevitably, that I'm far more likely to talk about subjects on which allow me to sound informed and sensible.
I tried to follow that policy for a while, but then I realized I would have to completely stop commenting, and read would probably miss me then.
65: nearly all online personas are selections and presentations of the best of people
You did say "nearly", but I honestly don't think online personas are selected to show the best. They show exactly a persona, which is probably not decided upon ahead of time, but develops into a voice. Intelligent people know how to adopt a certain voice and eventually develop and stick to it. It may or may not bear a close resemblance to the many voices in which a person actually speaks. The persona may not necessarily emphasize the best; the nice-and-sweet may drop out.
I actually exclude Facebook from all of this, as my friends there are all over the board: some are all fun and jollies, some are perpetually morose, some are just tedious.
subjects on which allow me to
Then, of course, I mangle my grammar in a way that makes me sound completely nuts.
Of course this problem is quite common in "meatworld" as well. And in my experience, particularly so with parenting/families. It is distressingly easy to build a composite wonder-family who hits on all cylinders. Similar to the "Christmas letter" problem. It's actually worse than that, because it is really a "composite best parts Christmas letter" problem.
OT:
Falconry is cool, but this article is a little light on crucial details, like how to avoid violating federal laws regarding raptors.
I don't like to comment unless I feel like I have something to add on a subject.
I don't seem to have this constraint.
73:Look, this web thing may not really be about advancing the well reasoned and evidenced communal argument that gets Max Baucus to have a conversion experience. Just a possibility.
If anything, the gatekeeping and credentialing bothers me much more than the trolls or unskilled commenters.
I don't think most people intentionally plan out a final persona, but all you have to do is leave out the worst parts, bad pictures and isolated evenings in front of a computer to look like your life is way more fun than mine is. If the only available pictures are laughing kids, that vacation and that one where you looked good at the only cocktail party you've been to in a year, my insecurity fills in the gap and figures that's what your whole life is like (and mine isn't). Omission on the presenter's part and insecurity on the reader's does most of the work.
Some people do tell more of the story, although there are sometimes hints of "I'm so cute in my bad pics". Some people just aren't suckers for the whole thing, like my friend.
By the way, what kind of fasteners do bodices have?
LACEs.
83: Exactly -- Frowner was just talking about this last week or so, feeling less activist than random blog people. And that sort of thing comes from reading what people wrote about the high points of their year, and interpreting it as a typical Tuesday for them.
Of course, I do that too -- you're all better educated and more political and having more fun than I am, or at least I'm convinced you are.
Also: I sure hope that if I'd tried to put together an online persona, it wouldn't be this lame. Or as earnest.
I'm far more likely to talk about subjects on which allow me to sound informed and sensible.
This is why I talk only of myself.
, but I only watched half of the first episode (on the DVD drive in my Linux box)
Those of us who were anxious to know which DVD drive you used, and which operating system your box runs, are suitably relieved.
Of course, I do that too -- you're all better educated and more political and having more fun than I am, or at least I'm convinced you are.
You're just saying that to try and make us feel better, aren't you, LB?
86: soup, your earnestness is beloved, okay, and makes it safer for me to be earnest as well, so stop apologizing! Everybody stop apologizing!
I heartily agree with 61, except that I also agree with 71 and disagree with 65: I hope that offline I can sometimes present myself more accurately and/or more appeallingly than I do online, though I'm sure I come off as "self-absorbed" in real-life as well. And speaking of my self-absorbtion, I hope that if Jesus was truly talking to me in 72 -- though s/he referenced comment 71, which was not mine, I don't recall anyone else bringing up his/her "cock" -- once somebody construes "I have an amazingly small penis!" as *boasting* I tend to begin to tune out that peculiar vatted brain. (And no, I don't wanna drag your Granny to a Death Star neither.)
That said, re 73, I have no idea how "informed and sensible" I sound even on those subjects I care deeply about and study up on. I might be judging myself too harshly or others' critical voices too much weight, but I often suspect that on damn near any subject I sound like an ass. Not that it really matters to me, obviously.
On preview, 82: what "gatekeeping and credentialing"? I haven't noticed any in the threads I've been jumping into, at least not directed at my "persona," for which I'm glad: so far a few of you seem like you might be at least as scintillating and wise as my braying self. I've even bookmarked a few of your very own blogs to peruse at my leisure, though I can't guarantee I'll comment thereupon (either well or at all).
I must however confess an ulterior motive: maybe someday I'll bother to set up a blog of my own, and if I do I'd like to know somebody somewhere bothers to read it. It won't be anytime soon though, as even despite my comments here it's still much easier to consume than contribute ("the tragedy of the commons" dontcha know).
And in closing, 88: thanks for the chortle. I needed one.
don't want to write about disappointments
Not having anyone to talk to about disappointments is worse; I felt considerably relieved when I opened up to a couple of friends a while back. Also, I wish that I had enough optimism left to be jealous of other people. All the people who have everything enviably together logistically or who have a talent that I envy are somehow myopic or otherwise off-key.
I listened to the most wonderful spoken recording of paradise lost I:1 yesterday-- did Milton really mean to make Satan into a rock star? Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven indeed.
For whatever it's worth, fear may be an alternate motivator to self-regard for omitting unflattering details, even in a mostly anonymous forum; not so much any concrete fear, but an expectation of diffuse hostility, of indifference is being the best that there is to hope for. I understand that this mindset may seem unusual on the west coast.
90: I've actually said "I'm sorry I apologize for everything!" More than once. Without thinking about it first.
Hmm. While I certainly don't post much of the bad to FB (i.e., I wouldn't post as a status update, "[Real Name] is lonely, anxious about his future, and regretting missed opportunities") my pseudonymous personae are given free rein to be all confessional—perhaps to a fault, even. Pseudonymity for me is more of an outlet—a place to experiment with more open expression with relatively low stakes. Hence, the bad stuff comes out.
I can only remember one momemt of intimacy with my dad.
My father worked for 25 years for this medium size service company in our medium sized town. A good job, he ended up making the equivalent of like 50k. I grew up with the colleagues and families. But, and so it goes, the company was merged or bought out around 1980 and everyone was laid off with a buyout.
Well what 1983, he was 50 and I was 30, someone in the room told us that colleague "Joe Blow" was now workin as a janitor at the High School. My dad and I looked at each other and started laughing so hard and long that tears came. Everyone thought we were nuts.
We weren't laughing at Joe Blow but it is hard to explain the joke. It's the best memory of my father.
But I probably don't get Don Draper at all.
Cheers.
83 and 85 articulate what's behind my neurotic relationship to the Mineshaft. In my mind, you people all speak a dozen or so languages and have degrees from every elite school in the world and instantly think of the funniest damn jokes.
For some reason, I don't do this with Facebook or other online interactions.
you people all speak a dozen or so languages and have degrees from every elite school in the world
Not quite every elite school, yet. I need degrees from Columbia and from Princeton, and then I'll be done. I'm going to go enroll in a few more masters programs.
Also, my investments are worth 50 million dollars. Well, okay, only 5 million. Actually just 1 million. I hate telling you guys the bad stuff like that.
In my mind, you people all speak a dozen or so languages and have degrees from every elite school in the world and instantly think of the funniest damn jokes.
The fallacy of division.
See! You're also freakishly familiar with the names of the fallacies!
96: I have this problem as well.
LB: This would be mostly why I haven't posted hardly anything at all for months.
GAH! Stop that! You stop that right now! You, of all people, can totally get away with sounding (to yourself) ignorant... since that makes everyone think you must be really smart.
max
['What's up with the biking, BTW?']
100: Yes, but that's just because he commits them all the time.
Also, my investments are worth 50 million dollars. Well, okay, only 5 million. Actually just 1 million.
Damn, this recession stuff is brutal (and fast).
105: I'm waiting to see what Minne says.
102: Ticking along -- I clocked 100 miles on the bike last week, and so far I'm at 13 for this week. I'd appreciate it if actually being fitter, rather than just tired, would kick in pretty soon.
And my legs look like I've been savaged by a squirrel with a ballpeen hammer from the knees down. Little bruises everywhere from pedals and such.
85
that sort of thing comes from reading what people wrote about the high points of their year, and interpreting it as a typical Tuesday for them.
In defense of being insecure, the high points of my year really do seem comparable to typical Tuesdays for some people.
I mean, that's not true of all areas of my life nor for all time periods, and it's in general not nearly as depressing as it sounds, but some people actually do have pretty good lives, and some of them must be the people who we would suspect. Why them and not you or me?
Well, maybe partly because we're sitting around wondering about it instead of getting out there and doing stuff, along with good genes, good choice of parents, luck, early adopterism, etc. And none of this is to say that you're wrong; what people choose to put out there about themselves can indeed create misleading, one-sided impressions. Maybe I just felt I had to challenge the mutually-reinforcing love-fest.
And speaking of my self-absorbtion, I hope that if Jesus was truly talking to me in 72 -- though s/he referenced comment 71, which was not mine, I don't recall anyone else bringing up his/her "cock"
Yes, this is self-absorption to construe Jesus's comment to be about yourself; apo's long-distance cock is legendary.
IME noticeable feeling of fitness after an inactive winter and 2x weekly rides takes about two months.
IME you can shorted this time considerably (i.e. 2 weeks) via the simple method of causing yourself a lot of pain by overdoing it. Probably not recommended.
erm, but carefully --- pain of too many miles, not of injury.
111: I think I've about maxed out for the number of miles I'm plausibly going to get into a week. If I commute both ways five days, that's 125, but something's usually going to interfere at least one day.
My guess is that sometime soon, you'll start noticing other things about the ride more than you notice being short of breath or wanting to coast. This is the sneaky way your body will get into shape.
I've said this before, but Dude. 100 miles a week impresses me.
I've said this before, but Dude. 100 miles a week impresses me.
I'd say the same thing. You have, quite literally, gone from 0 to 100 in a few weeks.
That would be one week I've done that many miles in, of course. It doesn't qualify as a habit yet.
No, actually I've impressed the hell out of myself (which is why I keep bragging about it), but at the pace I'm going, it's not a huge effort. I'm not going fast enough to make myself out of breath except on the few hills for a minute or two -- I'm not getting tired on the ride, I'm just sort of diffusely tired all day.
I think I've about maxed out for the number of miles I'm plausibly going to get into a week.
That's a decent distance, LB. If I had any point it was that if you doubled that or whatever you might get from feeling tired to feeling fit(ter) a bit more quickly, but I don't know that you can speed it up all that much.
Fundamentally, you've really shifted what you're doing with your body day to day, and it will take a little bit to shake out. I'd guess it won't take too long until you notice it.
107: I'd appreciate it if actually being fitter, rather than just tired, would kick in pretty soon.
I'm with soup & Megan more or less. That said, I suspect you're really notice when you take a break (over the winter?) and suddenly, every day, you have this urge to move large amounts of furniture or run marathons or something, because you've got so much energy!
max
['That's the way it was for me.']
Why am I getting emails about Japanese tentacle porn on MadMen?
Because there was Japanese tentacle porn on Mad Men, maybe?
I don't know why anyone would email you in particular about it. I admit that.
I don't know what similar guidelines would be for biking, but I know that any time I run for more than an hour and a half or so, doing some carb-reloading immediately afterward seems to help stave off the post-workout energy trough. 1-2 g/kg of carbs taken in during the first 15-30 min after a long run (in this interval, your legs muscles remain primed to rapidly take in glucose that is needed for recovery) seems to be the consensus advice. I used to feel dead on Mondays after long run Sundays, but nowadays I feel pretty normal. Hard to say whether that's due to my having adopted this reloading procedure or just due to further increases in fitness, however.
Japanese tentacle porn dates back to the sixties? Oh, what am I saying, it probably dates back to the sixteen hundreds.
Why am I getting emails about Japanese tentacle porn on MadMen?
If only we had a better press corps, you might not need to be the one asking these questions.
124:It was the Hokusai. So boring and classless it really pissed me off.
No one wants to talk about carbs, Otto. Not when we could be talking about protein.
Whatever. Is there a more overrated macronutrient than protein? I sure don't think so.
I suppose certain information was sent by the fact that Cooper chose this single most common piece of erotic ukiyo-e or shunga, but it makes Cooper much less interesting to me. And a little unbelievable.
121: Why am I getting emails about Japanese tentacle porn on MadMen?
That, sir, is fine fine question. I am not getting such emails anywhere, I don't think...I am not. Last 30 days of spam is all the usual viagra-type stuff, plus the odds and ends.
You changed your blog header though, didn't you? That might have something to do with it.
max
['I dunno how you run with all those naked addresses.']
65: she couldn't stand seeing only the good pictures of people and hearing about their good times without also hearing about the tedious parts of their lives.
... I don't think she is using the same Facebook that I am using.
Another episode had the beatniks listening to Miles Davis while stoned. Not interesting or accurate for 1960. Try Mingus.
Paraphrase of items on my current news feed:
1. Here's my new post on my food blog
2. Something about being stupid
3. I'm looking for a roommate
4. Here's an article about a pig butchering class I went to
5. Link to this poem.
6. Link to politifact re health care bill
7. My blog traffic is going through the roof.
8. Huh. The pizzeria next to my old apartment was featured in a Travelers Insurance commercial. (This one's mine)
9. I'm getting married in 53 days
10. No really, check out my food blog
11. Picasso quote
12. Ambiguous message about "still having it"
13. Monday sucks.
14. Here's what my baby looks like
15. I have to teach this week and I could be more prepared
16. Link to cnn story about how health insurance cos are driving the debate
17. Check out my fucking food blog already!
18. I don't want to go to work.
19. My sciatica is acting up.
20. If Christ came back to Earth and contradicted the Bible, would he be persecuted for heresy?
21. I left my baby at day care for the first time today. This made me sad.
22. Something's fucked with my husband's bank account.
23. Getting up early sucks.
24. The cat turned on the lights at 5 a.m.
25. It's rainy in Chicago today.
26. I'm going to Seoul.
27. Here's an album of pictures of the legs of some glammed-up model-looking women who were at this glamorous-looking party I attended. (This guy's "artsy", so he gets away with stuff like that.)
Yes it is. I didn't want to out your confession of incomplete preparation, though.
Oh, it's ok. I don't mind. I'm honestly boring on Facebook. And here.
Also, I'm amused at the fact that our feeds are fairly similar, despite not having overlap between friends.
109: "My bad," I apologize to Jesus. Who, dammit, was NOT talking to me. At least not here. So far.
Yeah, I'd rather listen to Mingus than Miles, who was too "self-absorbed" to let it all hang out. Bobby Timmon's "Moanin'" is better to listen to while chugging Kentucky Gentleman though.
Can old jazz be an "Event?" Am I hip yet?
137: Nonsense. Your tales of your cats latest exploits are, dare I say, Event Reading!
I'm just doing my part to make sure everyone feels better about their lives.
134 makes me think I need better Facebook friends. (I have a lot of interesting friends who are on Facebook, but they tend not to be interesting on Facebook, if you see what I mean. Even my best efforts to suppress crazy right-wing babble or detailed accounts of churchy churchiness from high school friends acquaintances hasn't made my FB feed very much worth reading.)
If Christ came back to Earth and contradicted the Bible, would he be persecuted for heresy?
Is this a trick question?
In real life I engage in lengthy, earnest disquisitions on the nature of my online persona. Well, that and making costumes for the weekly hentai LARPing I do.
134 makes me think I need better Facebook friends.
Really? That's what 134 makes you think? Not to dismiss Otto's FB friends or anything, but for how many days in a row can you sustain an interest in that? (It's pretty much what mine reads like as well, at least on any daily basis; I have many more FB friends who avoid the day-to-day reportage, thank god, which just means that Facebook isn't really a place to check into more than once a week.)
149: I had a similar reaction. But maybe essear is really into sciatica.
The extent to which Otto does or does not relevantly resemble Zork remains to be determined.
Eh, Facebook is my procrastination place, along with here. If people don't want to read my litany of boring updates,* they can hide me.
*This makes me sound appealing. Anyone want to be my Facebook friend now?
I do, but I don't want to allow your coïnstitutionals to discover who you are, not that the only one who's my fb friend would really make the effort.
I think my cover's been blown, neb.
Wow, and s/he never let on? Talk about punchable.
LB, re: cycling above. (114,115, etc.)
I think it takes a while to get into cycling regularly enough to be able to really maintain a pace that makes for big CV fitness improvements. I've been cycling a lot more regularly recently after not doing much for a year or two [knee injury]. The first couple of weeks I just wasn't maintaining the sort of speed that really got me out of breath. My base CV fitness level could easily cope and if I got tired at all it was muscular, not out of breath. But recently I've started being able to keep up consistent speeds that do leave me out of breath and where muscle fatigue/lactic acid etc aren't the main factor.
You're cycling more than me, though. I'm doing 25 - 30 miles a week, not 100. But I do do those 3 miles each way pretty quick, now.*
* pathetically slow by 'roadie' standards, of course.
It's pretty fun trolling facebook to suss out who the unfogged people are. Fun and stalker-y!
158: Yup. It sure took me awhile to track down your real name.
159: Same for you, Jeff Sifutweety.
It's pretty fun trolling facebook to suss out who the unfogged people are.
Isn't this rendered unnecessary by the Unfogged Facebook group?
159: can't be that complicated.
161: I dunno. Never looked at it.
neb: The extent to which Otto does or does not relevantly resemble Zork remains to be determined.
EXAMINE OTTO
max
['Goddammit, I hate it when games start out like this.']
There's an Unfogged Facebook group?
There was, back in the days of Facebook groups.
There's a link to it on Standpipe's other blog.
164: Seriously. There is? No there isn't! Fuck! You are playing on my gullibility now! NOT FAIR.
149, 150: It's not that 134 is so very not boring, but my Facebook feed at the moment is comparably full of stupid quizzes accompanied by big garish graphics and of lots of people complaining about stuff. "Look at my food blog" or "I'm going to Seoul" would be comparatively nice.
158: Harder to do with only one Unfogger friend, but still surprisingly possible.
174: Excellent! It's almost like having better friends.
I have this fear that if I started Facebook-friending Unfogged people, people I know IRL would figure out where I know you all from and come here and read things and then that would be awful!!! (For no good reason I can think of, but nonetheless, this is my fear.)
If only my real-life friends could be cleaned up with a simple greasemonkey script.
Oh, but I can Facebook-spy on people already. Neb just friended Parenthetical, I see.
I think it's pretty obvious to unfogged people who other unfogged people are - if not what their names are - if they have a bunch of unfogged friends. I do think I should have not used a real photograph, though.
180: I think it's pretty obvious to unfogged people who other unfogged people are
The mark of...
max
['Drain? Vain? Stain?']
I would think that if you're friends with neb, by googling they could come up with Unfogged pretty quickly. Otherwise....not so sure how everything would come together.
I know a lot of blog-savvy people, people who read BitchPhD and Crooked Timber and other things that are sort of in the neighborhood, with the appropriate metric. I would guess a lot of them have wandered over here from time to time, but not stuck around.
Oh, sure. I suppose that those people I know IRL who would just find Unfogged on their own I wouldn't much mind knowing who I am. A few do already.
Well, I'd never join a club that'd have me, nohow.
I figure about 10% of my friends might be interested in the information contained in any particular FB status update, overlapping incompletely, and amounting to no more than 50% of the total. I find myself interested in about two thirds. it's ridiculous, of course, to take the approach in 134 -- the more useful metric is each individual's last 5 updates.
How would they know where to go?
Good question, and I'm not sure. I don't know how discreet unfogged people are on Facebook. I speak differently here than elsewhere, and this identity is private. I don't feel the need to avoid those of you on FB, but I also don't really want to mix and match unless I feel clear on discretion in the Facebook world.
I am helping keep facebook pages clean for all my friends by posting only one status update.
I don't know how discreet unfogged people are on Facebook.
My profile picture is white text on black background that says, "Go to unfogged.com"
192: See, and if what you do is talk about your cats* and how it's hard to find a job, I can catch up on all that here.
* My biannial Facebook outburst was about my cat.
We spend so much time talking about cats; do cats ever talk about us?
195: I hope to god not. Sometimes you just need a separate space, know what I mean? You flick your finger, or paw, as need be, and carry on with what's at hand, which does not always have to do with those guys. If you see what I mean.
I seem to be a fan of compartmentalization.
We spend so much time talking about cats; do cats ever talk about us?
Ask Natsume Soseki.
I have this fear that if I started Facebook-friending Unfogged people, people I know IRL would figure out where I know you all from and come here and read things and then that would be awful!!! (For no good reason I can think of, but nonetheless, this is my fear.)
Totally. IRL people might read scandalous things here! But even worse, Unfogged people might come to see on FB that I'm really not half as cool as I've led you all to believe.
Di's every third status update is about her latest sexual conquest.
(Which, incidentally, is precisely the sort of comment that would scandalized a good third or more of my FB friend set...)
I'm really not half as cool as I've led you all to believe.
You're actually 253% cooler by weight!
is precisely the sort of comment that would scandalized a good third or more of my FB friend set...
So, this facebook thing. You don't actually have friends on it so much as a list of people you know and don't like?
max
['{sniff sniff} I smell a mindshare collapse coming.']
No, if you start Facebookking your Unfogged friends, you eventually wind up in the ridiculous situation that most of your friend updates are from people from whom it's not a novelty to get online updates.
You'll be all, "I know that. I read your blog."
You don't actually have friends on it so much as a list of people you know and don't like?
In my own case, it's a list of people I know but don't talk to regularly. Talk to from time to time, in spurts, as it were, when things come up in specific contexts, but otherwise it's a contact list.
So, this facebook thing. You don't actually have friends on it so much as a list of people you know and don't like?
Nah. I don't think I have anyone on FB I don't like. I do have a fair number of friends whom I love quite dearly but who are (if it's possible) a bit more buttoned down/uptight than I am.
I'm having to fight to keep 'unfogged' patterns from affecting my facebooking. An old friend I haven't seen in years wrote that she was going to a job interview tomorrow. So I said 'Good Luck'. Someone else wrote 'Good Luck!' immediately below. I was all set to write 'plagiarism!' or 'I guess if I really cared, I'd have used an exclamation point,' before it occurred to me just how inappropriate that is as a response to somebody's aunt's good wishes.
Also I really love the Priceline Gal who lives in the heaven-esque Priceline Store and is overly enthusiastic, but I bet in general people love her or hate her. Like Kennedy the VJ.
208 to the general naming of people we find charming that was going on upthread.
I bet you like that pink-haired cartoon woman who saves the planet by selling you car insurance online, too.
208: You mean the Progressive ads?
Actually, she's a good example for the Quizno thread - I think she's honest-to-goodness goofy looking, but she's made up and directed to be goofy-charming in a way that you don't notice her actually-odd features.
In fact, from TV I'd have said she's actually pretty, but made up to look "quirky." But from the online still adds, I can see that, no, she's actually quirky-looking, with kind of odd bone structure (she may also be older than she plays - hard to tell).
My FB Updates are always like, "totally pwned Sifu" or "wonders WMBBSALB?"
211: Oh yeah, yes. Progressive. The way car buying should be.
210: No, too flat.
You mean the Progressive ads?
I think CN is talking about esurance.
I only have friends on Facebook and then only because they ask; in real life I'm too hermitty to bother even with acquaintances unless I can't avoid it. I'm not counting close relatives and/or the (thankfully very few) people who've got something major on me, but even then I often find I'd really rather sleep (when I can) -- or natter at strangers on the Internet.
Real friends, close friends, have historically done things like abandon me when I really need them, OD on heroin till they eventually die, fall in love with me and then attempt suicide and then come out as Lesbian, get "saved" or start 12-stepping and have to swear me off, etc. etc. etc.
Forgive me if I ain't got the slightest interest in stalking any of you, nor in showing any of you my amazingly small penis.
The esurance woman looks like Becks. Or maybe someone in one of the commercials does. It was uncanny when I saw it, and then I couldn't find the commercial with the right woman.
Hmm. Maybe it was this one, which now, I can see, but wouldn't call "uncanny" per se. I musta had Becks on the brain. Animated, accident-prone Becks.
For other reasons, that search made me want to turn Google Moderate Safe Search back on.
But from the online still adds, I can see that, no, she's actually quirky-looking, with kind of odd bone structure (she may also be older than she plays - hard to tell).
Uh, okay.
Honestly, folks, I really don't get the resentment thing. It's an assembly line, and we each have our own little part to bolt on. So what if someone's always adding air conditioners, and never transmissions.
Uh, okay.
Oh, c'mon - it's a headshot. Rossi de Palma probably looks hot in her headshot.
(Which, incidentally, is precisely the sort of comment that would scandalized a good third or more of my FB friend set...)
All of your environmentalist friends who think that you should be using electric devices?
Heh. UNG is/was very green. Just the other day, I confessed to a friend that sometimes, when I get lazy and throw a recyclable away, I enjoy a sick little moment of spite knowing this would bother him. (Another of those things I will say freely here, but would never admit on FB.)
I confess to sometimes going to the grocery store and forgetting to bring my environmentally friendly bags.
I burn with shame as I stand in line.
223: My wife is very big on recycyling things also. Sometimes she puts something recyclable that needs scrubbing before it can go into the recycling bin. Like I'm the clean-out-the-plastic-tub guy. I just put it in the trash.
The other shameful thing about recycling is that your neighbors get to see how many wine bottles are in the recycling tub.
Especially when all of the wine bottles are Boone's.
Did I miss it upthread, or is it just a coincidence that the woman from the Progressive ads has been in 5 episodes of Mad Men? (picture)
On the flip side, when I drag two overflowing recyling bins to the curb and only one small trash bag, I feel delightfully superior to my neighbors.
I feel delightfully superior to my neighbors because we can still get our car in the garage and most of the others with children have turned the garage into the big closet.
The other shameful thing about recycling is that your neighbors get to see how many wine bottles are in the recycling tub.
What is this shame of which you speak?
We don't have glass recycling pick up, so I stack them in milk crates until there's enough for a run to the recycling depot. That way the depot workers get to judge you for pulling in with a load consisting of five flattened cardboard boxes, three plastic containers, a half dozen assorted jars, fifteen liquor bottles and seventy five wine bottles....
Did I miss it upthread, or is it just a coincidence that the woman from the Progressive ads has been in 5 episodes of Mad Men? (picture)
I think at least two of those photos if not all three are of Christina Hendricks and not of Stephanie Courtney.
211: In fact, from TV I'd have said she's actually pretty, but made up to look "quirky." But from the online still adds, I can see that, no, she's actually quirky-looking, with kind of odd bone structure (she may also be older than she plays - hard to tell).
She [the Progressive lady] is cute, in a huggy cat kind of way. The pink-haired cartoon chick in the insurance ads is awesome.
max
['Also, inhuman, ridiculous, etc.']
232: Ah. Well. That kinda takes all the gee-whiz out of the coincidence, I suppose.
No wait, it doesn't! She still was in Mad Men. Maybe I should only talk about shows I've seen.
