Christmas, 2006

Editor Notes: This post was originally written on Facebook, in and around the Christmas Season in 2006. Enjoy.

I am pretty much going to tone down both my demeanor and thoughts on this one, as I am too invested into listening to music right now. I am well aware of the calendar month right now, or I should say aptly the “Holiday Season”, but I always seem to play Radiohead more instead of listening to festive carols and that like. I’m taken aback by one track in particular( as this shouldn’t come as a surprise to those close to me), titled Pyramid Song. I try not to dissect its meaning, not even when coupled with the visually soft and palate invigorating music video from a few years ago. I am personal with my  interpretations of Radiohead’s ballads and lyrics; in the same breath as a congregation is to the Sermon’s word or passages, and share them with almost disinteresting flare.

I’ve always said( or did I borrow this from someone else?) that we as human beings; as living creatures more so, possess with us, omnisciently, a soundtrack. I know this accord to be true, and as such, I know that the many vignettes in my life, the many serious and immersing conversation have been accompanied by Radiohead’s harmonic period glimpse. I won’t say that they inhabit my every waking moment, but “being a reasonable man” I will say that when I listen to one or two cds, I can immediately insert a track or ten behind a situation in my life.

At the moment I am listening to the aforementioned Pyramid Song, and the words, as well as the staggered piano melody, resonate Christmas memories from years long past. Regrettably, I insult myself as I write this, to pretend that this music can only can exist in a vacuum of holiday lights and sale pursuing zombies is sacrilegious. I remember many things when I listen to Radiohead, recalling people, fears, times  and landscapes. The words invoke an ancient semblance tied to me and this gift of life—and it does not diminish over the years nor waver in acknowledgment. Music should do that I think. I don’t think we should make music as remedial or repetitive as a television commercial and dumb down its message into something current(i.e recent break-up; current relationship,etc). I feel music should stir the soul thoroughly, whipping from its wooden spoon memories of dreams, other lives, future lives, and the question of eternal sleep( or transition).

I’ve heard from family members and friends, the coined atheists, that my brand of music is depressing and too melancholy for someone of my “ilk”. But I disagree, I’m such a sullen boy; such an excitable child; such a dark angel, and music of this magnitude plays right to my heart’s tidings. If not to help me remember those thoughts that are dear, and dress my writing skills, than to remind me that life is a period thing; a momentary wish, that remains the same, even as time changes, but flourishes when we dare to let it—outside the vacuum .

2012
01/12
CATEGORY
Personal
TAGS


Write comment

Keyboarding, from across the room

Its been a great while since I’ve signed onto WordPress, so much so that I can’t recall the last time I uploaded a queued blog, let alone composed an original. I’m not going to say, almost pre-programmed, that “with a New Year comes a New slew of thoughts from the Monochrome.”

No.

That’s not a part of my makeup at all. I will say however, that the prime impetus behind this post is to admit that I’m writing it from across the computer room on my wireless keyboard.

Yes, I’m certain many of you have wireless keyboards or have used such paraphernalia in the past, but this being my own experience(and blog) I’m happy to relate…it’s different.

As for me, as for my career, life, and recent events, this will all have to take place in another post.

Forthcoming of course.

2012
01/07
CATEGORY
Personal
TAGS




Write comment

A difference two weeks make. Google+

I’ve been using Google+ for a week and a weekend now, and If you’ve read other blogs, checked infographs, or followed the words of professionals around you, you’re either optimistic or pessimistic about Google’s latest endeavor. I just want to share my first rate experiences. Many have misgivings about Google+’s(or G+ to the well-informed) life expectancy, given Google’s often ADHD track record of creating a new social medium or technology, just to push it under the bed or allow it to die off, but I’m optimistic about G+, and not for the reasons others are. I’m writing this entry purely as a user.

I use social media a lot, especially now that I have free time to do so.  What many users seem to value when participating in a social community, above all else, is the ability to engage in real-time. The prospects of crowdsourcing with similar minds on a particular initiative or farming ideas with caring brandagents and technologist is invaluable. What I dismiss often about lets say Twitter is the fact that despite it’s high level of engagement, and it’s omniscience, at end of the day it’s a numbers game. All social networks are designed to stoke the ego, and riddle us down to those elementary school identifiers:popular vs unpopular. Facebook does this, but it’s usually a personable circle you’re working it. There’s usually some history or relative experience that prompts someone to befriend or unfriend you(this however does not apply to Brands, Organizations, and Corporations. Theirs is based solely on identification or cause). And yet, my experience with Google+ has been different. I’ve experience an incessant amount of conversation, source sharing, critiquing, and overall fun in my first week and one weekend.

I don’t have anything against the two major social communities, Facebook or Twitter, but I stated in a Google+ post that these two realms cater to those who are looking for defined engagement. Facebook brings you closer to those that matter, and keeps you in formed with their lives(Facebook even acts as a messaging system–as people are more likely to check their Facebook status/Messages over an email or text message). Twitter keeps you informed on those real-time events(news), and is a micro-source for content, celebrity commentary, and event updates. Twitter is a launchpad for individual professionals, businesses, and artists looking to monetize their brand into sales.

I applaud them.

But for me, a user first, I like news, and chatter. When I’m embedded in a social community I want to be reminded of a new social tool coming out new Month or read a smart phone review. I don’t want 4 different Twitter accounts informing(selling) me on the same news I can get elsewhere. I don’t want to have to scroll through 2 pages worth of links before I come across a human imprint. Everyone is a news broadcaster on Twitter. Everyone is looking for that one piece of content that will push their numbers through the roof.  I want to be “Wow, I didn’t know that..I have to share this”, and not “I read this 5 times already this morning, WTF?” Maybe if I were following less people I could work-around this problem? Maybe if I employed my Lists more timely? Maybe if I weren’t so connected to the internet? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Twitter this for me: information.

Google+ does this for me: Chris Brogan, Chris Pirillo, Alex Scoble, Jesse Stay, Robert Scoble, to just name a few. These are some of the people in my “The Source” circle. These are the people keeping me informed on Google, keeping me engaged with questions,news, trivia, and smart conversation. These are some of the people RESPONDING. Nothing is more rewarding to a user than having someone acknowledge you, and not minimize your existence based on a fan, follow, or metric score. Outside this cirlce, I have my “Social Community” circle which is chalk full responders like Kol Tregaskes, Steven Perez, Rahsheen Porter, and Flavio P who are quick to share or update via infographs, media, or commentary.

Stuff that I care about.

Social Communities need to be like Google+(and Facebook) when it comes to users. We love the technology, we love that they’re always expanding, and we like it most when the time rises for us to speak, other users in the community respond. These users are not motivated by towering follower-counts or the prospects of selling you something(not on an introduction, anyway), but motivated solely on saying “Hi” or “Hey, I think I can help you..”

In my experience, Twitter works for exploring avenues of business or finding those groups or people looking for source information. Twitter works as an ocean when one is looking for information to push across to the archipelago of readers, doers, and decision makers waiting in the distance. But on a user side it’s often noise I have to weed through. Twitter is an enormous atomic bomb of information with a hook.

Google+ Is Sparklers.

And who doesn’t love sparklers?

2011
07/12
CATEGORY
Observation
TAGS




Write comment

Appreciation

There exists an environment where, between the span of a parsec and an hour, I read a multitude of updated or “Tweeted” opinions. Now, many of these opinions are relevant, however innocuous, but more and more(and this I attribute to a culture in sensed with watering the pastures of dialogue) these multilingual, cryptic coded, brand-friendly updates have turned from proses of information to clamoring chest-beating arrogance.

The proverb(or phrasing) of “don’t shoot messenger” applies.

I don’t approach personal opinion with an inveigh, but in fact cheer  on it’s emergence. It is these personal opinions, whether in a forum, posted as a comment, or through the commentary of a blog, that enamor my mind and speech with wunderkind thoughts of…interest.

2011
06/25
CATEGORY
Observation
TAGS




Write comment

Climate of Adulthood–Today

Why don’t you go wake up little Johnny and Sally from their nap for this entry. I’ll wait. No, please. I’ll wait. I think it’s important that they hear this one.

Everyone settled? I think Sally wants a glass of YooHoo to go with her cookies. Let me get it.

….

Ok, here you go Sally.

Now, where do I begin?

Oh, I got it !

Everyone settled in? Ok.

Mommy and Daddy aren’t that special. They are doing what all other parents are doing. In fact they’re typical, if not fashionable liars. The sooner you accept this the better you’ll be.

There I said it.

Mommy, Poppa, you can tuck them to bed now.

2011
06/25
CATEGORY
Observation
Write comment

Technology Abolitionist

Technology = Advancement

Technology = Environmental Impact

Technology = Dependency

Technology = Beguiles

Technology = Sacrifices

Technology = Innovation

Technology = Elitist

Technology = Policy driven

Technology = Wonders

2011
06/25
CATEGORY
Observation
TAGS


Write comment

Red Dead Redemption

Anyone who has played a game console; anyone who has watched a Youtube walkthrough or paged through any gaming magazine in the latter part of 2010, is familiar with Red Dead Redemption. Rockstar San Diego took it’s prized model in Red Dead Revolver and pumped her with a multiplayer platform, storyline, and character depth that in some ways exceeds some of today’s more branded gaming titles or feature films.

But it’s the multiplay function I enjoy the most.

Maybe it’s because the engagement on the multiplay level is always a layer cake of personalities(some adored, some friendly, some loathsome), each scooped up from all over the globe, that makes the experience just that: an experience.

Whenever my friend and I are online we engage, we contribute, we offer advice or swap stories(albeit while racing through Tall Trees from indestructible cougars or from across the roof tops of Armadillo).

However static or inconsistent(thank you PSN), when the situation calls for it I’m libel to learn more than I teach. Which brings me to the staple of this blog: learning.

I’m not revealing any house secrets by saying many users in RDR know a few area or weapon glitches that exploit the multiplayer experience(Update: As of June 23nd, 2011 Sony’s recent patch has since closed up many of the location glitches I am alluding to). Irregardless, Sosa469 and I can retell stories of various gameplay hacks that have enhanced one’s individual gameplay(at the cost of the community enjoyment).

We never asked outright for these tips. We never galloped around seeking cues to the mysteries of online realm. We just gamed. But the swaying weight in RDR, as is in most multiplayer gaming formats, is that conversation is king. One can rule the many by possessing that thing thousands of others do not: shared insight. Insight on a  specific avenue or course an unseeing player might readily miss in his everyday tromp through the Mexican plains. Think of insight as the dark speech scribed on the outside of the Ring of Sauron:

“..One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them..”

The thing about insight or proffering sound experience is that often times it’s relative to another’s own person mission or aim. One can regard the brief utterances of others as just that utterances or he can commission himself to lend a closer ear to what is being passed across the brow of his horse and through his sound system. Insight can be supportive, lending a hand in a mission, or beguiling, often ensnaring(or locking up) one’s console for the moment. It all depends on the speaker. The speaker’s intent.

For the past few days outside RDR I’ve been given insight by some of the most sound minds, most experience people I know. And like in RDR, I have given them a full audience. You see when seeking the source of a sound, one must only listen. I was listening, just in the wrong direction.

Insight can turn you around. Insight can straighten your stride. Insight can force you to destroy that house of cards for a more superior architectural hiding in the recesses of the imagination.

Red Dead Redemption isn’t just a story about one man’s redemption, but a story about one man’s trials. In multiplayer mode your trials are in the form of awards and Gang hideout missions one must accomplish to rank up. In multiplayer mode your trials appear in the form of other gamers in Free-Roam. Gamers who are apt to shoot you or your horse, ask you to join their roaring posse or leave you be. Red Dead is unpredictable, and yet negotiable. It’s this chaos–this sweet chaos–that serves it best.

In the offline world we can’t see the cues all the time. Often we are turned sideways, mixed up by the peccadilloes of life or office. Often times the cap of the yeoman is pressed so tightly on our heads it blinds our judgement; it warps us from managing exceeding expectations.

Expectations are everywhere. In RDR they rue the day.

I received much insight today, from those closest. I can either continue to gallop around lands familiar on multiplayer, taking false insight from those I presumed to have my interests at heart or I can take the insight of others and return to the campaign. A campaign that is forever changing, always betwixt, and just that much sweeter than what I found out West to begin with.

The sun sets in the west for a reason.

2011
06/24
CATEGORY
Personal
TAGS





Write comment

Weekend at Bernies

With me having failed to adhere to my self-imposed vow to abstain from the consumption of food during Lent, and all likelihood that I will ever be able to live up to such a testament of self-control(child, soy crumbles are just TOO damn yummy), I’ve decided to pursue a different Lent-esque chore.

Social-technology free weekend.

I’m going to remove myself from the “Running Man” future of updating, posting, sharing, blogging, re-sharing, RT’ing, #FF, commenting, etc. until Monday morning.

This decision is partly to prove that I can, for a minimal amount of time, follow through on set goal. But the all telling truth is that most of friends don’t “do” technology as well as others. My buddies would soon as toss my phone into the toilet(again) than send a Tweet. In fact. they’re idea of a good time is anything NOT related to being online or signed-in.

I want to have an extra good time in NYC(my NYC and not the one you see in the movies), and being tethered to my smartphone or computer is not the way one should enjoy the spoils of living.

*My friends won’t allow me to be tethered*

I will however take as many pictures as my phone can hold–before the inebriation sets in–and upload them to all the necessary social hubs at a later date.

All things considered, I’m looking forward to just buggin’ out, laughing, and not sleeping for 48-72hrs.

They never let me sleep.

2011
03/17
CATEGORY
Personal
TAGS




Write comment

Sweeping agitation

Nothing infuriates me more than an arrogant woman.

A woman whose mindfully self-ingratiating and woefully inept of detaching herself from her own gains.

Those of us around her–the many–are tools, wielded by her guile to only propel her further along the “yellow brick” road.

Arrogance sours me. It’s both emetic and odorous; it’s after-taste biting, and God awful.

Arrogance lacks a presage, but instead is more of a mood–a temperament. It can be shown in both men and women; in art and landscape, in prose and performance.

Arrogance is dramatic.

A woman’s arrogance is worse of all, for it is wrapped in logic.

2010
12/26
CATEGORY
Observation
Write comment

New Law

I think it should be written somewhere, perhaps a life law inside in all corporate charters, that corporations who generate in excess of 1bil annually should have to donate 5 % of their yearly revenue toward real causes or nonprofit initiatives that benefit the the people(and not just said corporation’s bottomline).

I know, I know. It sounds brutal and all, but their Investors will survive.

Coca Cola does like a Billion+ dollars annually(I’m guessing here). They could easily “under order of the People of the United States” donate 50mil dollars a year to the very public that consumes their products. Right?

Or how about this: Corporations only have to do this act of kindness once every 3 years?

I’m trying to make it “comfortable” for them to give. I mean, I don’t want to spit in the eye of [name of corporate withheld]‘s donation of 1mil annually for higher education. Oh no. We need that 1mil dollars. We really really need it.

*condescending smirk*

If I were President I’d ask more of corporations and businesses -more than the 10mil in highly “p.r. related” donations some of them currently dole out now.

I’ll also do away with corporate contributions to elected officials and political parties. Yeah, I’d do away with that little item, post-haste.

2010
11/19
CATEGORY
Personal
TAGS
Write comment
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.