Geek

Work became too hectic today for me to even get away for a lunch break. Luckily it was hot dog grillin’ day at the office and I was able to get two hot dogs, a scoop of potato salad and a few chips. The lunch was to raise money for a local charity. It’s what we do.

There are times when I think I should stop writing in my blog but then I have a day like today where I don’t get the opportunity to do my (mostly) daily entry and then I realize that I would miss it. It’s also in the here and now that I realize that sometimes I write in short, staccato like blurts of information and then there are other times that I write in run-on sentences that would garner a lot of red pen if this sort of thing was being marked up by someone more literate than me.

There is a commercial that runs on a local radio station that contains the line, “so join Christine and myself at the store.” It sounds weird. I know that the English ain’t so goodly either because if you take “Christine and” out of the sentence you’re left with “so join myself at the store.” Now this sort of thing will never make me ‘loose’ my mind but it does bring me close to where I would lose my mind.

The goose is loose. The goose will lose because she lost change.

I just made that up. Remember it.

Today is my Sunday. Tomorrow I’m back on schedule with work. It’s all good.

To celebrate my day off, I am getting some errands done and doing some exploring in the Jeep. And this is where it occurs to me that technology is awesome.

For example, I just took this photo of some parking skillz in Downtown Utica. I took the photo using my iPhone.

To get the photo from my iPhone to my iPad, I didn’t wait for Apple’s iCloud service to sync it up, I simply used an app called “Bump”. I banged my iPhone and my iPad together and the photo was instantly transferred over to my iPad, ready for inclusion in the blog entry.

After admiring the parking skills of the Utica natives, I stopped at Bagg’s Square Café Express where I picked up a Venti Iced Green Tea and paid for it with my face using the Square app (I talked about this last week).

I am now picking up a solar light at the Lowe’s that I know has them in stock because it was indicated in the affirmative online. From here I will stop at the gas station along my intended route where I know the price is the lowest (courtesy of Gas Buddy) and then I will select my lunch stop based on recommendations from Yelp!

I love being a geek.

Visitors to the actual site of the blog will note that I have changed the visual theme of the site again and I think I have found a theme that I am pleased with. This theme is called iTheme2 and I think it looks good and represents my Mac tendencies very well.

I have also added a couple of widgets to the side (even if I’m a little late on my Happy Pride Month! widget this year). Feel free to browse around.

I just love this kind of stuff.

One of my relatives has a computer running Windows Vista that is spamming my email with random factoids and address book information. Windows Vista was touted as Microsoft’s “most secure version of Windows ever!” I’m so glad that it’s doing its job so well and I’m happy that the person that owns the computer is attentive to the required upkeep and maintenance of a Windows-based operating system. Despite claims to the contrary, owning a computer is a responsibility that entails a fair amount of hard work. I still believe that users should be required to own a license to operate a computer.

But then again, licenses don’t seem to mean much these days. I just watched an elderly couple barely miss being flattened by a Wal*mart truck that was well within the speed limit and right of way because they apparently didn’t see the monstrosity coming through the light. Truth of the matter is, they didn’t even look. The light was green so they went. They probably got their license to drive 60 years ago. I’m sure at age 77 or whatever that they still have the stamina, reflexes and intact thought processes to navigate a 2000 pound hunk of metal down a roadway. Silly licenses.

I recently saw an online letter to the editor where a man was upset that the Department of Transportation had installed “Deer Crossing” warning signs on a busy roadway. The writer thought that this was foolish and that the signs should be installed on a roadway with lower traffic so the deer would cross where there weren’t as many cars.

Wow.

I bet you think I’m nuts. Here ya go.

I can spin a tall tale like the best of them, when suitable motivated, but lately I haven’t felt the need to make any of this shit up. We are in Rome, the bricks are falling but the general public keeps fiddling.

So I am curious as to how people prefer to “follow” other people on the Internet these days. Do you prefer to follow Twitter? Facebook? Google+? Individual blogs (like this one)? Are you more inclined to use the more adult sites and apps like bear411?

Personally, I think the best way to reach out to another person is still to meet them in person and talk to them face to face. But with the ability to make friends far away where meeting face-to-face isn’t a readily available opportunity, we rely on electronic means to communicate. Twitter is my go to for “snappy” blurts of information and it’s also the source for much of my news these days (which, of course, I follow up with fact checking after reading something on Twitter). It’s also the favorite of my social networking sites because it feels the least intrusive. Facebook creeps me out with it’s advertising. I occasionally see an ad that pops up in the sidebar on Facebook that is very much tailored to my lifestyle but in theory, Facebook shouldn’t know about my interest in product X because I’ve never discussed anything remotely like that on Facebook. Unless Facebook was tracking me around the internet, they’d never know that I was searching for a weather radio, for instance, because I don’t believe I’m a member of any storm chasing groups on Facebook.

I favor Google+ over Facebook simply because I like the interface better. The walls ring hollow since there’s a lot of people over there that aren’t saying much, though. My relatives and friends are on Facebook, so that’s why I use that. I wish more people were on Google+.

As far as the “adult apps” go, I have a few of them on my phone but I rarely use them. If Earl and I are traveling I might fire them up and see who lives nearby, asking Earl if Man X is cute in the process, but other than voyeurism I don’t really have an invested interest in those apps.

So, I’d like to know what apps and social networking sites my gentle readers use. Let me know what the cool kids are using these days.

This was the best scene of the first season of “Smash”, in my opinion. This song and the choreography are spectacular. It makes me smile.