Pointless non-video of the day:

Oh, you got lucky. Today's post was going to be an inexplicably pointless video (pointless even for me, yes), but there was an upload error and I'm far too lazy to try again.

So you get another dragonfly.

I hope you're not tired of them yet. You should see how many I still have on the nerdstick.

This is the part where I tell you that I had a late lunch (and since I couldn't face the thought of making another lunch this week, today's special was 100% Grease-Fried Grease. Ah well, we all have to succumb once in a while) and that I have other things to do now, so the dragonfly's about all you're getting.

It's ok, though. It's not like I had anything to say anyway.

Creeeak

There's a very small lizard on my desk.

I don't really have anything to say about it, but I wanted to make the point that there is, in fact, a very small lizard on my desk.

Ok then.

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I'm going to try to keep this short today (for anyone keeping track, it was 4 am this morning. That's a whole extra hour. Yay me), so let's get right into it. I'm creaky. When I get up in the morning... er, no. Let's go a little bit later in the day. When I go down the stairs to the parking lot in the morning I'm never sure if my left ankle or my right knee is going to come along for the ride. It takes a while anymore to make sure that both of them are working.

Aren't I too young to be so creaky?

I don't have any big moral or anything. I'm just asking the question. Aren't I too young to be so creaky? And if I'm this creaky now, what will things be like in ten years? Twenty?

It's all a little disturbing.

I've always said that I can't figure out why people want to live to be a hundred (and for all those who said twenty years ago that I'd change my mind as I got older, I just want to point out that it hasn't happened so far), and to be honest I'm not sure how much I'm looking forward to the inevitable cane/walker (zimmer frame, for those across the water)/wheelchair that seems to be in my distant future.

Well, maybe a cane wouldn't be so bad. But only if it has bitchin' flames.

My knee problems are largely the result of a fall I took years ago (off of a bus. And shut up, world), but even my athlete of a brother says he's starting to feel the family joint problems coming on.

Yippee.

My relatives definitely do their part to keep the knee replacement surgeons in business, I can tell you.

Anyway, I'm going to tempt fate and take a walk now. Part of my job, believe it or not. Enjoy the lizard.

And no, it doesn't have a name.




Yet. I'll keep you posted.

mrpkhnh?

I've been up since 3 am. Not by choice. This morning was entertaining as all hell in my brain, but I can feel myself crashing as I type.

In other words, this ought to be good.

Or at least random.

Today's pointless photo, by the way, is of a merlin. It didn't feel like posing, so you get this weird-ass silhouette instead of something that actually looks like a bird. I watched it hunting last weekend, but it sort of confused me at the time. It seemed to be diving, grabbing, and eating nothing. No little birdies were losing (or even loosing) their lives. As I said, confusing... until I realised that it was hunting dragonflies instead of songbirds.

For those of you who don't know what a dragonfly is, look at every second picture on this freaking blog anymore. Yep. Lacking sleep here, as I warned you. And yes, I do have still more dragonfly photos waiting on the nerdstick.

Let's see... what else?

Well, there were altogether too many fingerprints on my monitor when I came in this morning. I know they weren't my fingerprints because fingerprints on a monitor are pretty high on my list of annoyances. I don't understand why people feel the need to touch monitors in the first place, and I sure as hell wish they wouldn't touch mine. Ok? Everyone hear that? Fingers do NOT belong on monitors, boys and girls.

Not surprisingly, I've already cleaned the mystery fingerprints that no one ever owns up to off of my monitor.

If they're back tomorrow, someone loses (not looses) a hand.

In other news, my father has managed to find himself a cold. I'm not sure how he did it, to be honest, because I haven't really noticed any other sickos around lately. I expect to in a week or so what with all the kids going back to school, but not yet. Maybe the father figure was just trying to beat the rush.

The reason I mention this is that I want it down in print for when I end up feeling ill about this time next week. It'll be all my father's fault, you know. Especially because one of the last things he said before I left his place was "I hope you don't end up with what I have."

Doomed.




Thanks, dad.

[/mishmash]

Talk, talk

It was raining here yesterday. I have a lot of photos of wet things now.

Don't worry. I'll space them out a little.

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You know, when I typed the title to this post I fully intended to blather on at length about something that I don't feel like blathering on about now. Funny how quickly a mood can change. Now... oh, now I suppose the challenge is to come up with something in the way of a topic that has at least a bit to do with the title.

What do you mean I could just change the title and talk about something else? You people are no fun.

Ok, let's try this. I ramble on in this space almost everyday. Sometimes it makes sense; sometimes it doesn't. More often than not it's just to keep myself in the habit of doing it.

But why do it in the first place? I don't have an agenda. I never (well, rarely) try to change anyone's mind about whatever subject I'm massacring (geez, does that word ever look wrong in print). I'm not using this as a journal.

Why take up the space, then?

And better still, why start a second blog to add to the pointlessness?

Hmmm. That reminds me. I haven't cleared any more posts from the old blog yet this week. I'll have to do something about that before I shut down.

Let's look at this from a different angle. My internet communication has changed a lot over the years. It started out primarily as occasional e-mails, largely because I had very limited access to the computer. After that I discovered (unfortunately, some might say) the world of chat rooms. Let's call that my cyberworld adolescence. There was no responsibility behind anything I said. Whatever I typed would disappear soon enough, and if I offended anyone I honestly couldn't have given a flying rat's bum.

It didn't take long to get bored with the chat rooms, though. The problem with that kind of communication is that it never really changes. You're generally starting each time with a (fairly) clean slate, yes, but it also means that there's very little moving forward. A bunch of people go online and say a bunch of stupid things, and then they log off and go on with their lives as though that period never existed.

It was different when I later became involved in forums. I was a member of several forums, and I suppose I was lucky in the forums I chose because they were often more than simple entertainment. Since posts were going to be around for a while and read (and possibly misunderstood) by many different people -- and this is where I started to feel like internet interactions were with actual people rather than just personas -- I put more thought into them. I also put more thought into what others were saying. Maybe it wasn't always earth-shattering thought, but somehow in the less temporary world of the forums others' thoughts followed me into the real world a little more.

Sadly, forums tend to get a little circular after a while. Long-term members feel like they've discussed everything already and resent newer members trying to rehash old topics, and newer members feel like they're being punished for trying to speak up. After a while the majority of members just give up trying. It's happened in nearly every forum I've ever been a part of, so I'm not basing this on a single experience.

I used to be a very active participant in the forum world. Now I lurk. And blog.

Obviously I need some kind of talking outlet or I wouldn't be doing this, but I'm not entirely sure how blogging fits on the spectrum of communication. The other examples I'm mentioned had a sense of community, but blogging is, by and large, talking to oneself.

I mean, I know that people read this. I have a counter for a reason. The occasional comment also lets me know if I've struck a chord at all with anybody. I'm not exactly sitting on a deserted island here.

Still, it's like I've lost the desire to have full-on public interaction on the internet lately. I sit here and blather, people care or they don't care, and I'm fine with that.

Should I be?




Maybe instead of thinking about this I should go and find someone to have an actual conversation with. Penny looks like she wants to talk about something.

Penny also happens to be a cat. Conversations with her aren't all that stimulating, frankly.

Maybe I'll just go have lunch instead.




Yeah. That's easier.

You're all capable of using the comment link. Talk at me if you want to.

So...

If by chance you happened upon the blog a few minutes ago and thought you might have seen a video here but now it's gone, let me tell you what happened.

There was a video here.

Now it's gone.




I was just playing with the video uploading thing. Test subject? A cat. And a laundry basket.

The laundry basket poses better than the cat, if you wondered.

Anyway, I never intended to make a three second video of the cat a permanent addition to the pointlessness. Sorry if you missed it. Not really sorry, actually, but it seemed the polite thing to say.

Will there be further video? Dunno. I never intended to become an amateur director, and I don't have the best equipment. My digital camera, while wonderful for pointless photography, is not the steadiest thing in the world for video. Honestly, the internet doesn't need more pointless seasickness.

The only other recourse would be my cameraphone, and I'm sure the world is waiting with fish breath (baited. Bad joke resurfacing from the old blog) to see what masterworks I can create with a bloody phone.

Not literally bloody, of course. That'd be disgusting. And sticky.

I'm off then (shut up, Wheat. Have I stabbed you in the shins recently?), but I thought the least I could do was to leave you with the usual result when the laundry basket decides to pose for pictures beside the cat.

Max just has no self-control when it comes to laundry baskets, you know.

Pointless photo of the day:

It's an Araneus orb weaver of some sort. Think Charlotte's Web, if it helps.

That's going to have to be it for the moment. I'm kind of busy.

Back later if I can think of anything worth logging back in for.

Pointless photo of the day:

And that's about it, really. I've got nothing. It's a dreary, drizzly day and I just want the work week to be over.

Incidentally (and this comment should let you know how many times the backspace key has been used up to this point in the post), what exactly is it about the actions needed to depress the letters T, H, & E that make them so often come out in the wrong order? I mean, I'm a not-too-bad touch typist (I used to be much better, but easy correction on computer versus pain in the ass on typewriter has led to a depth of laziness over the years that rivals the typewriter's layer of dust), but I seem to get teh so much more often than the.

Teh. Teh teh teh teh teh.

Looking around the internet, I'm certainly not the only one with that problem.

Ah well.

I don't feel like expanding on that, but you can if you like. I'm going to go feed an apple to the mealworms.





It's not as exciting as it sounds.