Milestone!

I just crossed the 2000 mark on my Launchcast Plus (launch.yahoo.com) song/artist/album ratings! That means that I only have 3000 more ratings to go to crest the next listener level---wooo hooo!

(I know this is a flakey thing to celebrate, but hey, it's the little things----right?)

Oh, the possibilities

Well, I’m looking across the blog world and reading datinggod.typepad.com. Kat, who keeps that page, commented today that the blog world became very real to her today. She was having a bit of a rough spot and the web-world friends jumped in a cheered and encouraged her just like any real world person would.

Made me think. I get hassled a bit by people who are not into the internet as much as I am about my “virtual friends”. They comment on how weird it is that my conversations about these people whose weblogs I read blend easily into my discussions about people at work or what my family is doing.

But it’s not like they are fictional characters or tamagotchi pets. They are real people. Some, I’ll admit, I haven’t met. But people aren’t judged when they are commenting about the lives of the rich and famous that they only read about. I don’t see the difference---except that at least there’s a hope that I could get to know some of the weblog people.

Which makes me wonder----I have written a couple of people, leaving comments on their weblog, and have had them write back. But I wonder sometimes if it is a bit of an intrusion---or presumption. I wonder if it’s a bother to feel like to you have to respond to every Joe that finds your website and decides to respond.

I do appreciate the people I’ve written who have taken the time to write back. Most notably was FerrousAngel at ferrousland.com. She hails from Brisbane Australia, that I like to think of as my home away from home, even if I haven’t been there in 20 years. I had been following her site for several months when I finally wrote. And she wrote back. I was thrilled. I had been nervous because I noticed that she had quite a little following of regulars and they all seemed much more insightful about things in her life than I could be. And they were funny and clever and wrote well. And many had their own websites. But she did write and it was quite a thrill, I must say. And not just a note, but a nice complete conversational response.

At one point she even helped me with my daughter’s site that I mentioned before. My wife was even impressed by that. That was one of my top “this is what the internet is all about” moments. When a relative stranger halfway around the world can help a father help his little girl, that shows that there are still possibilities for humanity. Ok, maybe that’s a bit overstated, but I was impressed, both by what the technology could do and Ferrous’ openness to a faceless person she’d never met in the real world.

It is my hope that there are still web-based serendipities (if that’s even a word) yet to be experienced.

The Internet Generation

Well, I’m still hanging in there even though I’m not keeping up with the daily post schedule I’ve set for my self. I’ll blame it on the holidays. I’ve been getting around to see family and shopping and everything.

I was at my brother’s this weekend when I had a digital moment with my daughter. She loves computers all most as much as I do, or at least the internet. And she was copying and pasting pics from webpages into MS Word, moving them around and putting pictures in an arrangement---and she was doing it without forcing the pictures into place. She just put them anywhere she wanted to and they stayed right there---no snapping back in place by the cursor or anything. I’ve never figured out how to do that in Word, much to my frustration. I mean, I’ve always used layout software like Pagemaker and had great trials with the limitations of Word. She said, “Just click the ‘put picture behind text’ button and then you can move it anywhere. You didn’t know that? YOU? Wait a minute, let me enjoy this a second. I actually knew something about computers that my Dad didn’t”.

I knew it was true, but I had to put her in her place with a “hey now, don’t mock your elders” or something like that. Now that I think about it I think she was just trying to use that line from the movie National Treasure---but I also got to thinking that, yeah, that’s the way it should be. I want my kids to start knowing as much or more about computers than I do. I would love to have them be extensions of my digital experience---coming to me to tell me about the latest cool thing they’ve found. It’d be like having our own little users group right there in our own house.

I don’t think they may grab hold of the whole computer thing quite as eagerly and completely as I do though. I think they might only be interested in what they are interested in---and just play inside the confines of those interests, not explorering and poking around the dark corners like I enjoy doing.

I had a friend at work who was like that. Spent hours and hours online in the chatrooms and instant messaging. Not much searching on the internet beyond that. Not that she talked about anyway. And really wasn’t interested in getting under the hood of that machine she spent so much time in front of.

I tried to get my daughter interested in keeping a weblog. I thinkshe may have been a little young for it then, though. On her 11th birthday, I celebrated her ‘binary birthday’---because it was her 11th Bday, on the 10th of October, 2001 (11 on 10-10-01; all ‘1’s and ‘0’s, get it?). I got her a domain name and a hosting service so it wouldn’t just be on a weblog site. I taught her a little HTML and she built a simple little site.

It was a good conversation piece, but she didn’t really get into updating it much. Once about every 6 or 8 weeks. And then it was usually just the response page for some online quiz thing, like “what kind of fairy are you” or something like that. So in the end we dropped it.

But it isn’t a totally lost cause. She does enjoy email, with her friends. And Chat. And we all enjoy Homestarrunner.com. Perhaps as she gets older and her friends get all interested in weblogs and webpages, she might get back to it.

We’re going to be moving my computer out of the basement soon (where I have a makeshift office space), and making it into the family computer. I think that all the kids will get a little more time to explore when that happens. That’ll be cool, I think, to see what blossoms then.

Trying To Keep On Keepin' On

Dang, I didn’t mean to wait so long before posting again. I would like to post regularly, as it’s one of my “criteria for a worthwhile weblog” that I’m trying to maintain at the moment.

I don’t think I’ll be regularly posting on weekends, but I’d like to have at least one entry per day during the week (provided I’m not rendered unable to do so by being in some connectivity-challenged position---like camping in the woods or something).

One insignificant note of the less than trivial in my digital life, I passed into the next level on my Launchcast Plus music account with Yahoo. It’s sort of a radio station that you set up with your musical tastes and it tries to match them by only playing music it thinks you should like. You get to rate each song, artist and album you hear, and the more you rate, the better it should be able to figure out what to play for you. I’m not sure how much that is actually true, but it’s fun trying.

The levels go like this:

Rating Master: > 10,000 total ratingsAddict: 5,000-10,000 total ratings Fanatic: 1,000-5,000 total ratingsTrendsetter: 500-1,000 total ratingsEnthusiast: 250-500 total ratingsListener: 100-250 total ratingsNewbie: <100 total ratings

I just achieved Fanatic, cresting the 1000 rating mark. Riotous applause. Thank you, thank you. But as you can see, the next level is a bit more of a jump. Well, only 3597 to go!

I’m actually quite enjoying the service. It’s at launch.yahoo.com if your interested. You can hear my station by searching for cyberjazzdaddy. I describe it this way:

ROCKIN YOUR FACE OFF with Hard Rock bands you've probably never heard of, and a few Broadway tunes thrown in for good measure. Not to mention some little unexpected anomalies sprinkled about just to keep everybody guessing. ;-)

Seems to be Catching (I hope)

Ok folks, you may not realize this, but this is a record for me. Three blog entries in three days! I don't know that my writing is up to my standards, but we'll repair one thing at a time. Right now we're working on the "regular updates" area.

The website for Wired magazine had an online article that dealt with the online world of romantic communication. I mentioned yesterday that I wished that I had this with my wife. I thought, how interesting and timely.

The author of the online article (a woman) said of her boyfriend:

"we're different in our online writing -- funnier, braver, more intimate. I want to know that side of him, and I really notice its lack when it's missing."

I really agree. Digital writing and communication gives you a whole new perspective on a person---almost like getting more into their head. I've met people that I really got on with in a social setting, or didn't get on with as well as I would have liked but still found them to be interesting, and I really really wanted them to have a weblog so I could go home and get to know them better. All the time know that most people I meet probably don't even have any interest in reading a weblog, let alone keeping one.

The article goes on to say:

[One] reader admitted that she and her husband IM from different rooms in the same house. "Our parents and non-tech friends think we are crazy but if that's the way you've gotten used to getting your info, it works," she says.

I'd love to do that too.

When I've begun to think about Video chat, I've often wondered if it might not be as fun as text based chat---and maybe more like a video phone call (and I'm not really a phone person). There is a warmth and a charm that IM has, even when you know the person well, that you don't get with other forms of communication. In Video I worry that I might lose some of that.

Some of my friends that I have a hard time talking to are easy to chat with, but I sometimes find that people I get on really well with I have trouble making something understood on the IM (like sarcasm---it's hard if they're not in the mood for it---it's amazing how much body language plays into sarcasm).

I've heard some people argue that internet communication reduces the quality of communication---but I think it adds a whole new level. And I guess that’s why I long for it with the lady that's my best friend and companion for life.

But, as I said before, my wife is very adverse to my computer. She calls it "the other woman". Not because she's worried I'm contacting another woman using my computer that I may be having an online fling with---nothing like that (she knows that I'm much too faithful to even consider anything like that--at least I hope she does). No, in her opinion the computer IS the other woman. It is the thing that, she says, takes her husband away from her. A little dramatic perhaps. Some might say it would be more accurate to compare to a Football Widow. At any rate, I don't foresee her embracing this wonderful new potential dimension of our relationship anytime soon.

It's fairly common for Mac users to name their computers, like some people name boats or cars, or pets even. Me---no way. That would only fuel the fire. I keep my names very clinical (highly original names like "Mac HD"---woo woo). Not a very Mac like thing to do, but I have concerns to address.

I don't know if there is much hope for a time where I can flirt with my wife online---but who knows.

My mother came around and she seemed, in the early 90s, like a technological lost cause. She wouldn't touch a computer because it had that thing called a 'mouse'---and she didn't want anything to do with anything that even hinted at that type of vermin. But since then she's come to the point where she’s online about an hour a night checking email, she's the email communication person for her Miata club, and she buys gifts and makes hotel and plane reservations online. Now Dad seems to be the lost cause for the computer. But he's an antitquer ---so eBay may be the key to getting him online.

So we'll see what happens, for the wife and for Dad---anything is possible.

Digital Wishes

Let me just say that I love all things that a computer can do --- on the internet and off. I’m a Mac user and love my Macs. I have Window’s machines in the house, so it’s not like I’m a total snob, but I am very passionate about Apple products.

But I tell you, if it can be done on a computer, I’d rather do it that way. Photos, video, writing, banking, shopping, communication. I get my news on the Net, rent my videos on the Net, listen to the radio on the Net. I’m an iTunes addict --- I love buying music that way. I get really miffed if some artist doesn’t have their CD on iTunes on the Tuesday of it’s release-- just forget about it, I'll buy something else. I’d rather send an email than call on the phone.

And can I just say that wireless internet is brilliant! Any where around the house I plop, I can fire up the Powerbook and I'm there---Live on the Net. Technology is so awsome.

But there are still things that I haven’t done in the digital realm that I think would be fun to try, but I just don’t have the time or cash to venture out.

LAN Parties: This one is severely geek. If you don’t know what these are, it’s where all your geek friends haul their computer gear over to one person's house or somewhere and they network them all together. Then they play some game all at the same time together with each player adding their participation from their own terminal.

Like if it was some sort of a battle game each person would have a soldier in the game and everyone would be on the same virtual playing field. They could battle each other, or a common enemy or form teams. It’s like a big paint ball battle with out the mess and bruises for days later.

MMOG: This is kinda like the ultimate LAN party over the internet. It stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming. World of Warcraft is one that I have been told is really excellent. You take on a character in a Lord of the Rings type world, and the people you are playing with, or against, are people from all over the country and the world. And you can chat outside the game world while you are playing.

iChat/AV: This is basically video chat. I have a Canon Optura that I can hook up through the firewire port and use Apple’s new video chat software---when I can afford to buy it. And I've gotten onto this website called iChatFinder that let’s people find other people around the world who are also looking to have a video chat. They post profiles and if you subscribe, then you can get peoples screen names so you can IM them and schedule times when you can get on the video. Sounds very exciting, and I’d love to get some experience with it so I could talk my out of town relatives into hooking up some video eqpt so we could talk over video instead of the phone all the time.

Email my Wife: I know what you’re thinking. “What?? Email your wife? You’ve done all this computer stuff and never emailed your wife? What kind of a pig are you?” Let me explain. My wife, by choice and assertion, is very nearly entirely computer illiterate. She has no desire to be online. She can’t even type, so the one time she did get online to try IMing with a friend she hadn’t seen in a while, she got frustrated at not being able to put in her comments fast enough. So I ended up typing for her and she dictated her comments. But then she got frustrated with me because I would add things or edit what she would say.

But I really would like to be able to send little sentimental notes to her through the day from work. But I can’t.

We did strike a deal though. She loves working in the garden and the yard and doing some landscaping and things, and me, not so much. So we made a deal that for every hour I work outside on things with her, she would spend a matching hour letting me give her computer lessons. And she agreed! That was very cool because I know I would have ended up working out side anyway, but she was being sweet and giving me some incentive to maybe enjoy it more. So she owes me a couple hours that I worked after we made the agreement (and before it got too cold--did she know it would get cold so fast after we shook on it?).

But we haven’t had time for her to sit down and play on the computer yet. So we’ll see. But a guy can dream.

Hello New Day

Well, I finally did it. I created a new weblog. I've been meaning to do this for a while but you know now it goes, sometimes you just never get around to these things.

I have had a blog before---www.measure7.blogspot.com. I started that a while back. Just had too lofty an ideal for that one, I think. I wanted it to be all introspective and inspired. Nice ideals, but what happened is that I never thought of things that met that criteria (in my mind), so I never posted. Then when I went back on that goal and posted anyway, common stuff, and it didn't seem to fit. So I would only update with a pathetic 'guilt' posting about once every three or so months.

So I decided that I would start a new weblog that would be more 'warts and all'. And this is what I came up with: CyberJazzDaddy--the chronicles of my every day digital life. The name is my yahoo account name. Thought of spur of the moment---one of those screen names composed at the "account name" field when signing up for something and you haven't given it much thought before hand. I like it though. It seems to capture the inner digital me. A little dated (cyber--I hail from the birth years of the internet when the word cyber was hip), "jazz"--a little spunky and improvised, and of course "daddy" because I am one (four times over)! The whole digital lifestyle thing is that I love my home away from home inside my computer. But sadly, it's a world that I can't really share with anyone I hang around with---at least not completely.

I mean, I can share email with the people who know the people who've written, I share photos online with my family, I share digital videos I've done with people who will watch. But a lot of the stuff I find online aren't interesting to my analog brethren. And ironically enough, the biggest thing that no one I know seems to have any passion for is the blogosphere. Reactions range from disinterest, to confusion (why would anyone do that), to derision (I don't want my whole life out there for the whole world to see). But not interest of fascination.

I am a bit addicted I must say. I love reading them. I must admit, though, that I am a bit of a lurker--not posting comments or interacting with most of the ones I read. But this is somthing I am working on changing. I am selective of the ones I choose to read daily, but with the number out there one has to be, doesn't one. I read the ones that post frequently, or who write really well, or preferably a combination of both. That was another problem I had with my previous weblog, I couldn't even live up to my own expectations as a reader.

So now I'm back with a new weblog dedicated the parts of my life no one else is really interested in! Raise a glass. Here's to second tries.