GWAR, Cooper and Price, Looking Back on Scandal, History, and A Few Other Things

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

This, so the little numbers tell me, is the 100th entry I’ve made in this particular experimental Facebook Feed series.

I was going to say something interesting about it… but it’s been another long day at the office and my brain is kind of fried. I’m also kind of unimpressed with my own performance in these little blurbs I crank out roughly four days a week to accompany the link to FB posts. (Heck, I’ve been disappointed with the lack of interaction I’ve been able to put into even those lately.)

Going into this, it was just a way to force myself to get words flowing out of my fingers again. It’s only been moderately successful. I guess that means I just have to keep trying.

So I will.

Here’s the feed…

A Long Weekend’s Worth of Stuff

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

This past weekend, a whole lot of people I know were down in Atlanta for DragonCon. It’s an event I’ve been numerous times before and is always an amazing adventure.

I haven’t been there in four years now.

Finances and schedules have kept me from being able to make it back.

This year a bunch of people I know went for the first time.

I’m amazingly sad that I couldn’t be part of that.

Bringing new people along was always a huge joy. Watching them acclimate to the distinct atmosphere of a major gathering of nerds, geeks, freaks, and general fandom weirdness rekindles all sorts of memories and feelings of my own first time.

A lot of other people I know were off on other holiday-weekend-related adventures. End of summer trips, weddings, that one last excursion to the beach, the renaissance fair. I don’t really have a vacation. I have a day off I don’t get paid for. I haven’t had a real vacation… since DragonCon 2010.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to say differently some time before the next decade is over.

Hopefully.

Until then, I just keep pushing onward.

Since that’s the most sensible thing to do.

Lots of feed items spanning a wide variety of entertainment and interest. (Not quite as wide as, say DragonCon, but still a nice collection of stuff, if I do say so myself.)

Here’s the feed.

Epic Rap Battles, Culture War, Yet More Problematic Politics, Some Interesting Decor, and the Requisite Number of Cat Posts

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

My sleeping and eating schedule this weekend was even more off from what most would consider “typical” than normal.

But, that’s what I get for going out to an 80s mega dance party on Friday, partying with rock stars on Saturday, and spending most of Sunday recovering and trying (failing!) to get back on a more useful schedule.

I really don’t know how you people who drink do it.

Lots going on in the news today… and some other interesting and problematic revelations over the weekend. It’s all in today’s feed (which stretches back to Friday).

Community News, Wolverine, a lot of Culture Talk, Some Science, a Little Food, and The Wonder Years Reunion

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

I was asked in a comment stream today why I post (or, technically, share… since other people have found most of them first) the articles I do, especially about the whole misogynist culture stuff that’s really being talked about a lot right now.

The answer is simple: Awareness needs to grow.

I know far too many people–myself included–who either are or were blind to how their actions impact the lives of others.

You can’t consciously change things you don’t know you’re doing.

I can’t make anyone improve themselves. But I can at least, maybe, give them some insight into their own actions. (I know, long ago, I was utterly shocked at many of the things I was doing without realizing it.)

We can’t make anyone do anything… not without a whole lot of negatives that outstrip the positives. Plus, unless there’s a critical mass of awareness and will to begin with, forced change never sticks.

This is part of the build up to that critical mass of awareness and will to change.

If just one or two people are shaken awake, realize what they’re doing isn’t what they think they’re doing, and make personal change, then there is progress.

There’s always more than one or two people who are shaken awake.

In the particular case of this issue of entrenched male privileged and misogynist culture, we’re talking about something that is even more entrenched than racism or homophobia. It goes back thousands of years and is built into political discourse and religion like nothing else.

But just because we’ve never known a time that was different, doesn’t mean we can’t try to be better than we (as a species) have ever been before when it comes to equality.

That right there is the beauty of free will and not being trapped and controlled by our biology alone.

So, yeah, I think it’s kind of important.

History, Science, and Animals

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Short list today. I’ve been too busy to really take in as much as I usually do.

I’ve never been interested in being a programmer. At least not since the “good old days” of BASIC where I toyed with the idea briefly, just like everyone else, until I realized just how much ridiculously complex work would be involved in anything I wanted to do and how much the language just wouldn’t stick in my head. (It was also a lot harder to find reference material back then, being there was no Internet everywhere…)

In college, programming was one of the things that really did me in during my first major. I’m fully congnizent of what it can do, but I’ve just never been all that good at making it do it. Aside from the most basic “Hello World!” print tests, churning out anything else that was even vaguely useful was an uphill battled ending in the discovery of another hill.

Guess what I’ve been neck deep into doing for the past month at my day job?

Yeah, more programming than I’ve ever wanted to.

The good news is, thanks to the easy reference material brought directly to my eyeballs via copious Google searches, I’ve managed to just about complete the project. I’m sure it’s not done in the most elegant way, but it’s getting done.

It’s just stressing me all the hell out.

So, not much brain bandwidth for much else…