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bluefirespirit5
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Country: United States
State: Arizona
Metro: Tucson
Birthday: 7/19/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: Aikido, crafts, tenor saxophone, spray painting, piano, community stuff, reading (everything!), writing (junk mostly), candlemaking, drawing, reading anime, rollerblading, stargazing, laughing at myself and feeling stressed.
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
12/3/2003
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| One of the problems about being without a computer is that I'm forced to spend most of my time in public computer lounges, which means that I am continually trying to write despite the many annoyances that surround me. So, in order to try to lower my anger and hopefully not kill the annoying person next to me, I'm going to rant about the most annoying computer users of all.
Ok.... Entering rant mode....
It annoys me (yes all of these have happened) when people sit right next to me and:
>Actually Laugh Out Loud, manically, repetitively and while rubbing their hands together with glee (it was the hand rubbing that got to me, maniacal laughter I can deal with)
>break up with their girlfriend over the phone (it was painful to listen to)
>Shovel Mac and Cheese into their mouths nosily, and then proceed to reach into their nosy crinkly plastic bag, grab a series of paper towels, nosily clean their container out, scrub their face with the same towels, gargle water and then scratch their ass (again noisily) for what seems like forever....
>Continually ask to borrow paper/pens/cellphone (well, cellphone wasn't continuous, but it was just such a strange request)
>Hold a meeting... and getting so into it that they proceed to gesture wildly with their hands and repetitively slap you upside the head (ok.. it was only twice...)
>Stretch all the way back in their chair (so far that their hair almost touches the ground) while making grunting noises
>Hit on someone near you and try to make conversation (again, it was painful to listen to)
>Go to the hand sanitizer, proceed to pile tons of it on their hands, pick up their keyboard, lather both sides in it, pick up their mouse, drench it in liquid, and then log out and leave the sticky, smelly, wet mess sitting there (was he horribly diseased and didn't want to share his germs? He obviously wasn't a germaphobe if he did it AFTER he finished...)
>sing along to the music on their ipod (once again, just painful)
>pop their pimples (ditto)
>trace map blast routes with their finger (ok... I may be getting easily annoyed but it was mac and cheese man, and I couldn't honestly
see how tracing the route with your index finger would help you when
you were driving, and I was constantly thinking about how damned dirty
he was making his monitor... one I would probably have to deal with
later)
>talk to someone on their cellphone for hours and try to weasel
their social security number, their address, their email address, their
name, and their favorite colors out of them (again... mac and cheese
man. He's still sitting next to me) the reason he gave was actually
this: just in case you fight with me I know where to find you, no baby,
it's very important, I don't know where to see you, I can't go to your
house, how can I see you? If I go I have to call you on the phone, I'm
not going to go to your house and knock on the door... is that ok? Do
you have any other address? Oh good, now I know everywhere to find
you. I could use your credit card. Do I know your phone number? Yes I
do. Anything else that I am missing? Usually you take your lunch from
10-2, I know that, so if I have any questions... answer if it's me,
don't answer if it's somebody else... yeah yeah, don't breathe right
now. (and with that he walks out of sungod lounge, leaving his stuff on
the table. I'm tempted to mess with it.... Bad Megan!)
>take so many pictures of their friends that you feel half blinded by the flash
>pick their nose
>try to sell you hair salon coupons (excuse me miss, do you get your hair professionally done? Um.... I'm sitting here, un-showered, with my hair in frizzy megan-phro-mode and still recovering from recent ball-of-fire-hair-melting, what kind of stupid question is that? Of course the answer is no... thus giving you room to launch into your spiel... just let me do my homework please...)
So please, as a public service, if you find yourself engaging in any of these horribly non-appropriate computer lab activities, please stop. Remember, those next to you can hear, and see, everything you do. And, after hours of trying to write a column, they're waiting and willing to bludgeon you to death with a keyboard.
Seriously. It's like, right here.
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I sit here typing this in a crowded, noisy, smelly computer lab for one
reason and one reason alone: my computer has decided to become a
doorstop. Suddenly, and without warning, I have been put at the mercy
of hair-pulling screens of blue that I thought were reserved for
Windows 98 users and left stuck staring at a useless box that refuses
to even sound like its turning on.
Needless to say, this is fairly heart-stopping event. In a world
where nearly a quarter, if not more, of my responsibilities require the
use of a computer of some kind, I find that I’m left completely cut off
from everything. Luckily I’m a college student and have access to any
number of computer labs, but this event has clearly illustrated one
fact to me: I am completely dependent upon my machines, but have no
idea how they work.
After all, I wouldn’t be quite as enraged at this situation if
there was something I could do about it. I like to think of myself as
self-sufficient; if my car breaks down, my heater stops working, or my
furniture falls apart, I know how to fix it. But my computer? All I can
do is remove the battery and keep pushing the “on” button, hoping
against hope that the computer gods will take pity on me. And even
those previous situations are becoming hopeless as well, for with the
addition of computers into my car I find that the amount of problems I
can fix without taking it into a shop are declining rapidly.
Essentially of the three machines I use the most often- my
computer, my cell phone, and my car- I have a fifty-fifty chance of
being able to fix one of them. The rest of the time I find that I have
to call a specialist, a process that often turns out to be expensive in
either time or money, both of which are commodities that I can’t afford
to waste.
Honestly though, I’m not sure what else I can do. Even if I had
the time and drive to learn how to fix my computer, or the money to
acquire the tools, I can’t specialize in everything. What about my cell
phone, or my MP3 player? And despite devices like the new iPhone which
are working to decrease the amount of gadgets in my life, I still find
myself dependent on more and more technologies that I don’t understand.
For example, the newest fad in home building is the home
automation system, one of which is pioneered by Ken D. Eckhaus &
Associates. The system links all of the home’s gadgets together and
allows for synchronization between them, such as having the system turn
on at preprogrammed times or having the lights flash when the security
system notices an intruder.
This seems like a great idea and, as Eckhaus noted to Building
Products in 2005, he’s even had it sell the house. But he also admits
that that doesn’t necessarily mean that the customer grasps just what
is going on.
“Sometimes [the potential buyer] doesn't understand it, but they
know they're going to love it because it will simplify their life."
Reading that sentence I find myself suddenly visualizing the
Poltergeist-like effect that a house’s computer crashing could cause.
But at the same time, I like the idea of a house catering to my every
need, just like I like my cell phone and my computer. I just want them
to be user-friendly enough that I can fix the majority of their
problems myself.
Back in 1997, the founder of Thinking Machines supercomputer
company Danny Hillis told Newsweek that, “you don't think of a pencil
as technology, because it just does what it's supposed to do. You don't
think of a book as technology because it's been refined enough that it
becomes invisible.... You still think about computers a lot. I think
technology is all the stuff that doesn't work yet.”
Computers have come a long way since then, but we’re still here,
stuck in a place between understanding technology and not needing it.
Yes I cheated... just copying the column I had already written... but I felt like I wanted to write about my computer here, but couldn't think of much else to say.
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| Well, with the onset of finals we are once again faced with the onset of another horribly dispicable side of Megan's personality...
procrastination.
Thus, a new entry!!! Muahahaha! Honestly though, there isn't much going on in my life right now. Finals are here but they are all fully handle-able (teehee, made up words). I'm prepared, I'm ready, and although I will necessarily spend a few days short of sleep, I'm good to go. For once I'm not worried about loans coming through or other money problems, as I have enough to pay tuition and rent for the next couple months... thank goodness for my jobs on campus. I will have to do the dreaded Arizona drive right after the chapbook sale on Friday (in order to make it home in time for the Angel charity ball on Saturday, which I am once again going to be fancy-schmancy slave labor in a gown for), but there's no snow in the forcast this time (THANK GOODNESS... one time driving through the mountains in my obviously NOT off-road vehicle in ice and panicking the entire time as I slipped and slid was enough), and there really isn't much else to it besides the crushing boredom of driving through nothing and more nothing for hours upon hours. Luckily I have sweet, loving people nice enough to go without sleep who I can call if I start to feel drowsy in the car (you know who you are... and no going back on volunteering now, it's set in blog).
MFA applications are going as planned (read: not going at all at this moment), I'm all set up to work when I get back into town, I'm ready for the family vacation (trip to central america), I've got New Years all planned (going to a Roger Clyne concert with Runt and Micah, mmm... Roger Clyne...), I'm invited and registered for the honors seminar, and I have an internship for next quarter (with Steven Malk at Writers House YAY). The myspace trip blog is set up and running, although I had to kill the old one and set up a new one... since I wanted to make a dedicated email account for it and for various other reasons. That's right, pocketposy is no more. So all of you who found me before... I dare you to find me now... muahahaha! Posting will re-commence from the beginning, once finals are over.
Wow, what a boring entry. Only two instances of villanous laghter, a couple of descriptions, no attempts at sounding artistic, and only a few tries at humor. How sad... all the creative juices are going towards finals and are not available for other works. More's the pity.
Good luck on finals, I'll be off sipping mountain dew from a champagne flute (you laugh... but I have no other glasses...) and wracking my brain in order to finish my burning man piece for tomorrow... or at least trying to get motivated enough to start on it. Toodles, one and all.
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| I feel weird tonight.
Maybe it's the half moon, so precisely poised between light and dark. Even blurred by wisps of cloud it still hangs omniously above me... maybe that's it. It would explain the weird combinations in my soul.
I'm tired, yet energized.
I crave food, yet could not eat another bite.
I feel like I need to work and yet have this desire to take a shopping cart, like that one there, and jump in it. I would back up, oh... say five paces, then run as fast as I can and jump- ungracefully no doubt- into the basket. And yes... I know there's a hill there. That's part of it... it has to be. To set the cart in front of the hill, to jump, and then just to fall. Just take the hill. For once not be a driving force in my life, but a passenger. To surrender myself solely to whatever will happen, good or bad. And in a shopping-cart-chariot, even at this time of night, there will likely be more bad then good.
But there will be the exhiliration, the speed, and that moment... that moment when I realize that all is outside my control...
...and I don't mind it one bit.
>thoughts while walking home
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| Hmmm... back in San Diego. Sure, I lack any and all types of furniture... sure, I've two articles due friday... but damn it's good to be back here. It's my last year too... and I fully expect to live it to the fullest, or as much as my limited budget will allow me to. Ever notice how when people say that they did something shocking if they follow it with "but I was in college" it suddenly becomes more acceptable? Take the following as examples: I did drugs once... but I was in college. I had wild drunken sex with someone I didn't even know... but I was in college. I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die... but I was in college. Well, I consider this the "I was in college and young so whatever I did, however strange it might be, is now socially acceptable" get out of jail free card. I only have one more year to accumulate stories that I can use this card on, so I better get cracking. Perhaps I shall start a cult... now I just need a charismatic figure head, anyone want to apply? Must be capable in removing money from wallets, a former career as either a charlatan, a magician, a school board member, a politician, a drug lobbist, or a non-greasy used car salesman would be useful.
Mmmm.... happy thought though. Only a month and a half until Micah is in town. Oh no... I'm writing about him in my xanga... I may just be getting a tad attached to the guy... I'll have to work on that. One can't control a robot-venus-fly-trap-zombie-force with the aim of taking over the world and still be troubled by things like emotions. Speaking of which, not that you heard anything from me... but you might want to invest in some large scale industrial weed whackers. Just a suggestion.
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