I have this aversion to social networking sites that people who use them don't seem to understand.  As far as I'm concerned these sites are just tools for organizing what are complex and ambiguous social connections in some sort of easy to understand and categorized system.  Obviously there's some communication that might be valuable via these services, but for the most part whatever conversation is spawned seems to me to be mostly the equivalent of the person who talks on their cell on the buss... mostly pointless.  Not that there's anything wrong with all of that.  I can totally see why it is so popular and why people are paying insane amounts of money for the related companies / info, I just don't want to participate for a couple reasons.

I've always had this aversion to putting my real name on the net.  It is probably ridiculous and mostly silly but I'd just rather not have people looking me up or such.  I mean once my ultimate weapon is complete and is detonated, fine, but until then I'd rather stay out of any spotlight.  Especially considering every time some local guy or gal is killed the local news pulls up some ass ugly photos of him or her off of one of those sites.  When I die I want a reasonable photo, or no photo.  I told the wife that if I died in a public manner her first job is to make sure good photographs are distributed and if one isn't available hand out photo printouts of beaker from the Muppets, or Ricardo Montalban as Khan.  Can you imagine?  A local man was killed in a freak freeway accident.  and then over the reporters sholder there's Kahn...   I should really prepare a personal press kit.

Another reason is that I don't want to explain stuff to people.  I have a weird set of desperate connections on the net as I'm guessing most folk do.  Not all actually involve people or things I feel are in general representative of me.  I have a Photo.net account, but I think many of the users on their forums are dicks.  The site does serve a purpose for me, but I want nothing to do with being associated with some aspects of the site.  I have an account on several gaming forums, again most of what happens on there are 14 year old pissing about whatever product they stupidly defend thinking that inflates their e-penis or something.  I participate on Husi.  For the most part the most tolerable group in general.  Then there are people at work, and friends of friends ...  Any number of such people could potentially end up connected to me on some social networking site.  That's like mixing Chinese and Mexican food.  As yummy as they both are that is not a good idea.

Also whenever some people find out that I participate on a particular site, or communicate with some other people that some friends didn't know about I get these open ended questions from certain people.  I don't know what they're asking for or why but for some reason I find it epicly annoying.  Yes I participate on that site.  Why?  Because I want to...  Yes that guy is a jerk...  No I don't like him but I participate anyway.  Yes that other guy is kinda weird but he knows what he's talking about when it comes to topic X. Yes apparently that kid is 15.  No I'm not asking him for photographs of himself or anything like that, we just like the same video games and he communicates well for a 15 year old.  None of this has anything to do with me, why do you keep asking me these questions?  Can you hand me that bat I have over there?

It's sort of a worlds colliding thing except it isn't independent duxup being destroyed by non independent duxup.  It is just a lot of desperate social connections that don't have much to do with each other and I don't care to explain or categorize.

I get how it works.  Yes, I use the Internet a great deal.  No I don't want to participate . . . sadly that in itself often generates some weird questions...

Zimbabwe

I'm not one to favor assassination of another countries leaders.  For the most part I think it could end up creating far more problems than good.  At the same time I'm having trouble seeing the downside of someone just up and offing Robert Mugabe.  Not someone in the country, that would most likely cause some issues.  Active nations in the world like the US or such couldn't get involved, too much controversy if they played a hand.  It has to come out of nowhere.  Maybe if someone asked Switzerland to just get involved.  After killing him they could just step up and admit it Nope we're not profiting from this, but yeah we had him capped.  We figure it is for the best for everyone.  Figure your stuff out people of Zimbabwe and good luck.  Granted some other idiot could take over after that but hey at least it is a chance for something good to eventually happen.

Spanking

It is good to see that no matter how militant or horrible things get, people can still give each other a good old good game pat on the ass.

iTunes Library Management

I have an external HDD that holds all my music.  It goes from work to home and other places.  It is way annoying that if I buy some music I have to remember to go and add it to the iTunes library the next time I'm at either at the home  PC or work PC, or my wife's PC.  Why can't iTunes just look at a folder and if I drop something new in there just have it show up?

Anyone do similar things with their music and have a nice work around for such things?

MN Politics

So the legislature sent a transportation bill to our "no taxes!" / probably still bitter that he won't be a VP candidate governor, and of course he used his line item veto to kill the central corridor rail plan...  yeah we were going to spend a few hundred million dollars and get matching federal government money, and the governor just up and kills it.  Of course why would he think twice as the rail line leads right into St. Paul where the dude gets no votes anyhow?  This also being the dude who when in the legislature fought tooth and nail against the existing rail line, and after it was wildly popular noted that in fact it was a good idea.  But apparently we wouldn't want more than one commuter rail line :P

We'd all still be in horses if we just sat on our asses like this and and never spent a dime on transportation because we've got some moral objection to taxes.  ####!  How about a solution yourself governor? 

How about something other than installing a corny in the transportation department who like the good old Iraqi Information Minsitar stands up and keeps denying there are problems that might actually require money to solve.  She also has no solutions of her own of course, just covering political ass / ignoring the problem.  Thank goodness she was kicked out.  Partisan politics said the governor.  Partisan my ass, lady gets before the legislature and after a horrendous audit done by an outside group finally admits there there are some transportation issues in that state but offers NO solutions.  I recall hearing I don't know several times.  WTF?  How was she head of that department?  Can we get our money back from the resources she used while head of that department?

How the heck am I supposed to ever look at a dang ballot like I have a choice when one party's entire existence in this state seems to be summed up in We're not the other guys, and we've got no ideas but to borrow heavily and cut everything.  Great.  The party that hates taxes is really good at ... setting us up for more taxes in the future!  I mean come up with something productive for cripes sake! 

School's Out, Not

The wife is looking to go back to school to peruse a career in educating the elementary age children of the world.  We made a trip to the U of M for an information session.  I went along as I had the day off anyway.  Dang that place is bigger every time I visit...   There was a lot of conflicting advice given by some teachers we heard from outside the U of M session.  We did however happen to know a dude who helps place teachers who have finished their schooling into schools, and find that we had some acquaintances who actually work in the area that the wife is looking at (early childhood special education).  Discussions with those folks have provided a lot more insight than we had before.  Also the U of M might not end up being the school of choice but I'm happy that we have what seems to be some knowledgeable and helpful advisor at this point.

Dear Coworker,

I am helping YOU.  So let's get a few things straight.

When you called me for help it was 03:30 am.

This is your customer we are working on.

Your customer tried to move some equipment from point A to point B, but forgot some vital equipment that helps us diagnose issues.

Stop going into diagnostic mode in the equipment that you're connected to.  Just stop.

When the customer told you late last night that Everything should be the same at the new site.  that was your clue to ask more questions.  Not hope for the best and tell me everything is the same.

Are you in diagnostic mode again?  No, ok.

Hey wait, when I asked if they also moved equipment X to the new site and they said no.  How can everything be the same?

This is weird . . . are you sure you're not in diagnostic mode again?  You've been in there for the last half hour?  Get the #### out!

Yes, get out of diagnostic mode.  Stay out of there so I can see everything as it should be.  You didn't know going into diag mode off lines the whole box?  Did you miss that notice the last eight times you were in there in the last half hour!?!?

Jebus this is weird.

Wait, did I just hear over your speaker phone that the customer is resetting ###!?!?  Yeah I'm pretty sure that's what they said.  Listen to your damn speaker phone!

The Theater: A Midsummer Nights Dream

Went to A Midsummer Nights Dream at The Guthrie.   The Guthrie does at least one Shakespeare each year.  In past years a guest director has done some of the Shakespear shows (with mixed results) but this year the artistic director directed and accordingly the show was far superior to past productions.

The staging was great.  In the new theater they clearly can do a lot more.  There are few if any elements that feel like they might have been compromises in this show, unlike you found at times in the old theater.  Lots of farriers flying in from the ceiling and even from the balcony.  Titania's bed/cave like thing that rises up from below the stage was keen.

They added music to this version of the play, not just intro music you might get for someone's entrance, singing....  Had I known there was going to be a fair amount of singing I would have braced myself for serious suck but somehow it played out naturally.  Lots of R&B as you might expect with the love theme.  Oberon's black leather and long white glam band hair worked with his metal entrances.  I've been growing painfully tired of "modern" productions of Shakespeare, but despite the music and such this still felt like A Midsummer Nights Dream.  After all it thought to be a dream by some of the characters so if it is a bit wonky that makes sense to me.   It was still in a forest and the fairies were still fairies and all was good there.  It worked.

The cast was quite good.  Helenna was a lot of fun.  That character can easily just go with the silly, pitiful, forgettable Helenna but rather she was quite entertaining.  Puck was good, and not annoying.  Sometimes that character can be too played up and IMO and overshadows the rest of the play but he fit well in this show.  Oberon was legitimately powerful sounding.  I've seen productions where he just sort of tosses out his lines and you never get the sense that this dude is a king, in this production dude seemed like a king who was going to make sure he got what he wanted.  Powerful voice.

My only complaint would be that the "acting troupe" had their "play within the play" go on too long.  They of course had the audience rolling during the entirety of little play within the play.  For highly professional and experienced actors it is always surprising that when they go the humorous route at The Guthrie they always seem to drag it out until the bit is long dead IMO.  It is often heavily goof ball centric and it never falls flat with the audience, but I'm always done with it when it is half way thru.   Sally W. was playing Robin Starvling and while she only had a handful of lines added near the end.  I think she showed how just a couple lines can be far funnier than the drawn out play within the play was.  Of course the acting troupe was done by longtime Guthrie actors so I'm sure there would be some controversy in cutting them off, and the audience didn't grow tired of it so...  everybody's a comedian I guess.

The wife did some work on this show so we got free tickets.  We were seated with some of the other workers from the theater and next to the grandmother of the actor playing Puck.  She was quite proud for good reason.

The local paper put up a couple vids about the show 1 , 2 , 3 .

Sailors

Do sailors in the Navy ever get their uniforms and say to themselves Dude, I look like some kinky Japaneses school girl! ?