Tuesday, August 27, 2013

15 Signs You're Addicted to the Internet

1) Just because you have to use the bathroom doesn't mean you have to leave the laptop in the living room.

2) A huge storm is over your house and you're more concerned that if it knocks out the power you'll lose your wifi connection than the power to your refrigerator/freezer.

3) What's television? Reddit has a whole piece on audience reactions to Miley Cyrus' VMA show!

4) |\|0 0|\|3 U|\|D3r$74|\|D$ \/\/|-|@ j00Z 7'/P3 4|\|'//\/\0r3. |\|00B$. 

5) You don't want to shower because you can't safely take your laptop in with you to read Buzzfeed articles.

6) 4chan has cut you off... you shouted "I'll tell you when I've had enough!"

7) You have more pictures of funny cats on your computer than you do of people. 

8) Your family has just decided to stage an intervention. You didn't show up because your family isn't on Facebook and therefore didn't make an event.

9) The internet is down for line maintenance. The service provider said it didn't have anything to get you through until they got more supply.

10) Libraries have books?!

11) The FBI has put Twitter on its most wanted list of drug dealers.

12) You have forgotten what humans look like. What do you mean they're not text on a screen?!

13) The police have just come to ensure you're not dead because no one except the Domino's pizza delivery guy has seen you for three months - and he's only getting the chance because Domino's has online ordering.

14) You spent an entire weekend on Cracked.com. You never noticed you lost two whole days.

15) Somehow, somewhere there is someone who knows the internet better than you... and for reasons you cannot explain, that is a scary thought.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

66 Answers to Questions I'm Tired of Hearing

1. Yes, it really is supposed to look like that.
2. Take it or leave it.
3. No.
4. Actually, I made it.
5. None of your business.
6. I think it was the dog.
7. No really, I made it.
8. Maybe.
9. Why are you stealing my tea?
10. Yes, it is.
11. Yes, I am.
12. No.
13. No, I'm not kidding you!
14. Yup.
15. Fat chance.
16. No, I do not take commissions.
17. I am disturbed by your excessive use of smilies.
18. I said no!
19. I don't know.
20. Are you kidding me?
21. Am I on Candid Camera?
22. No, this one is mine, you can't buy it.
23. Yes, I am quite serious.
24. No, it's not.
25. Get your own lunch!
26. Please stop following me.
27. No.
28. Yup.
29. Maybe.
30. What part of "no" don't you understand? The "n" or the "o"?
31. I don't think so.
32. That's his dog.
33. Yes, we are halfway done.
34. No, I don't teach.
35. Yes, I am going to eat that.
36. No, really.
37. No.
38. Yeah, it's a blog.
39. Maybe you should change the locks.
40. Nope.
41. Why are you asking?
42. Please stop talking.
43. The day is young and the hijinks are endless.
45. Okay, I'll make that for you if you give me $2,000 up front.
46. Good bye.
47. No, thank you.
48. Life isn't fair.
49. I have cats.
50. Yeah, two grand is reasonable when I've already said no.
51. It's my food!
52. No.
53. Yes, this is my job.
54. I would prefer it if you didn't, but by all means do so when I don't have to watch.
55. Yes, I am wearing this.
56. I think it was that guy.
57. No, it wasn't me.
58. You must be confusing me with someone else.
59. Yeah, crazy like a fox!
60. You ask that like you don't really want to know the answer.
61. No, the internet can't do that.
62. If you want one of your own, learn to knit.
63. That's why there's cat hair on my clothes...
64. Well, this explains a lot.
65. No.
66. What makes you think I'm giving you the questions to go with the answers? Now stop asking!

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Steampunk and Growing Up

Two weeks ago I promised you I'd post the whole playlist I built over the month of July.

Well, here it is: The Steampunk Playlist.

I am not going to give you the whole list of songs. That's on the blog. The tag is Road to Salt City Steamfest.

What I am going to give you is an explanation. Before you continue, however, the following post might offend you. If you like steampunk a lot and do not want to hear any criticism of it, please close your browser window and wait until I write a new blog post. If you choose to continue on, do so at your own peril.

A week ago I turned 26. That's the back end of my 20s. Two weeks ago I was at Salt City Steamfest, and I didn't want to seem like a downer then, but to put it bluntly now it was quite possibly the most lackluster event I've ever attended. The panelists were entirely comprised of whoever wanted to sign up, regardless of skill, expertise, planning, or personal time limits. Frequently, the panelists wouldn't take up the whole hour, so they'd simply stop and say "Well, that's it. Feel free to ask me questions." Worse, many of them would have nothing pre-prepared and would stand in front of a room and ramble on about their subject.

The opening ceremony was a joke. It was, overall, a poorly planned, under-attended event (probably with good reason if it was like this last year). I had such high hopes and tried to make it fun, but it was largely a waste of time.

That wasn't even the hardest part for me. The hardest part was the other attendees. Allow me to explain.

I knew a good sized number of people there (my mom doesn't even know - I could point out easily a dozen people I'd encountered before at various places), and I knew something about most of them: They were going nowhere in life and doing nothing with it. The people I knew were largely unambitious, having no jobs, living with their parents, barely passing in school (or, in one case, flunking out entirely), and generally not doing anything but going to fun events.

And here I was, doing the same thing as these people.

I may seem like a snob here, but with the growing popularity of steampunk there is a growing population who embodies a trait I don't respect. Steampunk was meant to be the best and the brightest. Those who were part of the subculture wanted to explore and learn and be the best at everything simply because they could. Those who truly understand steampunk understand that it is not about fun costumes and gears and steam-powered robots.

Steampunk is about striving to become enlightened. To enhance personal knowledge and think and discover. Not just to collect information, but to figure out what it all means. We are still obsessed with our own cleverness and we want to work and excel and be the best. We want to learn. We want to master everything.

We also understand that to do all of that is a lot of work.

What the popularity of steampunk has attracted is a group of hangers-on who want to be the best and the brightest without doing any of the work to get there. It's as if they are the moon, picking up on the glow that proverbial sun of steampunk's intelligence and hard work ethic gives off, doing nothing to contribute to that glow themselves.

I do not respect that. Not in the slightest. If you want something, you darn well do the work to get it.

With that said, I will not totally renounce steampunk, but I will back off in my obsession (trust me, steampunk is still very, very cool). Salt City Steamfest served as a sobering reality check. It's time for me to grow the heck up and stop with all the childish costumes and playing around.

A week ago I turned 26. A week ago I realized that I had spent so much time being part of a group that has started to become something I did not respect that I was in danger of becoming part of that group. A week ago I realized that having a label of anything is stupid.

A week ago, growing up went a little less awry.
Creative Commons License
Help, The Stash is Attacking! When Yarn, Knitting and Growing Up Go Terribly Awry by Kimberly Lewis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thestashattacked.blogspot.com.