The Irony behind it all...

I like independent films. If you like Independent films I would suggest that you check out Vodo.net as they have quite an eclectic collection of fascinating films. In particular, if you have the time, download and watch the film YouTubeLand. I had the pleasure over the weekend to watch this film, approx 101 minutes of assorted clips all collected from YouTube's grand library.

"But Floyd, Why do we care? And what does this have to do with Irony?"

Well, for starters, if you know me well, you know that for a time, I myself was a frequent uploader to a YouTube Channel. What was fascinating for me while watching YouTubeLand was the fact that I went through the exact same frustrations that every other YouTubber in the film experienced. The internal conflict with the concept of fame or popularity, wanting it yet not wanting it, none the less a fame that never came, the illusionary community that the internet is supposed to provide but yet fails to actually consummate, the frustrating reality that the average human occupying an IP address is not looking for enlightenment so much as they are looking for entertainment, and that this entertainment comes easiest when delivered through the medium of observing our own stupidity as a human race.

This tool, the internet, so long promised by every visionary that approaches it, to be some sort of medium for the sharing of wisdom, for the education and enlightenment of humankind, is used for barely more than a few giggles.

And here is the irony...

While I yet know that all of this is the fact of our existence. I can't help but want to write something inspiring... I want to point to a better way of thinking, I want to point to the exit sign that leads out of this silly theater wherein is preformed the daily drama, not of good vs evil, but of adolescent battle between mere opposing opinion. And I'd love to lead as many as would follow out the door under that exit sign. But every one grabs my arm and leg and shirt and says, "No... we are still enjoying the show..."

And so I continue to pull and try to get away from the persistent giggling...

my life is mired in irony.

~Floyd.

Here's the Noose, People, You decide.

While I may not be a fan of Obama, I am an enemy of Political B.S. And frankly at the moment, Obama is about to become the victim of a lot of political B.S.

Over the past several months, The citizenship of President Barack H. Obama has been called into question and this topic has only continued to increase in volume as time has stretched on. Today it was the lunchtime talking point between my coworkers. While I fully understand the implications of this accusation and the pending impeachment if it holds true and all the rest of the following consequences, I really don't see a logical way through this impasse.

"But Floyd, If he would just produce his birth certificate, that would prove once and for all if he is a citizen of this country."

*Evil glare*

Ok, let's think about this for a moment. Lets say he hands over his Birth Certificate. There are three scenarios that play out from here.

Scenario 1. Barack admits he is not a native born citizen of this country, He is impeached, and all of the rest of the consequences ensue. Tea Partiests have, well, a party.

Scenario 2. So, you have Barack Obama who probably has plenty of access to funds/ bribes/ benefits that he could discretely offer out to top grade forgers who could reasonably pull off making a birth certificate. Then what happens, It goes to some "independent" agency who tries to check the validity of the forged birth certificate. Seeing as there are very few unbiased/ un-bribe-able independent agencies (The count comes to a grand total of Zero) the Birth Certificate goes to some independent agency who is either biased or bribed and they portray their results accordingly. A fight ensues no matter what the verdict is because whoever looses can easily claim that the group was unbiased and or bribed. In the end we still don't know for sure. Or, the Tea Party yells louder and swings the verdict in their favor and get Mr. Obama Thrown out of office. He is impeached and all the rest of the consequences ensue. Tea Partiests have, well, a party.

Scenario 3. Barack Obama really is a native born citizen of this country He produces his legitimate birth certificate. Then what happens, It goes to some "independent" agency who tries to check the validity of the legitimate birth certificate. Seeing as there are very few unbiased/ un-bribe-able independent agencies (The count comes to a grand total of Zero) the Birth Certificate goes to some independent agency who is either biased or bribed and they portray their results accordingly. A fight ensues no matter what the verdict is because whoever looses can easily claim that the group was unbiased and or bribed. In the end we still don't know for sure. Or, the Tea Party yells louder and swings the verdict in their favor and get Mr. Obama Thrown out of office. He is impeached and all the rest of the consequences ensue. Tea Partiests have, well, a party.

Are you noticing a pattern here?

There is no logical way that a snowball will stay solid for very long in a burning crematorium. Likewise, there is no logical reason for Barack H. Obama to give up any Birth Certificate of any kind, it would be like handing over a noose and asking to be hung.

On a personal note however. If I were Mr. Obama. I'd give up. I'd resign. I wouldn't care what they said about me. I would give one final scathing speech about all of the B.S. in this country. I would let everyone have what's coming to them. I would expose as much of the dirty underhanded corruption, and express the sheer ungovernability of this nation, by the fact that we no longer work together, and have individually become so corrupt ourselves. And with that I'd step down, move out of this country, and watch it slowly implode despite the desperate efforts of the government and the people. We'd better all get our act together. It's hitting the fan, and there isn't anything we can do to stop it.

~Floyd

The deadly combination...

I think I have identified the two principle factors which have made my life so darn difficult.

Factor 1. I am an Introvert.

If you are still under the impression that all introverts are people who stay at home and live inside their room and are pale and play video games all the time, Then it is time for an update to your understanding of the terms Introversion and Extroversion, please Wikipedia that article now.

It is bad enough that I am an introvert living not only in the United States but currently in the State of Utah which scores higher in the Extrovert category then the rest of the national average. As a rule of thumb the United States of America generally prizes Extroverted behaviors and generally discourages or demeans Introvertism, as can be seen by the very negative cultural connotation mentioned above which you probably believed true till you were notified otherwise. The United States culture has been giving Introverts the short end of the stick for a long time by putting negative ideas about Introverts in popular culture and also paying more for the jobs that Extroverts would normally take and less and less for the jobs that Introverts would be more suited toward. Speaking of Jobs, this brings me to the second factor that makes my life difficult.

Factor 2. I am Dysgraphic.

Chances are, you have never even heard of Dysgraphia, Wikipedia it now. If you don't believe that this is a real disorder, then you might want to open your eyes a bit and watch people's handwriting. Just the other day I ran into someone and glanced down at some notes they were taking and I made the comment, "That looks a lot like my handwriting." He turns to me and says, "It is most definitely mine." but then he turns to me a moment later and asks, "Wait, you aren't by chance Disgraphic?" I answered in the affirmative. I had been diagnosed as Dysgraphic when I was in Junior High.

But why are these two particular factors the ones that make my life so hard? If you can't draw the line yet, let me illuminate the connection...

Most people who are predominantly Introverted generally lean towards professions of art or science as most of this work happens inside the mind and as such is generally more rewarding for an introvert. For me however, art is almost a complete dead end, Dysgraphia has robbed me of a portion of my fine motor skills which would be necessary for most art such as drawing, painting, any sort of musical instrument etc... such disciplines which are difficult for any normal person to master become increasingly difficult tenfold for an individual such as myself.

And science, while I am good at it... I find terribly boring... I have relatively no passion in it.

And so I am.

A difficult being.

Just trying to make it in this world.

~Floyd

What “Is” Love?

Let me make sure I am clear about the question. Most of the time, when people answer the question "What Is Love?" they almost always give connotative feeling answers. Example, "Love is that feeling you get when you are embraced in the arms of your parents." or, "Love is that thing that can crush you when you get dumped." Ok, so I'm not very good at giving examples, if you want better ones, just Google the question and look at the myriad of answers that come back. Now if you actually happened to Google it and look around for a moment, see if you notice the trend that I am talking about. The answers all say how Love effects a person, not what Love itself "Is”"

It's funny, I never really thought much about it till a friend of mine discussed this topic with me, posing this same question. She couldn't quite put it in words yet but she had this feeling that there were not different types of Love, as some would suggest, but that there was one type of Love and that it only varied by strength or intensity. To explain the differences manifestation of Love, such as the difference between parent and child, and two lovers, were due more to natures of the relationships themselves.

Both she and I continued to ponder the matter for the next few days and independent of one another came to the same conclusions.

Love "Is" a condition of connection.

At it's raw, rudimentary, base, it is a literal connection between two people. I don't mean the superficial connection such as, "you like basketball, I like basketball, We're connected." I mean a connection that begins to break down all barriers, and begins to make two things more like one thing. It can be strong, or it can be weak. Nurturing it makes us feel better. Neglecting it, or intentionally trying to break or weaken it, can make us feel horrible. But in every relationship that has any chance of lasting, the connection is the constant.

I can keep going on and on. I'm not 100% sure if this train of thought is right or wrong. At best, the train of thought is still un-polished and messy. But it does introduce several new questions that never could have occurred before. I'll stop here and pick back up with some of those new questions another day.

~Floyd

The difficulties of resurrecting an old blog.

I know that I haven't posted on this blog for over a year. I am sorry for that. I started up my Vlog on Youtube and kept it going for a while, but the effort it takes to produce a well polished and attractive Vlog was slightly more than I could handle. Add to that the fact that I am not so eloquent in person as I am in writing and the fact that I quickly ran out of topics to discuss on the Vlog and that added up to me slowly edging away from Youtube again. So here I am... Writing a Blog post again.

The difficulty with Bloging, for me at least, is that there is so many things I'd love to share, not just thoughts, but emotions, experience, personal connotations as it were. I'd love to have a community around me that I could both support and be supported by when I need such support. Yet, in the society in which I currently live, (Most of you know this but I moved to Utah) it seems as if everyone is absolution burying their faults so that no one can see them. It is like having a problem is not allowed around here. And I can see why. Any time anyone announces that they are going through hard times, everyone is completely willing and eager to "help" and "fix", but no one around here seems to understand the idea of commiserating, validating that yes, life is hard sometimes. And so I feel I must bury my own issues, experiences, emotions, revelations about my own needs etc. And I'm good at burying it, I bury those things so deep that no one without some serious determination can pry at them. But buried inside of me, they burn...

So, I hope to break down some of those walls here. I hope to carefully present the things I've learned and experienced in my daily life in an honest and unapologetic way. And I hope that I will be treated with the same respect as I treat others with.

Will you participate in the adventure that is my life?

~Floyd

Mp3 Player Woes

So a few weeks back I had a really bad day. On top of a whole bunch of other things that were happening that day, I also managed to break an Mp3 player that I had only bought a month before. Because it was a really bad day, I was in a rather delirious state of mind when I logged onto Ebay that night and I found what I thought was a really good deal, a 32 GB player for under fifty bucks. I acknowledged that it was a Mp3 player out of China and so I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but what I got didn't even live up to those low expectations. I found out that 8 Chinese
Gigabytes is in actuality only 1 Gigabyte. The reason for this is apparently because the manufacturers of these Mp3 players don't know the difference between a bit and a byte. There is indeed a 32 Gigabit flash memory card in my device, but 32 Gigabits amounts to 4 gigabytes. What is worse though, is that they hacked the firmware to tell the computer that it is indeed a 32 Gigabyte Mp3 player. This causes a host of other problems, because the computer will try to write data onto the imaginary 28 Gigs of memory.
The only redeeming quality it had at this point was that it could supposedly play .OGG vorbis format. But this proved to be not quite true either. So I have given up on it and I am going to ask for a refund.
Why is it so hard to find a good Mp3 Player? And before you Mac zealots chime in and giggle at me saying "Why don't you buy an Ipod.. it's so convenient.." Here are two things that are absolutely essential that an Ipod have before I buy it, expandable memory slot, and a decent price. (ahh heck lets throw in the fact that it has to come free of mind control devices too. But that is a totally different rant...)
Seriously, it seems like all of the portable playing devices are way behind todays technology. This is a list of functions that we are fully capable of implementing into our Mp3 players now, but notice how so many of these are still absent from even the top of the line models.
Expansion Card: I don't care if it has 32 GB, in time I can fill it up. If I can plug cards into it than it has no real space limit, I will turn a 2 GB into a 64 GB with cards.
Hold Button: We have seen hold buttons used widely on CD players, why hasn't the transition been made. Nothing aggravates me more than bumping into something, and fast forwarding to the next chapter in an audio book, then having to sit and try to get back to where I was for five minutes because the fast forwarding function is slow. Either put a hold button in, or put the buttons on the side.
Screen Protection: If you are going the way of touch screen, make some way to reinforce the screen. Palm protected their touch screens with impact grade plastic covers that you can snap on and off. Lack of screen protection is why my last Mp3 Player broke.
Standard USB hookup: (Apple I am looking at you) I don't want to go buy a special/ more expensive cable from you guys if my link cable goes bad.
Drag and Drop Folder Capabilities: Ok, if you don't know how to organize your music, you need to take some basic computer courses. Don't let the computer organize it for you, especially if you are like me and have only one song from several different artists. I want to put all those loose ends in a folder together.
It should Not have a Start up Animation: (Ok, Mac got this one right.) I want to go strait to my menus, I don't need to be greeted with a Hello every time I turn on my Mp3 player.
Tru random play: If I tell it to random play all, It better play All the songs, not just the first 300.
Tag Capabilities: One thing I haven't seen on any Mp3 Player is advanced Tag capabilities. If you brows around the Internet radio site Last.fm you will begin to understand what I am talking about. You can put whatever tags you want onto a song, then you can go through a list of the tags you have made and tell your Mp3 player to play those tags. This is fundamentally different from play lists because if you try to play a play list that is supposed to play some songs that are not on your Mp3 player any more, it can mess up. Play lists are stagnant, Tags are fluid and continually adjustable. They are far easier to use.
It must not be Hacked: Aka, it tells your computer the real amount of memory that it has.
Currently, there is no Mp3 player out there that has all of these functions. But is this really too much to ask for?
The Revolutionary
~SB

Peace Connotation

When I say the word Peace, or Love everyone, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? If you are like me, one of the first things that comes to your mind is the Hippies. Hopefully the thing that comes to your mind is the teachings of Jesus Christ, but we will get to that in a moment. It is such a shame that Hippies are so closely connotative with the word Peace because lets face it, Hippies in and of themselves carry such bad connotations, drugs, STD ridden communes, large scale protests, long hair and bell bottom pants. Inadvertently, because they are connotative with peace and with all these other bad things, the concept of peace also becomes connotative of drugs, STD ridden communes and large scale, not so peaceful, protests. If you don't believe that these connotations exist then try talking peace with your coworkers at work. Talk about the world problems, talk about the partisan competition in the states, talk about the "off the cuff slandering" that people in general are serving to one another. Then mention, "Man if everyone would just cool their jets, stop arguing, and give peace a chance it would fix so many things in this world." Then watch the reaction of your coworkers. Count the number of eyes that roll. Listen closely for the sighs. If you have a particularly choice audience, one might say "That will never work." or "Were you a hippie in some past life?" Try it.
This is such a catastrophe. It is like we have gotten ourselves backed into a corner because of jargon and connotations. I would say that if the Devil was responsible influencing the current state of things, he is one cunning bugger. We can hardly speak of our two greatest weapons against the problems of our age, Love and Peace, because we don't want to be associated with the hippies and their less-than-noble agendas.
I guess that is the way the Devil has always worked though. Look at the crusades. In this day and age, the crusades have become a black mark on all religions. The Catholics are not the only ones to suffer from that atrocity of the past. Those who denounce any sort of conviction that is based upon a religious foundation use the crusades as a major attack, embedding this ill connotation on all religions, especially on Christianity.
Let us throw off these connotations and honestly speak of peace. Let us stop fighting one another, and slandering one another, but seek instead for understanding of one another, regardless of wither or not that person's viewpoint is in opposition to our own. It would be my wish and desire for all people to just take a stand back and consider those principles of peace, charity love, understanding, kindness, and good will toward all mankind.

The Revolutionary,
~SB