Wednesday, September 20, 2006

You'll Thank Me Some Day

I try to be organized. I really do. I have this inate need to have everything categorized, labeled, and easily searchable. Which is why I love things like my iPod: All my music, right there, no swapping CDs or tapes. I want a song, BAM! I'm listening to it within seconds. Or why I finally settled on Canon's ImageBrowser software to organize all my digital images. I want a picture, I know exactly where it is. So I didn't think anything of it when I decided to print and archive all the blog entries and comments from the Coffee Crew Blog, Steve's Thymenage Blog, Toni's "Much Ado" site and the Encyclopedia Giachettica collection. In my mind, it was totally rational: A hardcopy backup of some of the best darned writing this side of the world wide web. I figured it served two purposes: One, is gives me a nice (albeit gigunda-sized) book to be able to pull out weeks, months, or even years later to reminisce over with my friends; and two: it's a physical backup in case something catastrophic happens, such as Blogger going out of business or terrorists blowing up the internet. I never liked the idea of all these masterpieces of literary genius (or even this blog) residing solely in cyberspace; it just made me nervous. So two trips to Office Max and $80 later, I now have a hardcopy backup of everything up to August. It was a just and noble cause. Until Toni questioned why the hell I would ever go through such lengths, and noted I was the only person she knew who would go BACKWARDS in technology and print a hardcopy of an online archive.

Sigh...

Some people just don't understand.

All I can say to that statement is this: What about people who use their fancy $200 cell phones to TYPE messages back and forth? Tell me THAT'S not pushing technology back! So there.

Now Steve, my blogging mentor, would probably love the fact that I'm into the blogs so much that I'd take the time to lovingly collect all the works into a single binder. But I would be remiss if I didn't point out the single flaw which would probably prevent him from trying the same thing: Anybody's comments posted after archiving are not included in the hardcopy, and that's enough to give Steve the shakes at night. I, however, am willing to risk it.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Mourning: 101

I need something explained to me. Maybe I'm missing the point, maybe I'm just a cold-hearted bastard, but occasionally while driving on the highways and parkways of Long Island I'll come across a makeshift memorial on the side of the road, flowers and signs and whatnot, honoring someone who presumably lost their life in an accident at that very site; and I have to tell you... I don't get it. Is it just a Long Island thing, or do people across the country feel the need to make public highways they're own little shrine to the deceased? Honestly, I'm really not that calloused, and no, I've never lost anyone in a horrible car accident so I have no right telling people how to mourn, but I just don't see the point. To me, it just seems, I don't know, trashy, like people can't be bothered with actually making a trip to the cemetary. With the obvious exception of tragedies like 9/11 we don't do that for anything else; my grandmother passed away in an assisted living home, I don't go to the room where she stayed and leave flowers every year, I go to her grave, that's what it's for: to honor and remember loved ones. Why do people feel the need to show everyone on their way to work that someone died at exit marker 3515 on the L.I.E.? One may argue that we need little reminders like this in our lives to remember our own loved ones and even our own mortality, and that may be fine for others, but I'll be just fine without the sidewalk shrine.
So having said all that, I'm officially going on the record to all my friends and family: If God-forbid I perish in a car accident on the side of the road, do NOT waste your time and money decorating the site with flowers and hand-written notes and signs; if you do I will haunt you for the rest of your life.
You've been warned.