A Cartoonish Life

It's a tad delayed, but Happy New Year to everyone!

So I made some resolutions for this year, and they are (in no particular order):
--to improve my social life. I want to meet new people and make new friends, because I unfortunately don't seem to have much of a life outside of work and the Internet. I need more in-real-life-friends.
--to improve my general health. I'm going to try to lose 50 pounds this year, not just to fit into a certain size, but at least half of this 50 pounds has come from the general stress of working at the grocery store. That's not good.
--to move the hell out. My parents and younger brother keep talking about the end of the world happening this year (which I firmly don't believe will happen), and I'm sorry, but if it does happen, I'd rather take my chances and die in the radiation than live the rest of my life in a bunker with them. I've read Anne Frank's diary. I don't want to go insane living with those morons any longer.
--to improve my art skills and get accepted into an art school with a good animation program (I'm looking at CalArts).

*tangent

So, still with my boyfriend. (For the time being, anyway.) He was annoyed that I hadn't made any concrete New Year's Eve plans and that I wasn't including him in my no-plans. Uh, what? Sorry, but kind of a stupid reason to get pissed. If I hadn't really had any New Year's Eve plans, he shouldn't have taken it personally. I was perfectly content to just stay home, do some cleaning out and straightening up by myself. I kind of didn't want to be out in the cold or on the roads that night. And he knows I don't go out and party like I used to. Hell, even he admits to this. And why does he have to depend on me to have a plan? Hmm?

Well, we went out anyway, because I only knew of one shindig going on that night: Help Me Mommy's Rocky Horror New Year's Eve Show. There was a rave party going on before the show, so I figured if we're going to go out, let's just do that. And I got dressed up and did my hair and all of that. He didn't make much of an effort to get dressed up. If we're going to party, fine. I'm going to party and dance my ass off. He stuck by my side and....I'm sorry, but he can't dance worth a crap. It was kind of a pain in the ass, to be honest. And besides the fact that it was the Rocky Horror Picture Show (I really don't get to go like I used to, but we all know why I don't go as often anymore), it was kind of a crappy New Year's Eve. I wanted to chat up with some of my cast member friends after the show, but he wanted to leave right away.

He claims he had a good time. I tried, but was unsuccessful. Yep. The BF is cramping my style, and I don't like it. It's time I start looking around; hence, the resolution to improve my social life.

*tangent*

So....who else here thinks the world is going to end this year? Like I said, I don't. But my parents and my brother are buying into all of those dumb conspiracy theories about the December 21, 2012 thing, and sun spots, and Armageddon and the apocalypse and are actually making plans to make a freaking bunker in case the worst happens.

You want to know what I think? I think they need to turn off the H2 channel and read some actual scientific research. I don't like them watching that channel all the time. It's just going to get people riled up and anxious over nothing. If they're that concerned about sun spots and the planet going to shit, then maybe they need to start doing something to help take care of the planet. My brother used to date this girl who was all into conservation, and he always made fun of her and ragged on her for that stuff, but at least her heart was in the right place. I speak my opinion with my family, and they just laugh it off and don't take it seriously.

I think a lot of those conspiracy theories are bullshit. I think a lot of the world's weather problems are due to a shift in the axis (which happens every couple of hundred years or so). I don't think the world will end on December 21, 2012 (actually, that date has been proven to be miscalculated), and this will all be a blip. Just like Y2K was.

*tangent*

And not to sound too morbid, but it's time for my 2012 Celebrity Death List. (Last year was a banner year for me, actually. Eight out of my ten passed away last year. I'm lucky if one or two go.)

--Etta James
--Zsa Zsa Gabor
--Andy Griffith
--Dick Clark
--Mickey Rooney
--Kirk Douglas
--Jerry Lee Lewis
--Olivia de Havilland
--Harper Lee
--Loretta Lynn

And my wild cards (the ones whom I'm all "I can't believe they're still alive!" and probably won't go for a while longer, but you never know...):
--Hugh Hefner
--Willie Nelson
--Keith Richards

I've been perusing communities to keep up with on here, and maybe it's just me, but I've noticed something. There are a lot of fandom fic writers on here.

This is a good thing, of course. There seems to be a lot more creative types over here on DW.

I think I'll hang on to my LJ account purely for the communities that I'm still active in over there (like ONTD and a few others).

In my opinion, this is the time of year where you should eat, drink, be with your family/loved ones and be merry. And it really shouldn't be about what religion you follow or what deity you worship.



It isn't about the giving, it isn't about the getting, it's all about the loving. And I love you all. :)

Shunning Facebook, and living to tell about it

Tyson Balcomb quit Facebook after a chance encounter on an elevator. He found himself standing next to a woman he had never met, yet through Facebook he knew what her older brother looked like, that she was from a tiny island off the coast of Washington and that she had recently visited the Space Needle in Seattle.

"I knew all these things about her, but I’d never even talked to her," said Mr. Balcomb, a pre-med student in Oregon who had some real-life friends in common with the woman. "At that point I thought, maybe this is a little unhealthy."

As Facebook prepares for a much-anticipated public offering, the company is eager to show off its momentum by building on its huge membership: more than 800 million active users around the world, Facebook says, and roughly 200 million in the United States, or two-thirds of the population.

But the company is running into a roadblock in this country. Some people, even on the younger end of the age spectrum, just refuse to participate, including people who have given it a try.

One of Facebook’s main selling points is that it builds closer ties among friends and colleagues. But some who steer clear of the site say it can have the opposite effect of making them feel more, not less, alienated.

"I wasn’t calling my friends anymore," said Ashleigh Elser, 24, who is in graduate school in Charlottesville, Va. "I was just seeing their pictures and updates and felt like that was really connecting to them."

To be sure, the Facebook-free life has its disadvantages in an era when people announce all kinds of major life milestones on the Web. Ms. Elser has missed engagements and pictures of new-born babies. But none of that hurt as much as the gap she said her Facebook account had created between her and her closest friends. So she shut it down.

Many of the holdouts mention concerns about privacy. Those who study social networking say this issue boils down to trust. Amanda Lenhart, who directs research on teenagers, children and families at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, said that people who use Facebook tend to have "a general sense of trust in others and trust in institutions." She added: "Some people make the decision not to use it because they are afraid of what might happen."

Ms. Lenhart noted that about 16 percent of Americans don’t have cellphones. "There will always be holdouts," she said.

Facebook executives say they don’t expect everyone in the country to sign up. Instead they are working on ways to keep current users on the site longer, which gives the company more chances to show them ads. And the company’s biggest growth is now in places like Asia and Latin America, where there might actually be people who have not yet heard of Facebook.

"Our goal is to offer people a meaningful, fun and free way to connect with their friends, and we hope that’s appealing to a broad audience," said Jonathan Thaw, a Facebook spokesman.

But the figures on growth in this country are stark. The number of Americans who visited Facebook grew 10 percent in the year that ended in October -- down from 56 percent growth over the previous year, according to comScore, which tracks Internet traffic.

Ray Valdes, an analyst at Gartner, said this slowdown was not a make-or-break issue ahead of the company’s public offering, which could come in the spring. What does matter, he said, is Facebook’s ability to keep its millions of current users entertained and coming back.

"They’re likely more worried about the novelty factor wearing off," Mr. Valdes said. "That’s a continual problem that they’re solving, and there are no permanent solutions."

Erika Gable, 29, who lives in Brooklyn and does public relations for restaurants, never understood the appeal of Facebook in the first place. She says the daily chatter that flows through the site " updates about bad hair days and pictures from dinner" is virtual clutter she doesn’t need in her life.

"If I want to see my fifth cousin’s second baby, I’ll call them," she said with a laugh.

Ms. Gable is not a Luddite. She has an iPhone and sometimes uses Twitter. But when it comes to creating a profile on the world’s biggest social network, her tolerance reaches its limits.

"I remember having MySpace for a bit and always feeling so weird about seeing other people’s stuff all the time," she said. "I’m not into it."

Will Brennan, a 26-year-old Brooklyn resident, said he had "heard too many horror stories" about the privacy pitfalls of Facebook. But he said friends are not always sympathetic to his anti-social-media stance.

"I get asked to sign up at least twice a month," said Mr. Brennan. "I get harangued for ruining their plans by not being on Facebook."

And whether there is haranguing involved or not, the rebels say their no-Facebook status tends to be a hot topic of conversation -- much as a decision not to own a television might have been in an earlier media era.

"People always raise an eyebrow," said Chris Munns, 29, who works as a systems administrator in New York. "But my life has gone on just fine without it. I’m not a shut-in. I have friends and quite an enjoyable life in Manhattan, so I can’t say it makes me feel like I’m missing out on life at all."

But the peer pressure is only going to increase. Susan Etlinger, an analyst at the Altimeter Group, said society was adopting new behaviors and expectations in response to the near-ubiquity of Facebook and other social networks.

"People may start to ask the question that, if you aren’t on social channels, why not? Are you hiding something?" she said. "The norms are shifting."

This kind of thinking cuts both ways for the Facebook holdouts. Mr. Munns said his dating life had benefited from his lack of an online dossier: "They haven’t had a chance to dig up your entire life on Facebook before you meet."

But Ms. Gable said such background checks were the one thing she needed Facebook for.

"If I have a crush on a guy, I’ll make my friends look him up for me," Ms. Gable said. "But that’s as far as it goes."
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I'm lucky if I log on once a week to check my Facebook page, but considering how I have a crapload of "friends" on there that are mere acquaintances, it's kind of ridiculous. Also, I tend to get left out of goings-on at work because of it, leaving me to feel....well, alienated. I really try not to let it bother me (considering a lot of that Facebook stuff is between the younger workers), but I'm sorry. I don't live my life on a website, and if people really want to get a hold of me, they can call me. I do have a cellphone, after all. I'm definitely one of those people who feel more alienated by seeing everyone else's status updates and fun goings-on broadcast on there knowing that once again, I've been left out.


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By the way, I'm sending out Christmas cards and I need addresses from wonkylibrarian (I don't know if I have a new address for you guys yet) and iamfiction. If anyone else wants a Christmas card and I may have no address yet, hit me up! (Just email it to me at hbh127@yahoo.com)

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Oh, one more thing. Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! :D

And so I embark on the thirty-first year of my life.

[Poll #1796971]

I put in for my second week of vacation time for the week of my birthday, starting December 5th. I didn't have any set plans, but now I'm contemplating tagging along with my parents back down to Alabama for that week.

Why? Because they're finally going to do something about Grandma Cozie's house down there, that's why. They're going to clearing stuff out, getting prices on stuff that they can sell (because she had a lot of antiques), and fixing the house up to sell it. I don't think the house will sell for as much as it's worth, considering how crappy the real estate market has been lately. Oh, and it's also located in the middle of nowhere. If I go with them, I'll probably be without Internet access for the week (even if I get a laptop; there's no Internet access in the house). But I'd just be helping them clear stuff out.

Two of Dad's friends were going to go down with them (because his friend's wife works in real estate and flips houses on the side), but now it doesn't look like that will be going through as planned. So yeah....we'll see if I go with.

The pros? Get away from Indiana for a week. Decent weather down there. Get to go through Grandma Cozie's crap. Get to see some of my relatives down there! Possible side trip to Panama City (who knows what the weather will be like, though).
The cons? It'll pretty much be like an episode of "Hoarders," because you know Mom and I will be at odds with Dad over what goes and what gets kept. Dad will be lazy, and Mom and I will be doing the majority of the work. No Internet access. Southern food (which I have a love/hate relationship with). Already kind of pissed off at Dad as it is. It won't exactly be a vacation if I'm doing work.

Just considering it. But looking at the cons, I think I may be staying up here instead.

Well, I had to get grilled by my father about the whole art school thing. And it was pretty much the same discussion I had with him when I was sixteen and looking into it:

"NO! I DON'T WANT YOU TO BE A STARVING ARTIST! THAT'S NOT A REAL JOB! WHY CAN'T YOU BE A TEACHER OR A LAWYER OR SOMETHING?! YOU'RE NOT EVEN THAT GOOD!"

Then came the whole thing about the fact that it's out in California. Guess what that yielded?:

"WHY DO YOU HAVE TO GO OUT TO CALIFORNIA TO DO THIS?! AREN'T THERE ANY ART SCHOOLS OUT HERE NEAR CHICAGO?"

Well, yes, actually. Illinois Institute of Art has been calling for weeks hounding me to apply and enroll ASAP.

"YOU LIVE HERE RENT FREE! THINGS ARE EXPENSIVE OUT IN CALIFORNIA!"

News-flash, Dad. Things are expensive anywhere you go anymore!

"WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR MONEY OUT THERE?! HMM?"

Get a job, maybe? Like anyone else? I'm 30 years old. It's time for me to get out on my own anyway and fend for myself.

"YEAH, BUT NOT ALL THE WAY OUT IN CALIFORNIA! I DON'T WANT YOU TO BE A STARVING ARTIST AND TO WRECK YOUR CAR! WE ALREADY SPENT ALLLL OF THAT MONEY FOR YOU TO GO TO IUN AND PURDUE CAL, WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE A TEACHER OR SOMETHING?! YOU KNOW, A REAL JOB?!"

And then for good measure....

"YOU'RE NOT EVEN THAT GOOD."




It's official. I need to do this. I need to do this just to prove Dad wrong. He doesn't know it, but he has lit the fire under my ass. Now I have an even bigger motivating factor. Prove him wrong.

Not even lying. I JUST SAW this particular commercial get aired on regular TV:



I think it's cool they're throwing the old-school commercials out as advertising.

Two words: MARGARET'S ASS.

Hunter was watching with me, and we were dying laughing. I know Cartoon Network's programming tends to run a little risqué, but yeah. They went there.



It's official. Cartoon Network owns my soul.



Meanwhile......TWO MORE DAYS TILL NEW "BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD" ON MTV!!!! (Can't wait!)