Saturday, February 25

Blogging About Blogging Leaves the Whole World Blind

Since you asked, y'know:

I got jealous of everybody else's spiffy Blogrolling links bar and signed up for my own account, then spent approximately three hours (WHICH I CAN NEVER HAVE BACK) messing around with my links. Now everything looks approximately the same but it takes four times as long to load. The last time I tried loading the page there was just a large blank space where my "Friends" links were supposed to go. The Internet is a cheeky little tart, she is.

I also realized as I was editing my HTML code that 1) I have no idea whatsoever how to write HTML code and 2) I have even forgotten what little I once knew about HTML code which enabled me to design this site in the first place. You would think that staring intently at your laptop screen for twenty minutes looking for a misplaced /div tag would be just like riding a bicycle, I know, but it's just not coming back to me yet.

     

Friday, February 24

Language Barrier

It is just before midnight on Wednesday. I am riding the Ring-Bahn home. I am at the end of a long line of seats. There is a heavyset man, likely Turkish, no older than thirty, sitting directly across from me at the end of the opposite long line of seats. We are quietly ignoring one another per train etiquette rules.

The train stops at Ostkreuz and an enormous group of high school kids swarms into our car. They scrunch themselves into the line of seats, packing me and the Turkish man tightly against the glass partitions next to the doors. He and I exchange a bewildered look. He shrugs. I shrug. He glances over at them, then stares at his watch pointedly. I mime sleeping, then gesture in their direction. We both grin and nod.

More and more high schoolers pile into our car, shrieking to each other in a combination of German and Spanish. They begin clapping in rhythm and chanting names in unison as first one, then another dances between the two rows of seats.

I look at the Turkish man. He makes a mock worried face. I make the sign of the cross over myself. The chanting gets louder.

He offers me a stick of gum. I take it and salute him in thanks. He nods. The high schoolers do not seem to see us at all, even though several of them are practically sitting in our laps.

The train finally pulls away. The Turkish man and I sit awkwardly pressed against our respective glass partitions, glancing at each other from time to time and grinning slyly.

The high schoolers start pulling out digital cameras. The two boys next to the Turkish man pose for a picture. He looks at me, then makes the bunny-ears sign behind one of the students. I make a goofy face. Another boy jumps up and points a camera at the two girls next to me. I try to lean out of their way. The Turkish man gestures for me to move into the picture. I mime fluffing my hair.

The train pulls up to Hermannstrasse. He stands up and waves. I wave back. After he leaves, I change to an empty seat on the other side of the car.

     

Wednesday, February 22

Idle Hands are the Devil's Plaything

Do you ever Google people you know, or used to know, or are about to meet, and then feel guilty about it?

Do you find yourself wondering how you're going to conceal having knowledge about these people which you acquired by Googling them?

Do you turn off your browser's Auto-Complete feature in case other people use your computer and find out that you have been Googling old acquaintances?

And then wonder when you became so painfully neurotic?

Are you fascinated by the mundane lives of strangers you will never meet and probably would not like very much anyway?

Do you read websites even after you figure out they were clearly only meant as conversation boards for the moderator and his or her ten friends?

Do you click around on Friendster, reading your friend's page, and then his friend's page, and then his friend's friend's page, until eventually you're somewhere in Indonesia marveling at the way fourteen-year-olds have such patience for meticulously capitalizing exactly every other letter, and wondering if in forty years that will be one of the choices on MS Word's "change case" feature, and what they will call it?

Does it disturb you that people you actually know might someday find your blog, much more so than the fact that you occasionally post details of your sex life where any random stranger can read it?

Do you keep blogging anyway because you secretly think you are one of the wittiest and most articulate people you know and that the world will someday discover your incredible genius, and the only reason your website gets only two hits a day, both of them misdirected queries for "giant killer ants" or "masturbation with frosting," is that you are somehow keeping it real by not moving to Blogger?

No?