My Other Weblog is a VW Beetle

[gurdonark]

I find LiveJournal fascinating. It's a passion, a game, a writing exercise and a neat penpal exercise all in one. I've come to care about people I've met on-line through my weblog. I've come to read weblogs, both on LiveJournal and elsewhere, as an amusement and in some cases a moving experience.

But no matter how much I've learned in the short 15 months I've been on LiveJournal, I feel that there's something else just around the corner. I hope y'all will join me in exploring this curious weblog experience:

[Poll #135546]

Comments

[microbie.livejournal.com]

I misread one of the questions- I am much less shy in LJ than in real life.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I wondered about that very thing :)

[arcanum-dogma.livejournal.com]

de-friending: it would pserv (who added me when she became niwi) tkeana (when she dumped us all, she came back as well) and violentlybjorky/seek_solace (who came back as sun_drenched). there are those who did dump me with no surprise.

i wouldn't call LJ a primitive form of virtual-community, the MOO's and MUD's fill that. while, due to security reasons, lacking in much of the interactivity that scripting would allow, there is a slight sense of realtime communication.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's a good point. On a related point,when a friend deletes a journal to reconfigure or rethink, there's a quiet little agony I feel about it, until I realize that it is a mass deletion,not a statement about me.

[circebleu.livejournal.com]

Yeah but Robert, in all fairness, do you ever drop people first? I'm really curious about this...

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I've dropped communities first. I have almost dropped individual users first. But as I sit here, I can't remember a time when I actually have dropped someone first. It's not that I wouldn't, I suppose, it's that I just haven't. But I have to think on it--maybe I dropped someone and don't remember it. Usually, someone drops me, so I just remove them from my list as I assume that's what they want me to do.

[circebleu.livejournal.com]

I find it really odd that you haven't dropped any individual users. It seems as if some journals you might find offensive or boring. And that being the case, I wonder, if one didn't delete them (and that is not the reason I had temporarily taken you off my friends list), what the fear is.

I have temporarily taken people off my friends list when I find certain alliances troubling in that perhaps a person has too many yes (wo)men as friends moderngypsy or I feel one half of the equation is not being perceived correctly by the other half.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I did not offend or bore you. I had dropped communities as offensive or boring. I have never yet been bored by a journal. But I must admit that once or twice, just as I was debating the point, I was dropped first. I suppose that I don't like to "make a statement" through a deletion, and I think that may be indicative of some preference not to offend. But I'll live with that timidity.

I can understand why one might delete someone for any reason, for the reason you listed, or for no reason. Friends lists are curious things.

All friends, but some are unlisted

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

If I've deleted someone from my Friends list as yet, it's only someone who I've spontaneously added in order to get a feel for over a few days, and not really connected with. But I don't actually remember doing this...

There is one person on my Friends list now, who I think about deleting quite regularly because his posts contain comment which I disagree with, upon war, Australian politics, and even women. His attitudes bother me sometimes, and I feel I am misrepresenting myself by having his posts appear on my Friends page. But, so far I've held onto him, because I think, how can I write him off just for having a differing view of things? None of my other friends are perfect - although seraphimsigrist is surely a paragon of virtue, and if you yourself ate more healthily, you'd be thoroughly wholesome ; ) - so why cannot I be accepting of what I deem to be faults in this person? I think I, like you, hesitate through disinclination to offend, or be thought of as an enemy now I'm not a friend. It will remain to be seen whether this disinclination is overcome in the future. Of course, if I am hurt, I might strike out.

Re: All friends, but some are unlisted

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I almost deleted caezanne, because her weblog usually featured somewhat artistic nudes from yahoo. I am not particularly a prude these days, but I worried about something similar. But she deleted me first, and that solved that issue.
A current lj friend has a radically different view of the world and a radically different sense of humor than I do (I wonder if we are talking the same person, but I won't go look), but I somehow don't worry about the thing you worry about. So my rule is simple---nude photos, worry, words, worry only if deeply abusive or prejudiced.

[nickelchief.livejournal.com]

Fun poll, Dr. Robert.

I fell in love with Kathy Shellmer, but she did not love me

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I love that Kathy Shellmer line! Don't many men have a Kathy Shellmer? By 9th grade, we are no longer surprised when we are dropped.

Re: I fell in love with Kathy Shellmer, but she did not love me

[nickelchief.livejournal.com]

Kathy Shellmer ended up fleeing the United States to become a nun in Portugal. I wonder sometimes if that was because she thought I was a bad kisser.

Re: I fell in love with Kathy Shellmer, but she did not love me

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

No, it means that you kiss with such Grace she was left longing for higher things. Now she is a bride indeed.

[sortofkindof.livejournal.com]

I misread the same question as microbe....
I am MORE shy in real life than in lj.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the clarification. It is fun, however, to imagine sortofkindof as some bon vivant in yellow spats and a bowler hat in real life, like a cross between Bertie Wooster and Cabaret, but then only in the weblog turning shy and retiring.

[gvnan.livejournal.com]

i just thought i would note... i answered that i keep entries private because i dont want people i know reading it, however i answered that i would tell friends and family 100% of what i write in here. just to clarify, i would tell them if i knew how or if they cared to know, but a lot of it is more for personal record i guess.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the clarification. You know, I always read your posts and don't always comment. A lot of them seem self-contained, and I don't have anything grand to say. But I wanted to tell you that I enjoy your journal, lest you come to believe that you post to a silent void.

if i lived in say, san diego

[nancyjane.livejournal.com]

i'd get myself a beetle -- convertible. i'd have to have access to a mexican repair shop though i'm no good with cars.

carroceros

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

and when you dented your bug on a Torrey Pine, you could get the dents knocked out by little guys with hammers.

Re: carroceros

[nancyjane.livejournal.com]

lolol hey i drive better than that !! ayeeeeee

[circebleu.livejournal.com]

I so love that Mars Tokyo and I would want to be the same other person on lj....

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

It is quite a coincidence, isn't it?

[circebleu.livejournal.com]

Coincidence indeed as I don't see Ms Manners and myself as similiar in the least.

[monkeyparts.livejournal.com]

- Interesting poll there. Clearly this is what is happening to the online community, but what direction do you think it should take? It's not a loaded question, as I've got no strong opinions on the matter myself, you just seem like an informed and informative sort of person.

on line

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

thanks for commenting. I admit to starry-eyed hope for the internet. I see in it the potential for the death of our current corporate media distribution, the reconfiguraton and democraticization of information, and also the outside chance, on the contrary of something Orwellian.

To be more specific, I know that already I can access information, buy products from small concerns, and meet people I could not easily meet before. As we all get more connected, I think this will all accelerate. Small business capitalism will flourish, and thought will change.

But as I say, I'm a dreamer on this one.

[monkeyparts.livejournal.com]

- I reckon we're on the brink of another paradigm shift. With the advent of nanotechnology this whole information age will take a quantum leap in some direction. Some folks say we'll go forwards, others backwards; I say widdershins and no one'll be the wiser. I'm not sure that any new technology can ever change the way we think; technology usually precedes popular philosophy by at least a decade, ethics by a century, psychology by a millenium, and biology by a good fifteen million years. In any event it'll be a curious transition.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Those are good points. But we may get one answer--how much are we hard-wired, and how much are we a societal paradigm? I do believe you are right the paradigm is shifting.

[monkeyparts.livejournal.com]

- We'll see, we'll see. Human beings are endlessly fascinating creatures, and come what may I'm sure there'll be volumes of interesting developments to observe and record. Happy manwatching.

[gregwest98.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... What are battle monkeys?

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

The battle monkeys are one of those LJ quiz type things. The invite says "do you want to fight my fruit-eating karate monkey?", or some such, and then one is directed to a website where one views a pop up ad (probably the real reason to get you to click) before you are advised what kind and power rating your monkey has. It appears from there on this randomly set set of coordinates governs your battle monkey, who never improves. It's an odd deal.

I am too lazy to grab mine down, or I'd offer you a challenge.