Tag: Gen X at 40 and its Readers

Another Pool Update

Well, the Memorial Cup is over and the Lodon Knights win but not after the Rimouski Oceanic rack up some high scores. Looks like I fixed the pool again.

Question
⇓
 Alan Mike Gooner Don Hans
#1 5 5 5 5 10
#2 0 0 10 0 10
#3 25 0 0 0 0
#4 10 0 10 10 0
#5 36 0 13 33 0
#6 0 0 0 0 0
#7 10 20 10 20 10
#8 10 0 10 0 0
#9 0 0 0 0 0
#10 10 0 10 0 0
#11 0 10 10 10 10
#12 10 0 10 10 0
#13 0 0 0 0 0
#14 0 0 0 20 0
#15 5 5 5 5 0
#16 0 0 0 0 0
#17 20 0 0 0 0
Total 131 40 93 108 40

Two Years

Noonish tomorrow I will have been doing this blog for two years. I was blogging for years before that at other places but for two years, I have had this pulpit. I can’t for the life of me think of anything of value that has come of it other than the daily pleasure at seeing the stats and the converstaions with some of those people represented by those stats. Some things I might draw from the 1849 posts prior to this one:

  • I like music less than I thought I did and I like sports more. A quick look at the number of post under category tells you that. Unlike sports where I have a deep and abiding relationship with my favoured teams, I have an interest in politics similar to my interest in NASCAR and Formula 1. I watch for the crashes. I am quite surprised by those who are strongly Tory or NDP. I dislike Tories but only due to their consistent record of practical incompetence rather than for any theorical basis. I vote NDP but whenever I think I will pop round for a night of envelope stuffing, the whole fellow traveller thing puts me off.
  • I find the discourse of the nature and place of the web and blogging is quite poor. Participation in the medium appears to qualify in itself as expertise. Could there be a more classic example? The web is less interesting and less important that fans grant it but it is more promising than most futurists project. It wil be replaced by an unknown and this era will seem quaint. That is as certain as death and taxes. We will obey fascist ants controlling it all one day.
  • Very little consideration is given to the downside of the medium of the internet generally and blogging speficically. Far from being a self-correcting system, it is most often a self-justifying one, confusing opinion for fact and popularity for reliability. I have not become more intellegent through blogging. I have likely become stupider. Will may be feeling the same thing. I have warned people away from its use in professional contexts and been later thanked. Yet I will continue to do this. I can’t think of a process other than blogging where so many people in it feel it a curse. Maybe relying on employment for income. Quitting is often a badge of honour. It is a fantastic waster of time and productivity which, like pollution, is never calculated into the cost-benefit analysis.
  • Blogs do not compound knowledge or create opportunities for collective advancement of a proposition. Where there is a shared interest there can be growth in an idea but for the most part it is genial yapping – not a bad thing in itself but I have also come to have quite visceral dislike for individuals who I have never met and who otherwise have absolutely no affect on the course of my life. On the other hand, I have learned much about being gay in America, being a former artillery officer, being on anti-depression medication, Kylie Minogue and central and western New York State.
  • Of all the things I post I am happiest about the photos. I am proud to share my ribs with you. I have chronicled the sparking of my new fascination with the USA which has little to do with 9/11, the war on terror, societal envy or access to sun in the winter. It’s the BBQ and the bold freedom to celebrate slow cooked meat. I love the experience of experiencing and that is always better with a smokey tomato based sauces. And beer. And jets on sticks.

I may have more to say about this before the end of tomorrow and some of you might care to point out the hypocrisies in what is above. That is fair. Anniversaries ought to be days of atonement as well as celebrations.

Hello to Gomery Seekers!

What are all you people doing here right now? There are tons of you. Was this just on TV or something? Are you aware the NCAA finals are on CBS right now? Politics will still be there tomorrow but it is a hell of a game so just make sure you won’t have that old “I think I watched the wrong blue glowing tube” feeling tomorrow morning.

Say hello before you go…

Reader Profile #1: Gary Edward Rith

For 23 months I have written here, posted photos mostly nicked from others all with the main goal of triggering a response from this blue flickering screen. I don’t know many of you who read my words. Some of your write for your own fascinating photon tubes of wonderment but mostly you read, drawn in large part by Google or by being A.A. Gill and a bit surprised that a thread about your work here ranks above your own writing. I really only know portland as an old friend – and if you knew portland like I knew portland…

But then I thought some of you might want the others to know about you so I thought I would start the irregular feature Reader’s Profile. I thought of it when I followed the website link posted over here yesterday, finding a New Hampshire potter being it. Here is Gary’s story as provided after my invitation:

Whoa! Thanks Alan. You have a heck of a blog. My wife Maude and I have enjoyed reading blogs for awhile, but the awards last week highlighted some of the best. Looking at great blogs generally leads to links for more great
blogs. And since I am Gen x about to turn 39, I clicked your page, voila! Both of your blogs are terrific. As one of those few far left Americans who has considered moving across the border (but we won’t) I appreciate the Canadian perspective. I know exactly where you live now. When I was a kid we lived in Brockport, NY, roughly straight across the lake from Toronto,
and I listened to CHUM fm as a teenager, which was very progressive and diverse. My parents live by Syracuse now, and my mother’s radio station always gives the weather report for central and northern New York, and
Kingston, ON too, which seems a stretch, because it is a ways north of Syracuse. I guess they assume their signal travels well.

Well, about me. Been married almost 13 years to Maude, I am 39 years old, we have 3 dogs and 2 cats. At 17 I went to college to study art and fell hard for pottery. It was lucky I did, everybody else was smoking crack or going to law school, and the world (I like to think) but certainly myself, is better for me playing with clay. I work out of a home studio in the woods, near Concord, NH. I make what I please and avoid orders, selling either at fairs or stores and galleries. NH has an unusual organization called ‘The League of NH Craftsmen’ which is like a medieval guild. It runs stores and shows and other marketing opportunities, because it is very
difficult working and selling independently. My wife just happens to work for them, running Gallery 205 plus other stuff….. The guiding factor in what I make is to have fun, and I have developed a strange attachment to pigs as decoration, because they are simply hilarious. The colors are bright and hopefully dynamically patterned. I am giving demonstrations of
sculpture more and more, anything to draw a crowd and earn money for groceries, booze, and pet food. Although we sometimes drink cheap wine, our taste buds were long ago ruined by great whiskey and beer, which sets a rather high minimum standard.

Guess that’s about it. Good luck, we will stay tuned! Gary Edward Rith.

You can see more of his work here. When it turned out that Gary was in New Hampshire, I felt compelled again to thank the Granite State for last year’s help as well as one of my favorite breweries.

Stats

I sometimes wonder if I am more hesitant to discuss stats than you, the reader, might like. After all, they are about you not me. The odd thing is it may very well not be about me at all as yesterday saw a jump of 66% above average visits but not hits or total Kb flow, even though I was not posting preferring to…well, you don’t really want me to get into that. The refer logs were also not busier. Friday is usually a slower day than other weekdays but yesterday was the biggest day ever at GenX40HQ – 550 visits from 310 sites. While this may just mean more bots are stopping by, well, at least they’re stopping by here – better make sure there’s lots of dilly pickle chips and Fresca in the cupboard.