farner(in)

At least, it is for regular people. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have felt the need to create another blog where I could 100% be myself. I went back through my Xanga the other day and I genuinely miss that writing. I miss being able to talk like I’d talk to one of my best friends. So I decided to take all reasons why a new blog was a bad idea and totally ignore them. Blog = created.

We’ve created two worlds, now – I hope you all realize that. Before all these social networks crept into our lives, we already had two lives – our work/class lives and our personal lives. Social media has now taken the professional version of ourselves, usually kept in an 8-hour cage, and stretched it out to encompass almost the entire rest of our days.  We’re hiding our Myspace accounts.  We’re changing our last names on Facebook.  And if you’re like me, your own personal blog isn’t even yours – it’s a place for people to come and read thoughts from the “professional” you.  Ugh.  We do all of this just so we can keep what little of our lives we have left.  It sucks.

Personally, I’d love to be done with the nonsense, but too many “brilliant” people think that they can judge someone’s morality and work ethic by looking at some drunk camera phone pictures taken on the weekend.  The irony is that we’re all probably doing the same things – so why does anyone get the right to judge?

I wish I could just throw a link out there and say, “Here’s where you can find me writing uncut and without reservation,” but it would be tied to me through this site and, well – you know why I can’t do that.  I think we shouldn’t have to fear the reprocussions of what we say, but free speech is only free if everyone else is playing along.  Right now, they aren’t.  Until they are, we’ll all continue to hide who we really are online.  Transparency is a joke and will continue to be a joke until we all stand up to this crap.

Today is Blog Action Day 2008, a day when hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of bloggers will be asked to raise awareness for this year’s issue: poverty.  Poverty is an epidemic in many parts of the world; in fact, half the world’s population (more than 3 billion people) lives on a meager $2.50 per day – or less.  Spreading awareness is step one in solving this crisis, and bloggers are using their blogs and social networks to reach more people, more quickly.

The Blog Action Day front page counts 9,690 participating sites which will reach a combined (estimated) audience of 10,741,407 people.  Digg is also being used to promote the cause along with Reddit, and a 12-hour broadcast on poverty will take place on BlogTalkRadio, as well.  On top of all that, a Twitter account is being used to provide news and updates.

If this isn’t an inspiring use of social media, I don’t know what is. :)

The Central PA Twitterverse is abuzz about two Spice employees who were fired after being interviewed for a Patriot-News article.  Both employees (a male waiter and a female bartender) allowed their real names to be used for the article (written by Daniel Victor) and were far from customer-centric with their feelings as it relates to tipping.  Here are two gems from the article:

“If you can’t afford to come out, then don’t come out.” -Molly Turner

“You have to pretty much be the best server ever and make them feel like crap for leaving you anything less than you deserve.” -John Burkholder

Now, as poorly worded as these statements were, they still have what my English professor would call the R.O.T. – the ring of truth.  People are more squeezed financially than they used to be and are cutting costs wherever they can.  However, some of those same people don’t have their priorities in order.  This is my belief but I’m sure many agree:

If you have money to go out, you have money to tip.

If not, movie rentals are cheap and so is microwave popcorn.  Parks are free.  So are libraries.  There are plenty of activities that are cheap and tip-free.  If 15-20% of your bill is going to break the bank, you might want to consider other forms of entertainment.

It is known now that Verizon Wireless has dropped 1938 Media from its VCast service.  What are the most followed people on Twitter and Friendfeed saying?

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It’s okay to be on the wrong side of a tech argument, but it seems that no one wants to be on the wrong side of this story.