When words mean more than the sum of their letters

Oh spoken word... how you eternally fascinate me.
What would spawn such a recognition of admiration of such a flawed vocal communication?

The word "Dude".



This also held a special place in my heart because of all my flying, which leaves me saying 'Dude'.. in almost all those situations.

There are many other words that you can use and simply say them differently, the word "fuck" comes to mind actually. The point really is that the way we say things really changes how you hear them. It reminds me actually of when I was 14 and I had gotten a pager, I chose to record the following as the message you would hear when you called. Needless to say, it was a major hit with the friends. The trouble only came when my mother called to page me once. Lets just say that little message was short lived.

Be all that you can be... simply by saying so

Minding your own business, sitting alone, a stranger strikes up a conversation. Nothing terribly important, just a short pause from the mundane waiting of life that cannot be avoided, and the insatiable need for human contact and communication, no longer able to be avoided. Well... by them, because your ass has twitter and aim mobile, text message and the whole dam internet on your wi-fi enabled laptop adding machine with full battery power and the wish to enjoy a little quiet.
You guessed it..
You've found yourself in an airport, awaiting a connection, and apparently that means you want to talk to people. At first thought, it's easy to simply say you would politely decline the conversation, and feign tired, or sick, or 'Ich spreche kein English'... we rarely do. We often find ourselves simply giving into another's need to chit chat. What we say however often is up to us, and where todays (not that it's time sensitive) moral question is posed:

Do you have to be truthful to the person in an airport that chats you up?

Seems simple enough. They ask you where you're from, what you do, where you're going, and if you've eaten... do you REALLY have to tell them the truth?
In reality they are talking to you to escape their own reality, they want a story, they want entertainment from anothers life. Why not oblige? If you are willing to talk to them in the first place, then you have already given into their request to entertain them. Besides, telling them you are on your way to another library filing system seminar, really doesn't entertain like that time you had to escort the prince of Zambia to the airport bathroom only to be tackled by his security because they couldn't speak english.

So... don't feel bad spinner of tales, just remember, they asked for it.

Closing your mouth by opening your eyes...

`Do you know how to listen?
Better question would actually be, do you know what listening is?

`Most of the time, people hear what someone says, but they don't really listen. Could this possibly be why instant messages, texting, and other such written communications have become wildly popular. If you overall want to become a better listener, then I would suggest reading The 10 Step Program to Becoming A Better Listener

`I would like to take a quick look at one of these tips that highlights (without knowing) why text has become so popular.

#2 Avoid Planning Counterarguments: It is a natural response to automatically start planning a counterargument as soon as something is mentioned. As hard as it may seem, don’t. Mentally record your disagreement and formulate a response later after the whole message has been received.

`This tip is interesting because it deals with a fundamental difference in how we communicate, and why we find ourselves ever increasingly addicted to text based communications. We all have cell phones, and Voip isn't exactly rocket science. We have all the technology needed to talk to each other whenever we want, and yet we choose text. This is because text allows us to complete the thought, and send. When we use text, gone is the worry, and hassle, of interruption. In a verbal conversation, we only get once chance to hear, and process the spoken word, unless you specifically ask the speaker to repeat (which can be distracting). On the contrary, in text communication, we are given the ability to read, re-read, and compare our response before we actually send the complete thought, this does not afford the audience the ability to interject, and interrupt, as well as form a conclusion, or rebuttal during the speech. This levels the playing field so that we can all have an equal platform to speak on.


Here is a movie that you can watch online, I wrote this entry before I saw this, how appropriate that it exactly deals with the very subject I wrote on. Enjoy!

Just a standby man in a confirmed seat world....

Sitting in the airport affords me large amounts of time to think about things, and look at how people are consuming different types of media. It often makes me smile seeing how people react to stressful situations, especially in public, and in an airport.

This is how I stay classy...

Oh confidential documents... why do we love you so?

Is there anything quite as satisfying as looking at something marked "CONFIDENTIAL"?
Really tho, whether you're supposed to be reading it, or if you're not... it always breeds an extra sensory emotion not found in simply reading a memo.

I've found myself in this position a couple times, I remember when I was younger, and I used to love the internet because I could look up all sorts of "Classified" documents about Roswell, and Area 51 (that's all I can say here...shhh).
I loved the mystery of having access to documents that in all reality, had little to do with my everyday life. But what do we do when documents come to light, that DO have an impact, and why are such documents still the way we measure the severity of the scandal? We always go back to the internal memo, and the confidential documents to show that someone knew something, and chose to either do nothing, or the wrong thing. We look to court documents that we don't have any business looking at, simply because we can. www.thesmokinggun.com has all the info you would want if you're looking for that special little tidbit that gives you a step deeper into the shitstorm than E! tells you about your favorite celebutaint.
Needing a little bit more info about Heath Ledgers death than you'll find on CNN?... go there. If you want to see that latest mug shot of Ms. Lohan... gotcha!
But what if you're looking for whistle blower documents that could have serious implications on current officials? Documents that reach from beyond the closed doors of proceedings, to the core of us as citizens.

Enter wikileaks.org.

Don't worry... going there will not yield anything, instead, you have to go to the ip of the site: http://88.80.13.160/

This is because the site has been shut down by a California federal judge.
The real reasons are not expressed, I'm not really here to argue for or against the site in particular. What is interesting is even in the age of hidden cameras, taped phone calls, and pictures on the internet. We still find the secret document to be the ominous smoking gun in any situation. There is something academic about having read the evidence in which nothing was done. When you read the report about working conditions the same as the CEO that chose to do nothing, it angers you. It gives you that inside look into what information they may have had, and what history logs as their decision. Seeing an undercover video is almost to easy, because how could anyone not think it despicable. But when we have to imagine it, and come up with our own images, we feel like we not only know a different decision should have bene made, but that given the same info, we could have done a better job. It is a lofty goal for sure, but nonetheless, we put ourselves in that role.

It's no secret that we as a nation love our secrets. We love our hard copy, text on paper, CONFIDENTIAL, secrets... don't believe me? Just pick up that memo about the use of company paper, handed out to everyone, and see how special it feels reading it. Then go dredge up a copy of Donald Vance vs. Donald Rumsfeld, and see if that seems slightly more important, and less talked about.

Because text in video makes sense sometimes

I've like totally seen the future, and omg... it's like completely totally filtered

Denver happens to be a destination I frequent often, in fact I would say it is my most frequented airport actually (aside from DFW hence which I live, thus I depart from). For months they have offered free Wi-Fi to passengers waiting for planes in the terminal. I enjoy this, to an extent.
The service does require you to visit an ad page first, then you can navigate away easily to where you so desire. I've often used it, and the only problem is that it sometimes is slow due to system load. Very few problems aside from that but... Alas, where there is a will, there is a way to annoy me, as such they delivered in the annoyance.

I tend to frequent www.quicksilverscreen.com ... it's a bootleg heaven for movies in and out of theaters, with surprising quality. Since I'm stranded for a little bit, I figure, "why not check out that crappy 'Jumper' movie"... seeing as how I would never pay to see it, I figure I'll watch it now.

It's at this moment I can hear that annoying robot saying "danger will robinson"... as I receive:
********************************************************************************
Notification

Bad Reputation
Your request to URL "http://quicksilverscreen.com/" has been blocked by TrustedSource. The Web reputation score of this URL is 127, which is not allowed by your administrator at this time.
generated 15/Feb/2008:16:47:10 -0700

********************************************************************************

Really?
I wonder who gave them such bad reputation... because honestly it has a very extensive archive of educational documentaries that are otherwise unavailable. Sure there are a couple(hundred) illegal movies... but seriously, if you know of the site, I can't imagine it getting a bad reputation It's SO GOOD.

This sets me wondering a few things:
A) Should I just watch something on my hard drive?
B) Is there a way around this?
C) Who decides this sort of thing.

Answers:
A) I'm saving the movies I've downloaded for when I don't have net access (plane in air etc).
B) Of course! www.proxify.com
C) Since 'B' got me what I wanted I lost interest in figuring it out.

To be fair, they really tried to block it, 2 other annonymizers were also blocked, but alas a will to block only fans the flames of determination. The amusement of the fact that I was able to simply use the free connection that was censoring my surfing to search for ways to get around their blocks... I believe this correctly qualifies as 'irony'.
On a side note, the movie 'Jumper' was shit. I wouldn't recommend wasting the bandwidth watching it, let alone a matinée price.

I will however use this long diatribe to expound on the real reason for the post, the possibility that corporate sponsors like Nike, or Coke, or McDonalds could potentially give away "free wi-fi"... but then block sites like fairlabor.com, or healtyfood.gov... it seems almost plausible that they could partner with other companies and tailor your web experience to almost anything. Yahoo could partner and suddenly block gmail, google could do the same. Amazon.com could pay to have ebay block, or ebay inversely could pay to have craigslist.com blocked... hell even in an airport, one airline could block a competitor, or rental car company... it's an interesting little situation that wore my brain down to the point of writing about it.

Don't worry... this is no where near as bad as the valley girl sorority chat going on next to me at a higher than needed level. "I mean like this totally makes me think this relationship is serious... I mean like, I actually totally WANT to see him... when does that happen? I know it's been 4 mos, but like, omg, I can't believe that Im doing this, just going to see him... it's just so ... like... wow"

yea...

and you thought reading this blog was bad ;)