unculturedswine

Cruise-itis. I REALLY WANT TO GO. It’s been a pinch over a year since my family all returned from our cruise in the Caribbean, and I really want to go on another one. I probably check prices at least every other day right now.

A few months ago I tried to get some friends to go along, and never got a solid commitment out of enough people to make it work. And I was sad. And I’m still struggling! Ugh! I want to go!

SO, here’s what I’m proposing. March 2011. Caribbean. Who’s in? I’ve already talked it over with my good friend Chris, we’re aiming for his spring break window so he won’t miss out on his schooling, which at this point is quite important to stay on top of. Here’s a link to our 3 opportunities: Cruise March 2011.

Ideally, the far right, 8 night would be best. It’s on a huge ship (same as I was on, actually) and the stops are amazing. The middle is essentially the same cruise I went on, so that would also be amazing. I just vote for #1 right column because it’s A: One extra day and B: New places for me. The left cruise (5 nights) would be okay fun, but it’s a smaller ship and I don’t believe the two stops have any scuba diving available, so I’d be bummed to miss that.

SO. Who’s in? Are YOU in? Anybody is welcome! The more the merrier! Don’t worry about the prices listed, this is over a year out, the price will fluctuate a lot, so just join in, and start saving!!

A short while ago I sent a funny text to my mom and she replied with a simple ‘lol’. Now, this is pretty normal conversation anymore, but coming from my mom it kinda shocked me. She’s not an IM client user, a chat fanatic, super texter or what have you; she’s just my mom. So to have her say ‘lol’ to me really kinda took me off guard.

And then I got to thinking: we use ‘lol’ everywhere. It stands for ‘Laugh Out Loud’. So, I have to ask, how often are you really laughing out loud when someone texts you or chats over something funny. For me it’s probably 1% of the time do I actually make an outward laugh; usually it’s just an inside chuckle.

This should change, immediately. We’re creating a society in which we all think we’re completely hilarious because to us it appears that people are laughing out loud at all the slightly, barely funny comments we make. We’re not much different than the disillusioned off-key singers that we love to actually laugh out loud at on American Idol. Let’s face, most of us just aren’t that funny!

So what do we do? We change. We stop using lol unless we actually mean it! Try using something like ‘inside chuckle’ (ic), or ‘that was witty’ (tww), or even ‘I’m laughing on the inside’ (iloti).

It might take time for these acronyms to spread the webiverse and text-lines, but this is a movement we need to take seriously, or the humor well is going to dry up and we’ll all become as stale as the Canadians.

Just kidding, Canadians can be funny, I even know a few of them.

I’m a web guy. I make web pages, I sit at a computer all day, and I use the internet. I’m also a user of the popular social sites Facebook, and Twitter. I want to spend a moment and tell you that in the Facebook vs Twitter world, I by a long shot love and use Twitter a lot more than Facebook. Why?

It’s short. It’s not spam. It doesn’t have apps. It’s not always asking for personal information (it never asks for information), it’s not getting a new design every 3 months, and it doesn’t have Farmville. Or quizzes. Or poker. Or any of the other plethora time wasters that plagues Facebook.

My favorite feature (and thing I use 98% of the time) are status updates on Facebook. That’s all I care about! Pictures are neat sometimes, sharing things on there is nice, but honestly I only want to know how everybody is doing. And that’s exactly what Twitter is. And that’s exactly why I like it. The only thing I have to check on twitter is how all my friends and colleagues are doing. I don’t have to decline invitations, I don’t have ignore notifications from Farmville. I don’t have to waste my time with any of that. It’s not even an option, so it’s not there to have to ignore. And I love it. If someone wants to follow me and be my friend, I don’t have to follow them unless I choose, whereas on Facebook, if someone wants to be your friend you have to be their friend in return, no one way relationships. If someone wants to follow me on Twitter, but I don’t care to follow them, then that’s okay! I don’t need them cluttering my life if I don’t want them to.

And it’s fast. There are several fantastic apps for both computers and smart phones and they work great; you get a nice timeline of what your friends are saying, you can easily reply, have fun conversations, and just feel connected to people out there while you slave away at your desk. Facebook isn’t like that, it requires your total attention, not something you can have open on the side.

And there are NO ads. None. No slutty chicks in the right column (for me, anyways, being a single guy), no Fan solicitations, no TV show previews, no President Obama media event invitations, NOTHING. All I get to see is what I want to see. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s beautiful. I know you can hide notifications, or use some 3rd party browser block to stop ads, but that’s just the thing, you have to put forth an effort to make them go away; with Twitter they’re not there in the first place.

So there you have it. I didn’t realize how much more I liked Twitter over Facebook until I wrote this up, let me know your thoughts on it and any arguments you may have.

Lastly, I’ve made a LOT of good contacts over Twitter that are going to help me in both Web Design and Photography. If you’re interested in giving it a try, and need a new friend to follow, you can find me at http://twitter.com/unculturedswine