Just another chapter in my ongoing saga with my apartment complex—it is cold today in Baltimore, and I turned my heat on. The heat worked flawlessly—up until the point that the temperature reached what I’d set on the thermostat—at which time instead of turning off, the unit started blowing freezing cold air. Dammit.
I. Sometimes I wonder that this can’t be good for me. As my addiction to Whole Foods grows (despite finding that some things there just suck, like organic peanut butter), I am eating a lot of sushi.
I’m eating a whole lot. I’m eating it three or four times a week. And while I’m certain to get burnt out on it eventually, I wonder whether the sodium intake is going to kill me before I stop eating it voluntarily. There’s got to be a limit as to how much rice, seaweed, shrimp, salmon, cream cheese, and ponzu sauce one man can eat.
II. I’m bored. It’s Preakness weekend, which is great because it gets people out of downtown, but since I don’t own a seersucker suit and don’t like mint juleps, I’ve got nothing to do.
That paragon of journalistic quality, the Baltimore Sun, has issued an edict from on high: blogs make you stupid.
In Victoria Brownworth’s article (or would she rather I call it an essay?), The long arm of the blog, the author expresses her discontent over what she perceives to be a “sprawl, fast encroaching on the fragile landscape of the finely wrought essay.”
Brownworth devotes 1,308 words to an ill-advised hypothesis—that blogging is destroying modern writing. As proof, she offers a loose comparison of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal to every single blog ever written—she makes no distinction. She does, however, make a point of mentioning The Drudge Report. Brownworth operates under two mutually exclusive assumptions: that writers of our generation are dallying away our time blogging instead of commiting our efforts to writing with a higher purpose, and that blogs are written by those who ought to otherwise remain unread.
But, had Brownstone bothered to make a comparison to real blogs rather than taking a quick tour ‘round LiveJournal, she might have realized the larger point of the medium. Rather than as simply a vehicle with which to satiate the long-winded’s desire to bloviate upon subjects they know nothing about (after all, the Sun appears to be a suitable medium for that), many bloggers use it as an extraordinarily convenient method with which to exchange salient information expeditiously and reliably. While I, personally, almost certainly fall into the former category, countless bloggers—ones with far more notable readership than I—are doing amazing, and worthwhile, things with the medium.
This medium allows an aspect of interactivity that we’ve never before had, as an author and his readers are able to instantly connect to discuss the issue at greater length. While Victoria Brownworth may have little use for the input of the lowly masses who read her work, many of us find that capacity for interaction invaluable. The medium has enabled me to connect with peers in my field who have made my work better in inestimable ways. As a web designer, reading Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer’s books helped me plenty in my quest for knowledge. Reading their blogs helped me more.
Victoria, you are clearly a gifted linguist. You would do well, however, to come over to the dark side. Read good blogs, and write one of your own. Then, not only will you be apt not to make such factual mistakes as calling the Drudge Report a blog, but you might get that thorn out of your side, stop being so uptight about the validity of personally-published writing, and start posting pictures of your cats on Fridays. You know you want to.
Memelicious Monday made it all the way down to your humble host’s abode today (a “musical baton,” a rather queer name, if I may say so). So, since Shaun couldn’t come up with five people without including me, here I am!
A paltry 8.87 Gb. Let the shaming begin.
Depeche Mode, Violator. Yeah, I’m up on all the latest new bands!
Filthy/Gorgeous by the Scissor Sisters. Guilty pleasure. It’s just so gay.
Baltimore (and DC) is once again featured on my site, so all is well with the world. My pals who didn’t dig the floral motif can finally visit comfortably again. Now people just have my color scheme to complain about.
If I were Mike D I’d say that the first person to name the subject of all five headers wins an iPod Shuffle. Unfortunately, the only thing I own that I can afford to part with is my dignity. Anybody want that?
Life in Baltimore has been different. To say that it has been good or bad might be saying too much one way or another. So since I hardly ever write anything of substance any more, let’s not break that trend. Here’s a simple list of my life’s events over the past week or so.
Good! My job is outstanding. I am, for the first time, experiencing the phenomenon of working in a place where I like my coworkers. I even like my boss. I actually like my job. And I’m not just saying that because they know about my blog. Not that Shaun’s ego needs to get any bigger (just kiddin’, Inman!) This is to say that I am not about to start blogging about work. Thank you for the life lesson learned, Dooce.
Bad! I got stuck in an elevator on Monday morning. It wasn’t for very long, and it wasn’t even very scary. I realized that my lifelong fear of elevators was actually rooted in my fear of one falling, not just being stuck in one. I was only in there for 10–15 minutes, and the maintenance staff of my building were most helpful and quite apologetic after extracting me from the steel coffin. I will sue the bastards anyway.
Good! I managed to find the people I hung out with on my first night in town. And by “managed to find,” I mean “one of them randomly drove past me, then stopped and yelled at me, while they were in the parking lot of my office building.” A few days later, I ran into him again at my neighborhood bar. Shades of Jessica, Giovanni’s stalker ability is uncanny. Plus, him finding me in the parking lot make me look really cool in front of my co-worker, Clint.
Bad! Someone in my apartment building has it out for me. He/she will get his/hers.
Good! I am making friends in DC. I want to do this, because I want to have a reason to go to DC more often. I may even attempt to drive there. I have driven past, beyond, and around DC, but I have not yet had the courage to drive through.
Bad! Transportation as a genre is continuing to fail me. The Jet has broken down for a second time (second time this month, that is). Fortunately I have not given trains, airplanes, or watercraft the opportunity to disappoint me.
Good! I finally remembered Jonathan’s last name. I couldn’t remember it for over a week. It was one of those times when once you’ve overthought something, when you attempt to forget about it, in hopes that it will “come to you” later, the only thing that continued to “come to me” was the memory of overthinking it. Even better, I was finally able to find his phone number once I remembered his name. Jonathan, you had better call me back now.
Bad! My birthday is coming up, and I will be too poor to celebrate. Not such a big deal, as my birthday celebration levels have been dropping off in the past few years. Ever since leaving Tybee, anyway. Maybe someone special will come visit me. And by that, I mean to say Camp, get the fuck over here now.
Good! I met a few cool folks last week that I gotta say I found very interesting. My faith in the people of Maryland continues to improve.
Bad! Electricity here is expensive.
Good! I am happy more often than I am not. Despite the hardships inherent in packing up your life and shipping it a thousand miles from home, I’m as good as I ever could have hoped for.
Witness the time-wasting fantasy world of South Park Studio. Say hello to my doppelgänger, shown to the left (click on him to see a larger view). Camp’s is also quite true to life (particularly when seeing his favorite band, Widespread Panic). And don’t miss my co-worker Tom. This is way more fun than any adult should get out of the digital equivalent of Colorforms.
Well, it’s the big day for the Bovine Unite cattle. We’ve watched the billboards go up, and change, around Baltimore for a few weeks now, and all is to be revealed tonight. The instructions are to watch “the networks” between 8:45 and 9:00 tonight. I guess fifteen minutes of network TV won’t kill me. Whatever the cows are up to, they’re paying for some pretty prime ad time.
I’m going to feel like such an idiot if this is an ad for PETA.
Update: There’s speculation that Organic Valley Milk is behind the campaign. That would be a snoozer. I don’t even drink milk. Others have suggested it’s the Maryland State Lottery. Well, we’ll find out in about ten minutes.
Update: Well, it’s the Maryland Lottery. Cash cows, indeed.
Dear Matthew,
I have received a complaint regarding noise emanating from your apartment. The complaint suggests that the noise is loud music and voices which are heard from your apartment.
I must ask that you please be more aware of your noise level, so that all of our residents may enjoy living at the [shitty apartment building].
If you have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to call.
Sincerely,
[absentee community manager]
Dear [absentee community manager],
I received your note concerning the noise complaint today, and I appreciate your being in touch with me.
I was a bit nonplussed, and considerably dismayed, to learn that someone has made a complaint regarding my “noise.” I have been quite conscientious of my volume level, and have gone to great lengths to ensure that I am reasonable in my choice of volume. For that reason, I have not played my stereo at all after 10 pm.
I appreciate your suggestion that I be “more aware” of my noise. I assure you, however, that I could not possibly be any “more aware” of it. I do not blithely turn on my stereo and let it play throughout the night.
I am also quite aware of the unique circumstances of apartment living. On many occasions, I have heard the conversations, vacuum cleaners, stereos, televisions, and ambient sounds of “intimate activity” emanating through the shared walls between my neighbors and myself. I have turned it into a bit of a game as of late—my neighbor in unit [next door] watched Saturday Night Live between 11:30pm and 1am on Saturday, and also appears to be a fan of The Oprah Winfrey Show. I have made no complaint in these circumstances—despite my dislike of Oprah, because I realize that it is unreasonable to expect near-silence from my neighbors. The plethora of ambulances passing by our building 24 hours a day create more noise than even the loudest phone conversation.
Please feel free to stop by at any time to survey the noise emanating from my apartment. I feel that should you do so, you will agree that I am being completely reasonable in my choice of volume.
With warm regards,
Matt Thomas
I’ve found there are times in my life in which, long after I’ve gotten comfortable with some change, a small piece of information comes along that makes me think about it in a whole new way. And invariably, I lose my footing when I’d thought I had accepted it so well.
Case in point, my geographical location. I know that I’ve very far from home. 1,010 miles, actually. I’m a little less far away from my adopted second home of Savannah.
Tonight, though, I wondered to myself, “hey, I wonder how far I am from Toronto!” And, after looking it up online, I realized that I am considerably closer now to Canada than I am to either of the places I call “home.”
I don’t know why that makes me feel so much further away, but oddly enough, it does.
