Two days ago, I said goodbye to my Twitter account.

I had 800+ followers.

Nobody seems to have noticed, not even my S.O.

Talk about clear justification for having deleted my Twitter account.

I just wasn’t enjoying it any more. I mean, there were lots of people I liked there, but lately I found myself slipping further and further away from being able to engage with anyone. I’ve been feeling largely ignored for some time… I “disqualified” myself from Favstar a while back because I didn’t want to participate in a popularity contest where if you spoke openly about a subject or a person’s behaviour, you lost “stars”… it was getting absolutely ridiculous how some people used it to manipulate feelings, and I wanted no part of it. But for a long time, I still felt like I was part of a small group of people not satisfied with the ass-kissing suckup side that is dominated by deception and those who trade in self-esteem and validation through Twitter favourites. I still gave out stars when people really made me laugh, but I didn’t give out hundreds or thousands per day, and I considered them meaningful when I delivered them.

I’ve been debating this decision for some time. A few times I’ve posed the question of whether or not to stay, and I didn’t get what you would call an overwhelming response that I should hang around. Yet, I still did – mostly because I liked the idea that I was making some people laugh.

The final straw was ‘FollowFriday’, though. Ever since I confronted a certain individual about the impossibility of some statements they’d made, I’ve found that I seem to be “stuck” around 820ish followers. For along time, I gained followers regularly, but ever since January I’ve had little-to-no gain. Since these numbers are obvious on one’s Twitter profile, I assumed that some of the people who were actually interested in what I have to say – especially those with many more followers than I have – would at least occasionally mention me here and there as someone worth following.

None have.

Since I wasn’t worth recommending, I obviously wasn’t worth following. So I fixed that for ya.

@PolarBear_ says so long, and thanks for all the seals…

This weekend, a lot of people I know on teh intarwebs are meeting up in Chicago at a “Tweetup”.

I’m having trouble understanding my own reaction to this event.

The way I see it, I SHOULD be feeling one of two ways:

1. I should be delighted my friends are meeting up and having fun together
2. I should be envious and maybe a little resentful that I couldn’t go

I don’t feel either. This has me asking myself “Why?” Read the rest of this entry »

An XKCD about one of my life philosophies...

I am who I am. Feel free to disagree. You can’t help being wrong.

I posted this on a small photo community my wife and I created, where we share photos with a very small group of friends. I have debated whether or not I should even put it up here, as it is somewhat personal… but then, this is SUPPOSED to be a blog that is about me and my opinions. If anything has ever truly been a part of who I am, it is what is in this post… especially the feelings about photography. So, here goes. Be gentle.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, here it is. My first post using a Mac.

How the heck did I get a Mac? Well, thanks to a very old friend (not his age, he’s younger than I am – just that I have known him since a long time ago although we were out of touch for 10+ years in the middle), I was able to pay in installments to purchase his used Mac Mini. He was very generous to allow me to do that, and the ‘Mini was inexpensive enough to make it worth a little temporary suffering (although at this point, I do have a twinge of regret as I know NOW what I did not know when I agreed to buy it – I need a better lens for my camera which is going to cost big $$$). Anyway, Mike, I really and truly appreciate it and thank you very much, I doubt we ever would have owned one of these if not for you.

Now, many of you have gathered the impression that I loathe Macs. I really don’t. I simply loathe Mac hype and the lies that get spread about them by the brainwashed Mac masses, or Macolytes as I have decided they should be called. They say things like Macs don’t crash, and “it just works” and sound more like a Mac commercial and marketing campaign than an actual user. Read the rest of this entry »