A blog post from my old web home – Nov 5 2008 November 5, 2008
Posted by markdykeman in life.Tags: comic books, life, politics, television
6 comments
Greetings. If you’re reading this post, you are probably a regular Broadcasting Brain reader and you may be wondering why this post is in a different location. The answer is that my hosting company is doing some kind of critical maintenance to the server that hosts Broadcasting Brain, making it unavailable for 24 – 48 hours. Since they have no back-up or emergency access to my blog, I’m writing you from this blog.
Note: this should only be a temporary thing!
This is the original Uncanny Broadcasting Brain Blog, renamed as The Mark Dykeman Web Niche. It still has a bunch of older posts that don’t exist anywhere else online, but it’s much less focused than my other stuff. I don’t use this blog very often anymore, as you may notice.
Whee.
Anyway, I just wanted to share a few thoughts with you today in a more informal style than usual.
- Congratulations to Obama/Biden on winning the US Presidency and Vice Presidency, respectively. Although I live in Canada, I watched this election with great interest. With all due respect to McCain/Palin, I would not have been very happy if they had won. I saw this election as a chance for the American people to vote for change and I’m very happy that a majority of them did. If nothing else, it’s time for changes in the thinking and actions that have mired the US in some very nasty situations. That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of pain ahead, but I feel that Obama and Biden represent a highly visible statement that things need to (and hopefully will) change. I’ve read enough about politics and history to suggest to me that change never happens quickly enough (or way too fast in times of emergency) and that our heroes often disappoint us. However, it’s early, early times yet. Maybe this time will be different? There always has to be some hope, right?
- Heroes, one of the TV shows that helps make the wait for Battlestar Galactica and Lost bearable, is in trouble. Two of the show’s producers/writers, including veteran comic book writer Jeph Loeb, were axed over the weekend. I can understand why, if they’re really to blame, because the show has become a convoluted, horrible mess of characters, powers, plot lines, and alternate futures. Too much of… almost everything. I fear that it won’t last past the end of season 3. Simplify, simplify, simplify and focus on good stories and good characterization. Please?
- Pepsi changed its logo and packaging, as many of you know. As long as they didn’t change what was inside the can or bottle, or the price, then the rest is immaterial to me.
- The four main social media services that I use are: Google Reader, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and FriendFeed. I use some GTalk/GMail, Facebook, Netvibes, Delicious, plus a few other minor services on an infrequent basis. Almost everything else has fallen by the wayside. I don’t try out very many new services anymore. How about you? Do you focus your social media activity on a handful of services?
- I bought some comic books for the first time in months. They cost between $3.00 and $4.00 each. Sheesh. What kid (or adult) can manage to buy more than 3 – 4 of these per month? OK, there are a number of people that do but, man, that money really adds up.
- Oh, and for the record, I liked Iron Man better than The Dark Knight.
Thanks for stopping by and for your continued support.
Random Thoughts For a Sunday Night November 25, 2007
Posted by markdykeman in life.Tags: life, random
2 comments
My Technorati rating has improved over the past few weeks – only 283,265 more blogs to go… 
Battlestar Galactica (reimagined) is quite possibly one of the finest SF television series ever. I find myself intrigued by the wide range of characters, especially secondary characters like Tigh, Boomer, and Tyrell. One of the most intriguing elements of the show is how they’ve changed sex for some key characters (Starbuck, Boomer, Cain…)
I wish I had a new car
I hope my new WebUpon article gets 50,000 hits. Just because.
I need to get more sleep.
I Loves Me My Games November 3, 2007
Posted by markdykeman in life.Tags: life, television
add a comment
Currently watching Battlestar Galactica (2nd series) on DVD while playing Mental Block via my Facebook account. Checking my other social media this evening. Listening to the sound of the edges of a hurricane bring wind and rain to my town.
Back to real life.
Brain Broadcast – Life October 22, 2007
Posted by markdykeman in life.Tags: , frustration, life, mood, regret
5 comments
There are good days and there are bad days. It’s kind of like a continuum: the best, the worst and lots of range in between. At the same time, our days are rarely constant, with highlights, moments of dread and despair, and lots of boring normalcy. If you think you’re having a horrible day, maybe it helps to look at your day as a whole to note the good things, the OK things, and the absolutely awful things that happen. Maybe on the balance things weren’t so bad. Maybe they were… every day and every hour and every minute and every second can be different.
I know that I wasted too much time today obsessing over the negative things that were happening at work. It also occurred to me late in the day that I was causing my own foul mood, at least in part, by overreacting to something that happened on Friday. Maybe I’m paranoid. I dunno. At any rate, maybe things aren’t always as bad as they seem.
In other words, chill out and save your fears and worries for the real thing.
Brain Broadcast – Reflection October 21, 2007
Posted by markdykeman in life.Tags: Articles, blogs, income, money, writing
2 comments
I’m looking at my wife flick channels on TV as the accursed ringing in my ears dings along. About a year ago I was diagnosed with some slight hearing loss and a mild case of tinitus. I am oblivious to it most of the time, but I notice this phantom sound when it’s relatively quiet nearby.
But I didn’t start this to write about my hearing, I meant to write about writing on the Internet. I seem to spend a fair amount of time on MyBlogLog and Blog Catalog finding new blogs and making some new acquaintances. On these reconnaisance missions, as one might call them, I run into an awful lot of blogs devoted to topics like SEO, use of key words or tags, catching the reader’s attention with intriguing titles and cool graphics, and ways to get your writing noticed by social news and social networking sites. Oh, and lots of discussion about Google, particularly Adsense, page ranks, etc.
There is great interest in making money online. A number of blogs are out there with answers about how to acheive this goal. Supposedly.
I’m only starting to learn about this new form of writing. I’m a bit dubious that very many people will ever succeed at making any kind of substantial income from just blogging, pay per click, ads, etc. I know that some people do, but it seems like a bunch of pipe dreams.
But maybe this highly scripted, exacting science of writing is the next step in the evolution of the written word.
Is that a good thing?
Brain Broadcast – Height October 5, 2007
Posted by markdykeman in life.Tags: body, hang-ups, height, six feet tall, weight
add a comment
I’ve been thinking about BMI and related issues concerning obesity, body types, and all of that stuff. Like many people, I would like to lose some weight, hence why I joined Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers is more closely tied to BMI than I thought, so now I’m thinking that I might not try too hard to get to my optimum weight because BMI is supposed to be about averages and groups of people. Using it to judge individuals has some limitations.
So the optimum weight for a fellow like myself (probably 5′ 10.5″) lies somewhere between 132 and 175 lbs. OK, fine. I don’t think I’m going to put myself through misery to get to that range, although I would like to be below 200 lbs. again. Of course, if I were a bit taller, then if I were 180 lbs. I might be in that “optimal range”.
Which got me to thinking about height (which is the subject of this post, remember?):
I’ve always been fixated on the idea of being at least 6 ft. tall (72 inches, however many meters). To me that was always a good quality for a man to have. Maybe I thought it would let me look down on other people or something silly like that. As I grew during my teenage years, I found myself hoping that I’d hit 6 feet.
If you’ve read this far, you know that I never reached that goal.
You know what?
It doesn’t make a darn bit of difference. Sure, I have to look up at some people. So what? I look down at a lot of people (literally, not figuratively). So what?
For a while I was getting worried about my kids, especially my daughter, who is short for her age.
You know what?
My kids are growing. They aren’t abnormally tall or short. Well, OK, my daughter is still a bit short, but she’s growing! Her height doesn’t bother her in the least. And it doesn’t bother me either now. She’ll be as tall as she will be. End of story.
If there is a point at all to this story, it might be that sometimes we obsess about stupid, pointless things.
If you’re upset about something at the moment, have you considered whether it’s really THAT important?
(Note: I’m not trying to make light of anyone who does have any kind of serious problem. Disregard what I’m saying if you do!)
Brain Broadcast – Point In Time September 19, 2007
Posted by markdykeman in life, writing.2 comments
I’m feeling like I’m at a little virtual crossroads in terms of creative outlets. I’ve spent the past four months trying a bunch of different things. I think I need to find some focus.
I’ve also fallen out of the habit of writing morning pages, need to resume.
What does your Facebook photo say about you? August 9, 2007
Posted by markdykeman in facebook, kids, life, parenting, photos.add a comment
Here’s a post on this oh-so-important topic:Facebook Photos at different life stages
Brain Broadcast – Tired August 3, 2007
Posted by markdykeman in career, changes, day person, jobs, life, night person.add a comment
Evening hits and my body slows down. This is probably the biggest difference in my life from when I was under 30 years old to today, when I’m a couple of years shy of 40.
I was never a party animal, at least not compared to a number of people that I know, but the night used to have a greater appeal than it does today. I used to have more energy and more of a desire to do things in the evening in previous years. A lot of things have changed.
1) I consistently wake up by 6 AM every stinking day. Five days of the week I get up around this time to start getting ready for work. The remaining two days of the week, my human alarm clocks (six year old boy, five year old girl) will normally make sure that I’m awake by that time.
2) I’ve been in the workforce for over sixteen years. I’ve been a manager for five and a half years. It really, really takes a lot of energy out of you. It’s not the volume of things that you plan to do, it’s the unplanned crap that sucks you dry.
3) With reference to the human alarm clocks in point 1… kids take a lot of time and energy out of you, too. Like, just about all of it…
Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not complaining about these things. At least not in this post. All I’m trying to say is that my life has changed immensely over the years such that I’m a day person and I do my thing during the day. I don’t have much left over at night. And that’s OK. It’s different, but it’s OK.
But I’m not up for clubbing or partying tonight. Or tomorrow night. Or the night after that. Or…
You get the idea. But if that’s your thing, go you! And have a cold one on me.
