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Behind Every Curve

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

I am a middle-aged person who used to feel very special and “with it”, but in recent years it has become obvious to me that I’m not anyone’s 21st century poster boy.

And yet I feel I still have something to offer!

So I started a blog. It helped me feel like I was at the forefront of technology – doing things the modern way, not stuck in routines that are considered “old school.” I’ve been at it for over two years now, and while no one would call me a “successful” blogger (on the Ariana Huffington scale of success), I do feel like I’m making progress.

My reader seems pleased, anyway. At least that’s what she says on those days when she has time to stop by.

Writing a decent blog requires some discipline. You have to spend time sorting through your ideas. You consider your opinions and try to give some shape and structure to these thoughts before posting them online. In an ideal world, you’ll even proofread your blog once before offering it to the world.

But just yesterday I learned that things have changed again, and blogs are over. Only the clueless and the lame continue with it. Blogging is simply too time consuming and the payoff is virtually nil – like setting up your lemonade stand on a street with no traffic. In winter. During a blizzard.

The new thing is to constantly rain your short, random thoughts on the universe using multiple bursts of text delivered through Facebook and Twitter. Communicating with only pictures, videos or emoticons is even better. Blogs are too writer-y.

Dr. Babooner, how can I start over AGAIN? I feel like I can’t keep up and time is running out. Am I just meant to be behind every curve?

And should I blog about this, post it on my Facebook page, or Tweet it?

Sincerely,
Increasingly Irrelevant In Indianapolis

Here’s what I told Four I’s: “Just stay open to new ideas without expressing automatic disdain for things that are old. When young people abandon a thing, that’s no reflection on the thing itself. Young people abandon everything eventually, including being young. Draw some comfort from the fact that they will someday feel as useless and out-of-step as you. So do what feels right and consider using the full range of options, including “old school” communication. So what if ‘blogging is SO 2004’? As for your next carefully considered post, I suggest you scrawl it on a scrap of paper, stuff it in a bottle and throw it into the sea. You can’t call it a mass audience, but there are people stranded on a desert island somewhere who are desperate for something to read.”

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

82 thoughts on “Behind Every Curve”

  1. “My reader seems pleased, anyway” — you are so funny, 4 Is. but way too self-deprecating! i don’t think it’s hip to be self-deprecating either. FB and Twitter might be the next wave – but do you want to catch it? i’m staying here. comfortable. i don’t think anyone would begrudge you doing what is best for you!

    are you folks dug out yet? we got MAYBE an inch of snow in Blackhoof. but we’re very happy the winds have stopped and we didn’t lose power.
    a gracious, shoveling-free morning to You All.

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      1. saw my fair lady and the did her in line always makes me smile. sorry to hear that your husband has the crud niow. he didn’t usae that as an excuse for you to blow the driveway did he.
        hey 4 eyes i think the suggestion to go to facebook and twitter may be just the answer to your little blogsight. lets try to incorporate it. i don’t know how you compress a column to make it fit on tweet maybe just a heading that references a facebook page or websight. most of our answers (mine excluded) woiuld classify as the 140 words or less. your listener could learn tweeeting. its not hard. go forward and conquer the world and bring those snot nosed little facebookers along.

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      2. There are plug-ins available (essentially software accessories) for WordPress that allow you to “tweet” whenever there is a new post. Pretty sure, too, that you can add a spot on your blog in WordPress to display recent tweets if you post to Twitter separate from blogging…and if you really want the trifecta, you can set up your Facebook account to have it connected to Twitter, so your Twitter feed shows on your Facebook page…but by then you might need a map. 🙂

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    2. About a foot in Evan, but I suspect much more in Mankato. Hoping to get there today, but MnDoT is still showing solid purple from here to there.

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    3. I dig out in phases.
      First from the garage door to the front door so I could retrieve the Sunday paper, then down the driveway to the wall of snow that had been deposited by the First Pass of the Plow.
      I left the wall of snow intact overnight, thinking it would protect the driveway from being filled in by the Second Pass of the Plow. But the Second Pass didn’t happen overnight, so I dug out the rest of the way this morning to make it possible for my dear wife to go to work.
      And now The Second Pass of the Plow has just happened, Hell’s Bells and Hallelujah! So I’ll dig out again this afternoon and make it possible for her to come home!

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      2. Its funny, Anna, but I’m able to shovel without much trouble. The muscle strain I have makes it painful for me to lift up my left foot, which is a problem if you have to drive a stick shift, but no hindrance if all you want to do is plant yourself and dig into a snow bank. I wish it were the other way around!

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  2. Rise and Become Irrelevant Baboons!

    Dear, Poor 4I:

    I hardly know what to say. You really are easily discouraged and that discouragement must be the thing that wanes. I’m afraid that with this computer thing goin’ on, things will continue to change quickly for some time while social mores catch up with technology. Find a baby baboon out there–Rhonda has been quiet for a while here–to show you the ropes of the other media and decide if they are worth the effort of learning once you know what they can do. Chances are many of those will pass quickly.

    I remember 2-4 years ago everything was about something called “My Space” which appears to me to be the virtual form of the stuff I used to paste on the inside of my school locker. Then along came Facebook which rendered My Space useless. Soon something else will come along. I personally don’t care for Facebook and find it somewhat dangerous. I might not WANT all that information out in the ethernet. But Facebook might be really good for people who want something like a public face out there.

    So Buck up 4I. Meanwhile, I’m sure your Reader is pleased, whoever he/she is.

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    2. I am not sure why I and many other older people are not as good as young people at new things that use computers. I supose it is because we grew up with significantly different technology. I think I could do a better job offiguring out the new computer technology for myself, but somehow I can’t make myself take the time to do it.

      Also, I really should work on improving my typing skills and this is another thing I probably will not do.

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  3. Today’s foray w/ the snowblower only took 50 minutes… unlike yesterday’s 2+ hour marathon. So I’m happy and may actually be on time to work.

    Everything that goes around, comes around. Whoever thought that mini-skirts and bright red lipstick would ever come back and here they are! So if you stuck w/ your mini-skirts and your red lipstick all the way through, does that make you visionary or just stubborn?

    Personally, either visionary or stubborn is OK by me. If you just wait it out, it will be popular again. And if it never becomes popular again, at least you’re having fun.

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    1. You know it’s true about those mini skirts. But it is so weird! I just don’t look as good in the fingertip length minis as I did in 1971. What happened? I think the minis became misshapen!

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  4. I thought that once Facebook was yesterday’s news as well, since so many people over forty are now using it.

    And aren’t many of the big pop stars shutting down their tweets as well-could it be-just sitting quietly and thinking to yourself is the next big thing! Face to face conversation could be the latest thing in social media-OMG! What’s next? listening????

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    2. As much as we all would like, thinking will probably not be the next big thing. It’s too much work for most.
      And I don’t think listening will ever come back into vogue. People would have to become ‘unplugged’ first.

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    3. I think “tweeting” leaves a log of whatever you say, making it possible for yourself and others to look at whatever historical stupidity you might have uttered. Maybe that’s why the celebrities are shutting them down. Perhaps I am overly optimistic, though, thinking there could be a new wave of modesty and self-awareness.

      And why does so much of what we say and do on these online social circuits require quotes?

      “Like”
      “Tweet”
      “Friend” & “unfriend”
      And my personal favorite on Facebook “News Feed”

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  5. Oh, dear, IIII. We are off to a bad start. Your first sentence claims that you are “with it,” but of course that isn’t true. People who are “with it” don’t use that phrase and then throw quote marks around it as a lame apology for using a cliche. That seems a hallmark of your . . . umm . . . style. You can’t quit using cliched phrases and you can’t quit muttering aplogies for them. No, I’d say that you and I are off to a bad start.

    Above all, I find it almost beneath contempt that you would discover that blogs are passe, no longer having appeal to the fidgety young folks who found them fascinating a day or two ago. Good grief, man! You have attached a hook on a line to your nose and now are willingly being led about by those folks who have the most fickle and shallow tastes. What is sillier than letting the tastes of the fashionistas of this world to dictate what you will do? Do you have the attention span of a cable TV blonde culture reporter? God help you.

    Anything worth doing in 2010 is worth doing in 2011. And if you are intimidated into silence by the fickle tastes of others, why would anyone care to read what you put in your blog? On the whole, I think tweets are maybe a longer art form than you can handle, but you are free to try.

    (All of which is to say I feel just healthy enough to be grumpy. Soon I’ll have to deal with the path to the backyard, which is higher than Katie.)

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    2. A worthy blast, Steve. Maybe Dr. Babooner needs to be more of a poop flinging advice columnist. People like a little tough love, especially when it’s directed at someone else, right? Or is that just blindly following another trend?

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      1. They are sainted! Yes, they have shoveled my walk all winter. I am so deeply in their debt!

        God, I love these people! On the lawn of my neighbor to the East, there is not one blade of grass growing that isn’t there by permission. Perfect. His lawn is perfect. The guy to the West has lawn chairs laying upside down, messy junk on the fence and his kid’s bike has been lying on its side in the snow all winter. I sit next to the one lawn that makes mine look good by comparison! God, I love these folks!

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  6. Dear 4 Is – I have it on pretty good authority that there are longer pieces of writing still being sold, something called a “book.” Now, the paper version of these things are on the wane, but they are still out and in circulation. There are temples to them called Libraries. They have been around for hundreds of years, and while these things called “books” might be moving into electronic formats, the long form of writing will continue. I think that blogs may shift and change in much the same way, but there will always be those (including your one reader) who appreciate longer form writing and want more than 140 characters to start their day.

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    2. Thinking further on this…it worked swell for one of those old-school long-form writers named Charles Dickens to release his works initially as serialized fiction in something called a “magazine.” The modern blog is much like that old-school magazine, but in a revamped format. Perhaps you could do like Mr. Dickens and think of your writings as serialized long-form prose. It worked for Mr. D quite well as I recall.

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    3. I’m so terrible. I do all my reading now on an iPod Touch, using the Kindle app. My husband has a nook. Our vast libraries are now contained on tiny devices. You can’t bring an electronic reading device with you into a hot bath. The only place I have found where I absolutely require a book.

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      1. I would not say terrible so much as just better at remembering to recharge all those devices-the instant read feature is what I find so appealing in a paper book 🙂

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  7. Good morning to all.

    Well, 4I, you can do any thing that you like. I think there are people who don’t even have a computer who think they are cool and who can say they aren’t. I might be wrong, but I think you could be cool by not doing any of those things on computers and just networking with people directly, face to face.

    Of course, some good things can done with blogs, Facebook, and Thwitter. I guess the inventoer of facebook is considered to be a cool guy, but is he really? I saw the movie about him and he seem too cool to me.

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    1. That should be, “he didn’t seem too cool”, not “he seem too cool”. He did seem to be too cool if too cool means not very warm.

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  8. Before I Babooned this morning, I checked facebook, after which I said to myself, “I’m kicking all the enigmatic posters off my facebook.” I think I’m irrelevant because I care/worry about whatever is behind these 3-5 word posts that hint at a significant health, family, or personal issue.
    Maybe, this is related: I am reading three recently-published books right now. An excellent sf novel, a travel book, and the History of Salt. I regularly find typos in all three. Not that often but about once every 30-40 pages. I am not bothered by them; just wondering if it it signals a cultural change driven by such technologies.
    ” . . . like setting up your lemonade stand on a street with no traffic. In winter. During a blizzard” describes some of my business career.

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    1. Since you brought it up-I have also noticed that editting is not what it should be and from time to time I find myself getting ensnarled in my reading because a speech or action or relationship has been tagged with the wrong character. Drives me crazy, but not to the point where I feel the need to email the author or publishing house, neither do I feel the need to MARK MY CORRECTIONS IN A LIBRARY BOOK which is a far worse sin than the original mistake.

      I suspect a lot of this has to do with our reliance on the computer to do our corrections for us and the need for speed we all get from the powers that be.

      Still makes me nuts though-working on letting that go.

      Also-love the verbing of the noun Baboon.

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      1. When I was in college I had to read an essay about how language was going to seed because we were using nouns as verbs and verbs as nouns. I suggested in class that 1) that had probably always happened and 2) it was part of the creativity of the language. My fellow future English teachers jumped all over me, but the instructor agreed with me. Some objected to his assigning something to read he did not agree with. I decided then what tgith said just now–that thinking is just not a thing most want to do.

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      6. I’ve almost given up my cries of dismay when I find typos and punctuation errors in the Strib. I can recall when that was not the case. But standards are dropping fast, and it seems to me the powers that be have long ago decided that the sports section is one hairy playground where anything goes.

        When the s&h comes to you to ask why it should really matter if he spells and punctuates properly, I hope you have your answer prepared. Concern for that kind of correctness looks more and more quixotic by the day.

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    2. I’m not so good at using Facebook and just use it to have a way to contact some people. I am interested in making a little more use of it. I was recently told that I could keep my Facebook from filling up with too much stuff by moving some of the stuff that comes up there off my news page. I thought that I would have to unfriend a person I know who sends me too much stuff, but I guess there is a way to get the hugh amount of stuff he sends out off my news page and still keep him as a friend.

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      1. On the bottom of the page. lower right in blue, it says edit options or something like that. You can decide whose posts appear on your page without unfriending them.

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      2. Thanks, Clyde. That is proably what I was told, but I probably would have to do more fumble around to get it right without the info from you.

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    3. you have to try to fail. go for it a few hundreed times and something will stick. doing it wrong doesn’t mean you ar wrong it means you are doing it and learning as you go

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      1. I’m okay with failing and have plenty of experience. I think a few hundred times might be too much unless there is a really big need to get something to stick or unless one really loves failing.

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  9. Any new media or technology needs to be exploited, experimented with, studied, dissected, and utilized in as many ways as possible by as many people as possible in order to fully understand its capabilities, assets, liabilities, and cost-effectiveness.

    Once that has been done (a process taking years in most cases, if not decades ), decisions can be made on the future value of any particular technology or media item. I think that’s what’s happening with social media now. ‘Everyone’ twitters, facebooks, blackberrys, ipods, iphones, and has a blog. Most do it just because ‘everyone else’–meaning their friends–is doing it. But how many use ‘Myspace’ anymore?

    Those who end up finding real value in any media or technology will continue to use and improve that item, but eventually the ‘mass (media) hysteria’ will fade. As an aspiring writer, I blog because I’m ‘supposed to’ in order to build a platform for myself. I’m also supposed to twitter, which I’ve only done twice (and only follow one person, who is not a professional writer), and I’m only now starting to find some tangential use for facebook after having signed up via a ‘friend request’ more than a year ago.

    I don’t mind blogging so much, because it forces me to actually write at least once a month (my self-imposed minimum output), but I don’t think twitter is going to serve me well as a writer, other than my being connected to a blog that filters tweets and finds blogs and articles worth my time. Facebook may have some uses, if only to attract readers to my blog.

    I’m resisting like heck using a cell phone or PDA because they encourage overkill by being so darn convenient, plus I’ve never cared for talking on the phone, even before cellphones. I certainly don’t want to be available 24/7 just because I can be now.

    Bottom line– the technical and social media landscape will be radically different in five years, just as it has been every five years since the advent of television. Only the strong will survive. What will those be? Stay tuned. 😉

    Chris in Owatonna

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  10. IIII, just think-Plots by Shakespeare and Jane Austen are still being used in modern movies. Who knows what will be “with it” in 5 years. Why don’t you be really revolutionary and just do what works best for you instead of worrying about an arbitrary determination of what is trendy. I remember a quote from a Dorothy Sayers mystery that goes something like “Time will tame and temper an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is an unstoppable force of nature.” People who are “with it” do what works best no matter what the style is.

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  11. Dear i, i, i, i,
    My advice to you is to drop one ‘I’ and contemplate the world through your Third Eye. In your case, that appears to be ‘in.’
    Your desperation to be ‘in’ with the ‘in crowd’ is contrary to what the ‘in crowd’ is (and has always been) all about. Namely, figuring out who you are and becoming comfortable with that person. Comfortable and confident enough that you don’t need to dress yourself up in the trappings of ‘the latest and greatest.’ Keeping up with the Joneses is an expensive proposition (ask Russia!) and trying to buy back your youth will only make you poor in mind, spirit, and pocket.
    Stop being enamored with the brightest, shiniest, and bestest. It’s only a game of popularity that obviously isn’t bringing you what you really want anyway.
    Time for you to look in the mirror through your Third Eye and reevaluate what the words ‘need’ and ‘want’ mean to you.
    Namaste.

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  12. Man, Four Is! It’s been less than a year since I joined this company of Babooners and you say it’s already irrelevant? What does this make me – an irrelevant late bloomer ‘booner?

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  13. i must say i do like Facebook–the thing that is most fun about it for me is being in touch with friends from grade school and high school! being able to share funny old memories with them is cool.

    re Twitter: hmmm….maybe i’d like it better if they were more honest in naming it, like maybe Blither. guess it makes people feel important, as if others are hanging on their every word, even it if’s about nothing.

    But then again, maybe we babooners and baby boomers need to make it work for us–you know, be creative with it….How about Jabber-talk, and it would be for nonsense messages only. or you could have a zen version that simply sent out the same message at random times: be here now!

    or perhaps we could use it to say those things we have always wished we could say to all those other people: You are a terrible driver! Be quiet! Try reading once in a while! No more irrational opinions based on nothing but bias and bigotry!

    if we could force politicians to accept our msgs, that would be convenient…

    i’m afraid i would run out of things to say pretty quickly if i were to have a blog…i’m impressed you’ve kept it up so faithfully for so long, dale!

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    2. I did appreciate being able to follow Twitter messages from Eygypt that gave a lot of insight into what was happening and up to the minute information.

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  15. A nephew came for a visit the other day and showed us photos on his Facebook page, and then we saw how he was linked to other “with it” family members… We were tempted to think about joining, and he said he’d come back and help if we decide to. That was 4 days ago, and neither one of us has thought of it since.

    Drs. B: does that mean we can just skip it? There are only so many hours in the day!

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    1. One of the things I have enjoyed tremendously about Facebook is getting in touch with and chatting with cousins! Facebook is whatever you make it, which is why it is so popular, I guess.

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      1. So if I’m already in touch with (it would seem) thousands of people by email, including my favorite cousins, is the advantage of Facebook that it’s easier to share, say, photos with a lot of people more easily? It seems sort of like a website, where you “post it and they will come” rather than having to communicate with everyone individually.

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      2. I use the chat module and the private message system with relatives. And it’s nice to see their pictures. Also, daily I comment on cousins’ status updates. And an Aunt. I just wasn’t in touch with them until we were “friends” on Facebook.

        Downside: Facebook has have a lot of my personal information.

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      3. I would agree on this – I have friends and relatives that I have managed to stay in better touch with through Facebook. Plus it’s sometimes fun to tell my mom what her sister is up to. 🙂 Facebook does know more about me than I am sometimes comfortable with, but I endeavor to lock down my “stuff” there as much as I am able.

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      4. Sometimes my sister tells me something about one of my nieces, thinking it’s news to me, and I pretend it’s the first I’ve heard of it, even though I know about it from their Facebook postings. Because if I say I saw it on Facebook, she might ask me what else they’re posting about that she might not know about. And that might be awkward.

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  16. Morning–

    I had to blow another path this morning… takes about 45 minutes to an hour or more depending on depth of snow and how big of a hurry I’m in. With everyone trying to get to school and work this morning it was a quick up and back with no dilly dallying off the beaten path. A quick path to the chicken coop and we’re good to go…

    4 I’s…. you just gotta do what you like whether it’s hip or not… I usually don’t start something until it’s done being ‘cool’…

    Just notified one of my nephews on FB that his constant postings were overloading the system not leaving room for my other friends and he’s in danger of being cut. So there, take that.

    Later, y’all!

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    1. Ben, I haven’t done the editing of my Facebook that Clyde mentioned above, but I think there is a way to limit the messages that you get without asking some one to stop sending them. I had previously heard about doing this editing and Clyde confirmed that this can be done.

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      1. Oh, yes, Jim, there is… and I do that; I just have to tease him about it first.
        I block all the farmville, game stuff, and ‘pokes’….

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      2. I should have guessed that you know how to do those things, Ben. I guess it isn’t too hard to figure out. Some how it isn’t the kind of thing I jump into very fast.

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  17. Due to some unfortunate language usage, my daughter lost her Facebook about a year ago, and she has not asked for it back. She seems far less stressed than when she had it. Draconian mother? You bet I am. It makes me just cringe when I hear elementary age kids talk about their Facebook accounts and all the social drama that seems to accompany them. Some things require maturity.

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    1. Draconians unite! The teenager also lost her Facebook for about six months last year. Issues with asking about computer usage, deleting me from Facebook, etc. She has it back now, but I have passwords, so I check every couple of weeks to make sure she hasn’t excluded me from any lists or posts. AND I’m on her about keeping friends to a maximum of 500.

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