Glitter

I recently needed to shop for a couple of greeting cards, and was reminded of how much shopping for greeting cards pisses me off. To buy a card that is at all appropriate for the intended recipients, it’s necessary to browse and read a number of cards. Invariably I walk out of the card shop or pharmacy brushing glitter off of my hands. Invariably, I find a spot of glitter on my shoes, or shirt, or nose hours later. I’ve vowed to never again purchase cards with glitter - and if I see a particularly shimmery card, I won’t even pick it up.

Nevertheless, with each passing holiday, there seems to be another pound of glitter distributed among the cards. I can only assume that the majority of men, and probably some women have the same reaction I have to the glitter. I never had such intense negative feelings toward glitter when wearing it was optional - but now that it’s become mandatory for card shoppers, it rubs against my grain more than a little bit.

I’ve done enough design that I know that it’s tempting to be self-indulgent, and easy to forget some elements of the experience of the user/consumer/target market/human at the other end of the chain. But reel it in with the glitter already - or suffer the devestating embargo that you will otherwise be forcing me to organize.

I can’t see. The punctuation.

I recently read Jose Saramago’s Blindness. The premise really grabbed me (this is pretty much on the dustjacket, so no spoiler) - an affliction which causes nearly instant blindness starts spreading through the population. Within what seems to be weeks, all but a single woman are blind.

Considering the impact on a blind society makes me rethink individual blindness, and the emotional fortitude that one must surely draw on to adapt to it. Then continue to extrapolate that to a full society. Perhaps just what Saramago intends.

The book is good, but the author employs an unusual dialogue technique whereby multiple characters speak within a sentence - often with no more clue than a comma to tell us another character is speaking. Perhaps Saramago hopes to elicit more empathy in his character’s struggles by requiring more of his readers (presumably the blind have difficulty determining who is speaking in a group of strangers as well). Or maybe all his novels are written this way - I haven’t read anything else of his, so I can’t say.

I suppose it’s reasonable that one level of despair and hopelessness only sinks to another level, a pattern that continues for much of the story. There is the occasional metaphysical meandering that I did not find to be particularly compelling, but again, I found the concept fascinating, and enjoyed the book on the whole.

A final warning, if you are like me and cringe at the prospect of committing to a multi-volume work of fiction without knowing how much you’ll like the first, be aware that there is a sequel.

The Freshmaker! (?)

I buy Mentos regularly - sometimes at one of the convenience stores on the route to my office. In Florida. I’ve noticed that when I buy them at two of the several stores I frequent, they have what appears to be Arabic writing on them. Not exclusively, but largely. Interestingly, the words “Expiry Date” are in English, but what is presumably the date itself is in Arabic.

I would also swear that the flavor is slightly different from the all-English Mentos that I purchase at other stores. Not necessarily worse - but different.

Here is a photo. Translations welcomed.

Twit(ter). Seriously? Perfect.

Mat Balez thinks Twitter faces a swift demise. I’m not so sure, but it would certainly provide me with hope for the future of the world if it were so.

I’ve only very recently heard about Twitter. Unsure of exactly what it was, I investigated — and quickly determined it was just another item for the list of wildly popular trends in which I find no appeal. But it doesn’t surprise me (If you’re not sure what it is, follow the link above, it will become all too obvious).

With the generation that makes up the vast majority of Twitter users, there is a bottomless well of narcissism and self-importance. Combined with the increasingly voyeuristic direction of entertainment and online social networks, you get hordes of people who believe their most mundane activities are worthy of record - and a group willing to feed these delusions.

I’m not suggesting that this is anything new or unique to the generation in question (nor am I by any stretch saying that it describes all of them - look at Mat’s Site) - there has been a notable increase in these tendencies for some time. The curve just accelerated with webcams, blogs, myspace pages, IM, and ubiquitious cell phones. Overlay a graph of free time, money and media access available to twentysomethings, and the picture is complete.

As for any hypocrisy about blogging - of course there are weblogs with equally inane and vapid commentary. Plenty. But there are also plenty which either share original and substantial thought, aggregation of information of common interest to readers, or other content of some weight. I hope to make this into such a substantial place eventually - I used to have a couple of content rich sites, but abandoned all web publishing activities for years. Any self-indulgence you find here is very likely just an opportunity for me to learn some of the new tools available.

Yes, I know. I’m old and I don’t get it. Really though, don’t get me wrong, I’m not angry or overwrought about this — just amused, and a little discouraged. Besides, maybe this is an opportunity for me to make a little cash in a friendly wager with Mat.

I might be able to maintain interest in the tedious and banal nature of Twitter for a couple of days — if there were creatures from other planets or dimensions talking about their activities. Otherwise, please kids — if you have that much free time, skip some stones. Watch a squirrel. Read a book.