Maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems like the turning of the calendar year to 2009 has signalled the demise of blogging. I don't know if it's because of all the crib note blogging alternatives like Twitter, MySpace, FaceBook and the countless community forums (like Fark), but seemingly overnight blogging has become the equivalent of VCR tapes (still around, but no one uses them).
Not even a year ago, blogging was still a blast for me. Hell, by this point last year, I hadn't even yet experienced the awesomeness of the David Hanners episode. I still enjoy blogging, and I have no intention of stopping entirely, even though my volume of posts has admittedly dwindled. If nothing else, blogging continues to be an excellent way to keep my writing skills focused.
Still, I think back to when I started this blog back in 2002, and it honestly doesn't seem like that much time has passed. But, I suppose it has, and seven years is a fairly long time to expect an Internet fad to stay popular. Nowadays, if you can't say it in 140 characters or less, apparently, you're writing too much. Which is fine. I can adapt. I just miss the blogging hey-day a little bit. There were some fun times back in the day.
At any rate, I have some new plans for my ThunderJournal coming up, and I'm pretty confident it will be funny as hell, if only to me. But, since one of my life's goals is to entertain myself, that should be just fine.
This morning, I entered the office about 15 minutes early, so that I could adequately scramble and do absolutely last second prep work for an interview. I sequestered myself in a nice, quiet conference room with a good quality speaker phone, set up my tape recorder and dialed the number.
Things started off quite well, at first. I was knowledgeable enough about the subject matter to not stink it up entirely, and I had been able to stick to my list of prepared questions, more or less.
And then suddenly there was a knock at the door that made me jump out of my skull. It was a delivery woman with a huge Dell computer package. It didn't matter to her that I wasn't the intended recipient, or that I was on a call or. . . well, it didn't seem like much at all mattered to her beyond getting my damned signature so she could go smoke a pack of Winstons or whatever. I was so surprised and flustered by the whole thing, I had a fairly tough time getting back to the interview at hand, which I managed to conclude, albeit in limp-a-long fashion.
But then I had that damned box to deliver, which didn't seem at all fair to me. After all, it's not my job to be the go-between guy when it comes to UPS deliveries. Still, I managed to locate the actual intended recipient and work my way back to a familiar hallway. Just when I thought my day was about to return to normal, a voice called out behind me.
"Excuse me, do you have a minute?"
I turned around to see a guy carrying a box and wearing a Jimmy Johns baseball cap. Since the box also said "Jimmy Johns," I immediately assumed he was from Jimmy Johns. My first thought was "how the hell did he get in here?" That was my first thought because you need badge access to get in the building. Lacking that, you piggy back behind someone who DOES have badge access, but I didn't see anyone else anywhere near him. It was like he just materialized there using some sort of Jimmy Johns transporter beam.
"Would you be interested in a box of free sandwich samples from Jimmy Johns?" he asked, before I could press him on the whole badge access thing.
Normally, I'd be all over a free sandwich offer, but I couldn't shake the central question of "where the hell did this guy come from?" From which of the earth's frozen poles did this Sandwich Clause travel? Also, why me? How did I get singled out for this particular offer. Surely, provided he didn't beam directly into the building, as I suspect, he could have asked the person he piggy backed behind. My head was full of questions, and very few answers. Clearly, I needed someone with more interpersonal skills to adequately deal with the situation.
Thankfully, here in cubicle land, there's a go-to person who has more personality than Sybil. I knew I could count on her to deal with the unexpected appearance of the Jimmy Johns guy and his box 'o sandwiches.
If the Jimmy Johns guy was to be believed, the random sandwich bestowment was part of a promotional program for a new Jimmy Johns that supposedly opened nearby, although I'll be damned if I know where that store is; I've certainly never seen it.
Apparently, I'm the only person who is reasonably paranoid by the appearance of a box of free Jimmy Johns sandwiches, which were quickly scooped up and put in the big refridgerator in the break room. This was followed by a group e-mail to the whole office informing everyone of the community sandwiches that could be procured in the break room. Through the day, I witnessed several of my fellow cubicle denizens happily munching down on the Jimmy Johns offering, while I could not bring myself to do the same, owing entirely to the suspicious nature by which the sandwiches came to be with us.
If you happen to read about a massive outbreak of food poisoning coming out of Rochester this week, you'll know why.
Just my observation, but so far 2009 hasn't exactly been a banner year. Then again, I'm not sure what constitutes a banner year. I'm guessing a banner would be involved.
For that matter, at which point to you write off a year as not being a banner year? It's probably premature for me to do so, since it's only the middle February, but there simply has to be a sweet spot time of year when you can confidently proclaim a year to be bannerless. If July passes without so much as even a token banner, for example, you should be able to say "well, 2009 isn't a banner year." Sure, someone might sneak a banner into November or December, but you can downplay those as being "too little, too late."
What happens if a banner year presents itself too early? What if 2010 is declared a banner year on Jan. 2? Wouldn't that sort of set the bar kind of high for the rest of the year? I mean, a year that hits its stride that early in the game is bound to be winded and gassed by June. I'm not saying it would be a waste of a banner year, necessarily, but it would be nice if a year was better paced and established its banner bonafides a bit later in the game. . . maybe around June or so. That way, we'd be able to appreciate the banner year, with the hope of an additional banner year just around the corner.
On the other hand, how disappointed would you be if a banner year didn't appear until December? What if we spend the rest of 2009 waiting for it to become a banner year, but the banner doesn't unfurl until Dec. 28? Can you imagine a banner year emerging between Christmas and New Years? No one would even notice. Years from 2009, people will say "hey, remember that banner year of 2009?" and no one will be able to answer in the affirmative.
2009 is shaping up to be a forgotten year, like pretty much all my college years.
