his rather self-absorbed page collects blog items in which some reader's perception or opinion of me is expressed, often when it's entirely incorrect.  Or when people mail to say that my blog, or my personality is entirely different than what they thought it would be, given that I work on a gaming website, or am a white male, or live in America, or what have you.

More recent additions are added on top.

March 31, 2003

This mail is from Mikkel, who lives in Denmark, and I've snipped the intro and a bit of a digression in the middle.

Although the fantasy stuff is good, what I really enjoy are the Daily Blogs. Some of the news stuff I just skimp over lightly, as I'm not very interested in (and can't relate to) "local" american news. Of course we (in Denmark) are also bombarded with news and information from the Iraq crisis, and get to see Bush standing with very concerned eyebrows trying not to sound like he is just reading from his paper. But I guess that after 12 days of virtually exactly the same news crossing the tv-screens, I'm just fed up with it (who said "cynical"?).

So, apart from the news stuff, it's interesting (believe it or not) to read about what you are doing. When I started visiting BlackChampagne, I think I hit one of your more depressed periods, but it seems you are in a better mood now (wonder why...). Some of the events you tell about seems somewhat trivial (I read an old blog today, about you buying new shoes to wear at work), but are nevertheless interesting. And in the example with the shoes, it's funny to read about clueless employees in a shoe store, that don't know a damn thing about what they're doing, or just plain courtesy. I know them all too well. I imagine you have a lot of those in the US (just one of my prejudices), but what can I say... When I come across some American tv show (some of the Danish tv-channels transmit them, although probably not "live"...) all I see is stupid (and for about 85-90%, grossly overweight) people talking bullocks. Now I'm straying again, dammit!

So I'm glad to find out that there are sympathetic, sensible people in America as well (meaning the author of BlackChampagne).

He brings up a number of things I could comment on at length, but I'm not going to.  Well, maybe briefly.

The thing about the shoes is funny, since he liked Sunday's which was mostly about buying new shoes for work, but found some old one about buying new shoes for work boring.  Hmm.  I think this is the beauty about a blog, or a daily/live journal, which is more what I'm doing here.   The beauty is that you can write about anything, and you really never know what people will find most amusing or enjoyable to read.  Also, virtually anything you write about can be fascinating and interesting and amazing; it's all in how you write it.

Some people can tell a funny story about anything, and other people butcher the retelling of the funniest two-line joke they've ever heard.  And sometimes this is the same person, on a good day and a bad day.  I know that some days I have a minor little story about something I did, and I can just feel it singing off my fingers.  Effortless to write, jokes fall in without a thought, I know it's lively and interesting, etc.  And other days I might have some good ideas, but I just don't feel mentally nimble and know anything I write will be plodding and dull, both for me to write and for you all to read.

Well actually I'm lying, I always think everything I write will be brilliant.  Including the bad sarcasm.  Such as this paragraph.

Also on his mail, the war mention is interesting.  I have tried, when I comment on it, to comment on things that aren't real mainstream.  Not what you'll see discussed on the evening news, or if I do to put in my own alternative PoV on it.  Maybe I'm successful and maybe I'm not, and maybe most of you are sick of hearing about it and don't want to hear anymore, certainly not from a site most people come to to enjoy a few laughs.

The last point I liked in Mikkel's mail was the bit about American TV.  We in the US generally scoff at the crap on TV, and most people spend their time bitching about what garbage it is. And it seems like usually the worst of the US TV is what becomes popular overseas.  Like Baywatch, for instance (though that's not what they're seeing in Denmark, apparently, given his remark about everyone in the US being fat).

Anyway, as Americans we are largely defined around the world by our entertainment output and our politicians.  And while entertainment varies a lot and reflects a wide variety of lifestyles and ideas, it's mostly stupid noisy crap.  I won't even mention what the world thinks about our current crop of politicians, since I think everyone knows the score there by now. And of course by the actions of the US government and military around the world, and things like bailing out of the Kyoto treaty, and refusing to submit to the authority of the World Criminal Court, while hardly covered by the media in the US, are big news around the rest of the world. Meanwhile no one else on earth gives a rat's tin ass about Elizabeth Smart vanishing or reappearing, while it was the only thing US media talked about for a couple of weeks.

I do enjoy getting long and detailed mails from people in other countries though.  Just seeing how differently things are looked at and what their priorities are is fascinating.  One thing I've noticed a number of times (gross generalization coming up) is that they are far more worldly and mature than most US citizens.  My sample size is pretty small and probably skewed since the Germans and Hungarians and Danes and Japanese, etc that I'm hearing from are obviously looking around the world, or they wouldn't be mailing me in the first place.  And there are probably lots of stupid people in every country who are content to stare at the TV and obsess over local news and don't want to travel and don't care what's going on in the rest of the world.  But my impression is that the US has far more than our fair share of such people, and the lack of international curiosity and ignorance of world affairs feeds a lack of objectivity and lack of concern with what the US is doing world wide.  If we don't know about it, how can be be concerned by it?  And that this, as much as anything, is why the US has gone from being a world leader to being the lone superpower, but one that is only interested in its own affairs and profits, rather than one that promotes democracy and leads and inspires other nations.

Odd how that turned around on me from commenting on what other countries do to what the US does and how it's due to internationally ignorant citizens.  And my argument can be poked through pretty easily, just by pointing out that Americans were either just as ignorant of things in the 50's and 60's and 70's, or else that the US government was doing just as much skullduggery then as now, though somehow it's not what people remember about the time.

I suppose you have to also factor in the Cold War, where the US was the main force keeping the evil Ruskies from engulfing the entire world, as they did all of Eastern Europe.  And other countries appreciated the US being the balance against the totalitarian communism, plus that struggle gave a direction to US foreign policy.  Now with that major threat gone the world is far more chaotic and every little country is doing their own thing, and big countries like Germany and France feel no need to go along with the US on every last invasion.

Wow, I'm way off topic.  Anyway, I see so much enthusiasm and energy from most of the European emailers I get, especially from people who are using English as a 2nd or 3rd or 4th language.  They seem to want to travel, learn things, see the world, improve their language skills, meet new people, study a lot of disciplines, etc.  Meanwhile US teens are just interested in watching wrestling or playing GTA3 on their Xbox, and as they get older and into college it's all about getting an MBA or degree in CS to get into programming.  Which means spending 18 hours a day in a tiny room with bad lighting, staring at a screen.  Which is basically what they've done for the last 10 years in high school and college.

And if they read the news it's all about US stuff, and if they watch TV it's meaningless US TV shows, and they only speak English, they don't want to travel anywhere, and if they do eventually go abroad it's to some tourist-friendly city where they can just follow the signs and find hotels where everyone speaks English, and it's basically like a slightly larger DisneyWorld with dirtier bathrooms.

And I'm so very different!

• Languages spoken: English, Pig Latin, l33t
• Foreign countries visited: Mexico, Canada, Texas

But see, I read the news from other countries, and I'm dating a women over I've never actually seen face to face, and she's been to the Philippines and Africa. So there.

March 15, 2003

Interesting email Friday night.

It's from Donnie, a new reader of this here website.  This is an excerpt, he also proposed a very interesting article discussion topic, that I will get to one of these days; it's too long and involved for a quick discussion.

I have sent you emails on many occasions to your diabloII.net account -- all about comments made on that site of course.

I had seen you link to the blackchampagne website many times, but had never actually taken the time to visit the site. Let me tell you what, it blew me away.

You convey a high level of intelligence in all that you write, but I did have a vision of "Flux" as being the comic book guy from the simpsons. You know, completely oblivious to the world around, only caring about the next star trek convention sort of thing.

I thought this was an interesting observation.  The last paragraph I mean, expecting me to be, well... what he said.

He doesn't mean literally, I don't think.  Or maybe he does, expecting me to take after Lum the Mad or Scott Kurtz or Harry Knowles, physically I mean.  They're all the 30ish hugely-fat single-topic obsessed guy type.  Like the CBSG from The Simpsons.  Just more successful in their obsessions.

But I think it's more interesting if he's meaning it psychologically, like I'd only be obsessed with Diablo II and maybe titties as well.  Whether or not I was obese and hermitlike is not all that relevant to the psychological profile aspect of things.

Pondering his question, I realize that I've never really given any thought to how readers of the D2 site would think of me personally. It's not like a cult of personality type site, (Though I thought it should have had a lot more of that element and argued it with Elly at great length in the past. Obviously without success in changing her vision of what the site should be: almost totally without personality.) so people don't have a whole lot to base their opinions on.  I would suspect that most people never really give a thought to who the people running the sites they read are, and what they are like in real life. And that probably goes for the Diablo II site as well.

However never really thinking about it consciously doesn't mean you won't come to some opinions or conclusions, even if you didn't realize you had them until something brought that home to you.  Such as seeing that person's home site.  I suspect at that point you would realize you had come to some conclusions about them, even if you didn't realize it, as they were either confirmed or shattered.

I'm trying to think of a person who runs or contributes to a website I read regularly but that I don't know anything about on a personal level. Hmm, I'll check my bookmarks.

Well, nothing leaps to mind.  Most of the sites I read have no names at all on the features (news, TheOnion.com) or else the person running it is doing personal commentary all the time, such as on a Blog.  So I feel like I know something about them, and have an opinion on what sort of person they are.

Okay, one example, though a poor one. CamelToe.org.  Frequently-amusing site, mostly humorous captions below silly pictures of genitals visible through clothing.  But it's only updated once a week, and since the guy puts personal input into the captions, I have some idea of what he's into. But I guess if he had a blog and I found out he was really into oh... medieval castle construction, or stamp collecting, or wildlife photography, I would be surprised.

But that's not really what Donnie said in the above email, is it?  Oh well.

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