Hmmpost

Of the 800+ moderated comments I just sifted through, the vast majority of which were spam (obvious), here’s a critical one Jason wanted to leave on my Lists of 1080p games available for Xbox 360 post: What a horrible resource this blog is for helpful info. I can only imagine the amount of people who walk away from this blog who now have a false sense of enlightenment. It would take me all day to disect and correct this mass of misinformation. My only advice is to resist lending information on topics which you don’t have a higher education in, or you are not 100% knowledgable about. Be prepared to back up everything you say with resources and or some sort of credential. It’s like some people are getting elbow deep in their own rear end just to be able to post something that sounds smart, and possibly make a difference in the world. How about- put the controller down and get active and involved in something that will have reflective meaning when you are on your death bed looking back on your life.

My first reaction was: ‘Hmm, wonder what post this was left on? Followed quickly by: ‘does this comment have anything to do with the post?’ And then a few seconds later when I reminded myself that the last post made here was nearly two months ago: ‘why does this make me go hmm and is it worthy of responding to or simply hitting delete?’ I didn’t approve this comment because IMHO it violates our comment rule #1: “no offtopic comments.” But now I’m opening pandora’s box by making this post open for Jason to fire back. This one arguably will be on topic with his complaint in full focus. From experience I can say that isn’t always very wise but let me stop Jason before he starts to type angrily by taking his original comment in as much context as I can and providing my follow-up commentary to a possible future road he may take:
”What a horrible resource this blog is for helpful info.” This blog is not intended to be a ‘resource’ – not even primarily a resource – never was but I will stop short of saying never will be. I prefer using the word ‘never’ sparingly because I feel like it limits future options too much. Furthermore, how many blogs could be considered ‘resources’? Some could, I won’t paint that broadly. Websites as a whole can be resources, but most blogs are well, blogs. They are more diary-like in nature than resource-like. Perhaps Jason and I differ in how we decide what a blog is about. Subjective, it is, Yoda might say. And look at the title of this blog. It’s not entitled: “Resourceful Things That Make You Go Hmm” – it’s just ‘things’ … things that make me go hmm and maybe, hopefully, possibly make you go hmm –- once in awhile. Lastly, in defense against the strange unknown face of commenting in the internet wild, over the nearly six years I’ve been writing and maintaining this blog, I do feel there have been some resourceful moments. Got to get lucky with that after almost 5,000 posts. Call that accidental resourcefulness. A few folks seem to have found this post resourceful for example. But hey, never judge a blog with as many posts as this one by any single post. It’s like that cliche judging a book by its cover. “I can only imagine the amount of people who walk away from this blog who now have a false sense of enlightenment.” Now there’s a fair thing to ponder about this blog. That is on topic of a post like the one you’re reading now. If I’m not enlightening you as a reader, you have a choice: take the exit and never read it again. Or if I’m lucky enough to gain the converse reaction, maybe you’ll become a subscriber and wait for me to exhale again. Or I suppose a third possibility is you leave it up to random online chance: if we meet someday online again … “It would take me all day to disect and correct this mass of misinformation. My only advice is to resist lending information on topics which you don’t have a higher education in, or you are not 100% knowledgable about. Be prepared to back up everything you say with resources and or some sort of credential.” Would it really take all day to dissect (sorry) the “mass of misinformation?” I’m curious why someone who takes the time and effort to comment wouldn’t correct a “mass” of information? Or at least try to do so? Who knows, maybe the person on the other end might want to fix that mass? Yes? No? Alter the mass. Shape the mass. Now don’t even get me started on how silly it is to expect someone writing a blog like this one to be required to have higher education. Yeah, I should have a master’s degree in Things That Make You Go Hmm. What college can I can master on that one? Can anyone recommend a good technical college? How about online resources? I’m sure there are a zillion. The best I can do to be knowledgeable (sorry, second spelling fix Jason) about what I’m writing about is to try and translate what comes out of my brain the minute I write it. But is the translation itself, if I can even think that deep at the moment, attempting to be seen as knowledgeable or accurate? I think it’s the latter as I don’t remember ever sitting down to type something on this blog and thinking: “Now does this make me sound more knowledgeable than this … or that.” Just don’t do that kind of ego editing – ever. I have done editor hat type editing on some posts before hitting the publish button, but that’s the old writer/publisher demon in me, not some pretentious demon, but hey readers are entitled to whatever opinion they have and god bless ‘em, I love every one of them. Well, maybe not the ones who hate me and call me names in the comment area, but Jason didn’t do that (yes, a few others in the moderated comments did), so I’m cool with comments like his (but they still won’t get approved on posts if they are off topic). As for Jason’s bit about being prepared to backup everything I say with resources and some sort of credential? Umm, how about a resounding no. I’m no more credential required than Jason to have an opinion about something and to voice it. If one wants to know what credentials I have as a gamer, check my Xbox Live gamer tag … maybe? Never claimed to be any kind of pro gamer. Don’t have the time these days it would take to devote myself to that field. I do think pro gaming is interesting and even hmm-inspiring though. Maybe when I’m retired I might try something like this, assuming I’m actually good enough and interested enough in a game to focus that hard. “It’s like some people are getting elbow deep in their own rear end just to be able to post something that sounds smart, and possibly make a difference in the world.” I’m trying to think about to the day I wrote the post in question. Probably a hot day as it was in July 2007 and the post itself seems to capture my own motivation in this passage: The following lists of 1080p games should give other new 1080p capable TV owners the ability to print the list and go to the store straight to the game titles of interest. Or, if you have a mobile device capable of surfing the web, just bookmark the pages below and recall whenever you need them.

Jason, did you miss this part? It seems to me that my motivation for the post in question was to share something that I had difficulty finding at the time with possibly others in the world in the same situation. It seems to have been innocent motivation really. Maybe now, some 2 1/2 years later there is a better place to find a more thorough list? Maybe you have created one yourself? Maybe I should point to one on the post in the form of an update? I’ll admit that the list is now badly, badly outdated and that is worthy of some criticism, but hey it hasn’t even been a remote priority of mine as of late which brings me to Jason’s final criticism: “How about- put the controller down and get active and involved in something that will have reflective meaning when you are on your death bed looking back on your life.” I have put the controller down. Heck, I’ve put the keyboard down too, Jason. Just look at the sidebar on the home page which shows the published post count for the months in parenthesis for how obvious that is. I am very happy to have spent more time doing things in my life since last March when I joined the local Eagles club that involve some different and new experiences. To me life is all about experiences. I have had lots of online experiences in roughly the last 15 years and was missing out on many local community-oriented volunteer oriented experiences in my life. Not the case at all over the last year. I spent time volunteering literally hundreds of hours, but then probably zero one time readers of this blog would ever know that, nor would even semi-casual readers. I sense that a few long time readers might know I’ve been away and busy doing something else … I can only hope a few of them might care enough to be curious what that has entailed. And hopefully they are doing the same things in their lives: exploring and trying out new and different things. That would make me happy for them. Let me end this post on a note by saying this isn’t one of those Guilty For Not Posting On The Blog posts, because I’m not guilty in the slightest and frankly am put off by those type of posts. I will admit though a tinge of regret that I broke my consecutive months publishing at least one post streak, but doubt I’ll ever look back on my death bed and think: “oh man, my life would have been so much better if only I had published something on Things That Make You Go Hmm in January 2010.” (that’s a joke, Jason!) Seriously, I would hope when my death bed day comes – and that is the one part of Jason’s critical comment that really got me thinking BTW – that when my final days are upon me, I’ll be able to recall all the wonderful different experiences I’ve had in life: offline and online. I’ve had many already and am grateful for the time I’ve been granted on this planet. Think about all the people who don’t get as many years as I’ve had. I’m lucky and grateful for that time. And since my life is like a little more than half over according to the mortality tables I better be continuing the trend of finding different and new experiences to explore. What I can and will promise going forward is I’ll keep checking in from time to time when I have something different or new to share or say. I think that’s far more important than forcing myself to say something simply to meet some sort of self-imposed quota or to rehash roads already traveled here. Life should be that way too. Try new things, explore, experience and share with others when you can. Don’t just get stuck grinding the same things day in and day out with nothing fresh to look forward to tomorrow. I look forward to what tomorrow brings, do you?