DO NOT REPLY ALL TO THE LAST EMAIL I SENT

I read an article last week about Placebo Buttons. They're all over the place. In short, give people a button to push, and they think they're not waiting as long (like at a crosswalk or in an elevator. We are all just children.)

So when you send an email to your friends to tell them about the dumb shit you just read about the weird way that pandas have sex and you copy a client from work by accident, you might expect to be saved by the "Recall" button. WRONG. Either it's a placebo like the rest, or people read their emails a lot quicker than they do the texts I send.

While it might be comforting to think that there's a way to retreat, there are no takebacks in the world of work email. That which is done cannot be undone. You can click that recall button all you want, but that message isn't coming back. Based on my experience today, here is your best course of action:

1. Immediately email the others you just sent the email to and in the subject line, IN ALL CAPS, enter the title of this post. This tells them you are at DEFCON 4 and there is no time to fuck around. 
2. Draft an email to the inadvertent recipient of your original, stupid message. Apologize for cluttering their inbox, let them know it was an accident, and ask forgiveness. Be brief and nonchalant. NEVER let them know you're freaking out. 
3. If they're cool, you'll get an email back with something like "no problem," or even "lol." But it's possible you might not hear back. In this case, no news is good news. Pretend it never happened, like that time your mom found your porn and you only know because it's gone when you go to look for it.  They'll do the same.
4. If they reply back, and choose to be a dick by telling you how unprofessional or offensive you are, good luck. You might want to start securing an alternate identity.
5. Better yet, don't send stupid emails from your work address. Or set up a delay and give yourself a couple minutes to stop the bleeding before it starts.  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Back

I kind of forgot this existed. I remember starting it on my desktop three years ago in my first apartment that had a tiny closet with black mold on the walls. Inside was a hot water heater and an A/C unit that spewed water all over my floor until my living room was mostly a swamp. It was quaint.

Also, I say "desktop" as in "desktop computer," like the big box you have at work or see in movies from 2003.  I haven't touched it since, nor have I thought about posting anything here. I'm kind of dumbstruck by the title I chose here, too. At the time, I had just joined Twitter because I just got a new smart phone. I've tweeted exactly twice since then. See: https://twitter.com/aspangler01

I could never get into it. I'm not one of those people who think it's pointless, either. I love to read tweets; I just never have the motivation to write them. And now, I don't even have the smartphone. If a kid on the street ever asks you to borrow yours, don't hand it to him.

So, new apartment, new (old) phone, new laptop. New start here.

Vicarious Therapy

After spending most of my day in therapy sessions with various clients, I started to have this strange feeling that the therapists were talking to me.  Maybe it's because I wasn't talking much while taking notes and feeling especially receptive to good advice.  This might not sound weird as anyone can overhear a quote or receive some inspiration through an unexpected conversation.  What is strange about my experience, though, is that every client I met with today was under the age of 15.
   
I've long held a belief in the wisdom of children.  Their worldview has yet to be skewed by religion, politics, or beliefs, and they tend to take everything at face value, which is a very practical approach to life.  As adults, I think we often read too much into things and have a tendency to completely blow things out of proportion.  Watching cable news will illustrate this perfectly. 

What's so nice about kids, then, is that they're approach to problems and conflict often tends to be very black and white.  Only with age do we start to see morality in shades of grey, leading to a mess of moral and existential crises.  If only we could get back to basics and understand the mind of child, we might be able to better understand the world and our place in it.

Case in point:  Client #1 today is 8 years old.  I was telling his therapist that he recently got into some trouble at school when he refused to use the grey calculator instead of the more familiar blue one.  The kiddo argued with his teacher and refused to do his work, leading to a trip to the office.  To me, and the teacher, the client was wrong because he was defiant towards his teacher and didn't follow directions.  Pretty obvious, right?

What the therapist pointed out, though, is that "Why should the client have to use the grey calculator?"  I couldn't come up with a reason, and I don't think the teacher would have been able to either.  We just took for granted that those were the rules, and rules are not meant to be broken. 

But a kid doesn't see things this way.  If he wanted to use the blue calculator, and no one else would be hurt by it, why shouldn't he be able to?  In the end, the conflict was the result of a power struggle, not a real issue.  The teacher wanted to assert his authority over the client, and the client was having none of it. When we start acting like "grown ups" and just submit to authority without any room for questioning or compromise, we're choosing to be forced into using the grey calculator when what we really want is the blue. 

More thoughts on this later.

The Video Store

Netflix, Red Box, DVR, On Demand, and the Internet have changed how people watch movies.  Convenience, affordability, and selection all play a part in how movies are accessed and viewed by typical consumers.  I’ve watched movies in all of these formats, and I completely support these options to deliver my entertainment because it’s typically fast, easy, and cheap.  There are times, though, when I like to indulge in a less mainstream picture or watch a classic that I’ve always heard about but never seen.  Such movies typically aren’t readily available through any of these retailers (except Netflix, but even then, you have to wait a couple days for the DVD to show up in your mailbox).  So tonight, I set out to hit up my locally owned and operated Wild ‘n’ Woolly video to check out their selection and take advantage of their free Tuesday rental.  Unfortunately, I came home empty handed.

                When I was younger, a trip to the video store was exciting.  I remember when we first got a Blockbuster.  I remember thinking it was so cool to see all my favorite movies in one place, even if I couldn’t understand why their sign was a VHS box with a bite taken out of it.  Unfortunately, Blockbuster was so far away, I needed a ride from Mom or Dad to get there.  If neither were available for transportation, I could walk myself to the local VideoMax. Despite its darker, seedier interior and penchant for older movies on display, it was always a viable option, especially on snow days.  Either way, in my youth, an evening trip to the video store was second only to Toys ‘r’ Us. 

                That excitement was relived tonight on my way to Wild ‘n’ Wooly.  I had a pretty good idea of what to expect and wasn’t let down. First, I was struck by the smell which is eerily similar to my memories of VideoMax.  The scent of the carpeting combined with thousands of plastic sleeves with a dash of what I can only describe as electric exhaust (sniff the vent of your computer or TV.  That smell.)  I thought it was really neat how their films are divided by categories and subcategories.  For example, “Horror” is split up into “Vampires,” “Zombies,” (tonight’s Free category, btw), “Slashers,” et cetera.  On top of this, they’ve taken copies of the DVD jackets and laminated them so scrolling through the movies is a lot like another hobby of mine: thumbing through back issues at the local comic shop. 

                After careful contemplation, I took my selections (A Zombie movie called Gory, Gory Hallelujah, about 4 actors vying for the role of Jesus in a local production when the dead start to rise, and Super, an super hero movie with Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page).  Once I got up to the counter, everything fell apart.  First, I realized I didn’t have a membership.  The ease of swiping a card through the Red Box or logging into my Netflix account made me forget about the (often) laminated cards issued by video stores.  If I looked hard enough, I could probably find an old Blockbuster card around somewhere (which is odd, because even when I went there regularly,  I  could never keep track of my card).  So I asked to sign up.

                “All I need is an in-state driver’s license,” the clerk told me.  I froze.  I’ve lived in Louisville for over two years, but still maintain a Tennessee driver’s license.  I explained this as I frantically dug out every piece of identification in my wallet. My UofL student ID, my health insurance card, everything.  I laid them all out on the counter, but it wasn’t enough.  I was told to come back with a piece of mail with my current address on it at the very least. 

               

So, things didn’t go as planned.  While I’m not mad at the store (I’ll certainly go back, and I understand the need to be sure of their clients’ addresses, lest a copy of Showgirls turns up missing, which I’m sure it has) I’m disappointed that my exciting journey back in time didn’t work out.  I had invested a significant portion of my evening walking there, going through the selection, and making my choice very carefully, which is something that is lost when we just point and click on a title where most of the choices are made for us by limited selections and generated recommendations based on previous viewing preferences.  I had made an effort to seek out something different and support a local business, only to be undermined by the technology that I so often take for granted suddenly becoming irrelevant. 

Something’s got to give in this scenario, and it won’t be Netflix or Red Box.  If somehow, they were to suddenly offer a significantly broader selection of titles or perhaps incorporate some form of social networking to allow users to meet, chat, discuss, and recommend films, they will be able to offer everything the local stores do.  But that’s not going to happen.  Licensing, costs, and demand will all see to that.  In that case, it is up to the local retailers to catch up by using technology.  Out of state license? No problem! Keep a credit card number on file, and charge it daily for overdue titles a la Red Box.  The point is, this store lost a sale tonight for two reasons: 1) We have become accustomed to fast, easy delivery without having to divulge an inordinate amount of personal information, and 2) Wild ‘n’ Woolly was not prepared to accommodate a customer like me.

                For better or worse, the landscape of this industry has changed.  I still value the local shop that offers customers good movies at affordable prices, but I’m guessing they are becoming few and far between.  Changes must be made to stay afloat, and I think the outcomes will more than outweigh the costs as tech becomes more accessible and owners are better able to assess trends and demands of the public.

In Over My Head

It's been a week since I started this blog.  I initially said I'd try to write something every day, but to say that was an overstatement would be a huge understatement.  I never really realize how busy I am until everything just falls on top of me and I'm left feeling like the cartoon character who all the bad guys jump on resulting in a cloud of dust and sound effects.  Fortunately, I'm also like that cartoon character in that I manage to slip out while no one notices and continues to pummell nothing as I walk away unscathed.

Since I last published a post, Winter has turned into Spring, Bruce Pearl is no longer the coach of the Tennessee Volunteers basketball team, and Charlie Sheen is old news.  Ch-ch-ch-changes!  What a difference a week can make.

For now, most of my work is behind me and I'm hoping to be able to write more during the week I don't have class, which at this point, may very well be the best week of my life. 

In the Beginning..

They say if you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat the past.  If this is true, then by my estimation, this blog will last all of 2 weeks, after which time, I will have either become distracted, bored, or lazy.  I remember one time, probably when I was in 6th grade or so, when my family just got a new computer. 

Up until that point, we had this old DOS machine, pre-windows, with word processing software that consisted of a blue background and white text.  It was like, WordPerfect 1 or something.  One time I tried to write a review of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation for the school paper, only to find out that 2 pages, single-spaced, was waaay too much text.  But what did I know?  My computer didn't even tell you how many pages your document was, let alone have a word counter.  Looking back, I think I can edit that review down to two words: It sucked.  But I digress.

We had just gotten this new computer, with windows and MS Office that I had been learning so much about in school.  One of the first things I did was start a "virtual journal" ("journal" because diaries are for girls, and if I were going to have a diary, it wouldn't be virtual.  It would be a real notebook with one of those locks on the front so that only I or anyone with a paperclip could open it).

From what I remember, my first and only entry started out something like this:

"Dear Journal, well, I don't really know about all this journal stuff, but I guess I'll give it a shot.  Well, today was a pretty good day.  School was good because we're playing this really cool song in Orchestra (Looking back, I think it was "What can you do with a drunken sailor," but I can't be sure).  We had play practice after school and it was a lot of fun.  I got to hang out with Mandy.  She still says she doesn't want to be my girlfriend, but that's ok because it's cool just hanging out with her at play practice and stuff.  I think if I just give it time (Read: The rest of my life, or so I thought at the time) she'll see that I'm really cool and will like me.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes, but for now, I'm going to go play with my friend Jared outside.  Talk to you later!"

And that was that.  Sorry to leave you hanging for the past 13 years journal.  In case you were wondering, it didn't work out because I moved to Tennessee three years later.  The Mandy thing that is.  Jared and I definitely went outside and played WCW wrestling.  I was Sting, and I won. 

But as it is, I have the internet at my apartment now, so hopefully I'll find the time and motivation to post some daily musings, commentaries, and stories that others might enjoy.