1000 words or less

I stopped ignoring my camera today and went to the beach to take some photos. It was overcast all day, so I could have used just a bit more light, but I was practicing after all...I shouldn't strive for perfection just yet. So, you have a sample shot above. I have three versions of it: the original color, a black and white, and this one, which demonstrates on a very basic level the kind of fun you can have with Photoshop.

...-.-...

So there's a new forum out there that seems to be a haven for the previously banned and disgruntled. I am amazed yet again at how small the lives of some people are. I don't have a very good frame of reference, either. I don't know that anyone has every been banned from the Dirt Rag forum. On the other hand, no one on the DR forum has ever done anything that warrants a banning. Maybe it's because there are dramatically less people on the forum. But the attitude is different as well. It's a more welcoming place for new comers, and you don't see people posting rude pictures, or being all that inflammatory (the Politics area is a different story). No one is mean spirited, and whenever there's a disagreement it's done in a respectful manner. I can't imagine anyone doing anything that required a ban, let alone going to another forum to make it sound like they were banned for no reason, or only telling half the story, and saying some not so very nice things about the people that run the forum from which they were banned.

What blows me away even more is the behavior if a certain individual who set up the new forum. That guy really has a bug up his ass, and it's been there so long that it's probably fossilized by now. Have you ever known anyone that you just hope has a bad dose of karma coming back to haunt him/her? He is one of those guys for me. I will never understand the logic of becoming part of something from the ground up, not carrying your weight, leaving but maintaining a percentage of that company, holding on to that percentage in the hopes that you'll make millions, yet at the same time going out of your way to discredit the company, either via a lack of cooperation, not being helpful, or outright public slander. Your objective is what??

I know people say that 'it's just the internet', but I really don't believe that's the case for some people anymore. I think the internet is their reality. It's their primary form of communication, it's how they get information, it's how they arrange social outings, and it's how people decide if they want to know someone or not. Obviously, the notion of assuming an internet personna isn't going away. But more and more I think that what we 'see' of people in the internet is how they are in reality as well, and there's less and less of a line of differentiation. Me for example...I don't pretend to be something I'm not online. At least I don't do this consciously. And the people I know and love in person, are the same to me in the cyberworld. If someone I know was an ass online, but the opposite in reality I think I'd have to ask them about it. Come to think of it, I have. So I don't buy this whole thing of it just being 'the internet' anymore.

I think people who aren't really nice get away with it now. They can still be anti-social in reality, but can 'socialize' with others in their caustic ways online, and that's what internet annonymity has done.

I'm starting to long for the days when interactions with people who weren't so nice were few and far between.

Cheers to my very good friends, Nick and Steve.