welcome to my blog; it's a collection of poorly structured opinions and ideas concerning nothing in particular, so hopefully you'll find something you like.
i am gibson smiley
“Some things become such a part of us that we forget them.
I want because of what I wanted, and what I wanted, I wouldn’t want again.
The passing of a soul is light, extremely light, almost silence.
There are pains that have lost their memory and don’t remember why they are painful.
Convince me, but without convictions. Convictions no longer convince me.
We don’t forgive being as we are.
At the last moment, my whole life will last a moment.
Man is a thing children learn. A childish thing.
Don’t speak to me. I want to be with you.
There are those fallen who don’t get up so as not to fall again.
The dream that doesn’t feed on dream vanishes.”
—
Continuing with the subject of poems, here is a poem I really enjoy that a friend gave me after he read my poem.
It’s entitled “Voices” and it is by Antonio Porchia
Well tonight I went a little gathering of some people that write poetry. I really enjoyed it while simultaneously being intimidated by the amount of culture oozing from their every pore.
Nevertheless a few lines appeared in my head while I was there and I threw a few more together. I’m not sure if you could call this poetry, so I won’t, but it’s got to be pretty close. I wrote it very fast and I acknowledge there may be some pretty big cliches in there, forgive me.
I don’t really want to explain what I’m talking about here, mostly because I’d say it’s fairly personal, but if that is the case then why the heck would I share it on the Interwebs? Though with that said I’m still not going to explain it. But without further ado, prepare to be confused:
Pushing eternity past the limit
Fleeing the sin-forged hearts
Pushing through the Aryan crowd,
Diamond in the coal turned coal in the diamond
Tasting the forbidden fruit, yet staying in Eden
Breaking the straight line in search of self and love
So here’s a semi-serious video I made a few weeks ago. It was really fun, and I learned a lot. I would absolutely love if all you beautiful people shared it on your tumblr’s to help spread me around a bit. :3
Also, if you have killer gif making skills, please put them to good use and make me some gifs. haha. I’ll love you forever!! <3
“Hafestus” is a domain I’ve wanted for a while. It represents the side of me that really like technology stuff, which is seen from my occasional posts about tech stuff. With this domain I have a few options, the first is to post all my tech-related stuff on it and not post any of that kind of stuff here on this, my personal blog. That’s a nice thought, but I don’t post on this blog much anyway, so to take away content that would be sent to this blog seems kinda sad, and pointless. At least pointless in the sense of “Why don’t you just use one blog, Gibson?
From that we’ll move on to my next blog “Life in 801.” For those that don’t know (all of you? Most of you?) I moved to Utah for school. Coincidentally the area code for Utah is 801. So through an inspired thought I made that domain to talk about my exploits here in Utah. By exploits I mean a few things. So I’ll make a neat little list to show this.
I don’t know much, or anything about the area, so the blog will be a cataloging of my discoveries, like the Dunkin’ Donuts down the street, or the hiking trail behind my house.
Although I am a Mormon, I didn’t really do much of the social Mormon teen things, ie dances, get-togethers… and some other stuff too. So here in the Mormon Mecca my blog will also discuss a personal immersion into the Mormon culture, or at a deeper immersion, cause I’m already in pretty deep.
Finally, I’m not a very active person, in fact I would go so far as to say I am a very lazy person. Other than little to no self-motivation I also blame the fact that I have the metabolism of a god, and consequently have never been “fat” at all in my life and probably won’t gain major weight for the next 15 years or so. Because of all of that I never had the needed motivation that so many I know use of “I don’t want to fat again.” A blessing and a curse, I suppose.
Now this blogging-spree did not just come out of no where, in one of my classes my teacher wants all of the students to make a blog talking about media (whatever that means) and I jumped on that, because, well you know, I like making blogs. So I can use that to justify my blogs.
Anyway, there are my blogs, it would be super cool if you would periodically check up on them, mostly Life in 801, because as of now I’m not totally sure what I’m going to do with Hafestus. Additionally, I figure I’ll post basically the same kind of stuff on this here blog. I’m also to be updating my archive with all the stuff I write across the board, ie this blog, Life in 801, Hafestus and I also got onto the newspaper for my college, the UVU Review so I’ll also post links to the articles I write too, so consider the archive on this site more of a “hub” for all of the stuff I write.
I find myself largely in a similar boat with Justin Williams in terms of how he uses the various social networks out there.
His thoughts on Path strike me as something I’m hearing a lot now amongst the people I know and/or follow:
Path: I never used the original version of Path, but I love using the new version as a way to give my closest friends and family members an inside look into my daily life.2 More than just sharing my own content, I enjoy seeing what my friends are sharing on it. Path is what I enjoyed most about Facebook before it turned into the Internet platform: a social network for your private, personal network.
Sadly, so do his thoughts on Flickr:
Flickr: Flickr is my least used service right now, which is sad. The personal photos I used to share on Flickr now go to Facebook and I reserve Flickr for any “real” photography I may do. As I rarely get out with my camera these days, that usage is becoming less and less. Their lack of a great mobile experience also limits its glance-ability when I am on the go.
I’m still paying for Flickr and I basically never use it anymore. Instagram has long since become my go-to photo service (as it is for Williams).
His use of Stamped to replace Yelp is interesting. I like that idea, I just don’t think they’re quite there in terms of content volume just yet.
While Williams calls Google+ the “nerdier variant of Facebook”, I still haven’t really figured out how that social network fits into my routine yet. I share most of my links there, but I see very, very few click backs as a result (more on that in a post yet to come). The conversation is usually lively, but it delves into trolling way too quickly. Essentially, it’s like FriendFeed on steroids.
Williams’ usage of Twitter may be the most interesting:
I also obsessively delete replies after I am sure the person it is directed to has read it. When someone visits my Twitter profile for the first time I want them to decide whether to follow or not based on the content I produce, not the conversions I have with other users.
I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. It’s intriguing, but it seems like it would be a huge pain in the ass and I’m not sure I agree with removing content after you put it out there for all to see (though @replies aren’t seen by all, to be fair).
Williams broader point about social network overlap is a good one. Most of us are at the point now where if a new social network comes into our lives, it means getting rid of an old one — Flickr -> Instagram, for example. That’s a pretty big problem for new social networks going forward. They can’t just be good, they have to be really, really good to make up for a switching cost. Or they have to be totally different — but even something totally different means time spent there instead of elsewhere. Something will probably be cut.
Your service now can’t just be a time-waster, it has to be good enough to make the cut.
