Reset Button

Too many Thought Police wannabes drinking the Kool-Aid out there.

Let 'em drink.   

Deeply.

As for me, I'm switching things up.  Here is some comfort food of the internet - a cat!

I can't speak for you, Gentle Reader, but I certainly feel better.

Be good to each other.

We're all we've got.

EC



Cat picture found here: Emergency Kittens after a Google search.

Shape the Futue

Right now the FCC is voting on something that could change the internet (when it is working) forever.  It is called Title II and voting will commence on February 26^th.  Title II is all about Net Neutrality and who will shape the future of the internet.  Will it be molded by users, common people like you and me, or will the flow of information be dammed & diverted by the cable companies? 

NOW is the time to have your voice heard.  This is a non-patrician issue.  This is your internet.  Help keep it alive.  This site: https://www.battleforthenet.com/ will show you how.  It makes a solid case for why Title II is needed and I humbly encourage you to give it a read.  I signed the petition, emailed my representatives, and phoned the FCC.  It only took a few minutes but it was time well spent.  I believe that a free and open internet is tantamount to a free and open society and this is why I support Title II.

The vote happens on February 26^th.  Let your voice be heard.  Help shape the future.

Thank you.

 

Starlog Magazine

Not to brag but I knew who Kevin Flynn, Snake Plissken, Ellen Ripley, Mad Max and Rick Deckard were long before they made their first appearances onto movie screens the world over and into the collective unconscious of popular culture. I listened to what people like John Carpenter, Ray Bradbury, Gene Rodenberry, Ann C. Crispin, Terry Gilliam and Stephen Spielberg had to say about their latest projects while I plotted and planned at just how I was going to get to a movie theater or a bookstore in South Jersey that would actually peddle the wares they were creating.

“Evil Chicken, just how did you find out about this stuff before it came out?”

Gentle Reader, I was a fan of Starlog Magazine, that’s how. Sure Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland was a primary influence on the publication but I grew up reading Starlog. Starlog published glossy wonder and I ate up each and every page. I remember bugging the magazine guy on the first Tuesday of every month to see if the new issue of Starlog had arrived. Starlog was, for this Geek and a great many others, the bee’s knees. The magazine was around for almost 33 years, which is some feat when one considers that nature of the publishing industry these days. After all, Newsweek Magazine was bought yesterday for the grand total of $1.00. Starlog, however, was always near and dear to my heart. You see, back when a world wide computer network was nothing but science fiction Starlog was one of the only fountains for a Geek to drink from – it was a literal oasis in the publishing world. This magazine fed an entire generation of fanboys, including yours truly. Starlog fanned the flames of wonder.

And now, it’s gone.

I believe that it was the internet that killed Starlog. I remember heading to their site and hoping beyond hope that they would embrace this new technology to work in tandem with their print version. Alas, this was never the case. Their web site never took into account the vast changes in media that were taking place. On the internet readers could now comment and become a part of the conversation about all things geek. If there was an interview with a leading science fiction author or a report from a movie set or hints being dropped about what the next ‘Star Trek’ film was going to be about all fans had to do was drop a name onto a search engine and press ‘Enter’. This eliminated the wait for next month’s issue. Now information was instantaneous, plentiful and, depending on where one found it, accurate. The Starlog website never adapted which is ironic for a magazine that so prominently promoted the future to remain fixed in the past. Some magazines made the jump such as Wired (http://www.wired.com/) and others did not such as OMNI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omni_(magazine)) and, sadly, Starlog (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlog).

The first issue was published in August of 1976 and the final issue, #375, was published in April of 2009. I want to believe that Starlog is only in hibernation. I would love to see a multimedia version of a resurrected Starlog come to pass which would be launched electronically and in print; with a web presence and a go-to show on G4 or the SyFy Channel – all the Geek news that’s fit to print, blog or broadcast. The rights to Starlog are currently held by “The Brooklyn Company INC”, the same people who publish Fangoria (which was a sister publication to Starlog). I mention this tidbit as a means of introduction to the good people at The Brooklyn Company INC…

Please consider this blog the preamble to my resume. I am Evil Chicken and if you ever want to reboot Starlog... I am your man.

The Facebook Intervention

I love the internet. Seriously. I love it. I blog, I Facebook, I Twitter; I love it. I find it a wonderful little outlet of thought and idea. Since I’d be writing anyway why should I not do so electronically?

I also play poker; badly, mind you, but I play. I sit in on one of the longest standing poker games in Southern New Jersey. It is a group of interesting souls who make up the seven who sit around that table, including yours truly. We meet and play on the first Friday of each month. So, it was no surprise that on 8/7/09, that is where I was. We grilled and it was great. We played cards and that was a lot of fun too. And then came the intervention. After one hand of Texas Hold ‘Em one of my comrades told a story of his wife giggling about some piece of silliness that I wrote on Facebook. Apparently I had used the words, “good night”.

“Why… WHY, on God’s green earth would you say “good night” to anyone on Facebook? I just don’t get it.” Said the man to my left. The man to my left happens to be quite computer savvy and in some circles he is near the top of his game.

“Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense.” Said the man to my right. He is a brilliant man as well.

“I don’t have the time for any of that stuff.” Said the man opposite of me.

“Hey, I just got on to share photos with my family.” Said the man next to him trying to distance himself from yours truly in any way possible for the moment. He could see the tide turn.

“Yeah, you Twitter to, don’t you?” another asked who happens to be on Facebook as well.

“Yes, I do.” I said with a smile.

“You know what I think it is?” the man to my left asked. “It is just a group of people starved for attention. Look at me! Look at me!”

“Like a narcissist.” I said.

“Yes.” He said. So why do you do it? Why do you think that I CARE what you have to say?”

“Well, I think you can make a case for narcissism in some cases when it comes to Facebook.” I said. “But you would be painting with broad brushstrokes.” I understand that whether you care about what is written on Facebook or do not is subjective and up to the reader to decide. “If you don’t like what you read stop reading it. That’s why they make so many flavors of ice cream.”

“Then why?” Asked the man to my right.

“Social networking. It’s a tool.” I said. “Facebook is a wonderful way to be personably impersonal.

“That does not answer the question.”

“Look, I don’t have to tell any of you sitting here at this table how much I despise the phone.” There was a general nodding of heads around the table. They know (and now you do too, Gentle Reader) that I hate talking on the telephone. The contraption just demands entirely too much of my attention at any one time. I like information in digestible, well reasoned, bits – say in an email, on Facebook or on Twitter. It is simple; to the point, and just how I like it. “Facebook is a social tool. How the reader reads it or does NOT read it is purely up to them.” The simple fact of the matter is that’s the way it is with anything. I could tell you that there is a wonderful world to be found in the pages of a book but unless you pick it up and read one for yourself it is pretty much moot. People either will accept a message or reject it. The gentlemen on either side of me remain in a reject it frame of mind.

Oh well. These friends of mine and I just don’t socialize on Facebook. And the world keeps on moving. We socialize while playing cards and that is a good thing.

As for narcissism, “I” am one of my favorite subjects but I am more than well aware that the world does not revolve around me, my blog, my Facebook account or my Twitter feed. These gentlemen were casting aspersions that it did. Ah the power of the written word – even if it is electronic in nature. And, dare I say, even if those casting stones did not have their own Facebook or Twitter accounts.

Que sara sara.

As much as I hate the telephone I wonder how many people said to Alexander Graham Bell, “Why would you ever want to use THAT thing?” Only Bell knows and he’s not saying. I guarantee he heard it though. Fast forward to a hot summer night in 2009 with a group of friends sitting around a poker table some willing to use a different form of communication and some not. No matter what technological advance may come to us now or in the future there are going to be those who resist. Some will get it some will not.

Oh well. Que sara sara.

As for yours truly, Gentle Reader, I know enough about addiction to see that I have not yet hit rock bottom. It is only from the bottom that I can truly make progress and admit that I have a problem. Until then, I’ll see you on Facebook, on Twitter, and right here on the electronic pages of Chicken Scratch – LONG MAY SHE WAVE!