What's Your Hurdle?

I'm hooked! Tomine's comics make you think and carry a lot of evocative clout.

Tomine's comics are so good, they made me want to listen to Whitesnake.

I think this perfectly explains why Twitter is a huge hurdle for me.

I have no hurdle with twitter, I see it as another social networking tool . A tad too intrusive at times , it can interfere with my browsing and reading.

I used to use myspace and facebook to communicate with people I don't see on a regular basis, but have since stopped using social networking altogether (except forums, if those count). I've found, in my very brief use of twitter, that it was impossible for me to have a worthwhile conversation with someone through it, and all I felt like I could do was comment on whatever I was doing at the moment, and that made me feel so conceited. I also have issues with having conversations through text messages, maybe because I'm hopelessly verbose and can't seem to ever be able to say what I want to say with the limited amount of characters available, which also goes for twitter.

Bear Police wrote:I've found, in my very brief use of twitter, that it was impossible for me to have a worthwhile conversation with someone through it, and all I felt like I could do was comment on whatever I was doing at the moment, and that made me feel so conceited.

Good. You won't be one of the people defeating the purpose of Twitter.

What, might I ask, is the purpose of twitter?

To converse in 140 characters or less. Like a chat room where you can leave and return to the conversation at your leisure. To waste time.

Twitter seemed to work really well and is at its best during some giant national, if somewhat unsavoury, event. The entrance of this years Big Brother contestants was entertaining when viewed through the eyes of the Twitter crowd. And I fucking hate the show.

I always loved Eurovision, but not for the music or even the competition itself. I used to watch it so that I could laugh at Wogan. His comments were hilarious and got better the more drunk he became. This year, he retired from it and we got a presenter I can't stand, Graham Norton. I wouldn't have watched it, until I saw all the Tweets coming through. It made the whole competition entertaining and I can't wait for next years!!

I can't even use Twitter for anything like that.

I use it to troll, and troll some more. There are pop culture nuggets embedded deep in the turd named Twitter. It pays off from time to time. But seriously, for the most time, what needs to happen is the Twitter police:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIWjInz8fqA

Bear Police wrote:What, might I ask, is the purpose of twitter?

Sharing information (news, links, tidbits, personal updates, photos, events, etc.) in a quick and efficient 140-character format. People who want extended conversations should be using AIM, Google Talk, Meebo, MSN, Facebook, etc. A few tweets back and forth are one thing, but treating it like a chat room is just spamming in my book.

I've noticed some websites doing Twitter interviews with people, which have all lacked substance.

In fairness though, you can use it as both a chat or for just sharing links and information. The beauty of Twitter is that you choose to follow someone, and if you don't like the Tweets coming through, you just unfollow.

I often converse via Twitter. Its handy to have the seperate windows open on my Tweetdeck. I follow a group of close friends, one for general people I follow where I can see who is active and a replies window for messages directed at me. I don't try and keep up to date with all Tweets through the day though.....there are just too many!!

I have three twitter accounts which I use in different ways. Mr. Dapper is a micro-blog. I don't send messages or reply from that one. Just tweet once a day. The Ampersand Publishing account I use for announcements. And then my personal account I use like a cross between a chat and a Facebook wall. I like all three approaches. But you really need three accounts to do that. I wouldn't want to be @replying from a micro-blog.

As far as I can remember, you guys aren't guilty of what I'm talking about though.

Star Trek is my hurdle and a flipping big one at that.
I’ve watched many episodes of TNG and TOS when I was younger but that was mostly down to my Father watching it (having no control of the TV when I was young) and habit (when he wasn’t there “what’s on TV?” “Well we normally watch Star Trek”)

I just can’t get into any episode without a shiver running down my back.

I have more patients for the TOS films but still hear a voice in my head shouting “Your watching Star Trek” at various points.
But I won’t slag it off. I do have respect for it. Unlike the very few people that take pleasure ripping into Star Wars.

Hope this dosn't bug anyone.

I think if my dad had forced me to watch the first season of TNG, I'd have a full-on loathing for it.

I was pretty much always of the "Star Trek is for nerds" mindset until my nerd conversion in grade 7. I was TNG all the way! It took me until last year to really appreciate the campiness of TOS. I had help with this, of course.

I can’t think who could have helped you along your TOS journey.

I enjoyed them when they were on BBC2 but not half as much as the very old black n white Sherlock Holmes.

I used to love them

Having become contaminated with the graphic novel bug after reading Tomine's brilliant Summer Blonde I stumbled upon a universally lauded Graphic novel called " Jimmy Corrigan : the smartest kid on earth . From the look of the cover and the first couple of pages it looks like this could be something very special. The story spans three generations.. It's almost 400 pages!

Has anyone read or seen this peculiar book?

I've been forcing Mandi to read that book this week. I love it and all of Chris Ware's work I've read (The Acme Novelty Library). I'm not sure she's enjoying it. She exclaimed "What's WRONG with these people!?!?"

It's hurting my soul a little bit. If you wanna have a soul hurting venture, that's the book for you. It took me awhile to understand what was happening, so hold on.

It does have a WTF learning curve at the beginning. But then it suddenly all makes sense.

Jakob wrote:It does have a WTF learning curve at the beginning. But then it suddenly all makes sense.

And therein lies the hurdle, I believe.

Another hurdle, I haven't mentioned it here because it's such an arrant one that I never thought of it as a hurdle. I've had it since I decided I couldn't believe in god and began thinking about why people want to kill or injure each other . There are numerous reasons of course but these two things seem to have a relation to each other when speaking of the middle-east. Now I have said it . My hurdle is 'the middle-east' . The politics , its culture, religions, conflicts of nationality/land ownership and all the media noise around it.

Anytime I read a newspaper article about this area I can't retain my objectivity and a huge cloud of acidic moral indignation bubbles up and makes itself felt in my throat. All I can bring out is a naively shrill ' Why would they do that ' . I've never understood it with my West-European blindness and obstinate lefty tendencies ( It's an age-related thing). It's all so complicated for a younglin like me and whenever I talk about it seriously to other people they seem to take sides in the issue with a kind of reproachful attitude to me for not having an opinion.

Today I commenced reading a well-written book called ' From Beirut to Jerusalem' by Thomas L. Friedman . He was an important journalist during the 80s and spent about a decade in the areas of conflict .In this book he talks of the things he experienced and attempts to explain the dire situation from a neutral perspective. I like his focus on the psychological impact living in a conflict zone has on its inhabitants..Reading this book is torturous for me , suffocating. But I have to keep reading because it may give me some answers, or at least a shred of comprehension and insight.

Does anyone else struggle with this problem or am I really just a silly Dutch-boy with a missing finger?

My issue with the Middle East is that all sides seem to be equally, entirely, stubornly wrong (or right) so it's hard for me to get into it all.