June 2008 – Everyday Normal

June 30, 2008

10 Worst Things About Summer for Adults

10. No 3 month break

Your whole life teachers and schools have trained you that summer was a time to not be required to be anywhere and to take it easy. Well guess what, they lied.

9. Baseball

Basketball has just ended and football won’t start up until fall. You are out of luck unless you like to watch baseball or golf. Personally those are both a little slow for my 21st century American attention span. Every 4 years you get the summer Olympics but let’s be straightforward, watching an hour of TV to see a 10 second race is pretty brutal too. The Olympics are best watched as a highlight reel but by the time they come around I am so starved to see people moving fast I will watch them in all their commercial glory.

8. Reruns

Personally I only watch a couple of shows at a time. So all the stupid reality TV shows they show in summer to act like they are showing new material are just brutal and if I want to see a rerun of anything I will just go to Hulu or ABC and watch it on my own schedule. (Side note: Has anyone else noticed that reality TV shows are just Game Shows with special locations?)

7. Worse Sunburns

As a kid you got to hang out in the sun all day. But now that you are older and sit behind that desk all day, when the sun hits your skin you will begin to sizzle like a vampire. It will hurt more and seem to last longer too.

6. Your kids are at home getting into your stuff

While you are stuck at work your children are at home and they are breaking into all of your prize possessions and destroying them. They will ruin computers, TVs, guitars or anything else you want to keep in good condition. No matter how tightly you lock it up they will find a way to get into it.

5. It is hot but you rarely get to cool off

Trips to the pool were a daily occurrence for me as a young man. Now I am lucky to get out once a summer. Now if you do get to the pool you have to watch and make sure that your children don’t drown, so you can’t really enjoy the full experience.

4. Summer treats will give you diabetes

Ice cream, Slurpees and Big Gulps used to be a staple of summer enjoyment. Now in your older age you have suddenly become more concerned about health and diet. As a youngster you would run around and burn off anything you threw into your body but now that you sit around all day you will have serious consequences if you indulge in the old ways.

3. Gas prices get higher

Taking a road trip will kill your bank account. This is a recent development of course, as I remember gas in 1998 was $0.72 a gallon for a while. In summer gas prices always go up as more people take road trips and now a trip that used to cost 10 dollars will cost 45.

2. You’ve seen all the summer movies before

When you were a kid, didn’t it seem like there were a lot more movies that you were excited to see? Now all you see are remakes of old movies you used to like that aren’t quite as well done but have nicer graphics. And how many superhero movies can you watch in one summer anyway?

1. Summer just isn’t special anymore. It just isn’t

If you can use your old person brain to recall the wonderful feelings you had for summer as a child. They are dead and gone aren’t they? All of the aforementioned factors added together with the fact that time gets faster and faster every year you live makes summer seem much less significant than it used to. By the time I reach my 30’s those feelings of yesteryear will be completely forgotten.

June 27, 2008April 10, 2024

Bad Design Focus

Here are a couple of designs that I feel could have gone better.

June 17, 2008

How-To Prevent “Page Rage”

There is a phenomenon on the internet that is somewhat like Road Rage, that I would like to call “Page Rage”. This occurs when a normally kind and understanding person gets behind the wheel of their computer and turns into a crazy, hate-spewing madman. This can range from complaining about spelling and grammar in a cruel manner, to name-calling and wishing death upon others. Here at Everyday Normal there is no desire to contribute to the hatred and anger in the world. There is way too much of that anyway. To pile on more, one would have to be a pure jerk. Ill will is never meant toward anyone and should never be implied. When anything is read on this site, it should be imagined that your goofiest buddy is saying it to you, in an informal conversation. You can disagree with this buddy and the friendship will still be intact.

I wrote this post and got some bad responses. I thought, “Its not that offensive. I thought I was clear that I wasn’t being hateful. I only wanted to say that I don’t like the ad campaign and that, personally, it didn’t matter for me anyway.” I have learned a few things in the short time since, and I would like to share them.

Are You Talkin’ to Me?

Your internet writing is not even close to the same as a conversation with someone and never can be. I have heard a few different numbers on this, and can safely say that your tone of voice is 30% – 50% of your communication and that body language is 45% – 55% of it. With internet communication these are thrown right out the window. This change of communication dynamic is quite helpful in turning the average internet reader into Joe Pesci from Goodfellas. Things that would be spoken in a haphazard and joking manner quickly become venomous and divisive. I have always liked to write in the same style as my speech and this is just asking for trouble.

No First Drafts

People can’t read minds, they can only read your page. If your page is sloppily thrown together you will say things that you don’t mean. My previous example of a bad post would have had a different title and the first paragraph would be replaced with the sentence, “This is why I don’t like the new ad campaign for the WNBA.” That first paragraph was just buddy banter and silliness that no one who doesn’t know me will ever get. The second paragraph was pretty much spot on and I wouldn’t really change anything. The final two paragraphs would have emphasized that those were my personal feelings and I would have removed a couple of buddy banter sentences. I would have also thought it through more and added something about how I think they could spend their money in better ways than prime commercial spots that I don’t think will help too much. And how I feel that they would have more success if they would operate more like small, grassroots, local organizations like minor league baseball. Then it could grow from there, which is how most other sports leagues have done it. Posting a rough draft will almost always guarantee that you will be misunderstood.

Clarify Clarify Clarify

Since the communication dynamic has been changed, you must make every point painfully clear. When speaking to someone and something is not understood people might ask, “Do I have to spell it out for you?” On the internet you do have to spell it out. This might even make your posts painful to read at times since you may be over-explaining. But if you don’t want to get stabbed by Tommy DeVito you need to clarify everything. [Buddy Banter] Simply marking something as “Opinion” and joking around is not enough in this world of infallible beings who can’t wait to jump on your case about something you didn’t even mean. [End Banter]

Use Qualifiers, In My Opinion

Qualifiers make it much more clear that what you are saying is not the gospel truth and that it may even be an opinion. In my personal and possibly incorrect view, these can make it more clear that you do not believe yourself to be the final and supreme authority on a given matter. You should use these like you were running for public office, so as to not upset the average information superhighway motorist.

[Buddy Banter]

Mean People are Real

With all of these precautions you still must understand that many people already are that rude and reprehensible character, before they get in the driver seat of their computer. For these people the most well thought out and carefully worded communication will have no positive effect. If they hold a differing view point they will explode on you no matter what. Many times it can be as though the person did not even read what you put onto a blog or message board. Reading is nothing without comprehension and some people will not comprehend a word you may write and then pour out their sublimely righteous wrath upon you. There is nothing you can do for these situations besides giving them a link to go where stupid people gather. [End Buddy Time] Relax it’s a joke.

Maybe these are no-brainers to some people, but they are newly realized for me. I think if anyone will stick to these rules they should be able to still project the completely harmless and “non-serious-as-a-heart-attack” attitude that they have when they speak. This is just another way of defusing the “everybody’s out to get me” vibe that emanates from much of the internet and annoys so many. [Buddy Banter] This is a safe space. No one will hurt you here. [End Banter]

June 16, 2008April 10, 2024

Don’t Make Me Watch Please

As I have been watching the NBA playoffs I have been seeing these commercials for the WNBA. At first I think, “Finally someone is telling the truth about how everyone feels about the WNBA.” Then they pull the old switcheroo on us and say they meant the opposite. It got me thinking about why I watch the NBA and why I get bored at even the thought of watching the WNBA. Apparently I am not alone either, as not many other people find the prospect very exciting. The following are just a couple of the reasons that I will not watch the WNBA.

June 11, 2008May 13, 2024

Creativity for the Untalented

I heard Dennis Miller say some time ago that Contrarianism is creativity for the untalented. This is a very thought provoking statement and the more I have thought about it the more true it becomes. If someone with no talent wants to create something, whether it is a painting, a poem, a news article or just anything that can be created they many times look at another persons work and say, “I am going to do the opposite”. Doing the opposite makes it look as though the person thought of it on their own, since no one else has done it before. Only the opposite has been done before. “Look at my painting. I call it the Lisa Mona and it has a man with a big smile in it.”