The Wonders Of Stumbling

I love random things. Not as in “OMG monkeys and saxophones GOD I’M SO RANDOM” random. But I mean I like a lack of order at times, and for unexpected things to crop up wherever possible. I pretty much never listen to albums normally these days, I pick games to play and films to watch using random number generators, and more recently, I downloaded StumbleUpon.

StumbleUpon is a toolbar that downloads to your browser and provides you with a button to click which takes you to random sites. It’s based off a list of interests and categories, and most of the sites are recommended by other users, meaning that it’s possible to filter your results over time, and you don’t just get a whole bunch of spam sites from Google ads.

I’ve been playing with it for the last few days, clicking it whenever I feel I need a bit of inspiration. And while looking for inspiration for today’s blog, I figured “hey, why not write about the actual toolbar?” So that’s what I’m doing. I’ll be pressing the button 10 times and reviewing what I get. Let’s go!

Result 1: http://www.wanderfly.com/

Now this is a site I like. I’m bookmarking this. I’m becoming a bit of a travel nut after trips to Japan and America over the summer, so a site that basically provides you with trip ideas based on what you want to see and tries to keep you in budget is right up my alley. I had a little play around with it, and while most of the proposed budget gave me European destinations only, it’s still a great idea. May make use of this someday.

Result 2: http://danwaldschmidt.com/2008/08/50-things-successful-people-have-in-common/

I never know how to feel about lists like this. Sure, they do have a lot to say, but they feel very much like management speak half the time. Oh, and for the record, I have 34 of those qualities (won’t say which), so I’m apparently 68% successful. Go me!

Result 3: http://www.randompics.net/?p=16504

I don’t know what to think of this. Is it meant to stir some emotion? It’s listed on a site that claims to have hundreds of “funny pics”, but this isn’t funny. Sure, it’s vaguely interesting to know that some of the stone used in the construction of the WTC has found a new use, but otherwise, this just made me think “meh”

Result 4: http://www.rhymesayers.com/

Independent hip hop record label. Haven’t explored this fully yet, but I’ve always been interested in finding out about more underground hip hop as part of my quest to have pretty much every genre of music (except maybe jazz and country) significantly represented in some form on my iPod, so I’ll certainly wander around the site and see what I think. I definitely liked a couple of the tracks I listened to initially.

Result 5: http://articles.boston.com/2011-09-20/ae/30180836_1_marclay-screening-room-clock

I’m intrigued by this film project (if you can call it that) that’s being reviewed here. Makes me want to actually see it for myself, although the likelihood is that it won’t be heading this way any time soon. Shame, since I do work in a place that would probably show it, not that we’re open 24 hours. Sadly, the pages stopped loading for me after a while, most likely due to a temporary server error, so I couldn’t continue. Shame really, I was intrigued.

Result 6: http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/EinsteinQuotes.html

I’m glad the compiler of this list admitted they don’t know the veracity of the quotes, but some of them are still interesting. Still, this is the kind of thing StumbleUpon is great for, pulling up quotes or articles that inspire you and make you think. Sure, you don’t get it all the time, but it just makes things like this list of quotes stand out more. I especially liked this: "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." But then again, I’m odd like that.

Result 7: http://knstrct.com/2011/06/21/jet-off-to-australias-pretty-beach-house/

StumbleUpon has this horrible knack for bringing up articles like this, showing places that look amazing but would probably cost ridiculous amounts of money to go and visit. And since I have an itch to travel, this doesn’t help. Stop it, stop making me want to see fancy places like Pretty Beach! D:

Result 8: http://midwesternmoms.com/2011/09/fall-recipe-roundup-all-things-apple/

I occasionally get these random recipes. I need to try them at some point, especially since I keep saying I need to learn to cook properly. What’s more, this is a collection of recipes rather than just one. And I like the look of that caramel apple pie. *makes a bookmark folder for all these random recipes*

Result 9: http://www.goddesssophiawalker.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Trek-Who.jpg

Holy crap! I’m a massive geek, so seeing fanart combining the two biggest sci-fi series of their respective countries is impressive to me. OK, I don’t watch much Star Trek, but Doctor Who is pretty damn awesome. Not sure about The Doctor or Amy Pond’s faces though. They let the whole thing down.

Result 10: http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/illusion/illusions29.htm

Many of these I’ve seen before, and they still drive me insane. And hurt my eyes a little too, although that may be because I have limited light as I write this. Should probably stick the light on.

So that’s a small look into the adventure that is StumbleUpon. It’s a fun little tool and one that I can’t help but play with frequently. If you too are looking for inspiration, or just a way to pass the time when you’ve got nothing better to do, I’d go and download it. It’s free, and can easily be hidden during those times you don’t want it distracting you.

And I sound like I’m advertising it. I’m not, I just really like it, and have nothing better to talk about today. Deal with it.

Notice

Not feeling great today, so no proper update, I'm afraid. I do apologise, but I will endeavour to come back on Wednesday as normal.

Thou Shalt Not Buy Apple Products

So, I read this BBC news article about a recent Unicef report claiming that UK families are falling apart due to a reliance on consumer spending and “brand bullying” over family quality time. And do you know what? They’re pretty much spot on.

Now, I’m not fussed about “family values” or whatnot, but I am concerned with the way so many people feel the need to buy expensive things so they can “be somebody”. And it’s not just children, as the report points out, it exists in all generations these days. I’m not about to point out where it came from, since I’m not an “expert”, but needless to say, it’s quite depressing.

Gadgets are the key thing, with parents feeling they need to buy their kids iPhones or the 3DS in order to prevent them from being bullied at school. Hey, parents, here’s a crazy idea. Why not teach them the importance of not being a capitalist puppet and that if kids want to make fun of them for not having pointless shit, then those kids are not people your kid wants to know? Ever thought of that?

But no, instead, we get parents whining about how they’re being pressured into doing it. By who? Your kids? Perfect time to teach them what’s really important in life! Being pressured by ad men? You are aware you don’t have to buy what the ads tell you, right? Who else could possibly be pressuring you? Maybe it’s an extension of this absurd “keeping up with the Joneses” attitude far too many people have, where they insist they must have everything the people around them have in order to be happy. I have no idea.

But as I said, it exists throughout society. I’ve seen people feeling the need to buy a smartphone just because, well, “everyone needs a smartphone now, right?” When pressed on how it would be useful to them, most people seem to blankly stare back with no answer in mind. It’s stupidly common, and it actually scares me. It’s like the zombie apocalypse has happened, only instead of mindlessly seeking out human flesh to feed on, we’re mindlessly seeking out shiny things. Zombie magpies, that's what we've become.

How about we, as a nation, no, as a world (I know you're just as bad, America, don't try and hide it), learn to grow up, learn to think for ourselves and say “no”? We don’t need to buy the most expensive things to be happy. I’m happy, largely because I reject much of the modern consumer society and just do what makes me happy. I don’t own an iPhone, and I certainly don’t own a tablet computer (I aim to write for a living someday and tablet computers are counter-productive to that). The most advanced thing I own is a PS3, which I have because I’m a gamer and there are games for it I like playing, but there is no way in hell I’m buying a £2000 TV just because the PS3 will allow me to play games in 3D. Every “gadget” I own is used regularly. Everything has a use. Why is it seemingly so hard for other people to do this?

So let’s join together and only buy what we feel will be useful or interesting to us, not just because someone said we need to? In response to the iPhone’s ad slogan “if you don’t have an iPhone, well, you don’t have an iPhone!” let’s just say “that’s a problem?” and carry on with our lives. Let’s find a way to use our money more effectively, to find things that make us genuinely happy. That £2000 you spent on a 3D TV could have been spent on a gym membership, as a way to make you fitter and healthier. Or, like I said, you could travel, go see places. Or you could just save the money, sit down with your friends and family and just talk to each other. It costs nothing, surprisingly.

After all, we got into a recession through reckless spending and the subsequent debt that spawned, so let’s correct that and get our finances in order. Let’s reject the consumer society together, and better ourselves in more positive ways. Can’t let those big bad marketing men bully us forever, can we?

Confessions Of A Twenty Something Pokémon Trainer

Is there something wrong with being 25 and getting seriously into a Pokémon game? I mean, sure, I’m a gaming geek, which is all well and good, but there’s still something odd about playing Pokémon in your 20s.

Let me elaborate. I recently visited my very good friend UberBunneh in America, and while I was there we jointly bought the Gold and Silver remakes (I got HeartGold, she got SoulSilver), with the intention of playing through them semi-simultaneously and trading Pokémon in the ultimate quest to catch ‘em all. So yes, here we are, in our 20s, bonding through Pokémon.

It is, of course, incredibly enjoyable. There’s a certain nostalgia in playing the remakes, particularly as many of these Pokémon are the ones we knew from when we were younger, not to mention that there’s a strange addiction in wanting to be the very best, like no one ever was. Every time I get to a new area of the game I’m checking online to see if there’s any new Pokémon I can catch, and I’m not resting until I get them. I’m studying gym leaders’ Pokémon beforehand, and actually training up my miniature army before taking them into battle. What’s more, I’m consulting with Bunneh over what we can trade and when.

And yet, this is a “kid’s game”, meant to be played by school kids who like to spread rumours about how to catch Mew because, honest guys, Sam in Year 9 caught one and he never lies. It creates this strange dichotomy, where on one hand I’m enjoying this “child’s” game and on the other I’m telling myself I should really be trying to pretend to be an adult and focus on things like jobs and bills and producing unwanted offspring that I can ignore until they set fire to a Sainsbury’s distribution centre 12 years down the line. Or worse, I should be focusing my gaming attention on the likes of Call Of Duty and pwning n00bs and then insulting them over voice chat about how I had sex with their mother, because, you know, that’s the kind of game that adults should be playing, right?

Ultimately, the enjoyment wins. After all, I have a buddy playing along with me who is my best friend in a world we must defend, and let’s face it, playing Pokémon with a buddy is the way it’s meant to be played. AND I’m still able to juggle all those boring adult things without anything getting horribly affected. After all, I am somehow still employed. And silly little DS games are a nice break from the craziness of the outside world. Like all games tend to be these days for me.

And as for playing more adult games, playing Generic First Person Shooter #4824 makes me want to fall asleep. I played the demo of Killzone 3 and despite the amount of SHOUTING and EXPLOSIONS and GUNS and GIANT CANNONS and JETPACKS and MANLY MEN DOING MANLY THINGS I was slowly dying of boredom. Give me something that can keep me interested. Sure, Pokémon’s probably not the most mentally stimulating game ever, but it’s deeper than SPACE MARINES AT WAR SHOUTING AND EXPLODING EACH OTHER YEAH!

So yeah, I’m a 25-year old Pokémon trainer, and I’m bloody happy with that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to travel across the land, searching far and wide. I know it’s my destiny.

(P.S. if you now have the Pokémon theme tune stuck in your head off the back of this, then my work here is done)

Sidenote: it’s been a while since I last updated, but now I’m aiming for a M/W/F update schedule, free time permitting, with a much more professional (yet still casual) writing style. Feel free to beat me with sticks if I fail to keep this up.