Remember When?

I remember there was a time when I wanted to re-experience something so badly, but I had to wait for it (media-wise). In high school, I'd seen an episode of Animaniacs where The Brain had a song for the various parts of the human brain. I'd told my Anatomy and Physiology teacher, Mrs Getz, about it and she'd wanted me to bring it in.

Yet, it took the episode forever to cycle though and repeat!

I did end up promising I'd make her a copy, but yet never ended up doing so. I have a VHS tape that may still have it.

Early in iOS Game Center history there was a game called Flight Control Rocket, and I'd always wanted the Shop theme. No one had it, though, and it's just today with the screen record feature and YouTube that I now have it. I just need to strip out the audio and voilà. Another game, DragonVale, I'd had a similar want with some of the Hallowe'en music.

Now I have the set.

Imagine, now all of this is so easy. The only restriction is what tools you have to make it possible.

The future is nigh.

#RASP - Rant Around Several Paragraphs #4: Facebook Feeds

I have a like/hate relationship with Facebook.

I like it because it helps me keep tabs on my friends, brothers, and geographically distant family. It helps me to get to know people I don't see fairly regularly a little better.

On this point, my hate comes out as well: Facebook likes to cater my feed to those with whom I've had relatively frequent or recent contact on Facebook or Messenger. This angers me.

I want to get to know all my friends, and to know what's going on in their heads or hearts. Biasing my feed to only those with whom I actually click a like or something occludes the posts of those who don't post very often. Facebook does this intentionally, of course, because they want your eyeballs, thumbs, and ears on Facebook (and hopefully some of your money, too) 24/7, if they can help it.
Enticing, one, therefore, to stay on there with things they know you'll continue to like and see out makes it worth their while to a have the feeds display that way.

I want, though, to see everyone's stuff. I want the "Most Recent" feed to be something I can default to. I want, when the Facebook app updates, to have the "Sound Off" on the feed option remain off!

I remember the good old days of "The Facebook" with virtual flinging of sheep and various little apps that included national flags of one's heritage, and when one could really connect with one's schoolmates. Then they'd rolled out neighborhoods, and I'd reluctantly had to have Miami as my secondary to FIU. That's still an option in Facebook, actually, a grandfathered thing.

As they've grown more commercial, more ubiquitous, and people are using Facebook for things that had fallen to other places to fill (Messenger for WhatsApp, even though WhatsApp is now a Facebook property anyway; Marketplace for Craig's List; Jobs for pretty much any job board; Memories for TimeHop or just going over one's feed nostalgically; Reviews for Yelp). It's gotten insane. I was on reddit the other day and someone was complaining about the Facebook app size, and all I had to say was, in more creative wording, think about how Facebook has become more than just a social network.

It's become a life draw for some people,

I just want to be able to have "Most Recent" be default so I can know what's going on in all my friends' lives and not just whomever Facebook determines is "worth" my time.

The Left Hand

I tend to make a big deal in my head noticing people being left-handed. I'm left-handed myself, so it may be trying to have a commonality with other human beings.

I never really faced a stigma against my being left-handed, though I do cite how my grandfather (and, now thinking about it, occasionally my dad in the earlier years) would have me put on and tie my right shoe first. My dad has asked me sometimes why I hang clothes on hangers the way I do, and that is primarily because I'm left-handed.

When I found people actually didn't mind, I would wear watches on my right wrist, making it so much easier to put on.

I would have to remember consciously that people shake hands with their right hand (even though I think I may have extended my left on more than a few occasions out of not even thinking about it), because there are some people who consider shaking the left hand rude (or even gross, since some people believe one must wipe after using the restroom with the left hand only).

It's funny, though, that traditional place settings have the fork on the left and knife on the right, even though when eating with just a fork I see people use their right hands to manipulate their food. I have, to horror, seen some people do a reverse place setting. I've had to learn to not put drinkware on the left hand side, and to make sure the handle on teacups and coffee cups face the right (since, especially in hospitality, one wants to make things easier for people and err to the majority of your clients being right-handed). 

I have a Wikipedia page in edit/draught status where I've been amassing a list of left-hand "celebrities" as I've noticed them. There are people like Eliza Taylor who seem a little ambidextrous, but others like Barack Obama that people would recognize.

This world is interesting enough with cultural differences with left and right. I still need to read The Left Hand of Darkness.

Shan Kanagasingham Appointed General Manager Of The Tides South Beach, The Flagship Property For New Tides Brand

Hospitality Net - Industry News: "Extensive hotel-opening experience clinches hire as 'Diva of Ocean Drive' prepares for December re-launch"

A past news story from my former employer who taught me much of what I know today about hospitality. May they be well.

I do miss them, but times do change.

Beautiful Handwriting, Lettering and Calligraphy

Monday Inspiration Smashing Magazine

It's all about the handwriting... I know that I was one of those wonderful people who, between second and fourth grades, utterly failed at forming letters in the precise ways the handwriting guides had requested. This has, for the most part, been overcome though my letters are very closely written. When I have sufficient pressure, without smudging or smearing, and when it's perfectly aligned, my handwriting's damn gorgeous.

I think I want to start a little Facebook project about handwriting now...

Though it probably won't be for the timid.