Intuitive UIs

A program is only as good as what people can do with it, so having an intuitive user interface is very important. I recently started using Adobe Premier Pro for some video editing (I have never done any video editing before), and it was very hard to get off the ground. I did not find the simple things to be intuitive. You have to drag and drop a lot of things, and the copy paste mechanism was not straight-forward. I had to learn these things from youtube and randomly messing around.

Sure they have a help section, but finding what you want without any knowledge of video terminology is pretty impossible. I wanted to look for something like "paste in another video", and that wasn't going to get me anywhere. I'm still not sure if there is a copy-section function that I was unable to find, I just copied the entire video, and cropped that.

So my point is this, all programs require intuitive user interfaces, because without them, they are useless until you dedicate a lot of time to learning them, at which point you should already be done with whatever you needed the program for.

Balloons

Balloons are interesting in that they don't really serve a purpose. People tend to buy them, blow them up, have them sit for about a day, then pop them. So what you are really doing is buying a bunch of trash that requires work to look good, and have the desired temporary happy-looking effect. But what is even weirder about balloons is that the longer you take to clean them up, the easier it gets. This is completely different from most forms of trash, where if you don't clean it relatively quickly, it can get much worse. But if you just let balloons sit, they lose air, and become much easier to dispose of.

Shopping Bag

In the immortal words of Jack "Penetrator" Lipton, "Shopping Bag, Shopping Bag, live your life in a shopping bag". I found these words to be quite true when I walked into my kitchen pantry today. There were probably hundreds of bags all over the floor. How did it come to this?

The answer is simple, people don't know what the heckfire to do with shopping bags. You get a whole cart of bags every time you go shopping, and you pass by the little bag return box, but never, I mean never, do you think before going shopping to return the bags. So they sit in some place in your house, forever. At my mom's house its between the fridge and the wall, at my dad's apartment it was over the cubbard, and at my apartment it is in the pantry.

So they accumulate, but never really take up enough space to force you to remove them, since they are so easily squished and squashed. You even think, I can use them as small trash bags, or to hold stuff for vacations, but you will never need 300 bags, never.

In my experience, the only time they are ever removed is when you move out of your apartment. And you do not go down the the grocery store to recycle them, you just throw them all away in a big dumpster, and the world hates you, but you don't care, you just want to restart you inevitable bag collection at your new place.

Groups in groups

I don't know if its a blessing or a curse, but I tend to get along with everyone, allowing (or forcing, depending on how you look at it) me to be in any sub-group of my group.

When in a group, either walking around, or just in a social situation that allows free movement without judgement, I often find myself having to find ways to leave one sub-group for another. It's not that I don't like the people I am currently with, its just I think I will have a better time, or a more interesting conversation with a different sub-group. This navigation is tricky business.

While walking around, there are two main places you can be that require tact, the front or the back. If you are in the middle, you can just slip into the front or back group without much notice. But if you are in the front, you must implore some tact to get closer to the back. There are a few options for this. The first is to simply walk slower, this can work if you are not in a conversation with the currently people near you, you are just walking. But if you are in a conversation, you need to get out of it, which I usually do by not talking for a while.

The second tactic is more complex, and it works for any position. You say you need to do something, or you tie your shoe. This allows you to exit the group entirely, which then permits you to re-enter the group at any position when you return. But be careful with this, as your current sub-group might get suspicious, and try to re-recruit you to their sub-group.

The final tactic (which should be used very rarely if at all) is to lose all subtlety, and simply stop, and forcefully enter the desired sub-group with an entry topic of conversation such as "so what are you guys talking about", or try to get that information from your current position, and have a leading question for when you arrive. You may be able to get a chuckle, or sympathy from your original sub-group by saying something like: "well, this is boring", or "I'm gonna go check out what they are up to".

If you are in the back, you need to make a more drastic change to get further up. Speeding up is a lot more noticeable than slowing down, so requires better timing. You need to act when your conversation has died, or you are not really part of it. You also need for no one in your sub-group to be paying attention to you, so they don't say "where are you running off to?" Unfortunately, this is noticed a lot of the time, which can lead to an awkward look from both your new sub-group and old one. But it can be worth it, and should be considered a legitimate option if the situation calls for it.

This type of inter-group positioning is also very important when riding in cars. It is often very hard to get the perfect combination of people in the perfect locations within the care you are in. As I mentioned in a past post, the best conversations are located in the one-on-one back seat positions, so you must try to get the one person you wish to talk with the most in the back seat with you. For me this is very hard because I am tall, and therefore my considerate friends usually allow me the front seat, which I have no apparent reason to decline, as it is supposed to be sought after by the tallest member of the group. But while I am tall, I don't mind the slightly more crampt back seat if it allows me to have a much better conversation during the trip.

These kinds of situations also apply to when you are just hanging out in a house, with a large group. The tactics for movement are much simpler, because there are set things you can do. First is go to the bathroom, which is an auto-reset. If you want to move to the kitchen sub-group, simply go get some food or drink from there, easy peasy. If you want to go from any standing position to any sitting position, just say "I'm gonna go sit down", and you will not be questioned at all.

The one thing you simply cannot do unless you either think your current sub-group will understand (example, going to talk to the girl you like), or you just don't care about the current sub-group at all, is say "I'm gonna go hang out (or talk) with them now". This could make you sound like a dick, and insult the current group, which could also lead to questioning about why you did it, which is a path you never want to go down.

Car ride conversations

I think it is time for an extensive post, regarding seating in cars, with varying amounts and types of people. I will start with my recent experience.

Today I was sitting in the back seat on a car trip with two people, one in the driver's seat and one in the passenger's seat. It occured to me that I was ostrisized from the other two. I could not have a real conversation because they could not look at me. Eye contact is very important to meaningful conversations. This lead to a great amount of time in awkward silence. It was eventually broken, but even then, it was not a natural conversation, it was a car conversation.

You might be wondering, what could that be? Well I'll explain. A car conversation is not a normal conversation in that it is strained 2 main ways. The first is you don't want to disrupt the driver. The second is a great divide between the front and back seats. It is very easy to have conversations with the people next to you, but when in the front seat, you have to either strain to look in the back, or you have to talk to the window, and hope they react as you would like. If you are in the back, you either have to have the fronters strain (which you have no control of), or you talk to the back of a seat. Again, eye contact is key in communication.

So if there are 4 total people, the conversation inevitably gets split, besides the occasional shout out to the others, which tends to lead to the split soon after. But the great combination is 3 people, so that there is no conversation at all. Somehow this breaks the front seat conversations, because of the awkwardness of having the back seater out of the loop. This almost always leads to the greatest idea ever regarding car entertainment, music. Music fills the silence nicely, and entertains the passengers, stopping the need for conversation at all, and allowing anyone who wants to, to just zone out.

Now, its time to start to talk about variations depending on the types of people, and their locations. First is the quite, observer type, who likes to think about what to say before saying it, and at the same time usually does not spur on the conversation, in other words me. This type of person will rely on the other people to start a conversation, but will be grateful if one happens. In the 4 person scenario, they will do fine, as they will probably just talk to the person next to them. the problem is in the 3 person. No matter where they are, the conversation will feel awkward, and the music default is a very likely end.

The second type is the opposite, the super talkative and inquisitive type. They tend to want to know anything about everyone. They are doing this to not only fill the silence(which they cannot handle at all), but also to quench their need to know everyone better. They think that the secrets to a person are found in their favorite color, or how many sibling they have. Now I don't think there is no information to be desired in those questions, but there are definitely better ways to get to know people.

Instead of doing another type, I feel I should mention the tired situation. If one person is tired, and 3 others are not, then the 3 others will not respect the restful wishes of the one tired person. They will intentionally disrupt that person, and in that disruption will spur on conversation. There is but one hope for the tired person, and that is the 3 person scenario, with the tired one in the back. Then he can use his ostracization to his advantage, and hope the fronters leave him alone, but he should be prepared for music, as it is almost always present at some point.

While there are many more scenarios to address, I will leave them to further posts, look forward to Car Ride Conversations 2 at some point in the future.

Movie reviews

Whenever I see a movie(and people find this out), even if no one was with me, I am asked by many people what I thought of that movie. Now I am not a very opinionated person about movies. I just enjoy them, and then don't really think about how much I enjoyed it, or if it was corny, or if it has amazing greater meaning. So when I am asked this question, I usually just shrug it off with a "meh".

Now this is tricky, because it does not end there. If you like the movie, they will spout off reasons why it sucks, and why your taste is awful. Similarly, if you do not like the movie, they will implore to you all the great aspects they found, and again try to imply that your taste is horrendous. Even with the "meh" response that I enjoy so much, there is still no end. They will try to convince you one way or the other, and sometimes two groups will form, one on each direction, and they will try to pull me in their direction.

But I resist, I refuse to formulate an educated opinion on the movie, because it doesn't matter. My thoughts on the movie are just thoughts, and they should not count for or against me in the selection of future movies, because my "taste in movies sucks".

Luckily, a few hours after people have been informed I have seen the movie, and I have replied "meh", they tend to forget completely about the movie, and move on with their lives. At least until the next one...

Facebook redundency

So today I was doing some light Facebook stalking. Just browsing some people's pages, and got to a page for someone I am not friends with. In the info page, at the bottom, I noticed something odd. It had under contact info "Facebook", and it listed the address I was already at. So if I clicked it, it would just refresh my page. And this is the only place you can ever find this information, so it is always a link to itself. How completely useless and redundant.

Omegle

I became aware of Omegle. Its a site where you talk with strangers. Most of the time, they ask you for your asl, and upon hearing "m", they end the chat. But sometimes they actually talk to you. And in those times I have had conversations about the death penalty, soccer, violin, getting laid and how stupid the site is.

So when you actually get into a conversation, and they don't seem to be dicks, you sometimes meet an interesting turning point. Either disconnect, try to muster up more conversation, or maybe, just maybe, get there contact info to talk more in the future. The last option is very tricky, and I have never actually executed it, but kinda seems like part of the point of the site's existence.

Now I am not a fan of asl. I think you should just talk to the other person, and have that information come out naturally. But when deciding if you want to ever talk to them ever again, it is somewhat helpful. I don't really want to add a random 50 year old dude from Europe on FB, because that wold look kinda weird. But a 21 year old girl from NY, thats much more reasonable.

Men vs Women: Leaving

I realize I am not very original to comment on the differences between men and women, but I don't care. I have noticed there are very differing methods of leaving a group of people for a somewhat extended time. For a man, they usually go for hand shakes, but due to subtle body language conversations, end up hugging the women.

This can lead to an awkward gay moment. For instance, say he is leaving and happens to say goodbye to a woman first, ending in a hug. Then his next goodbye is to a man, the receiving man might feel obligated to go in for the hug, even if the hand is presented for the shake. The leaving man cannot then refuse this hug, ending in both of them being in a not sought after hug.

When a woman leaves, they tend to just hug everyone. Women like hugs. I'm not sure why, but I can give it a shot. I suppose given they are more emotional, they feel they can impart more of a goodbye-like sentiment than with a hand shake. Men would argue than a firm hand shake and eye-contact ending with a nod of the head conveys just as much, respect the personal space.

This Morning

When I got up this morning(2:30pm), I really had to pee. Now this is normal for the morning, but my roommate was clearly on the crapper, and was going to be a while, so I had to make a decision. Either I try to wait it out, pee outside, or go down to campus and pee there. Well after about a minute of waiting I reallly had to go, so I put on my shoes and walked down to campus. Now you might be thinking, why didn't I run? Well thats because I had just gotten up, so was still pretty tired, and I didn't want to run part of the way, then have to stop and walk the rest, that would make the desire to pee even greater.

So anyway, I was walking down to campus, and a thought occurred to me. This is a waste of a walk down to campus, I should do something while I am here. I thought maybe get some breakfast, or visit someone, or anything that would allow the statement "I walked down to campus just to pee" false. I then urinated in the armory, because it is the closest bathroom to my house. Then I thought, ok, i'll go to the union, theres stuff to do there. I walked around, decided I didn't want crappy union food, so I ended up getting some over-priced pop-tarts at fathers and left.

Theres nothing quite like walking back from campus with a just box of pop-tarts and a relief.

Movie watchers

It has come to my attention that there is one type of movie watch that bugs the hell out of me. That type of person is almost always a girl, but there have been some exceptions. She will say things like "EWww", or "OH MY GOD", or "Don't do that!!", or just generally react in such a way that lets you know there is is no thought going on in their brain. Its these types of people that not only annoy me in the movie theater with their stupid outbursts, but also drive up the ratings on horrible movies, with cliche lines directed directly at their mentality.

Haven't these people seen movies before? Don't they know when something is completely obvious from the start of the film? Apparently the answer is no, they don't, because they are stupid. So my advise to those of you who might have to see a movie with these types of people is this: declare the movie as bad, turn off your brain, and try to see what they see.

Spoiled

(Warning, this could be depressing, and its not really funny. Just so you know.)

My entire life I have been spoiled. I have not had to work 40 hours a week, I have not had to pay real bills, I have been responsible for practically nothing. I have had easy environments for making and keeping friends (school and dorms). I have had great physical health, and am now in the prime of my fitness level. Now that I am old enough to truly realize this, I am not living in fear of the future, but in great appreciation of the past and present. I will enjoy this short time before life really starts, and accept life as is comes. I am ready for the future, but I know I will always miss the first 21 years of my life.

This is not to say the rest of my life will suck. There is still potential for great times. I could genuinely enjoy my work, I could make tons of new friends, and even get a woman in my life. There is also room for the joys of having my own family. But even if all these joys are realized, I really do think my first 21 years(and especially last 4) will have been the best in my life.

Naps

I usually think of naps as a complete waste of time. They don't really give you any rest, and just throw off your sleep schedule. In fact, they are in fact the embodiment of wasting time. I can't think of any other action that is more wasteful than lying down and not resting for extended periods of time.

Well thats what I used to think, but now I have an exception. Naps are great when you are sick. They give you more healing sleep, and make you less conscious through your painful sick period. So if you are sick, nap away, but if you are not, find something better to do.

Umbrellas and Phones

I think umbrellas are stupid. Something about holding this thing above your head to stop the rain just seems ridiculous. Its not natural, when its raining, you should feel the rain on your head. Hoods and hats are fine because you can still feel the rain. Also, most people look pretentious with their umbrellas. They have their fancy suits on and their matching umbrellas and from a sweatshirt-wearer's perspective, they are the epitome of tool bags.

On a completely unrelated note, why does everyone (myself included) feel the need to walk around aimlessly while on the phone? Whenever I'm on the phone, I find myself pacing back and forth like a moron, while I talk (well for me mostly just listen). Also, even when I know the conversation is not going to contain any damning information, I still feel the need to find a private place to talk, and walk around. Weird stuff.