5 things meme
Feb. 19th, 2009 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fingertroubleCuriosity got the better of me and I asked ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
furr_a_bruin what 5 things he associated with me.
I guess I ought to play before answering the 5 he gave me :-)
Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.
-= OR =-
Comment with five things you associate with me, and I'll expound on them in my journal.
The 5 things were:
Bears:
I think I write enough about bears as is, although it tends to be fairly negative - mostly cos I don't fit any subgroup or clique at all, I just am the proverbial square peg in a universe of round holes. I do love bearish men though - bearded, furry esp. furry arms and chest, usually older than me (but not always - *does stern look at Scott tga* :-P) but the whole culture side although I tried to get along with in the late 90's I always felt shut out as being a cub or chaser - someone younger who likes furrier men but like me isn't necessarily furry, sadly genetics haven't really provided although I am getting some hair as I get older -:-) - and although made some friends, as the older guys left the Kings Arms and the special position that me and Kirk being the youngest by 15-20 years went away, well I feel the bear scene became a clone-look, and the guys I liked moved onto the Quebec the replacements mostly were not my sort - the rugby microgoatees around my agegroup now.
And the bitchiness got to me - I tell people in the mashup and other communities that doesn't matter how bitchy or handbags it gets, it will NEVER top those days of political and otherwise DRAMA in the bears clubs. I just got bored of it, and the feeling that I didn't fit, and wandered off with occasional forays into that world. I had a similar experience with BOSF, really I don't think myself and clubs go...
DJ
OK shock horror time - I don't think of myself as a DJ...I kind of play oneon TV at certain events. Having known people who do it as their job, I realise it's really a hobby for me - not to say don't take it seriously when I do it, but really compared to the pros it is nothing...interestingly quite a few of the mashup people think they are all that as DJs and think they are pros, but really aren't either....and they probably look down on me cos without a laptop I can't beatmatch. But hey it's about having fun and playing silly tunes, people really don't care about the trainspotter shit if you play good music, unless it's a full-on club at 1-2am then the drugs mean people want continous 4/4. But I don't really like playing that sort of time, too restricting.
Also I tend to dance like an insane lunatic while DJing, singing along etc. which might look scary to some, but fuck it - unless I'm having a good time in my own personal party of 1, how can I convince people otherwise? ;-) Best gig: the first time I played Bootie in SF in 2004 when it still was at the Cherry Bar. Really that was the most perfect night of my life.
Netcasts
Hmm difficult this one - not totally sure what George means. Netcasts can mean streamy things or can include all media including podcasts. I suspect it's the latter cos of Radio Clash and Digital Debris, the podcasts I never mention in this blog being a shy retiring type :-P. Again I think I have talked too much about this over the 4 years I've been doing it; but I do think podcasts have died a death...and not taken over the world as they promised! LOL. Sad to see the Who Boys and Night Nurse Show stopping but it's understandable - these things aren't going to go on for ever...it does seem to have lost it's spark.
Books
Interesting one - I rarely ever talk about books, partly because I'm very bad and uncultured and rarely read them...but good timing as I'm currently on a reading kick. Was talking about this earlier at work related to graphic novels, which I don't read - but I do read children's fiction and science fiction - although not the really heavy stuff. My favourite SF-related author is Kurt Vonnegut, who like the best SF authors wasn't a SF author, but got kind of defaulted there. I like Philip K Dick (WOOF!!!!) more in theory than actuality - his stories are brill but his characters belie his speed habit - total shallow disassociative types that you can't care for. I do like some JG Ballard who does seem to breathe more life into his characters; but really I'm mostly an old skool SF geek loving Ray Bradbury, HG Wells etc....I can't be bothered with Asimov etc and really, most SF and Fantasy geekery bores me - Tolkein I think got crap after The Hobbit, Arthur C Clarke is OK, Asimov is just too brainy and nerdy; and anything black or brightly covered with LARGE BLOCK CONDENSED WHITE TYPEFACES on it, be it chick tube novel or David Gemmell just scares me off. Terry Pratchett can be OK, bless 'im, but it is basically Bored of the Rings x 100, and only some of them were really funny, bit hit and miss.
Alan Garner and Peter Dickinson are my faves outside of SF (ish - paganism for kids or alt/SF themes for kids!) as well as Harry Potter, Philip Pullman etc. I did the Dragonlance series but I'm not a closet RPG person, or fantasy - it was Margaret Weiss who injected some life into the usually paper-thin characterisations, and she wrote about teenage alienation themes, and I was a teenager.
Currently reading Kurt Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box, a book about the Ladies of Llangollen I nicked off John, and recently read They Shoot Horses Don't They? and Day of the Locust which were both amazingly good. I avoided Grapes of Wrath again for another lifetime. I lost Alan Garner's Stone Quartet, which annoyed me as I was loving that. So I like classic novels too like Jane Eyre, but again if it seems too much like an English project to read it and it seems to drag I ditch it. Reading is supposed to be fun, or at least engaging. This is why I hate Dickens - his dense prose and arche/stereotypes just turns me off; and Tolkein needed an editor on dangermoney.
TIM!
I talk about myself far too much, which as well as annoying me is partly a nervous tick of mine, and partly just because I tend to associate the subject with my experience, which can seem like it's the only subject I'm interested in, but I'm actually saying 'I understand because....' and relating what I've been through in support. I'm sure everyone probably thinks I'm an arrogant so-so though if they don't know me, it seems like endless self-promo. Which mostly isn't the case - I am my biggest critic, and most of the stuff I do I think is actually shit.
Years later, like the portraits I dust it off and go - oh this isn't bad... but really I am under no pretension that I am the world's greatest whatever cos it is blatantly obvious I'm not - but I won't play that annoying insecure self-deprecation that I used to be really bad at in my teens/20s because that is self-realising and some people do take it as face value. It's not so much self-belief as not revealing the negative side, but that doesn't mean it's not there ;-) And anyway if you start the sentence/podcast/photo/work with 'I know this is shit but...' then you may as well not post/say it cos no-one else will probably listen, however cute the self-deprecation is. I've learned to just filter it mostly out...and let people decide if I'm shit or not.
And boy do they do so!
It's gotten that people on Twitter who aren't employers ask to see my commercial work and I say 'no' - I know it'll end badly on either side, either egos, misplaced criticism or even worse, them possibly ripping it off (it has happened, my work has found it's way magically into other people's portfolios) or clients finding out. No, I'm wary now -and anyway unless you are employing me, why should I give other freelancers the benefit of seeing my work? There does seem a sort of professional rivalry there, and I don't see many positives and quite a few negatives in letting them see what I'm doing ;-) As un-warm and uncuddly as that seems, it's a harsh world out there.
And yes I could be better on criticism, receiving it, but then again I think people could be better at giving it. Weird how some stuff - artwork, photographs I've mostly learned how to take crit; probably cos it's not my bread and butter. But if someone picks on something really pedantic in my paid-for work, which must have some value cos it earned my rent and the clients were happy with it - well I tend to snarl! Constructive criticism is usually welcome, though - especially in the areas I know I need to learn, like photography, but focusing on minor or unrelated stuff but ignoring or not commenting on the whole or the design, well - that is always going to annoy. It just seems like criticising the painting cos the frame is a little tatty but ignoring the stuff in front of you, you know?
furr_a_bruin what 5 things he associated with me.I guess I ought to play before answering the 5 he gave me :-)
Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.
-= OR =-
Comment with five things you associate with me, and I'll expound on them in my journal.
The 5 things were:
- Bears!
- DJ!
- Netcasts!
- Books!
- TIM! ;)
Bears:
I think I write enough about bears as is, although it tends to be fairly negative - mostly cos I don't fit any subgroup or clique at all, I just am the proverbial square peg in a universe of round holes. I do love bearish men though - bearded, furry esp. furry arms and chest, usually older than me (but not always - *does stern look at Scott tga* :-P) but the whole culture side although I tried to get along with in the late 90's I always felt shut out as being a cub or chaser - someone younger who likes furrier men but like me isn't necessarily furry, sadly genetics haven't really provided although I am getting some hair as I get older -:-) - and although made some friends, as the older guys left the Kings Arms and the special position that me and Kirk being the youngest by 15-20 years went away, well I feel the bear scene became a clone-look, and the guys I liked moved onto the Quebec the replacements mostly were not my sort - the rugby microgoatees around my agegroup now.
And the bitchiness got to me - I tell people in the mashup and other communities that doesn't matter how bitchy or handbags it gets, it will NEVER top those days of political and otherwise DRAMA in the bears clubs. I just got bored of it, and the feeling that I didn't fit, and wandered off with occasional forays into that world. I had a similar experience with BOSF, really I don't think myself and clubs go...
DJ
OK shock horror time - I don't think of myself as a DJ...I kind of play one
Also I tend to dance like an insane lunatic while DJing, singing along etc. which might look scary to some, but fuck it - unless I'm having a good time in my own personal party of 1, how can I convince people otherwise? ;-) Best gig: the first time I played Bootie in SF in 2004 when it still was at the Cherry Bar. Really that was the most perfect night of my life.
Netcasts
Hmm difficult this one - not totally sure what George means. Netcasts can mean streamy things or can include all media including podcasts. I suspect it's the latter cos of Radio Clash and Digital Debris, the podcasts I never mention in this blog being a shy retiring type :-P. Again I think I have talked too much about this over the 4 years I've been doing it; but I do think podcasts have died a death...and not taken over the world as they promised! LOL. Sad to see the Who Boys and Night Nurse Show stopping but it's understandable - these things aren't going to go on for ever...it does seem to have lost it's spark.
Books
Interesting one - I rarely ever talk about books, partly because I'm very bad and uncultured and rarely read them...but good timing as I'm currently on a reading kick. Was talking about this earlier at work related to graphic novels, which I don't read - but I do read children's fiction and science fiction - although not the really heavy stuff. My favourite SF-related author is Kurt Vonnegut, who like the best SF authors wasn't a SF author, but got kind of defaulted there. I like Philip K Dick (WOOF!!!!) more in theory than actuality - his stories are brill but his characters belie his speed habit - total shallow disassociative types that you can't care for. I do like some JG Ballard who does seem to breathe more life into his characters; but really I'm mostly an old skool SF geek loving Ray Bradbury, HG Wells etc....I can't be bothered with Asimov etc and really, most SF and Fantasy geekery bores me - Tolkein I think got crap after The Hobbit, Arthur C Clarke is OK, Asimov is just too brainy and nerdy; and anything black or brightly covered with LARGE BLOCK CONDENSED WHITE TYPEFACES on it, be it chick tube novel or David Gemmell just scares me off. Terry Pratchett can be OK, bless 'im, but it is basically Bored of the Rings x 100, and only some of them were really funny, bit hit and miss.
Alan Garner and Peter Dickinson are my faves outside of SF (ish - paganism for kids or alt/SF themes for kids!) as well as Harry Potter, Philip Pullman etc. I did the Dragonlance series but I'm not a closet RPG person, or fantasy - it was Margaret Weiss who injected some life into the usually paper-thin characterisations, and she wrote about teenage alienation themes, and I was a teenager.
Currently reading Kurt Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box, a book about the Ladies of Llangollen I nicked off John, and recently read They Shoot Horses Don't They? and Day of the Locust which were both amazingly good. I avoided Grapes of Wrath again for another lifetime. I lost Alan Garner's Stone Quartet, which annoyed me as I was loving that. So I like classic novels too like Jane Eyre, but again if it seems too much like an English project to read it and it seems to drag I ditch it. Reading is supposed to be fun, or at least engaging. This is why I hate Dickens - his dense prose and arche/stereotypes just turns me off; and Tolkein needed an editor on dangermoney.
TIM!
I talk about myself far too much, which as well as annoying me is partly a nervous tick of mine, and partly just because I tend to associate the subject with my experience, which can seem like it's the only subject I'm interested in, but I'm actually saying 'I understand because....' and relating what I've been through in support. I'm sure everyone probably thinks I'm an arrogant so-so though if they don't know me, it seems like endless self-promo. Which mostly isn't the case - I am my biggest critic, and most of the stuff I do I think is actually shit.
Years later, like the portraits I dust it off and go - oh this isn't bad... but really I am under no pretension that I am the world's greatest whatever cos it is blatantly obvious I'm not - but I won't play that annoying insecure self-deprecation that I used to be really bad at in my teens/20s because that is self-realising and some people do take it as face value. It's not so much self-belief as not revealing the negative side, but that doesn't mean it's not there ;-) And anyway if you start the sentence/podcast/photo/work with 'I know this is shit but...' then you may as well not post/say it cos no-one else will probably listen, however cute the self-deprecation is. I've learned to just filter it mostly out...and let people decide if I'm shit or not.
And boy do they do so!
It's gotten that people on Twitter who aren't employers ask to see my commercial work and I say 'no' - I know it'll end badly on either side, either egos, misplaced criticism or even worse, them possibly ripping it off (it has happened, my work has found it's way magically into other people's portfolios) or clients finding out. No, I'm wary now -and anyway unless you are employing me, why should I give other freelancers the benefit of seeing my work? There does seem a sort of professional rivalry there, and I don't see many positives and quite a few negatives in letting them see what I'm doing ;-) As un-warm and uncuddly as that seems, it's a harsh world out there.
And yes I could be better on criticism, receiving it, but then again I think people could be better at giving it. Weird how some stuff - artwork, photographs I've mostly learned how to take crit; probably cos it's not my bread and butter. But if someone picks on something really pedantic in my paid-for work, which must have some value cos it earned my rent and the clients were happy with it - well I tend to snarl! Constructive criticism is usually welcome, though - especially in the areas I know I need to learn, like photography, but focusing on minor or unrelated stuff but ignoring or not commenting on the whole or the design, well - that is always going to annoy. It just seems like criticising the painting cos the frame is a little tatty but ignoring the stuff in front of you, you know?