Seven years of blogging

Soon, in June, this blog celebrates 7 years of existence.

It started out as my outlet for thoughts and feelings generated by interactions at a community webcam chat site.  Then it evolved into something like an online autobiography written and published one post at a time. From time to time I have also published pure fictional writings that have often been simple spur of the moment things. Some of my posts have been about certain topics – some attempts to discuss those topics and present my opinions. A lot of posts have also been about my interest in music, movies, books and food. Through the years I have posted photos, pictures, audio and video clips to break the blocks of text and to make the blog more entertaining.

When I started back in 2005 I never imagined having any readers but of course I hoped some people would find their way to my blog and perhaps even find it interesting enough to come back.  Now, seven years later, I know I have readers and even readers who regularly follow my writing here. I am very grateful for each and every one of you and thank you for reading my texts. I will do my best to continue writing and publish texts and other material in order to keep you interested.

However, what I write will still be whatever I feel like writing and that way it will as always reflect my personality. I will not ever attempt to adjust my style in order to attract more readers or try to figure out what will please the most readers.

Since people have found their way here and continued to follow my blog without me trying to please anyone, I think it would be stupid to start now. I will continue being me. That’s a promise.

 

 

What’s the point?

Sometimes when I look back at what I’ve shared with you, my readers, I feel a bit alarmed. Not about the details of what I’ve shared but about what kind of picture all of these posts paint of me in the minds of my readers.

How would I picture me, based on the information I find on this blog?  Sometimes I think about the answer to that question. Usually after posting things like yesterday’s text. Also after re-reading a post like “Creepdom” in which I attempt to discuss the good and bad sides to fandom while describing my own actions as a fan.  I’m not sure what the picture looks like but I’m sure it’s not only pretty.

When I started this blog back in the summer of 2005, it was at first in an attempt to describe my experiences at a certain website and community that I had then recently discovered. Soon it evolved into a way for me to express myself and also to write a kind of autobiography in the blog format. I started to write more and more about my past and about myself as time passed and I got some positive feedback from some friends from the community. Then for some years I didn’t post much on my blog until I suddenly met someone online in early 2008 which inspired me to really start working on my blog and since then I’ve kept up the work.

These days I can’t claim that all my writing is inspired by some  one person only but certainly people I know and meet do have some influence upon my choice of topics since the interactions with these people trigger emotions and thoughts within me that I often want to share with my readers.

I also try to avoid the romantic idea of waiting for inspiration in order to write. Instead I write even when I have no idea what to write and sometimes even no real motivation. Usually I still manage to produce some kind of text and most of the time I post that text no matter how I feel about its quality. In a way I do this also in order to battle my self-censorship from blocking my creativity. To really be able to write anything of value, I think not being stopped by self-censorship is essential.

Sunday confession

My apologies, dear readers.

You have not found this blog to be at its usual standard lately. I know that you expect a lot more from me. However, I’ve had so much to do and not enough sleep that I haven’t had enough time to write posts in order to meet my resolution to post at least once every day.  I am only just able to make it now. It’s a lot harder than I thought to do it. Even if  I am not depending on inspiration to write its hard to come up with a text sometimes.

Often enough it turns out like this one. I’ve used a lot of words as you have probably noticed, but have I really said anything at all ?  Thought so.  This means I have to work harder at it. Otherwise I might not keep my readers interested at all.  Without readers, what would I be? Navel lint.

Early on a Sunday morning like this, its quiet and calm in the home and outside as well. A silent darkness and a faint glow from the snow outside.  A good time to do some writing, so that’s what I’m doing.  Only source of light in the room is the computer screen. Listening to Robbie Robertson singing Night Parade while I’m writing.  That song is 20 years old now. At least. How fast time goes by.

I remember bringing it with me on a tape when I went to New Orleans in January 1992. Was a very cold week I spent there. The hotel room was freezing cold most of the time. The TV hardly worked at all and across the street there was a housing project. Om the sidewalks there were often  groups of teens walking by. Some I could see were armed with pistols. I was often scared to walk to and from my hotel to the center of the French Quarter. Always feared to be robbed or worse but I was lucky. Nothing happened. However it was an odd sight to see snow in the streets some mornings. Even if it melted away very quickly.  Ok, I’m digressing but sometimes the memories just come back in force.

Today I have not got a lot planned. My mother is still no well so I have to take care of her. Also have some chores to do if I find the energy to start. Otherwise I guess I will be in some chatroom, looking at videos on YouTube and tweeting a bit. Maybe write another post.

Edit: Seems I won’t be in some chatroom. At least not today.  So I guess I will be doing something else.

New post

Clever. Not really.

Have an idea for a post but not the time to do it. Will have to be tomorrow instead. Today is Sunday. Somewhere it’s Super Bowl Sunday. Not here though.

I have been awake for more than 30 hours. Never went to sleep last night. Had an awesome morning this morning. Feeling more asleep than awake but still enjoying it. Seems that things happen for a reason or maybe they don’t. Happen they do anyway. I think that is rather nice.

Rest of the day has been rather lazy as I have mostly been lounging around or been listening to music while daydreaming. Not productive but hey, it’s Sunday. Nobody should have to work on a Sunday. When I meet nobody I’ll tell him that. Lame.

Ok. Had some food today too. Nothing fancy but it was good. Mashed turnips and pork. Some mustard and a potato. To drink: rusty tap water. Well, actually the tap water here is very clean.  No rust in sight.

Not much else to report so this looks to be all, folks!

Contradiction

Image via Wikipedia

Hello, readers!

Sunday. Around 12. I’m looking at a messy room that I will start to clean up at any moment (or so I thought). Right after writing this small piece of information.

Been having fun this weekend. Haven’t slept much but still feel fine. Haven’t gotten much work done but still feel fine.

Yesterday, after a fun late night and early morning I did get some things done. Went out driving my mother to the church for the usual lighting of a  candle at my father’s grave. Then drove her to the market for the usual grocery shopping.

Later on had a fabulous dinner. A pre-cooked meal I heated in the microwave.  At least I didn’t eat it in front of the TV, since I hardly ever watch TV.

As the evening progressed I started to feel sleepy, so around midnight I took  a little nap lasting about four and a half hours. Woke up just in time to join the fun at a certain chatroom at a certain site.

Which brings me back to the start of this post. I’ve been trying to finish this all day while thinking of other things, while knowing I should be doing other things, while feeling guilty for wasting time dreaming of You when I have so much I really need to get done. Well – I’m only human and failing is one of my talents so of course I kept on dreaming and never got around to the other stuff, the important stuff. At least that stuff counts as important in some circles but daydreaming is pretty important to me. Even if it hardly ever pays any bills to dream it is kind of nice. Most of the time even more than nice. Sometimes it can be a bit of a pain because somewhere there’s a voice in my mind telling me “you know this is only a dream, don’t you?” and I reply, “yes, I do know that but what else can I do?” There’s usually no answer to that so my dreaming continues undisturbed by reality checks.  Then after a while I’ll listen to some Roy Orbison songs back to back. And end it all with Bruce Hornsby – Till The Dreaming’s Done.

Looks like  that’s all, folks !

Good morning!

Been more than good. I’d say great. Not going to let the crashing get me to abandon my happy mood.

Enjoyed getting up at 5 am. Had a nice place to go to. A nice chatroom to go to. Best one I know. Not to say there are not any other good ones around. Just saying this one is the best one for me. At least the one I always miss being at when I’m not there. I miss some other rooms, or people rather, too, but I have to be honest about where I spend most of my online time.

I am happy to have friends online. Would be boring without them. I remember when I first ventured out onto  the vast Internet ocean I had no idea where to go and no friends to find online. Didn’t even know what a chatroom was. Had to learn it all by trial and error. The first three or four years I didn’t even like chatrooms but that was before I found the right ones. Once I did that, by accident of course, I never wanted to leave. Because I was having so much fun and getting to know people and even making friends.

After having had a long life with almost no friends in it, the Internet saved my social life. I can say that and be totally serious. Without the Internet I’d be much more isolated at this point. Not to mention how much I would not have learned about myself and about people in general.  I am really happy I have made friends with people from other countries even from other continents through the years.

I did have some foreign penpals back in the stone age before the digital age but being able to chat in real-time is way better. And being able to see and hear people you talk to is the best of all. Some say this is nothing new. Video calls were invented even before the Internet was available to the general public but it didn’t catch on or whatever. Maybe the public weren’t ready for it yet. Now it’s hard to live without the option of seeing the one you talk to even when making a cell phone call.

While I was in Cinema Studies class back in the late 1990’s, I remember a discussion about what this does to people that there are cameras almost everywhere so that we are always “on cam” in some fashion. Does it influence our behaviour ? Change it ? Do we start to “perform” when we know that some camera is focused upon us ? Certainly I sense that something happens with the way I behave when I know I’m being watched by a camera. I probably don’t do everything I would do if I was not being watched. Anyway, I’m digressing so I’ll get back to the topic of this post.

A wonderful morning. Now I need to get ready to go to a meeting at a possible place of  “work” later. I also have to have some breakfast.  Haven’t eaten since last night.

Guess it’s Monday again

Ugh!

Monday evening. Time is 10:32 pm. Or as we Europeans like to write it: 22:32.  Today was a mild sunny day. Temperature did rise above zero degrees which made it easy to free the car of snow and ice. For once. There’s nothing I dislike more than having to scrape frost from car windows on a freezing cold day.

Today I did some paperwork, made some phone calls related to job search, set an appointment and sent some emails out. If things work out right I will have a place of “work” soon that might actually be good for me to use as a way to work out a better future. Will report more about this when I have a result from this week’s efforts. Looks promising so far at least.

Did have a bit of a bad Sunday night. Was too tired from lack of sleep to really be of any use to anyone including myself. My brain did not wish to cooperate with me so I was  not communicating very well but at least I knew when to quit. At least I hope I did. After sleeping for about 5 hours I woke up this morning ready to get things done and I did manage to do most of it. Did also have time to drive my mother to a meeting and help her with some grocery shopping afterwards.

Had a very simple dinner. Sausage, potatoes, mustard. Nothing fancy but good enough on a Monday.

After dinner and washing some dishes I returned to my computer to continue with some work while also reading some news headlines at an online newspaper. Then I started read the tweets from my Twitter page, and reading back to see what had happened during the day while I was away. Checked MFC to see what was going on and then went to check the visitor stats at my blog. Always nice to find out which post is most visited each day. When done with that I checked in at the online forum to read some of the latest posts.  In the middle of all this I remembered I had some writing to do. Started with that but still not done. For once I would like to not find it so difficult to write an application for a job. Perhaps one day I will learn how to do that.

Soon midnight. This Monday will be done. Tuesday begins. Got a lot to do for Tuesday. Hope it will all get me closer to the better tomorrow I still wish for. If  I don’t give up I guess I will reach it. Or be a major fail.

 

 

Tuesday evening in January

Great. What to write today. I already posted something today so I don’t need to post this now but after a rather eventless day I feel like sharing some thoughts with you all.  Woke up late. Hadn’t slept very well as I went to sleep feeling a bit worried about some stuff but eventually I fell asleep after listening to music through my phone. Great to have music playing while trying to sleep. Only problem sometimes I fall asleep without turning the music off so when I wake up I’m still wearing the earphones and the battery in the phone is almost always almost empty. Small problem but nevertheless annoying if I have made a plan to bring the phone with me in the morning. Luckily that isn’t always the plan.

This morning I needed to go to the bank, or at least to an ATM, so I did. Was a nice drive, very little traffic. Stopped for some groceries before returning home to do the writing I hadn’t done all day yesterday. In the early evening I had it done. Almost. Some I have to do first thing tomorrow.

Lunch and dinner today was nothing special. Some leftover food and some sandwiches. Some days I really don’t eat very well at all. Should, though.

Spent the evening reading tweets and tweeting some random and some to friends. Looked at MFC off and on. Looked at a movie I hadn’t seen in a while: Bo Widerberg‘s Mannen från Mallorca. Watched sports on TV (Swedish team lost…) and performed some maintenance on my blog. Also searched for some music clips on YouTube. Now at 7 minutes to midnight I’m thinking I ought to sleep but I probably will be awake a few hours yet.

Too late

Sorry, readers.

Today you’ll find another short post because I’ve almost forgotten to write one. Only got about 20 minutes to do it so it won’t be pretty like you are used to but it will have to  do.

This Saturday I woke up around 9 am. Slept good but not for long. Had breakfast, read two morning papers and then got dressed and ready to go ut to get the car ready. Went driving to take my mother to the church to light a candle at my father’s grave before going to the local grocery store for some food.

Got back home in time for some early dinner. Grilled chicken, corn, tomatoes, bread and water. Not fancy but fast and easy to make. After dinner I should have gotten some chores done but was lazy and watched TV instead while also having a peek at twitter from time to time.  Later on started listening to old favorite songs on YouTube and tweeting the links to my twitter feed. Not having much else to do because MFC kept crashing for a while. I was also drinking some guava juice and eating chips. And found some chocolate as well.

Now I’m thinking about how to end this without making it it too obvious I have no idea how to end it. Think I’ll just stop typing. How’s that ?

10 years at cam sites

Well not exactly 10 years yet. Some day in June or July 2011 will be the 10th anniversary of my webcam sites member adventures but since I no longer remember the exact date  I first joined a chat room at a webcam site I might as well celebrate it right now.

10 years later. What have I learned ?  First of all the technology has improved. Might not believe me if you only recently joined a site like MFC and experience bugs and crashes and such, but the “problems” at MFC are nothing compared to what I’ve seen over the years at sites not even a fraction as huge as MFC. Most of those sites are probably gone today and those that remain have changed names, management and most importantly models working so many times I doubt anyone there still remember the old member MoonieZ.

However there were always things going wrong: site servers going down, cams that wouldn’t load, chats that wouldn’t load and numerous other things. What I remember most though is connecting through dial-up and paying a per minute internet fee on top of the cost of  entering the chat and viewing the cams. That was slow and expensive. Not to mention unreliable. After switching to ADSL connection things improved a lot.

The streaming video windows were small and the image often fuzzy in the early days. Lighting was not always good and sound did not always work. In fact,  streaming audio was a late addition to most cam sites. Some were very late to add it and some only had it during private chat sessions.

What hasn’t changed is the way most members and guests interact with the models on cam. There are many who manage to be “normal” and polite but there has also always been a huge crowd who seem to have only one goal – to spoil everyone elses fun using any and all methods available. At the sites I used to be at models didn’t always have banning options or even mute options. The only thing they could do when the crowd in the room was getting out of control was to alert a site admin or simply shut the cam down and/or log off in order to clear the room of the spoilers and beggars. I’ve heard the open chat room at a few sites refered to as “the jungle” by more than one model over the years.

Then there is the member category who seem to forget that the person on cam is a real living breathing human being and not a robot or an animated image. I’ve seen a few of those over the years as well and always wondered if they treat every person they meet in their daily life as disrespectful as they treated  the models in the chat rooms.

After all of these negative aspects one might ask why keep going to these sites ? Easy. For the fun, the good times, the laughs, the company and last but not least the friends I’ve made. I’ve made good friends among both models and members over the years. Some I’ve kept in touch with for a long time while others faded away more quickly.

Getting to know the models as persons/real people and not only as “models” has been great. Some I’ve chatted with I never really got to know but some I’ve become very close friends with and shared a lot of my own life with as well as listening to their whole life stories. Very interesting and a most educational experience.

Also learning  some inside information about what its like to work in the cam business and how the sites are managed have been interesting and part of why I’ve returned to these sites.