Yay it's my Birthday...

  

I'm with the dog...

I'm sorry if this sounds petty but today was my birthday and you know what...

It sucked ass...again.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not some ungrateful, petty, entitled brat.  I'm just sick of grasping at straws.

Birthdays always seem to suck for me.  At least over the past 15 years or so.

I usually end up spending them alone or working or doing some other crap I'd rather not be doing.

I rarely if ever get to spend them with the people I really want to.

There's a marked scarcity of "happy" in the birthday.  I'm starting to wonder if I used up my portion of all those good things in life.  If so, it wasn't much of a serving from what I've seen.

Excuse the language ( and I really don't care if you don't ) but I'm getting fucking tired of grasping at straws for happiness.  Digging through piles of metaphorical shit just to find the faintest glimmer of a ray of hope.

The worst part is nobody really knows just how unhappy I really am and how badly I need something big and wonderful to happen.

I work hard at it.  I don't expect miracles without a lot of effort but I'm starting to wonder if I'm just fooling myself.

I'm tired of making excuses and giving everyone and everything a pass for walking over me.  Seems it's always about someone else's happiness and fuck mine.

You want to know the worst part of it all?  I'm really only happy when I can share my  happiness with someone else.  

I'm not a great solo act...

The only answer if I dare to complain?

Oh well then...goodbye.

So fuck birthdays, don't bother me with them.  

I'm all about positivity but it seems it's not giving quite enough of a return lately and frankly I'm getting really tired of having to search for or worse spin shitty events in a positive way.

Want an example?  Here's a good one...

I just got on the hook for $2200 to fix my car's transmission.  I put down $750, financed another $750 at 24% and the balance with the tranny shop.

Then to top it all off I had to replace the water pump the day after I got it back home.

Now the positive spin is that I was able to get credit to let the repair happen and I had the ability and  the skills to fix the other issues with the car.

Thing is, that's basically polishing a turd right there.  I'm in more debt now, I was tired as hell at work the next day after working on the car the night before for 3 consecutive nights and I still can't trust the car.

Perspective is everything but getting deeper into the crap you're trying to climb out of just to survive is not my idea of happiness.

I'm not the type to be satisfied with just surviving and that's all I seem to do as of late and I'm fucking sick of it... 

We all need a big win every once in awhile and frankly it's been an uphill battle lately.

The saddest part of all of this?  That to me something big would probably appear very small to you.  

Something small can mean something very big and that means putting self-serving agendas aside.  

Maybe I'm no better.  I'm no altruist but I do try to give more than I take.

Do you? 

Is your internal balance sheet based on a capital investment of your bank balance or your soul? 

Happy Birthday indeed....I'd rather not be reminded of it. 

A little help here folks.  The sunshine well is running a bit low.  We can only hope to reap what we sow but somebody's made off with my crop it seems.

Rant over.  I'm sure I'll blow up some minor positive event to Super Bowl proportions in the near future.

Drama, Faux activism and YouTube

Ah Drama...

As if just living life didn't offer up enough trials and tribulations it seems there are those bent on manufacturing more.

Some, like the tarnished remnants of TWIT are a bona fide drama factory.  Others just blatant opportunists.  

If drama were gold it'd be as common as sand on the beach.

We all know someone who seems to be terminally "in distress."  Invariably they'll drag everyone around them into their drama like a black hole.

YouTube has become the perfect outlet for all that dramatic energy.  Puffed up egos bolstered by clueless fans who've got nothing better to do than lament their own failings and swell a channel's subscriber numbers.  

Drama feeds drama which is why YouTube comments are the way they are.

Adam the Woo

But this isn't an indictment against YouTube as a whole. 

There are some gems out there like Adam the Woo or Louis Rossmann.  They invite you into their lives and in the process teach us something about ourselves.  They're  not chasing fame or pouring over analytics like some corporate accountant at tax time.   It's about sharing experiences instead of inventing them.

But they're few and far between rendered all but invisible by the incessant droning from the drama queens.  

Those self absorbed attention whores who will do anything to get more views.  Ruining reputations, exposing private information of a rival even criminal acts, all are fair game.  Nothing is off-limits.

Then comes the second string.  The reactionaries who pounce on the chance to expose or should I say exploit tragedy.   Their drug of choice a piece of that nefarious stardom.  A successful leap on the bandwagon is the path to joining their YouTube icons or so they hope.

To that end they become the self-appointed standard bearers of all that's decent and right (at least on YouTube)  Pop culture judge, jury and executioner of the irrelevant.

The beast is fed and the collective bar is lowered.

Damn!

These people take themselves way too seriously.  YouTube just lets it happen because it means more views which translate to more advertiser impressions.  It keeps the pump primed and the money rolling in.

It's the same formula as reality TV actually.  Throw a bunch of mediocre drama queens together and watch the bloodbath.

Isn't there already enough of this kind of crap in the world?  

Apparently not.  Check out the video below...

Unlinking from LinkedIn

I find zero value in LinkedIn...

The concept isn't even original.  It's been called a glorified Facebook for business professionals and LinkedIn doesn't deny it.

As I poke around my own profile I'm inundated with prompts to "upgrade" my membership to enjoy all those "premium" features like being able to actually get useful search results (instead of "professional at xyz") or send a colleague an "in-mail" message on the site.  

Screw it, I'll just text them...

But you have to ask yourself, Why? 

Why would I pay a subscription fee to get even more email from people I don't know?  What most people consider spam, Linkedin considers a "feature."

I know, I know, these are supposed "business contacts" and "networking opportunities" not Viagra ads but that's rarely the case.  For example, I've gotten more requests to "join someone's network" from cold calling "staffing specialists"  (resume stackers)  than anyone I've ever had an actual professional relationship with.

In other words, you'd get less spam from a Monster.com account than from an active LinkedIn profile.  In fact, Monster.com is more useful which is something I never thought I would say.  Yeah, they want a paid subscription too but at least the search function works!

LinkedIn has been having an identity crisis for at least the past 5 years with most looking at it as a job search site while others look at it as an expanded CV while still others bought into that whole Facebook thing.

I sincerely hope nobody is pinning all their hopes on the job listings.  Most of them are out of date and/or list jobs that have little to nothing to do with your own skills.

If you do find something, expect to run into the service's many roadblocks including blocking the ability to share the position with anyone who doesn't happen to use the service.  Worse, many ISP's consider email messages from LinkedIn as ACTUAL Spam so your friend probably wouldn't get them anyway...

If you think it works for you chances are you already had a deep contact list without LinkedIn's help.

Meaning that those at the top of the heap likely get deluged with "connection" requests from complete strangers unless they choose to block such communication.

Which kind of defeats the purpose...

I admit, I do check in now and again just to see who got fired.  If you have enough information you can piece together just how flaky any given corporation's management is by watching how often different names show up under the same job title. 

So I guess it's good for something but not for what it professes to be. 

If you think LinkedIn is doing great things for your career you're just not giving yourself enough credit.