I know I haven’t blogged in quite a while, at first due to lack of interest, then due to lack of time, and then due to lack of readers, but I felt compelled to post this.  These guys are doing such good work, I had to give them a shout out publicly, and maybe there’s still someone reading that might find these links helpful.

So I’ve been trying to understand this economic thing we’ve gotten ourselves into, and I’ve found a few things that help a lot. I thought I’d link them, so that maybe someone else might find them.

Planet Money — The podcast is the most interesting part, but they have some blog posts that help, somewhat. Every weekday, they give a rundown of what’s happened, and what that means–no jargon, no degree in economics required. For an ongoing understanding of what’s happening, I recommend this.

This American Life — A weekly radio show, tells all sorts of interesting true stories. They’ve done two really good shows about the economy that I want to point out:
The Giant Pool of Money, from back in May, on how the housing crisis came to be. (Free streaming on the website)
Another Frightening Show About the Economy, aired just this last weekend, which explains the current crisis, and what they see looking forward. If you have a spare hour, I highly recommend listening to this one. (Free streaming, or free download on the podcast through Sunday.)

I was going to do a year in review post, but I got sidetracked, and never did get it written before the new year got here. I suppose I could still write it, but I never managed to motivate myself, and I’m still not motivated to finish it.

I haven’t really been doing anything this break. I was intending to work at A&J for a few weeks, and the manager had at one point indicated that he was likely to be in need of additional help over the break–but that apparently didn’t come true.So in lieu of working there, I’ve been keeping fairly busy around the house, doing all sorts of stuff. I helped decorate for Christmas, and then this last week, helped un-decorate. You wouldn’t believe the amount of stuff we have that goes up. There’s garland that hangs in both hallways, in the family room, and upstairs, too; about 40 different wall/window hangings (flat, paper things, whether commercially produced, or made by my sister and I in school); several stuffed Christmas characters (Father Christmas (3 sizes), and two dolls, “Merry” and “Chris”) as well as 2 nativity scenes; two Christmas trees (one artificial, one real); about a dozen small stuffed, umm, ornaments that are traditionally spread out through the house, and a whole load of other things that I’ve forgotten. All goes up, and then it all comes back down. Oh yeah, there’s the Christmas lights outside, too. Luckily for me, my dad put the lights up before Thanksgiving, but I got the job of taking them down and packing them away. Have you ever tried to put a string of icicle lights back into the box? Let me tell you, it’s not exactly easy. I’ve actually gotten pretty good, after I paid very close attention to how a new set came out of the box.

One of the family mysteries comes up every year when we take down the ornaments from the tree. Everything is boxed up, back into the boxes that we have been using for as many years as I can remember. One of the boxes has the cryptic message “slouch” written on the side. No one knows how it got there, or what it means, but every year someone or other makes a comment about it. Okay, that’s a pretty lame family mystery, but it’s the best I can do.

I also helped with some baking this break, and my sister and I put together this gingerbread house. She had received it as a kit (everything but the icing) from a friend last Christmas, and for some reason, decided to save it until this year. It was “fully edible” according to the box, but after sitting for a year, in a non-airtight container, everything was pretty hard, and I certainly won’t be trying to eat it. I like my teeth as they are.

I upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.0, from 1.5. You won’t notice much change, except in the way images are handled, which allows me (and thus you) to comment on the pictures.

As it is now 1 am, I suppose I ought to be getting off to bed soon. I haven’t exactly been getting to bed early, because I’ve been reading books ever since I got home. And you know how it is when you’re toward the end of a good book–you just don’t get as much sleep. I brought home from the UP library a book by Phillip Pullman, called “The Amber Spyglass.” It’s the third in a 3 part series, so when things finally slowed down it was one of the first things I read.

I’ve also been reading the Narnia series, and have read three of the books. (I also saw the movie a week ago–it was very good.) Our family got the first 2 Harry Potter books for Christmas, and I read those, too. And then this morning, I finished “The Aquitaine Progression” by Robert Ludlum–a very good read. At the beginning, I was expecting it to read rather like a John Grisham book, but it ended up being more like a Tom Clancy–both of whom I like a lot.

And now looking at the clock I must really go.

–Nathan

I can’t really explain what brings me to state that, but I’ll just say that it wasn’t anything I did. Situations get really complicated with alcohol mixed in, as some people are finding out tonight.

I feel like posting now, but don’t have that much to say. (That turned out to be an understatement. This whole post is me ranting about a member of the forum who was incredibly annoying. It probably won’t be interesting to anyone, except me.) Here I go!

In the Aloof Forum I’m a member of, there had been a member who just was rather annoying. In his first incarnation, Madeye always was complaining about the lousy features, or that Admin needed to fix something. Some of the things he brought up were actually valid concerns, but the way he brought them up was just horrible. He couldn’t take a joke, either. It just went downhill for a while, until he personally insulted two of the moderators. Apparently, they had been trying to decide whether to ban him, and that was the last straw. A few days later, Madeye Revisited registered at the forum, with his first post as “I’m Back! Ha, you thought you got rid of me” He went on about how he had realized what he did wrong, and would be better this time. He was around a few weeks, but on thin ice. Understandably, some of the mods (moderators, the people who oversee the forum) still didn’t like him, and edited a few of his posts. One ended with “I’m a crybaby”, which I think was added, but was not inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the post.

Now here’s where I come in. Up till today, I’d been ignoring the scuffle, or treating him like a regular member. But yesterday, a link to my site was in a prominent location on the forum, and he went to look at the page mentioned. He posted something like “Wow, I can’t believe your blog template, it looks so prefessional. Did you really design it?” I had just written him a long post about how things can be misinterpreted in text, and that he needed to understand that, both to be more conscious of what he wrote, and so he would not mis-interperet our posts. In response to his “awesome blog” comment, I said that, as an example of what I was meaning, I could have taken that to mean that I was stealing the template, but I wasn’t, because it came free with blogger, and I didn’t take anything out, so they must be okay with me using it this way. I also said that
“I’ll assume you were unaware of the way your comment came off, but be warned that I can, and eventually will, take things in the worst possible way.”

He posted this reply, which was a typical one.

I just cannot believe how people can underestimate my posts like this, this is some kind of joke right. You are trying to tease me right?
I was making a compliment, an honest compliment and there you do breaking it out to me that I am acusing you of stealing the template. This is ridiculous man!

He declared that he was leaving, which was the third time he’d done so, and was gone for a while. I wrote one more post, clarifying that the internet was not quite like real life, or more like a foreign country, and that he might say something offensive without meaning it. As long as one is properly apologetic, it’s no big deal. But when you don’t look/sound sorry, eventually, the foreigners think you mean to insult them.

Then he was back, complaining that the board was probably all ’18+s’, and that we demanded perfection in all things, and that we weren’t royalty, and that he always posts like this at another forum, and we just don’t understand him, but it’s not really his problem. He isn’t perfect, and we’re always guessing that he’s trying to insult us over the templates.

Still trying to resolve it peacefully, I posted back that regardless of what I had thought, I now knew that it wasn’t an accusation, and asked for a truce. He accepted. That was the end of last night’s posting.

When I got up Saturday, he’d visited the rest of my site, and decided that it was “a little messy but has amazing content”. He’d designed a layout for me to use. Now what was I supposed to do with that? I didn’t really like it, and despite his insistence that my site “wasn’t crap”, he’d called it messy. So I asked him why he thought it was messy. I ended up with a few decent suggestions, and some wasted time. He posted an image called “Nathanproof” to show me why he thought it was messy, and I guess he uses some strange skin on his machine, because everything was blue. Which made my red corners stand out too much.

Anyway, he went on to post in another thread, where a new user had posted a link to their site, and he’d, among other things, used a rolling eyes emoticon, and said that he had no clue what they were talking about. This evening, AloofKitten, the administrator’s wife, deleted the post, banned him from the forum permanently, while her husband simultaneously deleted his website.

I don’t know where along the line my opinion switched, but two days ago, I would have said that he was annoying, but that he shouldn’t be banned from the forum. But when he was banned, I was glad. Something about dealing with him personally changes your opinion. He just doesn’t understand anything, or ignores it. I have no idea how much advice he ignored over the course of his two lives here. I’m just glad he’s gone, and won’t be coming back.

And if that bored you, I’m sorry, but I feel better now.

–Nathan