here's to MMIX

Fun facts about 2009 for me:

-I never spent more than 3 months in one residence throughout the year
-This is the first time since 2005 that I've spent more than 6 months unemployed
-I regret none of the decisions I have made this year...yet.
-I mentioned last year that in 2008 I would bave spent "the last time I'll ever spend that much time at home." Boy, how little did I know.

2009 has been...all-over-the-place for me, I'd say, for lack of a better non-hyphenated word. Too many things have happened these past 31,556,926 seconds, and it's hard to explain in words. (except for maybe these: "Thanks soooo much for the Christmas card. I would have sent you one too but you keep moving.") I'll let the pictures do the talking:







































"What kind of name is E-bony?!"
-JL

because I swear I just posted something about this the other week

Happy Holidays, all! Even if you don't happen to be a religious type, it's still a reason to have a good party!

"your daughter is at Indiana? there are alot of Indians there, right?"
-AY

fine...fine!

If you know me well, then you'd know that I'm a staunch critic of touch screens, and have been especially slow to adopt it as a mainstream user interface for phones, computers, and most recently, cameras. My arguments? With the absence of a keyboard or buttons to press, I can never seem to press the right button. Plus, touch screens are harder to maintain and clean, since they're prone to getting our finger prints all over them. But criticisms due to my fat greasy fingers aside, I agree with this PC Mag article that all-touch interfaces actually disables the functions of one of our 5 senses: touch.

I'm so sorry, I couldn't help it.

The author argues that all-touch interfaces are actually touch-less screens. As humans, we use our hands to use tools that feel tangible. We can touch and feel a pencil in our hand, we can touch and feel the keys on the keyboard as we type. When you touch a "button" on an iPhone, you feel nothing. In the author's words, "every button feels the same: nothing. Every action feels the same: nothing."

And it's true, essentially, we've given up our sense of touch since when we're actually "touching" our screens on our phones, we don't actually feel anything. We can't operate our phones purely by touching it anymore. We become dependent on our senses of sight and sound as well in order to operate our "touch"-screens (and another thing! I can't blind text with a touch screen! That means alot less texting while driving for me!...well...not that I do that. In this state, at least.)

So with all these arguments and hate on the all-touch interface, I guess you could I'm the last person you'd expect to own a touchscreen phone.

The blog I'm writing at the moment is in the background of the picture. Now that's ironic.

Yes, I do realize the irony of the fact that I'm the proud owner of an HTC Droid Eris, the closest thing to an iPhone you'll find nowadays (Verizon, you owe me one for that shameless plug). It's only a recent development, and two weeks later, I'm still far from getting used to typing on a digital keyboard (if you text me often enough, you may have noticed my text typos have become rampant as of late). But this still doesn't change my stance on touchscreens (they're still the devil to me! kinda), and I though there's nothing intrinsically wrong with them, I don't believe in the trend that every device nowadays needs to be a touch-only interface. I mean, come on:

Okay, maybe that is pretty awesome.

"e-bony? what's that?"
-JL

how bizarre

So the other day at that particular retail job I prefer not to admit having, I had a run in with an old middle school classmate (I prefer to use the term classmate as opposed to friend...I was never really friends with anyone in middle school). Considering that I'm in a completely different city and that I hadn't really seen or even talked to anyone from that particular class since we parted ways nearly 10 years ago, this was the last place I expected to run into any one of those people.

Okay, so I have seen a couple here and there either at the local Target or community college. But I'm not "local" anymore. Seems like wherever I go, I can't seem to escape these folk. The worst part was that I heard that there had actually been a facebook group that was created for the "Class of 2000 at St. Bede," (and for some strange reason I did join). What really got me was that not only were people reminescing about old teachers and lunches, but someone even put up some old pictures of our fine institution. I literally had a sick feeling in my stomach the moment I saw it. (Me? Bitter? No way.)

ugh.

Don't get me wrong, I don't actually hate these people. Like I mentioned before, I wasn't really friends with them per se. The few I did hang out with I lost touch with as soon as I got kicked out, and besides those good times I spent with those people, I've mostly blocked out most of those formative yet somewhat traumatizing years of mine (which is probably why I felt bad when the classmate I ran into started asking questions about my siblings whereas I didn't remember shit about her family). But kids can be so mean, and as 10-13 year olds going through puberty, sometimes we don't know where the hell our immature emotions are going to force us to feel or do.

So of course, the obligatory adding of each other on facebook as friends is the next step in re-establishing contact. Given the fact that I had no idea what half of these people looked like now (or even remembered that they existed), I was curious to see what they were(n't) up to nowadays. I mean, I know, alot can change in 9 years, especially since there was still high school (and college for some...maybe), but I was surprised to see that people were all over the place. Some were working and living in other states, some were in grad school, others were still in community college, and a surprising amount of them were already married and had kids (okay, so maybe that wasn't as surprising). 

Got me wondering...were these kids also checking out my facebook profile, looking through my pictures and where I was working and where I went to school, if I had kids? Are we all in that natural competition to see who has come the furthest since then? And given that I didn't entirely leave on good terms with them, have I come far enough and am I successful enough right now to amaze them? Did I prove my point that even though I was kicked out of the school, didn't get along with everyone, was kept out of the fancy private high school that everyone went to and was forced to go to the shitty high school on the other side of the tracks, that I still made it in the world?

Duh. 

for listening to my rants, you get to see me as an attractive 13 year-old

"absolutely divine? no, not the name of the chocolate. that's what mimi calls me after 12!"
-OO

the best acting on television? or a form of the cruelest therapy for these poor people?

I'm not entirely sure how accurate or true these actually are (it was Maury, and it was daytime TV, mind you), but these are still fun to watch nonetheless.

What, you're gonna criticize me for finding entertainment in the fact that some lady is deathly afraid of pickles? ...I heard that. You actually laughed quietly to yourself at least a little bit at the thought of that, didn't ya.

"There should be a detective show called 'Johnny Monkey' because every week you could have a bad guy say, 'I ain't gonna get caught by no MONKEY,' but then he would, and I don't think I'd ever get tired of that."
-DLC

for lack of a better post

Yes, I realized I've been lagging on the whole updating or writing blogposts and whatnot. I go weeks without writing anything substantial, but I know that people are here reading it (thanks to site meter! my nifty stalker tool that tells me who and where-from people are coming to this site...) resulting only in me feeling bad cause I haven't really updated anything.

But needless to say, it's been a slow blog topic season. Or rather, anything that is worth mentioning that's happening to me I put up on twitter, best described as ADD induced blogging.

I suppose I just haven't had the time to sit down and describe the going-ons in my life at the moment, since if I'm not working at my real job, (shameless plug alert!) transit.511.org, I'm probably helping some technologically handicapped and thoroughly confused customers at a popular electronics retail chain (no shameless plug for them....they don't need it, not after what I saw on Black Friday).

I guess you can say that twitter has successfully achieved a slow and constant but unusually effective takeover of my life and time (like I feared it would). And I figured I should wish myself a Twitterversary (it's been a year since I joined).

In either case, it's getting late again. And whatever motivation to keep me writing has been effectively drained already. See you all on twitter!

"Is this a high-definition camera? I'm taking this into labor, and I want to see the pores on my skin!"
-one of the many customers I have run into at Best Buy

Baby Eli

Baby Eli Emmanuel Solomon was born December 6th, 2009, at 2:30pm, somewhere in Cebu, Philippines. He was 7 pounds, 14 ounces.

I am now officially "Uncle Mark." Or, since the baby was born in the Philippines, does that make me "Tito Mark?"

Sorry, no pictures to be had just yet, as my brother is in China and the child is in another country.

Today my family grew. A generation has been added to our family tree (or as someone once put it, since Filipinos have such large families already, our family forest). I became an uncle, my parents became grandparents, and my grandmother suddenly became great.

"dude, other than you solomons, have you heard of other flipino jews?"
-JRT