Some random musings... they're insights but you'll never have practical use for most of them.

There was a time...

When I actually read each and every blog on my link list. Every single day (on the condition that my brother isn't using the phoneline or my sister isn't surfing). Of course back then, I had, what... half a dozen links? And I remember Tin's link list back when she was still using red-negative. There was something like three to four dozen links, and much more people linking to her.

Of course now, aside from the fact that my blog links hasn't significantly increased, there are some factors that hinder me from actually checking other people's blogs on a daily basis.

1) People don't update as often. Honestly, it takes time to visit other people's blogs, especially those with fancy layouts and HUGE images (*hint* *hint* Gio). And well, while it's not like going all the way to Makati coming from North Edsa, there's a real disappointment when you're itching to read other people's blogs only to find out it hasn't been updated in a month or two. And when it happens on the next day, and the day that follows, and the day after that... well, you start losing interest (provided that the blog was interesting to read in the first place). But not to sound like a hypocrite, we've all been guilty of this, especially me. I mean my other blogs haven't been updated as of late, but then those blogs require specialized preparation (reading a book, writing a long essay or article, etc.). But even this blog has been known to suddenly disappear for a week...

2) Huge files. Despite the fact that a lot of people have access to broadband, this is the Philippines, and people still use dialup (and even Philippine broadband doesn't exactly offer the best services). I don't want to waste the next five minutes waiting for images to download, only to find out that all you have to say for the day is an unenlightening one-liner (of course sometimes the occassional entry like "*insert name* died" is more than enough to explain the person's current situation). Of course artistic freedom in web design is well and good. But some people start posting large pics in their entries for the sake of doing so rather than being relevant. If that's just going to be the case, couldn't it just be a link instead of forcing people to download half a meg of, say, Yuna? And the same goes for blog entries which contain nothing but lots of quiz results (especially those with large pic files). Oh yeah, and ignore the pic of my room below. =) And times like these, you're glad that the computer actually has a cache...

3) This really doesn't apply to a lot of people unlike the previous two. It's a matter of browser compatability. I mean unlike most people, I don't use Internet Explorerer. I use Netscape 6. And sometimes, people's coding (especially those who change their layout every few weeks or so) is optimized for IE that it Netscape becomes neglected. Some pages have the text merging, others missing a text file or two, and some even not loading at all. Well, I do turn on IE just to browse those blogs, but not as often as the other blogs which I can easily view through Netscape.

Everything has life

I'm not the first to formulate this theory but in Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Earth book, he did come out with the theory that every organism has life. Not only our living cells but even plants, rocks, even metals. Of course life does not automatically equate with sentience. I mean the cells in our bodies have life, but the organisms themselves don't have significant intelligence. Rather, all the cells in our body form us human beings, who are capable of thought as a collective (of cellular organisms).

I guess an extension of that theory is that anything we excrete has life as well, from tears to snot to shit. And each one of those is unique. I mean a teardrop is dumb as a rock, but my teardrop is different from yours or his or hers. And me being the fantasy fan that I am, perhaps a story could have a setting where magic has life. It's still a tool used by people but it does not necessarily have sentience. Perhaps you casting fireball and me casting fireball results in the same effects (such as a tree burning from the flames) but it doesn't mean both fireballs are the same. One might have a bluish tint than the other, or one might have a more oval shape. Either way, each spell is unique, rather than the ritualized and memorized spell stereotype common in the fantasy genre.

Obviously, an extension of this in real life is that my writing, or my composition, or my gardening/baking/drawing, etc. is unique from another person's. Perhaps you can even take the artist's point of view that art has life literally. And what differentiates us from this or that object is not our genetic makeup but the fact that we possess significant sentience to dwell on the fact that we are capable of thought (although there are a lot of stupid people out there...).

Updates

Did talk to Elbert an hour ago. He was asking me how to get to Dean's office. I merely replied "look for Slimmers... they're the ones with the banners edited with Photoshop." I mean seriously, Slimmers has these male and female pictures, which basically have Schwarzanegger bodies and then these Filipino heads on top of them. Clearly fake.

Jaime Bautista will hopefully be back from his vacation this week. And hopefully, I can finally take a break. Of course that's not likely since I'm enrolled in Mr. Pulan's class and I have six weeks to go through twelve books.