The Toadless Boy

Have you ever seen a Pixar movie you didn’t like?

As a Man thinking about his Future, I sometimes think about my Past. There are some things that were an everyday part of your life when you were a kid that no longer cross your mind except when writing about it on your magic computer website.

The first and most indisputable (unless you have a subscription to National Geographic or are a paleontologist) is dinosaurs. Remember how important the location of a stegosaurus’ brain(s) were and the hierarchy of coolness for dinosaurs were? Now, I’ve gone days without thinking about a dinosaur. Days.

Other ones that I propose are:

• Baby teeth
• Being good for Santa
• Any form of practice (baseball, soccer, piano)
• Jumping beans (Man, I assumed I would see these everyday in my adult life. Woody Woodpecker did.)

What say you? What consumed your child mind but no longer is a blip on the radar? The most fascinating ones are the ones you thought would never leave the radar.

I’ve already prepared a post to follow this to cleanse the palate due to the ranting and bitching that will occur in this post. But, it needs to be said.

Get up off my shit, people. I say this for more than just me but I speak from personal experience.

I live a life and part of that life is lived online. This ain’t no Second Life escape but it is a hobby that I enjoy and enjoy sharing with others. I am aware that I am doing just that but I also expect a few things in return.

The Internet is an amazing thing. I can create website(s) that can interact with friends and notify people when I’ve newly posted. I have full editorial control over what I want to say. I think this helps keep my sites from being boring. Or at least it pleases me to just say what I want. This offers someone else a (very small) glimpse of what I’m like. I bet you feel so special that I let you in to my wonderful private life and get to know the Toadless Boy a little.

That ’s next: my anonymity. You may have noticed there are a few monikers on this site and to be honest I can’t even keep them straight. I have titled the site the Toadless Boy and I’ve used the URL of Mark Fore (my default online persona). Neither of these really describe me and I know my full real name has been associated with this site before, although I try to avoid that as much as possible. This is primarily in case I run for president and not because I am embarrassed by anything I present. But because I crudely attempt to keep my identity at least unsearchable, please play along. If I haven’t advertised my blog to you, don’t advertise/identify it to others. Let them find it on their own.

If I don’t want anybody to read it, then why do I put it openly online instead of in some old school emailed newsletter to friends? Multiple reasons. First, I want it to be open. If someone wants to refinish their old floors, I have some information out there on that. If someone found me because of my interest in making monthly mixes and they like my impeccable taste in music, they can follow my posts. These people don’t need to know who I am to be part of my target audience. Second, I don’t like to force my writing on anyone. I enjoy it when my close friends read what I write and sometimes it opens up new discussions at a tailgate or allows a friend to learn that I love talking about the misuse of statistics, but if they find my drivel on music they’ve never heard of lame, they can just ignore my writing altogether. I also enjoy the technology. I’ve learned more about PHP and CSS by keeping up my own blog. I’ve increased my vocabulary and focused on editorial things such as page layout and images.

I’m pretty comfortable with what I present to people in meatspace and cyberspace. It’s a fair representation of me but it’s no substitute for actually knowing me. I am not concerned with employers (future or current) finding this space and judging me negatively based on it. First of all, I will cite the usual mantra of “Do I really want to work for someone who judges me based on an occasionally updated blog?” Secondly, I hope that someone viewing this sees that I am a generally positive and interesting person or at the very least I am capable of writing complete sentences with above average spelling.

Advice for those that know the writer but a blog was not intended for them: If you enjoy getting these little golden eggs of insight in to a coworker’s, a relative’s, a teacher’s, an authority figure’s, an acquaintance’s life, keep it to yourself. By unfairly judging, you are only killing the goose. You are taking something from them that they enjoy and have ruined it for everyone. If you feel they are doing something wrong, confront them about it. That’s what comments are for. To open up a discussion about the topics. I’m not super nuts on the whole Web 2.0 thing, but commenting on a low-traffic blog is pretty effective.

If the writer is fulfilling his or her personal duty of keeping things (especially relating to someone else) mostly anonymous, then fulfill your duty of not giving a shit. If you feel the writer is hurting you or others in some way (which they most likely are not), let them know. I’m sure you can figure something out.

Most people are able to figure out sarcasm. Most employers would understand that just because I wrote “get up off my shit” on my semi-anonymous blog that I would not write that in a business correspondence with our biggest customer in Korea. Most people will not care that I once called my dad an “asshole” in response to an inflammatory discussion of human rights. Most people will understand, despite what a once-in-a-while post might make them think, that I love my family, my wife, my friends, my job and my life.