Dear Occupy...

Dear 99%,

Let me start by saying I have no problem with protest. I have no problem with letting your government know what you're thinking but that isn't what I want to talk about. I want to talk about your message and your purpose. Let's face it, you're failing big time. The media doesn't care and the general public thinks of you as a bunch of lazy squatters. You harass police and get upset when they do their job and cry big bad government whenever you get the chance. With support for your movement dwindling I continue to ask myself why you don't give up. You sleep on the street in the cold and the elements whilst the rich you are protesting against sleep soundly in their beds. Am I the only one who see's that you may be doing this all wrong? Contrary to what you choose to believe this isn't some sort of revolution. It's about a bunch of people who are angry at their country's banking system. I agree with this, but lets not put it on par with the arab spring. I mean, come one. Those people were facing a murderous opressive government and well... your problem is more about a few slimy rich guys who crashed your economy. But here's the thing. What exactly do you hope to accomplish? Do you honestly think that taking to the street day in and day out is really going to make a difference? How about you study hard, get a good paying job and try and change the system from the inside out. It's one of the things that makes our society so great. You CAN go from rags to riches with a lot of hard work and a lot less whining.

When the Occupy movement began I wanted more then anything to go be a part of it but I have a job, bills to pay and responsibilities that can't be put on hold indefinitely whilst I try to change the world. Like it or not you live in a capitalist society. Accept that. If you don't like it then get out in your community, get elected. If people believe in what you believe then you shouldn't have too hard of a time getting your voices heard. But sleeping in parks? Blocking traffic and disrupting the lives of the very people you're trying to help? Enough is enough. You don't win the support of the 99% you represent if you piss them off.

-Chris

Human Nature and the Internet

The internet is an amazing tool. There is limitless access to information about everything you could possibly dream of. Not only that, if you need more information there are forums for basically everything under the sun that range from interesting to downright stupid. However, human nature strikes again. These forums are plagued by what can only be called internet Nazis who have for some reason made it their life purpose to prove others wrong and make them look like morons. Every forum has it's unique set of rules that all members must follow lest they be ridiculed and insulted by other members who think having 7,000 posts on a forum about nothing makes them better then the 'noob' who just signed up. God forbid you post something in the wrong topic, or even worse spell something wrong. It kind of goes like this:

New Member: Innocent question about something that would probably do better in a different sub forum.

Member 2: Insults for posting in wrong forum

Member 3: Insults for misspelling 'your'

Member 4: Complains about the rules being broken -begin rant about noobs-

Member 5: Attempts to answer original question

Member 6: Ridicules member 5's answer

Member 7: THIS THREAD HAS BEEN MOVED

Right? Ya. This isn't contained to forums either. News articles are full of people who have nothing better to do then point out all the reasons why the journalist is a moron and god forbid a news article is missing a comma. Guaranteed several people will point it out to them whilst insulting the intelligence of the poor journalist.

What is it about the anonymity of the internet that brings out the worst in people? Why do we focus on the rules and not the content? I believe that being on the internet is like being in a car. We know we can do whatever we want and nobody can retaliate.

But who cares? Why does it matter? It matters because there are people who don't turn into complete idiots on the internet. There are some of us who sit on the sidelines and don't participate in forum conversations because we don't feel like dealing with all you morons waiting to pounce on us. We might be able to contribute to the conversation or even solve whatever your problem is but you're SOL because we're not getting involved. That's why blogging is so great! I can write whatever I want and nobody can say boo. Although I don't participate in forums and I rarely comment on news articles I put out this challenge to the internet: Be nice to each other. There's no need to mock and ridicule because you believe someone is wrong. There's no need to fight because you disagree about something that everybody has a different opinion about and there's no need to insult, degrade and correct every single journalist who writes something you don't personally care about. The world is a big place my friends, there will always be people with contrasting viewpoints to your own and being a jerk won't change their beliefs. Here's to positivity on the internet!

Do we all need to go back to kindergarten? Clearly.

-chris

Attention Parents of teenagers!

So its been awhile! This won't be very long as I only have half an hour before I have to get ready for work. Yay? What a long week this is. Work sunday monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday and something tells me I'll be getting called in saturday and sunday as well. Too bad! Not gonna happen ;). But this brings up exactly what I wanted to talk about. Parents. Parents are great! They buy you things and keep you warm and dry and feed you and apparently assume you're superhuman. No, for real. If you are a parent I want you to read this as I'm directing this to you. Perhaps in your day, balancing high school and a part time job was easier. Part time job meant a few hours on the weekend or maybe a couple hours after school once or twice a week. Not to mention your school curriculum in grade 12 is now what we learn in grade 5. Believe me when I say things have changed. If you're like my parents you expect part time to mean 25-30 hours a week which roughly translates to this: wake up, go to school, get home, sit down for three minutes, go to work, get home around 10-11pm do homework until 1am and repeat. Then the dreaded weekend comes around and we are expected to work saturday and sunday. So now not only are we basically going non stop 24 hours a day 5 days a week but we don't even get a day off on the weekend. The law says workers must legally get one day off per 6 days worked. That's a person working 40 hours a week. How about students working (I include school and homework in this) from 7:00 in the morning to 1:00am monday to friday and 9-5 saturday and sunday. You then get surprised when we skip a few days of school to sleep or book a few weeks off work to get caught up. Thank god I'm not doing that anymore!

Here's my suggestion for you parents. Don't nag your kid to get a job after school. Recognize school for what it is. A full time job. One that not only takes up 6 or 7 hours of their day but also 2-3 hours of their evening as well. It's a 9 hour a day job and you want to add another 3-5 hours a night of actual work on top of that? Fine, you do that. But I challenge you to do the same. Go out and find yourself a student type part time job that takes up your entire evening and weekend on top of your normal full time job and you'll STILL come out on top because you won't have to come home at night and spend your last waking hours doing homework. See how fast you burn out. Contrary to popular belief teenagers are not robots meant to work 24/7. They burn out, fast. They require more sleep then you do and quite simply don't get it.

That's all. Rant over. But I can hear it now. "What you're saying is that I should just let my child be lazy and they won't learn work ethic blah blah blah". Not at all, that is what school is for. That is what homework is for. It teaches responsibility and time management and that is where you as a parent come in. Teach your own damn kids work ethic. And don't think that your 16 year old child should be working their fingers to the bone and contribute to the household because they owe you nothing. You brought them into this world and they are your responsibility until they turn 18. Even then, if you care at all about their future you'll let them focus on school because in the end all a teenager sees is that going to work gets them money and going to school becomes a pain in the ass so they'll stop going! Smarten up parents, you aren't doing your kids a favour by making them work to the point of a breakdown.

-Chris

Oh interworld net. I found this video yesterday which has been around for awhile but I tend to avoid youtube because Rogers has such unreasonably LOW internet caps that it just isn't in thebandwidth budget unless I'm in that I don't care mode...but that's another blog.

Anywhooooo it's by Andrew Bravener and it's about youtubers whoring themselves out for likes and comments and subscribers and such and I couldn't agree more! Run over to the youtube and watch it. Let me just find the link...just a moment...duh duh duh.....here. No seriously, watch it. I'll wait...
...
...
...
Welcome back! Now let me tell you a little tale about me. I blog (odviously, did I need to even say that??) I tweet, I facebook, I youtube and although I have no problem posting interconnecting links in my blog posts or my twitter or perhaps publishing my newest youtube video on facebook, I would not consider myself 'in it for the views' or the page hits. I genuinely post my crap on the internet because I enjoy doing it. I enjoy writing these pointless blog posts and connecting with old friends on facebook and twitter... well I whore myself out on twitter. Who doesn't?

But the moral of my story is this. I completely agree with that video I posted and just think people should start considering why they do stuff. Why did you upload that video on youtube? Did you think that people would genuinely enjoy it or are you doing it for views? Do you write blog posts with a gagillion tags so that a bunch of people will accidentally stumble upon it or do you write about what's in your head in the hopes that similar people might come across it and genuinely enjoy what you have to say?

In closing I'm gonna show you how all my blog posts COULD end :)
Byeeee
tweet me! CLICK
facebook me! HERE
SKYPE: chris.green3377
MSN (just kidding.)
GOOGLE +
GOOGLE MY HOUSE AND KNOCK ON MY DOOR! (No just kidding, don't do that)