Celebrate the Small Things: A taste of metal

None of my friends, in real life, or in my online life are major heavy metal fans like myself which means I have no one to talk to about one of the loves of my life. My son used to be. He was once obsessed with Metallica, and he introduced me to the band which is now one of my favourites: Australia's own, Parkway Drive. Sadly he has moved on from his metal phase.

To overcome this problem, I did what everyone does when they have no one to talk to...I turned to social media. I found a Facebook group for heavy metal fans, and now I can exchange opinions and music with headbangers from all over the globe. This gives me pleasure, so today I am giving thanks for Crescent Heavy Metal Rock Music.

I also want to give thanks for the genre itself, which contains surprising diversity. Bach is said to be the originator of heavy music, and many of the great early heavy metal bands, Black Sabbath for example, credit this influence. I don't like all the sub genres of heavy metal, but I doubt anybody does. Whilst some think heavy metal is just noise, the bands I like, impress and move me with their musicianship and the lyrical content. I actually find loud, fast and aggressive music relaxing. Okay, so that sounds weird, but each to their own right?

My top five metal bands are, in no particular order: POD, Metallica, Disciple, Parkway Drive, and Trivium.

Here's something moderate for your possible enjoyment:

Celebrate the Small Things: Fluff and Bubbles

Social media represents different things to different people. For some it is an addiction, for others a time filler/waster. To some it is a weapon of activist/fundamentalist warfare, for others it's all about relationships, (sharing and connectedness). For some it's about information, for other it's about entertainment. For some people it's a mixture of all these things with recipes as diverse as humanity itself, while for others it's nothing at all.

I have an eclectic group of friends on Facebook so I get exposed to a wonderful variety of people and their worldviews. I love it! It's so fascinating - irritating and offensive at times, to be sure, but nonetheless engaging, informative and entertaining.

From time to time, I like to take my friends on by making provocative comments because I like a good discussion. At other times, I just want to 'share' my own thoughts. I also, on occasion, simply want some fluff and bubbles. I think most memes are stupid so I just ignore them. It still mystifies me how a video of ducks walking along a road gets millions of views on YouTube, but...whatever. I don't tell anyone what they should or shouldn't like or share because I respect people.

Today I feel grateful for the World Wide Web, and in particular, social media which is, on balance, a wonderful thing. So today because I'm feeling light and fluffy, here's a video of ducks; just for you.

Celebrate the Small Things: Going, leaving, gone.

After a relatively short and fiery sojourn in the Australian Alliance of Atheists Facebook group, I pulled the pin this week. 

I was often frustrated when trying to discuss issues, but I could have endured the frustration. For example, people suggesting that there is no evidence outside of the Bible that there ever lived a man called Jesus Christ, and me pointing out that a first century Jewish historian called Josephus wrote about Jesus, and them saying Josephus' writing was forged or faked. 

I also could have put up with the name calling and disrespect, which I mainly dealt with by blocking the offenders. However, I could no longer stand the negativity. In fact, I began to feel poisoned by it, and I was concerned about the very offensive memes being posted on AAA, appearing in the feeds of my Facebook friends. For atheists to deny that there is a God is one thing, but to suggest that nothing good at all comes from religion, is really wrong and stupid.

I made some friends on AAA, and I look forward to continuing  online interactions with them, but today I am celebrating the small action of clicking a button to leave a group.

Bits and Pieces

My evidently long forgotten desire to post articles here on a daily basis, has resulted only in increasingly sporadic additions. Although I have nothing to say, I feel the urge this fine Sunday morning so here I am. Here's a collection of snippets from my intermittently focussed life.

I've lost interest in Facebook. I jump on every day but rarely find anything to excite me or interest me. It does however, please me to see others, sharing their lives and opinions in words and pictures.




Australia's thrilling one wicket loss to New Zealand. I watched the last couple of hours of this game in which Australia lost 8 wickets for 26 runs and were bowled out for 151 in a World Cup game at Eden Park. Despite the impossibility of defending such a low score, Australia managed to dismiss nine of the ten batsmen required to win the match. After Mitchell Starc destroyed the lower order with fast accurate bowling, New Zealand's Richardson tonked the ball over the fence for a six to win the match. So exciting. I love cricket!

Three men in black body suits. We went to Paddy's Markets yesterday for a spot of shopping and had lunch in the food court at Market City. The three men also carried mini sandwich boards on their backs and were handing out advertising flyers. As they passed us, we walked past a ninety year old man on stilts, who was dressed as a clown and swivelling a hula hoop around his hips. The things people do!




Good bye Dinosaur. I finally bought a new phone and said goodbye to my five year old HTC Desire Z. I bought a Samsung Galaxy 3s, and I've never been happier with a phone. I don't buy the latest technology because I don't need it and I don't have enough money. This twice superseded phone is great: very easy to use and it allows me to do a number of things I couldn't before, for example send and receive MMS, use voice commands and film myself - which might not be such a good thing. 

Lovesick continues to develop slowly. I struggled to write 1300 words on Friday and that is the sum total of my writing for the week. How do I feel about the slow progress? Philosophical. I can't force it and therefore I can't be bothered worrying about it. It will all come together in due course. I don't think it matters how long it takes. I think what's most important is that it becomes the best novel I have ever written...and it will be.

Photo sources:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/aled-blake-falling-out-love-1828195
http://www.costumecraze.com/category/sports-costumes

Too Much Trouble

I have nearly 400 Facebook friends. I spent an hour individually messaging them - well almost individually- before Facebook messaged me to suggest that I may be doing something inappropriate, to let them know that my third novel Ashmore Grief had been released. I didn't ask anyone to buy it, but I did include a link to the website wherein one can find the blurb, a preview of chapter one, and the purchase links. At last count, after 7 days, around 6 people have replied to my message.

I have been asking people to Like the Ashmore Grief Facebook page for roughly a month, and have managed to get 77. My goal is 100, and everyday I am sorely tempted to "buy" Likes. Sorry, I mean "promote" my page. The last status update was apparently viewed by 55 people. Have a guess how many comments the status received. If you said, "less than one" you are correct.

I have been blogging weekly for 4 years, and despite various attempts to increase traffic to my site, including numerous direct requests for friends to join the site, I am stuck on 20 something followers. Most of my posts receive no comments except for spammers who can get through only because I have made it easier for real people to comment if they want to. It seems that they don't want to.The most comments I have received was 6, which occurred during the 2013 A-Z Blogging Challenge.

Over the past week, I have contacted nearly twenty media organisations, newspapers, television and radio shows. One reply. I contacted nearly a dozen organizations who work with refugees and asylum seekers, seeking a partnership based on the fact that Ashmore Grief deals with that very topical issue. Four replies: two said no, one said maybe.

I must be insane to worry about all this, but if I am, then I welcome the madness. I embrace it because every now and then someone tells much how much they love my writing, and they get very animated when talking about how they feel about one or more of the characters I created. Once in a while, I get a quantum of encouragement and I press on, I write on.

Oh, and as for Twitter? I get one reply, or retweet for every twenty tweets, and I have over a thousand followers. Clearly, either I am boring, or people can't be bothered. I'll go with the latter.

The Fast Track to Clarity

It's easy to get lost, to lose perspective, to live an unbalanced life. There are times when I not only forget to stop and smell the roses, but I can't smell the coffee, and the stench of some dead creature in the corner of my office cupboard fades from my olfactory register. Sometimes I run but I forget where I am going.

For five days this week, I banned myself from social media. I fasted from something which in itself is neither good not bad. For me, however Facebook and Twitter, had begun to distort my view of myself and of reality. One of my best lines, when my children show me something on Facebook, is that Facebook makes me despair for humanity. Lately, it had been making me despair for myself.

The problem is I don't like to communicate in a vacuum, and who does? If I say something, I would like a response. If I ask a question, I would like an answer. My experience of social media is that it is mostly one sided. Roughly half a dozen of my Facebook friends interact with me, and the figure for Twitter is even lower. This dearth of interaction annoys me, and the reason I get irritated is because I am self centred.

I am looking for love in the wrong places. Social media is a tool not a barometer. The popularity game promises great rewards but delivers superficiality. I chose not to play this week, and as a result I wrote four chapters of my next novel. Fasting something which I enjoy (usually) but do not need, helped me to see clearly that I am an author, and I am important regardless of how many hits, friends or tweeps I have. This clarity led to productivity.

I also fasted from Coke for three days, but that is another story.

Photograph sources:
http://www.totalwallpapers.com/wallpapers.asp?number_id=574
http://hicks-tuj.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/social-media-and-its-contributions-to.html