Word up

I’ve been on a roll lately hearing from people I used to hear from all the time. I guess it helps being on or around a computer 8 hours a day at work and then having the option to have another 4 hours in the evening. I came to realise quite early on in the history of this blog that I don’t and probably won’t ever have a really big fan base, which I suppose is fine and I guess since I’ve been not - not in Canada I’ve been pretty lazy in the whole blog posting thing. I’ve mostly concentrated on getting caught up with people I haven’t yet seen and as each week goes by I’ve gradually knocked a few off. This week’s cultural topic is:


RANTING

I can’t actually find a real definition for ranting, and that’s fine too, because I think the biggest thing there is to understand about ranting is that ranting comes form the heart, and when you’re heart’s not it in, there’s nothing to rant about.

I've been inspired a couple of times in the last little while about something to write but when I actually sit down to write something I just can't think about what it was I was inspired by. Do I have some sort of dementia? I don't think so. But I just can’t put my finger on it. I find myself sometimes mixing up simple English words with French ones, even though my native language is English. And even right now as I’m writing this, I’m kind of wondering where it might actually take me. Ranting turns into rambling and rambling just may not make sense.

I have to admit it, lately I haven’t been very good with the blog but that goes without saying. Hockey’s been on, football has taken over my Sundays and any rants I do come in the form of email or Facebook. I really like personal rants, but at the same time, there’s something gratifying about knowing that no one will read what you have to say but anyone could if they wanted to.

I never used to understand people who worked in offices all day and complained about always being on the computer blah blah blah and because of that didn’t want to work on computers on their own time at home. This is bunk. Sure, you sit at a desk all day, maybe you get up to get a coffee or hang out at the water cooler and of course you’ll have your time at lunch, but there is a HUGE difference between home computer and work computer. Like what? How about the liberty to do whatever you want whenever you want at home. Yeah, that’s a stupid thing to say, but that’s the point. Rants don’t have to make sense.

Blogging gives people like me the chance to put our ideas public. I think I have a pretty good format and if I weren’t me and I knew me or didn’t know me, I might think I might stop and take some time to read it. While I was away, I treated my blog like some sort of channel to entertain myself, maybe my friends, and I wrote as though I was writing an actual article and I created strict yet fake deadlines for myself to meet.

The thing is, you look at semi-celebrities, like Andy Rooney who has made a living ranting about stupid things. A couple of weeks ago I watched his rant which comes at the end of CBS’s 60 Minutes where he went on for 2 minutes about people carrying bags. Now, having said that, he IS really good at talking about something that doesn’t matter. Somehow, in that segment, he was able to incorporate street interviews with people who take books to work with them and somehow managed to accuse them all of reading on the job and wasting company time and money. That’s incredible.

Of course, most stand up comics talk about things that don’t really matter, observations if you will. Jerry Seinfeld pretty much dominated the observation realm in the 1990s, but it’s a comical fad that seems to be spreading. Most recently comics have put a spin on producing t-shirts or women drivers or being a man who doesn’t like working out. And they can all be funny. Of course, humour is a topic that can be discussed some other day, but the thing that I really hate hearing about from comics is them complaining about their wives or their kids or household pains. I don’t like it mostly because I can’t relate to it so for that reason it’s not funny. Seinfeld has now actually morphed into this type of show now and that’s fine too, because everyone grows up eventually, even adults.

As I’m writing this I’m contemplating not publishing it at all, because there’s no real reason for anyone to actually read it…that’s how much continuity it has in it. But that’s the point of ranting about ranting. Ranting doesn’t actually need make sense and if it DID make sense then it wouldn’t be ranting, it would be a well-planned writing. But that’s a rant for a different day…