Who do I still think I am??

This one's about profiles in winter courage: Sonic.

30DBC PROMPT: "How long has it been since you changed the image on your biography page? Browse around your fellow competitors' bio pages and hopefully they have something up for you to see. "Profile Pictures" are commonplace on most social websites, so I want you to discuss them. What is appropriate? Do you show your face, or display mostly ambiguous pictures? Why?"

Hey everyone! Fascinating subject today in the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" , and one that caught me off guard. Allow me to explain...

It seems that I'd long since forgotten that WDC actually had a "Biography Page" that's separate from the "Bio Block" that everyone sees the first time they skip happily into your portfolio. I probably meant to set mine up when it was first launched forever ago, and then the thought left me, and I paid it no mind, especially since I don't even look in my own portfolio all that much anymore (an admission that could make me seem like a less-than-desirable WDC user). I know there's a ton of old items I should clean out of there (mostly old photos), and I will...probably about the same time I get around to adding a true biography of some sort.

In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually changed my Bio Block since I joined up. I did manage to take another look at it today out of curiosity once I saw today's prompt, and the link I posted in there to another poetry-themed website includes a picture of me that's at least 10 years old (the picture, not me). I guess I always assumed my Bio Block was more than sufficient info about me than actually trying to come up with all the details necessary that anything requiring reading the entire word "biography" (as opposed to "bio") would entail. Or better yet, I'm lazy.

Social networking...well, now, that's entirely different. I've probably changed my Twitter pic three or four times, and my wallpaper once. Facebook though, that one's changed fairly often. Maybe anywhere from one to four times any month, depending on how I feel. Right now, it's just a facial shot of me (a selfie, if you'll allow me to use a term all the cool kids are using these days) from this past October. And I haven't changed much at all since. But sometimes I'll throw something funny in there, which leads me to another point...

Here's a good rule of thumb regarding "appropriate": if you get a feeling something's wrong, it probably is. While I tend to play loose with language fairly often pretty consistently in regular face-to-face conversations with people I'm comfortable around, I try (operative word right there) to keep it within reason on Facebook. Sure, I'll occasionally see something I find too funny to pass up, but generally my posts (if they were based on the WDC ratings example) would probably fall somewhere between 13+ and 18+. I guess part of that has to do with me being a WDC member longer than a Facebook user and being conditioned to the ratings standards here, and part of it is just respecting that there might be older friends or family members that will see stuff on Facebook, which reflects back to me in different ways than a blog might...Facebook is a kind of a natural extension of ourselves these days that you sort of have to be careful of what you put out there. I compare it to the first time someone married the concept of the t-shirt and the magic marker and started making their own t-shirts; it was so long ago that if they were to write something obscene on it and wear it in public, it's possible they would've faced being arrested (or at least having to turn their shirt inside-out). Not the same, maybe, because we're so relaxed as a society now, but I still kinda cringe when I see people wearing eff-bombs on clothing more than if I were to overhear it in a private conversation between two people walking down the street. It's probable that people see you more on social media than they would in person...someone can be sitting in church, whip out their phone during a particularly boring sermon, and in seconds access you on Facebook, but would you meet up with them in the church lobby wearing a Megadeth hoodie with cusswords and skulls and blood all over it? Something to think about.

But that's just me. I think I stopped caring about how others express themselves a long time ago. It's when people stop expressing themselves that you should really be more concerned about.

BCF PROMPT: "The question: Is it harmful to see the good in everybody? Why? Why not?"

Switching gears over to the "Blogging Circle of Friends Prompt Forum" , I think this is a pretty good question, and what's right for you might not be right for the next person. It all depends what you've been through.

They (Scientists? Reporters? Parents?) say the human baby is the most pure thing in the world: it hasn't been taught yet to hate. It hasn't been lied to with any degree of subjective severity. It hasn't experienced failure at the hands of another. It can see before it speaks, but can't comprehend until a much older age.

And it takes longer for some than it does for others. I think we come out of the womb trusting, caring, and hoping everyone else is the same or close to it. And that's not a bad thing. We all know that life isn't fair, and some folks are nicer than others, and some care more than others, and some will hurt you more than others. Depending on how much, or how frequently, or with what depth occurs afterwards emotionally, is what informs us later on...and some are more equipped to balance out the discrepancies better than others. I don't necessarily believe it's the best thing to see the good in everyone, because life hasn't always been good to every person you come across in every situation (unless you're this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p29jRMHP3G0). It's more about being careful before you open up and let people in. Maybe I'm the only one I know who sees it that way. I don't know. All I do know is I've written a lot of words today, but I'm not sure I've really said much at all.

I want to be trusting, and trusted. There are very, very few people I can look at throughout the course of my history where I think the feelings are absolutely mutual. You just don't know where intentions and agendas can turn. But I will say that I think it all starts within; if I'm not buying what I'm selling, I doubt many, if any, others will.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

And sometimes, people can "get it" and connect in the places it means the most (if you know where those people are and where they hang out, let me know ).

Ok, so the song starts about two minutes in...apologies.

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

8, not -8: It looks eight is the number of the day in Buffalo, and it's not the negative wind chill...in fact, this might be an even bigger news story today than the "Polar Vortex" being predicted. After years of being teased by them seemingly at least once every half hour on all the television channels you could turn on in the Queen City, fast food drive-thru chain Sonic has finally announced they're coming to Buffalo (http://www.wivb.com/news/local/sonic-to-open-eight-drive-ins-in-buffalo). That means Buffalonians no longer have to plan their road trips around which cities have a Sonic within their borders. I think this is great news . The closest I ever came to a Sonic was seeing a sign outside of Cleveland saying "Coming Soon!!" I really hope they're not gonna let too many people down...we all saw last month what happened when Popeye's Chicken opened up downtown, with people waiting for hours in their drive-thru only to find it disappointing (http://www.wivb.com/news/local/popeyes-opening-snarls-traffic). I had Popeye's once on a layover in the Atlanta airport, a few years ago, and it was not great. The line was unruly and out of control, they had run short of some popular menu items, and we couldn't see how filthy the place really was until after we sat down...but we had to try it because it was different. I'm sure eventually the hoopla will die down, and Sonic won't be any busier than your local McDonald's, KFC or Mighty Taco (a Buffalo tradition).

What isn't dying down are all the warnings about how cold and snowy it is all over the place. While Emily was traipsing through hiking trails in Hawaii, the mid-west has been getting hammered with snow and sub-zero wind chills, and it looks like it's already shifted over to the Buffalo/Metropolitan area. Here in Cortland? It was like 45 degrees around midnight last night, and although it's super windy and pretty chilly today, the snow has been negligible. Now watch, it'll be miserable outside tomorrow, when I actually have to go out and do stuff.

Spent a better part of the afternoon trying to help a friend set up one of those "Home Theater In A Box" systems, and only having basic info about all the involved components to do it with while communicating over Facebook messages, plus a picture of the diagram it came with. She wants to use it with her laptop, but I'm a little handicapped by not seeing the system, her tv, the laptop's inputs/outputs, and the audio/video ins and outs on her tv antenna box for local channels. I told her it would've been easier for her to call off of work today, leave her place at 8am, drive the three hours to get me, drive back, and we would likely have had the whole thing set up in plenty of time before the snow started falling. It's failures in my thinking ahead about these things that lead me to situations like...

Possibly succumbing to setting up the Skype tile on my laptop so I can more easily get this home theater set up properly. I don't like talking on the phone as it is, and I can get bored easily by the sound of my own voice if all I'm doing is laying around talking...at least I have a purpose other than saying "Hi, how's things, blah blah blah, ok, bye". I just don't know how comfortable I'm gonna be with this whole Skype thing. I've seen how the lighting where I live affects pictures I've tried to take with my webcam (all the evidence you'll need is the "profile-type picture" I use at the very top of this blog- look at how well I've tied that into the 30DBC part of today's entry , taken last summer...only it's worse here at night). As things become more convenient, we sacrifice things like being able to go to the bathroom when we're on the phone with someone. Not that I've done that before or anything. Right?

So that's where I'm at today. Hope it's warm where you are. Peace, it's been good to me so far, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!

(You had to see that one coming.)