Tough Times

As much as I prefer the term "frugal", I've certainly been accused of being a cheapskate on more than one occasion. (Candace.) But in today's financial climate I feel inclined to revel in my frugality.  We just had some layoffs at work,  and for me that really hit home as to the state of the economy.  (As if Ryan getting his pink slip in December wasn't bad enough.)  I know there are a lot of things I could be doing to save even more money, but it is difficult to make the sacrifice sometimes.   Here is a great article I found addressing the situation.

You can call me Al...

Satchmo is an old nickname bestowed on me by my college buddies.  It gained initial fame as a nickname as Louis Armstrong's nickname due to his embouchure.  While I do have a big mouth, I'd like to think the reason I got mine was more because "Satchmo" was a riff on my actual name, Sacha.

Later on through a series of events I ended up with my most recent nickname, Ken Pants.  My buddy Shane would call me Sachie- Pants, was then just shortened to Pants.  Then one day in Las Vegas, we were lounging around the pool and Jamie was urging all of us to come up with our Napoleon Dynamite names as she really liked the concept of Ligers.  We decided that I was a koala since I loved hugs, and a hen since I tended to "mother" everyone. Koala + Hen= Ken.  So Ken Pants it is.  And that's why.  Just in case you were wondering.

Dear Kitty,

So first I had MySpace and got rid of it because I thought it was creepy that Rupert Murdoch could track what I liked and what I was doing.  Then I got on the Facebook which seemed better than MySpace in that you couldn't put stupid music or scrolling pictures all over it. Also the kids were all doing it and it was hip.  My tech savvy sister turned me on to the Facebook, and I really embraced it.  People hardly ever want to play games with me in real life, but all of a sudden I could play them on Facebook. From Scrabulous to Texas Hold Em Poker, I could play as much as I wanted in "ladder mode" and indirectly compete with all my "friends" based on our all time high score point values.  

I hate to admit it, but I have a tendency to be pretty competitive.  (I blame that on my parents as well as my inability to floss consistently. But that is another post.) I amassed over 300 "friends" on Facebook over the past year that I've been on it.  How many of those people are actual friends versus how many are people I once went to school with or knew that I'm just nosy enough to want to know what they are up to with out actually interacting with them?  The ratio is certainly skewed on the latter side. And you can do that quite easily on Facebook.  And now it seems that Facebook has been taken over by us old fogies.  I believe the harbinger of the end of Facebook's hipness was for me my best friend's mom asking me to be her friend. I hesitated.  Not that I was wanting to post all my drunken party pictures, but Facebook innately has the potential for showing the world all your embarrassing past. All it takes is an old friend with a scanner and a vindictive tagging streak.  I realized that all those people I "friended" so I could voyeuristically catch up on their lives will be informed of all kinds of random things I've been up to on Facebook regardless  of if I want them to or not.  And then I worry that Facebook is interrupting my life.  I do have a tendency to get OCD on stuff like that, but more troubling is the fact that I feel less social than I used to. We went to a party last night and it took me a bit to get into the mode of actual human interaction. Once I delved in I was fine, but it takes more effort in person and I've realized that social networking sites are easier for a pseudo misanthrope like me.  So I need to make more effort to actually call my friends and hang out with them in person.  I thought about deleting the Facebook account, but it seems that is impossible anyway, so the best choice I have is to severely restrict my privacy settings and find another outlet.

Which brings me to blogging. It seems to me that it is the new "everyone else is doing it so why can't we" activity.   But a blog is really a diary.  Blogspot being another faction of Google does not ease my mind that there are any less privacy concerns, but I guess I can just self censor as needed.  I'll give it a try for a bit and see how it suits me. I guess it's just another way to record the journey.

What do I want to be when I grow up? Older. That's a pretty safe bet.