Short Notice Syndrome and Social Degradation

Are you always getting told about a birthday party or wedding or whatever at the last-minute? You may have short notice syndrome.

Why do people feel like they don’t have to give you any notice for events, anymore? Is it because social media makes them apparent enough that people think, “oh, hey, you must have seen I have a birthday coming up in a couple of weeks on Facebook,” or is it a generational thing, where they’re just inviting you to be polite, but did it at the last-minute because they know you need more notice and won’t be able to make it? Or is it more personal than that; is it me?

I’m starting to believe that it’s the latter. For a friend’s child’s birthday party, they probably at least knew the day they were planning on having it, a couple of weeks in advance. Maybe the time was iffy, but workable. If I know a party for a small child is on a certain day, I can presumably set aside a small chunk of my afternoon, since that’s when they tend to be (before the child gets tired and cranky). I imagine that their family members knew about it in advance, probably a week or so. When do you think I get told? That’s right, the day before! I’ve calmed down, but it really aggravated me at first. I’m not saying this stuff to put people on blast. It’s just to bring about an awareness of societal courtesies and to express my feelings in the best ways I know how.

Who knows, maybe they did just throw this shindig together the day before, and maybe I’m just jumping to conclusions? I wouldn’t put it past them and they both think I’m an a**hole (it’s been expressed). Except the problem is, it’s not just this particular couple that pulls this on me, it’s an overwhelming amount of people. About the only person that doesn’t do it, is my mother. She’s all about advanced notice and has a strong sense of propriety. That’s what leads me to think it might just be generational. At least until I think about a particular family member (same generation as her) who will literally tell me about something a couple of hours beforehand. At which point, I feel an obligation to deny the request, just on principle. That short of notice is absurd, unless it’s a purely spontaneous event, but that should be made aware. I’m down for spontaneity in moderation or a good surprise. Hell, I love surprises! Just communicate that to me.

All I know is that the more it happens to me, the more reclusive I become and then I’m sure people wonder why I never come to any parties or whatever hoopla is going on. In the computer world, we call it graceful degradation. Eventually I won’t have to worry about getting short notices because I won’t get invited at all. I’m not sure what the takeaway from this post is. It’s more of just a rant. Maybe people think similarly about me, considering I never invite anybody to anything. I don’t believe in celebrations. Muahahahahaha!!!!

Music for Mood Swings

When you’re feeling beat up by the world and you’re not sure if you should press on or give up, what music do you throw on? Is it something uplifting and inspiring, like a pop or reggae, or do you throw on the emo and wallow in self pity?

I’ve found that predicting what kind of music I will throw on just depends on the day and whether I’m in a depression (can be cyclical or spontaneous). I can still feel happy or at least content while depressed and sad when I’m not depressed. So I must distinguish between at least 4 states: depressed/happy, depressed/sad, undepressed/happy, and undepressed/sad.

If I’m depressed and sad, that’s when the emo type of music comes out and I go deeper into the rabbit hole. This is when the tears flow and suicidal tendencies peek their nasty head out. Out comes The Cure, The Fray, and pretty much every other band with a “The” in the title. Oh, and some Band of Horses, though I also listen to them a lot, anyway. When I’m depressed and happy, I usually bust out the happy music, maybe because it might help snap me out of my funk. This is when I listen to copious amounts of reggae and electro-pop (e.g. Cut Copy, MGMT, etc.).

If I am NOT depressed (I should really find a word for this and am open to suggestions) and sad, here comes the country and 90’s alt rock. Bring on Darrius Rucker or Hootie and the Blowfish. The former is really just an acoustic version of Hootie, let’s face it. The 90’s had some really great music for your down times. You’ve got your Toad the Wet Sprocket, Cranberries, Sister Hazel, Gin Blossoms, and all the like. I think this state is the one I spend the most time in. It’s really just an instance of nostalgia. When I’m undepressed and “happy”, I bust out the punk and metal. I’m sure that sounds bizarre to you, but if I’m listening to that, I’m getting stuff done and motivated. Maybe it’s the fast tempo, I don’t know. Also, I’m a punk at heart and an idealist. From that standpoint, it makes more sense.

My music taste is probably way too broad to be covered by only four states and such generalizations, but it’s just something I wanted to put thought into, since music is such a powerful part of my life. It deserves some attention and is kind of fascinating.

I would love to know what kind of you listen to when you’re in certain moods, or even just recommendations. I see blogs as a living conversation, ever-evolving.

WordPress

I didn’t realize how powerful even the free version of wordpress is. I just added those cool widgets on the sidebar for twitter and instagram, as well as linked all my other social profiles at the bottom of the page. Now my few, but powerful posts can be easily shared on most of the major social networks. Pretty cool. Can’t wait to start using this more for all my ranting and raving.

Treehouse

Teamtreehouse.com is a wonderful resource for developers at any level. They offer courses on many languages, such as WordPress, Java, HTML, and AJAX. There is a small subscription fee of $20 per month, but you have access to any course that they have available. Thousands of hours of tutorials are at your disposal. It’s doubtful you could go through them all in a month, but if you were determined to, you could get through a ton of material for a relatively low price. If you really can’t afford it, then you can refer five friends and get your entire service for free. They have multiple instructors to cater to whatever style of learning you enjoy. I also like that they have a built-in IDE, so you don’t have to own very many programs or possibly none at all. For languages such as Objective-C or Swift, you do need a Mac to run xCode, which is the only pitfall I foresee for some users. Lastly, the tutorials are fun and useful programs that you can use as a foundation for software of your own in the future, which is a nice benefit.

Hello world!

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Happy blogging!