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Now and Then

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A few weeks ago, the last Beatles song, "Now And Then" was released. The last time I was excited about a new Beatles song, new episodes of Friends were still being made, and America Online (AOL) was one of the few ways to get home Internet access. Vinyl was dead, cassettes were on their way out, and the only other way to get that new Beatles album was on CD. Some went to Sam Goody or Kmart for their CDs while others got a discount from Colombia House or BMG. Though, I don't think Beatles albums were ever offered at a discount.  I can remember listening to CDs on the family PC while popping in and out of AOL chatrooms. In just a few years, I would experience my first streaming radio stations while customizing my MySpace profile. That all changed in 2007 with iPhones and Facebook. After that, I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to sit at a PC or buy physical copies of music.  It wasn't until the first app release of SpaceHey this week that I realized the nost
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It's really 90s?

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The first time I can remember anyone making a big deal about shoes was the beginning of the 7th grade, 1989. Throughout the 90s, there were great colors. I remember Bugle Boy offering jean shorts in primary colors and wild "day glow" t-shirts. So imagine my excitement when I find these shoes at my local store store in 2022. I thought it was 90s-inspired, but I can't find any men's shoes from then that look like what I remember. For instance, the two most popular shoes in my 1989-1990 year were Nike Air Jordans and Reebok Pumps ... but they weren't colorful. I can't figure out where I got this idea. 30 years later, maybe my memory is fading. The two items I can track down are both from 1998, and by then, I wasn't a teenager: the Seinfeld 8-ball jacket and the Motorola StarTAC. So maybe the shoes aren't authentically 90s. And maybe my memory is starting to fade. And maybe, as my hair all starts turning white, I want to recapture those colors I thought
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Y2K Nostalgia

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Whenever I log into SpaceHey , I can easily imagine that everyone else online is in a computer lab full of colorful iMac computers. The Internet is too new to be broken; it's just awkward . Everything was awkward then. "Awkward" was the catch phrase. The Internet was too slow to be "necessary," computers were too big to be portable, and cellphones were mostly for playing Snake. I can afford to idolize that era because it's behind me and glistens with nostalgia. Let's be honest: I kind of hated it. MTV mostly stopped playing music videos, playing reality shows instead. My iPod reduced my CD collection from an entire shelving unit to something smaller than a remote control. But downloadable music meant illegal downloads were wrecking the music industry. Record stores weren't places to find music ... if you went to them at all. The combination of computers and satellite feeds meant radio stations were automated or featured DJs from major cities, no one
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Remembering MySpace in 2021

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I signed up for a SpaceHey account today for the sole reason that it looks like old school MySpace. The student who wrote it is too young to have belonged to the site back then, but was inspired by stories his parents and others told about it. My current MySpace account was created to explore the MySpace reboot as a music platform. It's looks nothing like its popular social media version, and maybe that's why it makes me sad.  I only vaguely remember killing my original MySpace profile in 2005 or 2006 because there was a new search feature that let users find people "near you." This meant I got several friend requests a day from any girl within 50 miles who was old enough to be online without supervision but too young to drive. I was in my mid-twenties, and that sort of attention really didn't appeal to me. This was about the time that MySpace had become so customizable that many profiles were unviewable. My high school friends were mostly marri
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Feeling Like A Dinosaur

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It's hard not to feel like a dinosaur when you go to look for something that everyone else knows is gone.  Imagine asking where you can send a telegraph message, asking someone at Wal-Mart for a LaserDisc version of a recently released movie or a new video game that you load on floppy discs. That could be a fun joke. (Film it and post the reaction on YouTube.) It's a bit more bewildering when you seem to be the only one who doesn't know it went away. Clip art did that to me last week. I hadn't looked for the "Insert Clip Art" button for several years. I thought maybe I'd lost my mind, but it turns out Microsoft ended their clip art gallery in 2014 . What's worse is that the button I was looking for hadn't been included in MS Office since their 2003 version. My memory told me it would be right there ... after possibly 16 years of not using clip art? To me, clip art was one of the last things we could share as a culture. It was like a pe
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Location: Mattoon, IL 61938, USA
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A New Look

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I hadn't altered the look of my blog in about 5 years, so I thought it was time to change things up. New design for 2019. Old design. The design in 2011. This is all part of my effort to tether my blog to my YouTube account as I get closer to sharing an ongoing project I've had in development for some time. We'll see how it goes. Basically, this blog post is for my memory more than anything else.
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Location: Mattoon, IL 61938, USA
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Breathe

Have you ever breathed on glass — a mirror — a cold window — and watched a pattern emerge? That's how my mind works when I read. When I read that 7 kids are shot in America every day, I think about glasses. 👓 I'm thinking of glasses because most of these kids who are shot and do the shooting are poor. I think about glasses because Medicaid usually doesn't cover glasses. I'm thinking about how hard it can be to hit a target while in a moving car on a street full of pot holes ... and that there's not a shooting range to practice at ... and that there's every possibility the shooter is a nearsighted kid without glasses. The "wrong people" are bound to die because that kid can't shoot straight or see who he thinks he's aiming for. Mind you, it's particularly chaotic in places like Chicago because we've done a good job arresting gang leaders without addressing why they exist. Imagine a Domino's or Papa John's without general manage
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