Sunday 11 December 2005

Blogicide

Learnt of a new term (or internet fad) not long ago: Blogicide; basically a merge of the words blog and suicide. The act of killing your own blog.

Now I suppose everyone has a certain right to do so, especially when like a situation arises where people have been reading your private information and have been mistreating it, and you cease the blog's existence to protect your own dignity.

But when people commit blogicide for the sake of publicity? Now that sounds very much like a disorder to me. It almost sounds irritatingly cute in fact, with a Happy-Tree-Friends-esque feel to it when people actually subject their fondly tangible blogs to homicide. I guess it's just sad what society's turning to because of all the possible avenues of getting famous provided by the mass media like the internet and reality TV.

When blogging first began, the attraction and appeal of it all lay in the fact that it was almost an ironic desire to have a diary that is not only privy to the writer but to that of many other internet surfers as well. In other words, there was a subliminal novelty in the idea that your so-called private details can be seen by anyone else, either deliberately or in all randomness.

But now, pop-blogging is all about telling the world about yourself. Where it was once a bold move to splurge a secret on oneself to the rest of the world, people now actively participate in thoroughly attention-seeking expressions of 'private' info. Exhibitionists emerge claiming it isn't for the fame. Who're they kidding?

Man... No point getting too worked up over this though. It just happens to be one of my online pet peeves. Maybe next time someone wants to proclaim to the world about his or her sex life or present a plastic pretty face, just do us all a favour and proclaim that it is for the infamy and stop acting all coy because it really is very irritating to say the least.
Anyway, on one occasion when we were mounting duty, my Whiskey crew and I decided to all load the vehicle and head down to the tower. The thing is that not everyone is entitled to taking the vehicle - apparently the old CO never wanted to indent vehicles for us (coz he thinks we should be garang but stupid), but after much fighting for rights and shit the bigwigs of CDS just short of CO relented and got us vehicles, on condition that not everyone gets a free ride.

Which is obviously very stupid, since there's enough remaining space to make you feel like an idiot after only two out of the four crew gets on and you realise you have to walk 2km to Whiskey with your SBO and rifle. So we decided to all hop on, and when we reached Whiskey tower the DSC on duty that day promptly caught us for questioning and later gave us a stern warning.

If you've played Advance Wars on the GBA you'll know about the APV and it's usefulness in transporting infantry troops. Qinhong and I mused that if the CO you chose for the mission was LTC Kuet, if you tried to click on your troops to shift them into the APV, you can't. He just won't let the men load the vehicle. Haha. And if you used his 'CO power' your army will lose mobility and walk in the opposite direction (because of his infamous inability to convey messages properly and his tendency to instil uncertainty in his own men) and murals will sprout from the ground...

Recently, a couple of American warships docked at our wharf so we had an opportunity to interact with some of the American naval personnel who were doing watch at Whiskey (they're known as LOs, L-something officers, and they just do basic watch duties over their ship), and I've had a couple of interesting conversations. There was this dude who stayed in L.A. but he didn't like the glitzy culture there because everyone acted like they were crazy for fame and attention due to it being the home of Hollywood. He claimed his ex-girlfriend even had a part in the movie The Dukes Of Hazzard, where she played one of the sorority girls who held the door open for the main actor or something like that. Everyone there's fighting for a shot at the big time. Then he added stoicly that perhaps one day if she really made it to the big screen at least he could say, "oh you see that actress? I used to date her." lol.

If they weren't asking about the local places of interest, they'd be talking about their experiences out at sea - most of which were seemingly pretty much numbing journeys and tales of homesickness. Especially in the submarines; you had to be special or you'd go insane. Many of them are young sailors who signed on because of the comparatively more lucrative nature of the job and its scholarship opportunities.

Other times, we just patronised and humoured them. One American pointed out that he never understood why alot of the world doesn't like the United States coz he said that the US does more than its fair share and contributes alot to poor countries. To which Qinhong irritatedly pointed out (not in his presence of course) that the bloke didn't realise the proportions of their donations (somewhat like according to their donation to GDP ratio, which is pathetic) are miserable in comparison to that of much smaller countries, so they presume that like, America donating $5m is a much nobler sum than say, Singapore donating $1m. Shrugs.