jLOG

Today I turned 28. I woke up early for once, got to work early, and now I’m itching to go home. Not that I have anything particularly fun planned, I just kinda want to go home.

This weekend I attended my first Oktoberfest! It was awesome, everything I’d expect it to be. Good food, good beer, and lots of fun people. My friend Alex and I were there from 11:30AM until around 9PM. Needless to say we had plenty of time to sample the brews. I actually ended up sticking with a dark beer. When I say dark I mean DARK, this beer might as well have been crude oil. But damn was it delicious. Luckily the hangover on Sunday wasn’t too bad. By 10AM I was already feeling better.

But anyway, back to my bday. I’ve got nothing planned for tonight so I’m figuring either doing something last minute or it’ll be a quiet night in. We shall see!

Every year as it nears my birthday I begin to have the same worries about where my life is going. I start to look at what I’ve accomplished, where I’m going, how I’m progressing towards my goals. This year is a bit different. I’ve made some drastic changes in my life and what I want to do with it. As a result I’m doing well with the new goals, but I still feel like I’m going nowhere and accomplishing nothing.

I have two years until I’m 30 and my life is nowhere near where I thought it’d be. I’ve had more experiences than I really thought i would at this age. Most of which in areas I didn’t expect. But even with that I’m just left with this empty feeling like I’m wasting the life I’ve been given. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it. I’m not helping anyone, I’m not leaving my mark anywhere. I’m just “getting by.” My little brother got married this last Saturday, he’s also going to be having a kid in the somewhat near future. In a way I’m glad. But not because it makes him happy, but because it’s gotten the family off my case about settling down and popping out grand kids for them. I’m not ready to tell them I’m never going to do that. I have nothing against kids or parenthood, I just don’t think it’s right for me.

I keep joking around with my friends that I’m turning into a lecherous old man. My hobbies, interests, and dating habits all seem to support this. I really have no problems going through the rest of my life this way. I’m okay with it. Therein lies the problem, I don’t understand how I can be so comfortable and content having a complete 180 degree view of life from just over a year ago. It’s very foreign to me how content I am just being me and doing my own thing without needing anyone else around. I sit around and play my guitar, smoke cigars, drink, play video games, and play with my dogs and am perfectly content. Alex made a joke that if I had a cowboy hat and boots I’d be a country singer.

All of this leaves me wondering, “Is this it? Is this all I’m here for?” I like my life, I love who I am. So why am I freaking about about approaching 30 so much? It’s just a number. I feel like I’m okay with where my life is going because I have to be okay with it. That if I strove for something else I’d see that I’m failing miserably at it. I just don’t want to grow old and regret making the wrong choices.

I’ve been doing some thinking lately about what kind of a person I am. Not in any particular regard, just the basic me.

I was talking with a friend and she read off some personality generalizations from The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and Others In Your Life book. After hearing all the options I determined that I was a 1) Perfectionist and a 2) Giver. Not a terribly good combination, especially how I saw them.

1) Perfectionist
I am overly critical of work I do and do not take compliments or praise well. I never see anything I do as “good enough” to meet my ultra-high standards or expectations. Being an artsy/creative person this trait lends to a lot of anger and frustration in my work. Especially areas I am not proficient in. I have an idealistic view of life that I understand and assume everyone else understands and chooses to ignore. Thus I become frustrated about how ignorant and impolite other people are. In general this aspect of myself makes me extremely negative and spiteful of the world I live in.

2) Giver
I seek attention and companionship by giving of myself excessively. Often I give so much that when I am given little to nothing in return I become angered at the other person who may not even realize just how much I have done for them. I modify my personality or interests to better fit with the people I want to please. I don’t do this as much as some can but I know I adapt well. Another aspect of this trait is that when others attempt to be a #2 (Giver) I am completely turned off by them. I don’t feel the attention I am given is earned or warranted and I immediately want to expel that person from my life. Parts of this trait are good, I am a natural mediator and good friend as long as the effort I put in is equally met by the other person. If done too much this trait can take on very negative aspects in relationships. It can make a person needy, clingy, and dependant. In this way I am less like this and more like #1.

The combination of these traits really doesn’t bode well for me. After hearing these and seeing how well they fit into how I see myself I took some time to really evaluate who I really am.

I really feel like part of me was lost a long time ago. A part that was still innocent and hopeful. Part of me that clung to these ideals about people and life. Something I’ve only begun to realize was gone recently. I have a rather twisted perspective of life now. Not really negative, not really positive. I once valued marriage and starting a family above all else. It was the most important thing in my life. Now if you were to ask me I couldn’t tell you what’s the most important part of my life. I find myself directionless. Not that I had much success when I had a focus before. But my view on life and relationships is a bit skewed now. I have virtually no desire to have children. I have extreme reservations with regards to having a girlfriend and eventually a wife. I have little to no faith that I will have a wife. I find myself seeking the impossible because I take comfort that it cannot be found. What I once dreaded I now find comfort in. I enjoy being alone, it’s simple. It lacks complication. It’s safe. I have filled my life with lots of superficial “meet & greet” situations. I have dogs that love me unconditionally. I have guitars to express myself in a way that can’t be mocked or judged. I have turned a complete 180 from being an extroverted entertainer to being an introverted thinker. I know that neither extreme is good. Life is and always will be about balance, but for now I think I will enjoy taking my time and learning to be me.

I was re-reading the past few months of my blog when I found this entry: Beginning a new chapter

It’s easy to lose sight of your goals and focus when it’s not staring you in the face. And even easier when you have attractive distractions keeping you from progressing.

I really need to get back to what that blog entry was about. Maybe not every single detail but the overall focus was on being more patient, calmer, and less on-edge and reactionary to every little aggravation.

I’ve noticed that I’ve begun to slide back into old habits. Many nights spent doing nothing, staying up late, going to work even later. I’ve been idly ranting about shit that doesn’t matter. Positive conversations turn into negative ones when I start talking. Many things I know I do and don’t like doing. So it’s time to bring that back into focus and stop being such a crotchety “old man.”

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before in other posts but I recently had a debate with a coworker about the true cause for piracy and was left extremely frustrated with his level of ignorance to what the real issue is.

I will start off stating the initial arguments, then likely run off and rant like a madman for the rest of the post. For the sake of simplicity I am only arguing about operating systems.

His Argument

Piracy is wrong and software developers should take a stricter, harsher stance on it to actively disable pirates’ computers or nag them into buying a legitimate copy.

My Argument

Piracy is a result of unreasonable pricing of essential software. Specifically operating systems. Reprice the product, especially when a new version is released and people will stop pirating and pay for the software.

His response to every point I tried to make is “right is right, wrong is wrong.” He completely circumvented the original issue and the correct solution and went with “it’s their [software companies’] product, they can price it however they please.” To me, that screams ignorance. Piracy is a real issue. It causes pricing to become skewed to absurd levels and greatly affects multiple areas of the marketplace. You cannot win this battle by attacking pirates. They find ways around every security precaution out there. To fix the problem you have to first realize the problem is not that people want to steal software. Most people are generally honest and law abiding. They pirate the software because the software is priced in such a way that they don’t feel it’s worth it.

I gave him this example.

I would like to buy a new car but no one sells one I can afford. So I either have to steal one (pirate) or use something else to get around.

My solution was that car manufacturers make an affordable car to circumvent theft and to tap into a new marketplace to make additional profit.

His solution was that if you can’t afford a new car you don’t get one. You ride a bike or take the bus.

Charging $300 for a fully functional operating system is a bit steep for the average PC owner. There are versions at cheaper pricing even so low as $99. However the cheaper versions lack some features certain users deem critical. So to get these features you have to fork out a rather hefty chunk of change and really you’re buying the same operating system. They’re just throwing in a couple of extra plug-ins and hiking the price up.

I am comfortable with a current generation operating system costing between $100-$150, that seems reasonable given the amount of work and money invested into it. It’s not like the developers are going to lose money on it. The operating system is a required piece of software and with how heavily it’s being pushed on the market I can imagine that a year from now a majority of PCs will have the new OS on it. Therefore if you reduce the price of the fully functional version to $150, keep the lower-end version at $99 you will still net a substantial profit as you will turn would-be pirates into paying customers.

Example:

These are fake figures I came up with to illustrate my point.
750,000 customers paying for the $99.00 version
250,000 customers paying for the $300.00 version
Total Sales of $149,250,000.00 for the two versions
1,000,000 pirates using the $99.00 version
500,000 pirates using the $300.00 version
Total Loss of $249,000,000.00

I decide to adjust pricing
750,000 customers paying for the $99.00 version
250,00 customers paying for the $150.00 version
Total Sales of $111,750,000.00 at a loss of $37,500,000.00 from the original pricing
600,000 pirates purchase the $99.00 version
300,000 pirates purchase the $150.00 version
400,000 pirates still pirate the $99.00 version
200,000 pirates still pirate the $150.00 version (was $300.00 figures are based off original pricing to show continued loss)
Total Additional Sales of $104,400,000.00
Total Loss of $99,600,000.00

In the above example we not only reduce the number of users pirating the software by about half but we actually increased profits by $66,900,000.00. Also the total amount of revenue lost to piracy was reduced by more than 50%. Now those were all theoretical, fictitious figures but I’m certain with proper market study and proper repricing developers can see profit increases and piracy decreases with this method.

On this same note, when a new version of an OS is released the older version should see a substantial price drop. This is seen in many other markets where a newer model is released and the old models are intentionally priced lower to help move the product and make room for the new. This would also turn current pirates into paying customers, again increasing your profits.

I agree with developers not supporting or allowing updates to pirated versions of their software. That makes sense. I don’t see how developers installing nag-ware into end-user’s computers or even going so far as to disable the operating system entirely will benefit anyone. They will create a huge number of enemies in the marketplace and lose out indefinitely on future purchases of their products. The idea is to make people not want to pirate, not piss them off so much as to take what currently is viewed as “unfair pricing” and turn it into intentional piracy out of malice.

After what seems like months and months of letting my car get progressively filthier I finally took it to get washed. Yes, it required that someone else wash it. That’s how dirty it was. I took it to a local car wash place and had them take care of it. While I was waiting this guy who had to be in his mid-late 50’s struts in like he is THE coolest motherfucker around. He’s got his polo shirt collar popped and sporting these khaki bermuda shorts. It was pretty ridiculous. I wanted to yell at him “You fold that collar down this instant! You look absurd!” But I didn’t … and for that I feel bad. Anyway so clean car time, I check it out, and find a bottle of Malibu in my back seat. WTF? Where did that come from? I don’t even drink Malibu. I think my car is birthing alcohol. Which is awesome but it needs to get the type right. I want bottles of Crown you silly car!

Saxy’s bday party was this weekend as well. She and Tara threw a fantastic bash full of great food and awesome people And seeing as they were such great hostesses I decided to cook for them this week in return. Now I have to figure out what to make…

Lastly, but HARDLY least, I am damn near DONE with this website project I’ve been working on for what feels like forever. I can’t wait to be finished and get paid. I have definitely earned it.

Joshua,
All necessary information is available if you consult the right sources. It’s a great day to try new things, and you’ve got the energy to make it happen. What has seemed too difficult to you in the past may be achievable today. All the effort you have been putting into a relationship may have been in vain.

Basically what this is saying “you know that girl you like, yeah total waste of time. Congratulations retard.”

Sometimes I hate horoscopes, they’re like train wrecks. No matter how awful they are you keep coming back to read them just to see if there’s anything interesting.