Part-Time Jerk

I like to think that I'm a nice guy, mostly. I have been known on occasion to be a little mean with my sarcasm.

I have been trying to improve both by reducing the quantity of snarky remarks and simultaneously increasing their subtlety. Hopeful that the receiver doesn't understand the little joke I can still get a little internal chuckle out of it. More so if the comment flies completely over their head.

Ever since I ran full throttle away from the sand trap, browser crashing, glitter-fest that is MySpace, I have been searching for an alternative that offered the same community aspect. Blogger caught me with its ease of use and clean look and feel. The integrated Picasa photo albums covered the picture aspect.

On MySpace I used to keep a table with books that I had read and some additional information, such as, links to their Amazon pages and the dates when I started and completed reading the novels.

Then I found Shelfari. Not only was this a much better replacement for my pitiful HTML table but it was a complete replacement for MySpace in general. It offers communities, reviews and a bunch of additional and more importantly useful features that MySpace could only dream of providing.

The sidebar on the right you will see a shelf of books. It is not just an ad. This ad contains only books in my collection. Books that I own, recommend, have read or am currently reading. If you mouse over the images it will tell you how and if I rated it as well as a short summary of the book itself.

If you click and even order one of those books, some of the revenue is shared with me. :)

Anyway, I am currently reading a book with my wife titled, "Flowers for Algernon." If you haven't read it already it is a first person account of an experiment in brain surgery. A guy named Charlie Gordon keeps these journals, which you are reading, and he writes them in a very natural way. Charlie Gordon is mentally retarded and it shows in his writing.

I have a pet peeve. One of these is the intentional misspelling of words during communication. Now you may be thinking, "Well what about your online callsign, HektikLyfe?"

Good question. To answer that I will tell you that I didn't have much choice in the matter. I was searching for an e-mail address and they were all taken. I HAD to either misspell it or add numbers to it. I don't like changing names often so it stuck and I have kept it with me for years.

So in a community of readers, I wouldn't expect to find people who speak "1337`." For those that don't know, that's a short term for "elite." Mostly gamers and online forum trolls use this "language" with the intention to make their posts look more interesting than their content.

I guess there is no escaping it though since I would frequently come accross a post using the words "luv" or "pwned." In the discussion thread for the book, "Flowers for Algernon" I found it ironic that people were spelling that way when Charlie Gordon, in 1959, was spelling in a very similar fashion. Only difference was that he was "clinically" retarded as opposed to voluntarily.

I couldn't resist posting a comment.

azn_guhrl=] said:

“i luv this book.... its so awsome,
it makes you give out ur different
emotions, and it's a wonderful book!”

HektikLyfe said:

"...pretty cool that this book has such devoted fans. Posting comments with spelling just like Charlie Gordon would write.

Very cute.”

So I'm playing dumb to counter this girl's stupidity, sue me. Like the title says, sometimes I can be a jerk, but these little moments make me smile.


Does being mean ever bring you happiness? If so, why do you think?