does absence make the heart grow fonder?

Well I promise ... I won't answer the above question in this post.

For being absent for this stretch of time, I am disappointingly coming back with a fluff post. Before I get into the meat of the post, I thought I would take a moment to congratulate Shawn Graham and his NB Liberals on their election victory. The election proved disastrous for the NB NDB … here’s hoping Allison Brewer gets the boot.

Back to you’re regularly scheduled programme ....

For the past few months I have been a member of last.fm … a “social music” site. Basically you join up and install an app that tracks the music you listen to; which gets posted to your profile for all to see, and you build a social fabric based on that. I joined up with last.fm with out much though; it didn’t set off any alarm bells at the time, and it seemed like a pretty interesting idea.

Here’s the big BUT.

Letting everyone and their dog (not literally the dog I suppose) know so much information about a person’s music listening habits could be potentially dangerous. Sure it’s nice to make a few cyber friends that share similar musical tastes, but having an archive of ones musical interest seems to be potentially dangerous … on many levels. Having this data is stored away on somebody’s server has a creepy “Orwellian” feel to it. Will this data ever make it to an enterprise that could exploit it … or maybe it has?

With all the social networking sites out there on the Internet, I imagine it wouldn’t take much to know an individual quite a bit more than most would be comfortable with. That’s not to say I’m quitting last.fm, but the above mentioned issue does give me pause, and I thought I would pass it along.

Have a joyous Rosh Hashanah,

Julian-Courtney

Below is my last.fm most played artists ...

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Face Recognition

If only Zach Braff had been included, Julian would be ecstatic!

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going deep into the head: forgiveness?

i was reading up on jewish law, in particular parts that pertain to forgiveness. according to the torah when someone apologises and seeks forgiveness it is the obligation of the wronged party to forgive. i guess that seems simple enough, but sometimes i wonder if i really do forgive; maybe i'm just faking it so well that i cannot tell. sometimes i know i have forgiven someone and it's just for the sake of the situation ... does that eventually grow into true forgiveness?

putting jewish law aside, i know that are some people that i need to truly forgive. the problem with this forgiveness is that it's really old stuff, and i wonder if it would just cause more troubles. i really feel though that i need to tell a few people that i have really forgiven them ... i don't know if it will do much to benefit them or me, but i just can't stop thinking i need to tell them. i know there's lots of self-help b.s. about forgiveness, most of which i'm a skeptic of, but i wonder if some sort of clarity could come from straight-up forgiveness.

i know there are quite a few people out there that need an apology from me, and i wonder if they would give me the blessing of true forgiveness. sorry this post is just going nowhere, but i'm just feeling out something.


i'm going to keep working on this situation ... i'll let you know if there are any breakthroughs.

Photograph copyright © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation
The above image is not being used for any commercial or promotional purpose; if you have issues with the use of the image please email me using the contact information contained in my Blogger profile.

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MySpace Redux

Well I went back to MySpace after a self imposed exile ... I hate creating profiles and shit ... I'm a lazy bastard. I don't have any reservations about it, I mean it's just MySpace ... but I have a hard time keeping up with all the social network sites; again, laziness. Well I'm hoping for the best.

Off topic ... just wanted to give some love to Lanners ... I miss her very much!

Randomly,

JuJu (I think I may have over used the ellipsis ... oh well) Tweet