Everything Old Is New Again

As you may have noticed, I’ve been pretty light on the entries this week.
That’s because I’ve spent most of my time working on my little “secret project” for a future entry, and because I spent most of today, or yesterday at this point, in a class on Web 2.0.
You would think that the sheer amount of time I spent on said “secret project” would be indicative of a high level of quality. You’d be mistaken. It’s more indicative of a high level of me not really knowing what the hell I’m doing and having a disturbing tendency towards idiotic bumbling that leads to being almost done and totally screwing something up and having to completely re-do several major portions.
In any case, I am actually finished with that part of it, so now I just have to write the entry that it will be serving as a visual aid for, which I won’t be doing right now.
Hopefully I will have it done before I turn in on Wednesday evening, but I make no promises.
In any case, as mentioned, I spent the day in Web 2.0 training where I was joined by Scott and was supposed to be joined by Brian, but he never showed up. I’m guessing he decided that it started too early and was too boring to be worthwhile, and I’d have to say that if that is the case, he was right, but even so, it was a relatively easy way to pick up 9 hours of OT.
Anyway, you’re probably wondering what Web 2.0 is, and if so, all I can say is, take a class if you want to know; it’s what I did.
And I still don’t actually know.
Seriously, I do (and did) know, generally, what Web 2.0 is. Mostly it’s a meaningless buzzword. Beyond that, it’s a vague and nebulous collection of concepts, software, and approaches to creating and delivering content.
And despite the fact that it is vague and nebulous, it is, more or less, the future, which is, I suppose, only fitting.
One thing I noticed in the class is that a lot of the “new” ideas are actually ideas that were floating around 10-12 years ago, but which weren’t practical because there really was no such thing as widespread broadband access to the Internet. Now that these concepts are feasible thanks to broadband’s pervasiveness, they’ve made a return visit and we get to find out whether or not they’re worthwhile.
I think the jury’s still out on that.
Beyond that they merely pointed to a lot of the usual Web 2.0 suspects, such as YouTube, MySpace, del.icio.us, and “the blogosphere.”
The other primary thing that I learned, as I informed Scott via a note, was that the “chick diagonal from me all the way on the far side is cute, has big boobs, is petite, and is wearing sexy shoes.”
Anyway, in my absence from posting you really haven’t been missing much, though I’m sure that comes as a surprise to no one.
One thing of note is that the IRS is trying get extra money out of me for my 2005 return in the exact same way they tried, and failed, to get extra money out of me for my 2004 return. I just can’t help but wonder if they just don’t communicate internally or, like, check their own records. I mean, when you audit someone for a supposed discrepancy for one year and find that there is no discrepancy, wouldn’t you think that you would see how that turned out before doing the exact same thing again?
Oh well.
Oh, and I got my new check card from my bank, though I haven’t gotten my new PIN yet.
So now you’re up to date.