GenFX's blog: "Life...Whatever"

Rules of Engagement Personally I hate the 1-10 rating system on Cherry Tap. It is bullshit and too complicated. That and super special people who payout too much money to the rocket scientists who run this site having the ability to rank 11’s… Which at best is a 10% improvement over a 10. It also adds some ratings inflation, but given the hininess of the site it probably does not mean much… But I suspect not one person who runs CT has taken a statistics class. It should be like the stash ratings… thumbs up and thumbs down. The super special people who pay more, should have their ratings equal to two thumbs up. That would actually mean something statistically. So we have ratings and that is the way of it. I appreciate 10’s and in turn I will always give a 10 back… usually more, as I surf though a profile and like the pictures. If for some reason the person is exceptionally fuggly, has limited pictures or god awful pictures… I will give their profile a 10. That is how I roll. I long ago gave up the giving anything less than a 10. Mostly because the ratings don’t mean anything and people seem to like 10’s more than 8’s. If I like a picture or the person they get 10’s. If I don’t… There are assholes and newbs on CT that feel they need to give pictures bad ratings. For example my display pic is pretty nifty, most people give it 10’s. Some (mostly women…go figure) decide to throw really bad ratings… Why? I do not know… believe it or not that pic is of me and I set up the shot. The only thing I did not do is snap the picture. My photoshopped version is much better, but for web purposes the raw version is what I have posted. Either way most people seem to like the picture and rank accordingly. To deal with these assholes I have taken the premise of mutually assured destruction to heart. I roll to their profile and rank ever picture and the profile itself lower than what they rated me. Then I block their profile. That too is how I roll. I endeavor to be a nice guy, but I will not accept rudeness from people I do not know. Be it on the web or in the real.

If there is anything I find annoying, it is Internet petitions. They do not ever seem to work and for the most part they are half assed attempts at grievance mongering. I think part of the problem with internet petitions is a disconnect in conveying a serious message as seriously writing a message. There is no reason any ill-conceived and poorly crafted message should be taken seriously. Here is a petition that rolled across my bulletins: “Don't you think it would be a great idea that the people that you have blocked couldn't even view your page, let alone the normal not being able to comment or rate etc. Because they still can go on your page everyday now and stalk your new pics and see your stash and read your comments, they just can't talk to you or rate you. I would prefer greatly that they couldn't even see anything. Please if you agree and believe that BLOCKED USERS shouldn't be able to even view your page, sign the petition I've start below and repost!! Maybe Baby J will see this and do something!!!” I agree with the sentiment that blocked users should be completely blocked from seeing a profile. It is sensible but like every other online community Cherry Tap is a work in progress and victim to a lot of half assed coding by the powers that be. That is not a criticism, software development is complicated business even for the most experienced developers. There are many things wrong with this petition. The first is very awkward word selection. I suspect the original writer was typing as if they were talking; contractions, juxtaposed words, all capital letters, abbreviations and poor punctuation are rife. The second problem is they are inserting redundant some redundant text. Structured writing can be incredibly effective. Unstructured writing can come off as whining or ranting. The third item from the above petition is paragraphs. A paragraph can assemble a message in nice blocks and turn a rambling petition into a well ordered one. Here is the same petition, rewritten with the above recommendations: “Do you think it would be a great idea that people that you have blocked could not view your page? Even though blocked users can not rate or comment on your profile, they can look at pictures, view your stash, read blogs and read comments. It would be preferable that users could not even see any part of a profile that is blocked. If you agree please sign the petition I've start below and repost!! If enough people repost and sign this petition it will come to the attention of Cherry Tap’s administrators.” This is not a slam on the original writer. I think their intentions are good and their criticism of Cherry Tap’s flaw is spot on. Not everyone is trained in writing to a large audience; it is just like public speaking. Unlike public speaking, there are ample tools to help convey a written message. You have time to make it right, whereas public speaking is on-the-fly. A word processing program can work wonders in fixing spelling and grammatical errors. Also spend some time editing your message and moving text around. Most importantly, remember that written English is different than spoken English. Take pride in a petition you are sending out into the world. If you don’t take it seriously, why should someone else? Related Note: I chose to bold my text as the white on red color scheme that Cherry Tap uses is hard to disseminate between italics and normal text. It looked better in Word... I am not happy with the color scheme, but that's life.

Whith few execptions blogging on Cherry Tap is pathetic. It can be boiled down to the following: 1. Reposting shit that was not funny 17 repostings ago. Cut 'n paste is not blogging. No more than Xeroxing a book is writing one. 2. Whining about how dysfunctional your life is, which would be okay if you weren't a dysfunctional person to begin with. This sort of thing is like complaining it is hot in July. 3. Attention whoring of the worst kind. The gosh golly gee whiz I get no love because nobody is commenting on my pics... nobody is rating me... or nobody is talking to me. Shocking news, there is probably a reason as to why this is happening. Either they are dull or haven't been updated since dinosaurs walked the earth. 4. Blogging to beg for more comments and ratigns so you get to gain another level. Here is a quick fact... the levels here mean jack and shit in that order. It is not like you will get a gold plated 2007 Corvette. Shut the fuck up and let your content drive your rating... which is also meaningless, but far less annoying. In otherwords earn your fucking points and shake that money maker. 5. 3 sentence blogs that equate to nothing...except some incomplete bitchiness. Not that I want the Illiad or the Odyssey, but come on. You can string a paragraph or three together. Unless you are writing a hiaku, then I retract this line of thinking... but it had better be more than counting syllables. 6. Pimping out your own blog for someone else doign the above... nothing like a crap ass xerox of a crap ass xerox. Frankly they aught to just null out the blogging here. It sucks moose cock... not as an implementation, just how it is being implemented. There are loads of really swell people on Cherry Tap, it makes me curious as to why blogging doesn't work... I blog elsewhere, so I don;t have any dogs in this fight beyond the spurrious ones I do.

I do not regularly attend stripclubs, there is a fien line between tittilation and patheticness that roams in this pastime. Usually it is for bachelor parties. One memorable time was with my pal Rodg. Rodg is a pretty conservative Indian guy, so I was a little surprised he WANTED to go to a strip club. But after part one at a sports bar drinking and eating dinner off we went to Shotgun Willy’s. I garnished Rodg’s money and paid for his stripper funds. We camped out a randon table and figured to just watch the girls roll buy and dole out dollars as the titties demanded. Rodg and I were both taken with a dancer at another table. He brought this to my attention so I rubber necked and looked that way. “Wow she is h…..” I said my obvious statement being interrupted by the stripper right in front of me. She sorta slapped across our heads akin to the three stooges. Our attention was brought to the front and center. “I like my men faithful.” Decried the stripper. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to piss myself. She earned a tip on that one.