Reality Internet

Funny how so much attention is given to Reality TV and it's sweep of the American TV audience in the past few years. But blogging, it seems to me, is really nothing more than posting on bulletin boards which has been going on for many more years. My first BBS experience was back in 1993 when my best friend and roommate Wayne bought me a 2400 Baud modem for my 386 PC.

Now I have this blog which I focus on but I am also interested in others' blogs...almost like a soap opera fan, tuning into the next episode to see what becomes of their favorite characters.

One blog I've been following is "The Homeless Guy".

I think I took to his blog early on in my Koyaanisqatsi journey to see if that route would be livable. We have alot in common.

"The Homeless Guy", aka Kevin Baribeau lived in Nashville and wrote about his experiences on and off the "streets" over the past couple decades.

It's melancholy as you would expect but also refreshing and uplifting in how, at least in his posts, he never lets anything get him down for very long.

A few months ago, almost concurrent with my relief from near homelessness, he seemed to have found a niche, hand-crafting knit scarves for sale. This endeavor got him off the streets an into a subsidised housing apartment complex.

But for some reason (he states it was stagnation) he decided to move away from Nashville where he had lived for over a decade and built many friends and contacts, and went to Las Vegas. (Hello, read: Moving to New Orleans (not once but 3 times) on a whim?)

He is again living in homeless shelters and posts that the facilities for the homeless are so much better there than in Nashville.

Another blog I follow is a Singapore-cultured young woman and her husband who were "stationed" by her husband's company in the US (Alabama) while her husband (an engineer) learned the techniques taught to him at the large "sugar-substitute" plant there so that when the comapany opened operations in Singapore, they would be up and running ASAP.

She has gone through much in the past year...her father while visiting her in the US was crippled by a train crashing into his car...her good friend had a miscarridge...she and her husband have been on many interesting day trips and longer vacations which she has witten about. She not only writes about her adventures, but also has included a great amount of her digital photography which, probably because she professes to be an amature photography-buff, is quite good in quality of resolution and composition.

Reality TV has to, by the nature of the commercial medium, people....it HAS to be somewhat (if not totally) contrieved. (Even my beloved "Project Runway")

But Reality Internet...well...it is what it is.

The real thing.