It may seem an odd thing to say but, dagnabit all, communicating with people on this thing is tough. Before you go shooting your mouth off with your “Well yeah Bob. Don’t be a retard,” let me explain that I am not a special needs person and that I bet you all ready proved me right, cause I bet you didn’t know that I was doing my arms in a windmill right now, did you?
See what I mean?
Let me explain: When you stand and talk with someone you have a huge variety of communication tools at your disposal that you have no where else. You got inflection in your voice, you got your body language and your facial expressions, you got subtle changes in your voice’s volume and its focus, you even have the ability to write if you really want to and you definitely have the oft forgotten in main conversation though often used for lying ability to compose complexly on the fly. The only communicating ability you don’t have is, probably, film editing, and I’ll bet someone somewhere can do that as they talk.
But on here we get none of those things. Sure we get the permanence of having written something down, but as already said, we always have that option if we need it. And sure, supposedly, we can spend more time here carefully composing our writing so that it cannot be misunderstood, but that is a crock. As most anyone who has read anything of immense importance to humanity can attest, some of the most carefully constructed works of literary art are the hardest to understand and, I would say, are constantly being misunderstood most often by people who are paid to understand them.
If people are still thinking that Othello is a heartless monster after all of the pains Shakespeare went to to make it clear that Othello was not a monster even though he acts monstrously, and that even after people have carefully read a play they expect to think about, then what hope have I got for a blog that most people aren’t going to engage with any deeper than they will engage with an email? Not much I can guarantee. I have even shorter hope of being able for you to see the context from which I am freaking talking from! Cause dang it my windmills may be over but you had no idea I was stretching my neck out now.
I am even worse off because I can’t watch your face to see if maybe you understand me. NHow then am I supposed to effectively communicate through this?
Sure I could go in for dense construction, tight form, and exact wordsmithery, which I often do, but if none of you readers are expecting that kind o’ mess from a, garrrrr!!!!, “fun little blog” than forget about it.
The only way then to avoid misunderstanding in this kind of communication, and this kind ain’t exactly writing, is to use what we already done invented, emoticons and shorthand descriptions for what we are doing.
Now I contend that our current smileys and “lol”s are not sufficient to communicate all we need to say about how we feel emotionally and what we are doing as we communicate in this medium, and I intend to set forth a few new ideas I hope kind of catch on and that I may or may not use to get people to freaking grab hold of what the devil I am talking about but right now I am feeling loose and relaxed and I am going to not be able to type in a minute. Maybe next week I can show you what I mean.

-Bob

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NOW!
As I was saying last week, before the limitations of time and space so rudely interrupted me, contrary to popular belief writing is a very difficult medium in which to exactly communicate what is on your mind. Maybe not so hard to communicate what you have carefully and painstakingly crafted and honed into finely balanced literary work when taken seriously and given ample attention by a careful an interested audience, but, come on! How often does that happen for writer or reader? Especially of anything written on the internet?
It doesn’t! No! The internet is not used for careful reading! And certainly not for careful writing.
If anything internet writing is almost like a transcript of a persons thoughts, with all of the background noise, ill-defined context, and vague meanings that go along with the standard loosely constructed, shoot from the hip, internet style of writing.
That is why we have invented the Emoticon!
For you see in the slipshod world of quick internet writing a fellow can either continue to try to refine and rewrite his sentences, seeking to use a more accurate vocabulary and carefully delineated clauses and subclauses, in order to get the reader to feel the same consuming emotions that he, the writer, feels on the subject, or he can use a >:( . See. An angry face. That means the author is angry.
Likewise a writer can go plunging into his thesaurus to find enough synonyms to describe the outpouring of emotion he felt during his experience with what someone else wrote or he can write the acronym LOL. This means the reader/writer feels bad that what he read isn’t actually funny.
And which of these ways is easier?! Why the shortcut of the emoticon and the acronym of course, you stupid hillbilly! (Or O.C.Y.S.H! in acronymese.)
But there is, unfortunately a grievous lack actually useful acronyms and emoticons for us on the internet. Sure we have TTYL, and , but what we need is relevant internet shorthand. So I propose that we add the following letters and symbols to our vocabulary.

1.) WWIS? -What Was I Saying? Used when the writer loses his train of thought.
2.) GRRRRRR- I am angry. Used when the writer gets angry.
3.) ):DC – The backwards facing visage of a frowning samurai in full battle armor smiley. Used by the writer to display his disgust at the concept of cowardice.
4.) (ASIBIA)- All Said In Bad Italian Accent. Used when the Writer needs to clarify that his apparent misspellings and numerous references to la cosa nostra were part of a poorly thought out attempt to imitate the stereotypical Italian-American
5.) CQIMB- Chuckling Quietly Into My Beard. Used when the writer wishes to express that something has amused them enough chuckle quietly and that they have a beard.
6.) :Q – The so sleepy a little bit of drool came out of my mouth smiley. Used by the writer to indicate that he my need a wetnap to clean the corners of his mouth.
7.) OCOWHSNTNCTMF!- Oh Come On, Who Hasn’t Seen The Nineteen Thirty Nine Classic The Maltese Falcon! Used when the writer wants to express shock and horror at his audiences lack of exposure to classic cinema.
8.) =:)> – The Satyr Smiley. Used when the writer wishes to express in an innocent way to his readers that he currently feels like he would enjoy being a part goat man while romping through the fields and woods of ancient Greece while playing the flute, drinking large amounts of wine, and cavorting promiscuously with woodland nymphs.
9.) ICFTRKA- I Can’t Find The R Key Again. Used by a writer to explain why he no longer is using the letter “R” in any of his writing.
10.) b..d -The Muscular Smiley, the b and d are supposed to look like flexing arms beside a tiny head. Used by the writer to indicate that he is busy working out while he writes. (See last weeks blog.)
11.) TSCW- Too Sleepy Can’t Write. Use by lazy writers who won’t suck it up and finish what they thought was important enough to start, but was obviously not important enough to finish.

-Bob

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