Thinking About

Facebook Revisited: Like Leonard, I Proposed An Experiment

/ Ally Bean / 12 Comments

::  A few weeks ago I joined Facebook again. It had been about 5-6 years since I’d deleted my last account, so I was able to start fresh over there.  I used a different email address even.

No particular incident precipitated my decision to get involved again.  All I can say is that I was curious to see how people who I know are now using it, and how FB has changed over the years.  Re-joining was a bit of an experiment to see if I fit in over there, or not.

::  After years of blogging, my immediate impression of Facebook is, quite simply, it’s cute. Scrolling through all the status updates from my new [old?] FB friends, I feel like I’ve gone back in time to when blogs were brand new and everyone had a blog, even if they didn’t know what to do with the blog.

So far all the FB status updates that I’ve seen have been a few sentences long– &/or involved a photo– &/or shared a link.  They remind me of many early blog posts, before blogging became more focused + polished.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with these updates, but I find it difficult to know what to say about them.

::  In my first status update, I told FB to dazzle me.  And well, while the people who I’ve connected with are delightful, the system as a whole leaves me in mind of The Big Bang Theory episode about Leonard and Leslie’s experimental date kiss.

Which is to say that like Leslie’s evaluation of Leonard’s kiss, I’m finding FB to have: “reasonable technique, no extraneous spittle, but feeling no arousal at all.”  Meaning that it just might be that FB is not the place for me to shine.  And that’s okay by me.

June 2014 NaBloPoMo: I Posted, I Commented, I Made A List & Now I’m Finished

/ Ally Bean / 35 Comments

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The final writing prompt for June 2014 NaBloPoMo is:

“Leave your readers this month with commentary about their comments.”

My commentary is: 

You, my gentle readers, are the best.  I’m grateful for your kind interest, thought-filled comments and support.  I realize that you arrived here from all over the place:

I appreciate you making your way here, and as a way of saying thank you I’ve compiled the following list of everyone with a blog who commented on The Spectacled Bean during this month.

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My List Of Blogs Written By People Who Know How To Comment

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Even Though The Hallmark Movie Channel Has Betrayed Me, I Have Learned A Lesson

/ Ally Bean / 20 Comments

WHILE I HESITATE TO ADMIT that I’m aware of anything as sappy as The Hallmark Movie Channel, I feel that I must share with you, my gentle readers, how they have betrayed my forgiving nature.

This is a straightforward story in which I was willing to overlook their sentimental twaddle basic programming because every afternoon they were showing The Good Wife, an award-winning TV show that I’ve always wanted to see. 

In fact, I had even begun to arrange my day in such a way as to make certain that I caught at least one episode of The Good Wife, a modern-day TV show that features a strong female lead in difficult situations that she handles without Prince Charming rescuing her.

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Above is the Hallmark Movie Channel schedule for The Good Wife in which we see that the Hallmark Movie Channel just stopped showing The Good Wife.  * bippity boppity boo*  It’s gone.  Wave bye-bye.

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FURTHER, I’LL EVEN ADMIT THAT last Friday afternoon when I viewed what has now become my last episode of The Good Wife, a well-paced finely nuanced TV show, I was so thrilled by the cliff hanger plot line that I spent moments of my weekend looking forward to seeing the next episode on Monday afternoon.

But it was not to be.  No, when I sat down on Monday afternoon to watch The Good Wife, a smart TV show filled with legal issues and moral quandaries, it was not there.  Instead, The Hallmark Movie Channel was airing…  [ready for this?]… Diagnosis Murder, an old-time TV show, starring Dick Van Dyke, that I vaguely remember as something my mother used to watch way back when.

I’m hurt by this betrayal;  I won’t lie.  But mostly it confirms my suspicions that cable TV’s death is closer than we think it is.  Thanks to The Hallmark Movie Channel I’ve now learned for certain that web-based programming, like Netflix or Hulu, is the way to watch TV shows when your life is busy– and you can’t dork around with cable channels.

As Unlikely As This Sounds, We Visited A Midwestern Castle

/ Ally Bean / 17 Comments

ONCE UPON A TIME… a few weekends ago… Zen-Den and I finally visited a southern Ohio castle that I’ve heard about for decades.

The Castle and the surrounding gardens are officially named Chateau Laroche.  They were built by an eccentric genius named Harry Andrews, who after serving in WWI decided to promote peace and build his own castle based on the ones he saw in Europe during the war.

First, he used his smarts to become a knight by creating his own order, The Knights of the Golden Trail.  Then he built his castle using, among other things, the stones he found along the river.  After he built most of the castle, he moved into it and lived out his days in the slightly modernized parts of Chateau Laroche.

The castle, which is open to the public on a limited basis, is one of the most unusual, almost dilapidated historical properties I’ve ever wandered through, over and around.  Here are some photos.

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