Vanity Publishing for the Digital Age/The Boy Who Cried Wolf

i still can't really get my head round these things. blogs, i mean. they just seem so... self-absorbed. like i've re-subtitled my page, "Vanity Publishing for the Digital Age". surely that's all it is? who actually cares what i did or think or see? why do people read these things? the vicarious thrills they get? that feeling that you're peering into someone else's life? it's like reading their diary. possibly more to the point - why do people WRITE these things? why am i writing this now? because i write, but this could just as easily be part of my private journal that sits on my harddrive, password-protected, never to see the light day. but it isn't. hmm. i can tell this is a thought that is going to be going round my head all week. the vanity and self-obsession inherent in blogs.

thinking of "the absurd state of the nation" - this morning a conversation with my father about which would be a more likely terrorist target, the tube or the buses. this was just before i went to the station. none of the usual "have a nice day, dear." instead we agreed that london would probably be hit in some way at some point this year; that public transport is indeed a good way to do it; whether it would make more sense to hit the tubes, trains or buses. i figured that tubes are fairly localised if underground, whereas buses can effect the whole street. of course, a tube done badly enough could technically make the ground collapse i guess, destroy water lines, gas lines, electricity and phone and cables and so on. this is a horrific conversation to have. but it seemed so normal. it wasn't until i was thinking about it later, out of context, that it seems like an appalling conversation to have. and the more worrying thing is that neither of us were panicked or overly scared. it has become a part of our daily lives now. this incessant warmongering and propanda that the media spouts "Terror Warning for England" "Tanks Outside Heathrow" "London on Full Alert" just seem to have desensitised people to things. well, me at least. i see these new headlines and i think "yeah, whatever." it's like the boy who cried wolf. maybe sometimes it works, puts people a little more on their guard, but mostly it's like, so who's threatening to blow us up or release a deadly virus this week. one day it'll happen and, despite all these stuff about it, it'll still catch people somewhat off guard.

and that's only the start of the absurdity. that such a conversation can be so mundane. let's not even think about all the other shit that has slowly been piling up since the start of this new millennium.