I had a troll person in here yesterday expressing frustration about the fact that I’ve placed my video list online, with a pretty strongly-worded statement about how I won’t make copies of that stuff and blah blah blah.  I should hope that my friends, my family, and people who’ve followed my blog for awhile would know exactly why I would put up statements like that in public, in full view of the MPAA, the RIAA, God and everyone else.  They ought to know based on my past history of giving away MP3s that don’t belong to me, and the things I said when I stopped filesharing.  They know I’ve learned my lesson about that.

They should also know that if they really want something I’ve got THAT badly — or even not that badly — if I can, if I have the time and the means, I would be more than happy to… you know, work something out.  Have a TV party, or… whatever.  (I’m not gonna say it!! ha ha.) I’m not saying I want to open the fuckin’ floodgates at all, I’m not in the business of trading, I don’t have the time or the resources to do that on a regular basis.  But… if I didn’t feel okay with the idea at least to some extent, I never would have made that list viewable to my readers, I don’t think.  I’ve chatted with quite a few of you online and turned you on to things… uhhh… I will say no more.  You should know.

I never really wanted that list to be crawled by Google.  Well… I take that back, I was unsure of whether I should do that or not.  I knew it could have its benefits and its drawbacks too; I wanted to test the waters. And it’s funny because I got 2 e-mails yesterday from people who googled that list.  Yin and Yang.  One was from the very nice and talented musician Seven Harkey, he wrote to say hi and let me know the song title for a performance of his that I’d taped off Chic-A-Go-Go, a very silly and cool dance-party type show we get on cable here (I don’t get cable anymore and that’s one of the shows I miss the most).  I expressed to him that I hoped it was okay that I’d made a copy of that; I didn’t know whether or not Jake & co. had come out with a purchaseable version.  Seven was totally fine with it, he said he was honored that I wanted to keep it at all.  And then… the other person comes in, a total stranger posting an angry comment to a completely unrelated entry.  The stranger had seen something I had on that list, wanted it very much and was very pissed off about the no-copying statement.  Never tried to talk to me first to see exactly how serious I was about all that.  Just threw a shit-fit berating me for having posted the info at all.  Threw some poop at me and ran away.  I responded politely to the comment, and then wrote a private e-mail last night to uhhh… expound upon my reaction that little display.  So I got both sides of the coin, the very good and the very bad, all in one day.

I did ask Google to stop crawling that list; I hurried up the process by using their URL-removal tool, so it should happen in the next 24 hours.  It’s kind of a shame in a way.  If I could just hear from people like Seven — HUMAN BEINGS, that would be so wonderful.  I could make new friends like him, I could have the chance to possibly fill in the gaps on parts of my collection, i.e. the 2 missing episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  I could hook up with other music freaks; who knows what could happen?

Would it also be self-indulgent of me to put a list online of something more physical, like say, my books?  Books can be loaned, or sold if I hear an offer I can’t refuse.  Bibliography-lists can be useful, right?  Just knowing something is out there, that is information that you can put to good use.  Well, this is the same thing; it’s a way of showing people what I’ve got, sharing the information I have and attempting to (a) indulge myself, ha ha, in my anal little list-making project, and (b) hopefully somehow improving on it with the help of others.  Surely some good could come of that, it can’t be completely useless to anyone but myself.

What do you do when you want something that badly, something that belongs to someone else?  You sure don’t go around berating them for having nice things, that’s not what my mama taught me.  Honey, you don’t want my problems, believe me.  What little I’ve got, I’ve paid for in spades.  I’ve been blessed with lots of gifts, lots of material things in my life, but I’ve also been cursed in other ways. Lucky for me I’m a lot more blessed than cursed, or anyway that’s the attitude I choose to carry with me even if it’s not true in a lot of ways.  I’ve been fortunate, I know this, oh god, do I ever. I don’t take things for granted, or I try not to.

Anyway… it’s just interesting.  Some people "get it" right away, they know that in order to get ahead in life and get nice things for themselves, it’s best to follow the golden rule and mind your manners when dealing with others.  If you do that, then you’ll have an excellent attitude, and things won’t bother you so much in the first place.  You start to realize that there are so many options and opportunities in life, any one perk that you can’t have won’t drive you quite as crazy.  You might keep it in mind, you might work for that material item that you want very much, but you won’t curl up and die if you have to wait a few months or even years to get it.  Even if you never get it all it’s not that big a deal… I have a pretty big wish-list, it’s spread out wide enough that I DO tend to run across things if I keep looking.  And every little "score" is such great fun.  (Nothing I’ve written down, but just kept in mind etc.)

Some people have a lot to learn in that particular area. I’m sure they may be very good at other aspects of living, better than me probably.  I wouldn’t want their problems and I’m not jealous of the nice things they’ve got.  Well, maybe a little.  I’m only human, heheh.