Questionnaire
Mon Jul 18, 2005 09:36 (UTC -5)It’s nice to know that I still get noticed.
Yesterday my spam filter caught an e-mail from Dr. Vincent Miller of the University of Kent, Canterbury, England, UK. He’s a sociologist and so he presented to me a questionnaire about blogging: with questions like why I blog, etc. This was interesting. Bad spam filter!
I was happy to oblige, because I appeared to be part of a select group (according to the e-mail) of 40 bloggers between the ages of 13 and 18. Seeing as there are zillions of bloggers in that demographic, and a zillion minus 40 of them don’t know how to spell or use punctuation, I considered it a compliment.
Dr. Miller said that the data would be used by a private report for a major European/African/Middle Eastern ISP whose name I shall not mention. And seeing as I don’t like companies, I will admit that I had some doubts about it. But he also mentioned that the data might find its way to “future academic articles,” so I thought that would be cool.
It also gave me a chance to reflect on why I blog and what this blog is for. I feel that I blog because I can pour my ego into it instead of heaving it around with me everywhere I go. But more importantly, I blog because I want to keep a record of my life and because I like to entertain people. That’s how I answered most of the questions, except that when asked “Are you different offline compared to online? How?” I started with “Yes; when I am offline I am far less apt to say foolish things to girls.”
I hope this questionnaire isn’t supposed to be a company secret; I’ve tried to mention as little of the content of the questionnaire as I could. Nevertheless, I didn’t see a legal warning, and I myself don’t see what harm it could do to state why I blog anyhow. It’s not like it’s a doctor-patient matter, anyway. Unless I’m the patient.
Here’s an interesting instrument for those into woodwinds. It’s the xaphoon. Be sure to listen to the audio clips on the site. It’s a smallish thing, but it has the sound of a saxophone or a clarinet. Quite cool. And they start at $54.95. Hey, I was going to scoff at that seemingly high price, but then I realized that since my birthday, I’ve had a lot of money. That might be something to think about, but I can’t imagine reading sheet music or any of the usual boring woodwind stuff. I have to remember that I’ve also tried (and failed) to learn the harmonica and the piano before being interested enough to succeed at the guitar.
