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Kev’s idea is to create a general Mastodon instance limited to 500 users with a low $1-$2 monthly fee. I think this is a wonderful idea, because by putting a price on entry it should cut down on people not serious about participating and by limiting the number of users, it makes it harder to just disappear in the masses. That should cut down on some of the negative hot takes and general bullying that occurs online.

However, I’m not so sure a Mastodon instance is the best platform. I think it makes the most sense for success purposes, but Mastodon was obviously influenced by Twitter, and both services have conditioned us to quick responses, tapping the like button, and narcissistic ramblings. Sure, there are some great conversations on both platforms, but for the most part it’s just chest pounding and quick responses to topics that make people angry. I know I’m quite guilty of using these platforms this way.

I guess, that’s why I feel like a forum or message board is still a better option for creating a long-term community. The topics must be generated, and more effort tends to go into the posts. It breaks the habit of just quickly tapping an app and firing off an angry response to “insert whatever offends you here.” You have room to share ideas and expand on them and I feel like communicating in a different way is key to creating a good online community. We need to stop with the microblogging.

Of course, the problem with forums is spam which is easily corrected by password protecting it. I honestly don’t know how much work goes into running a Mastodon Instance (I imagine quite a bit) so I can’t compare it to running a forum, but I’m sure both platforms have their fair share of backend work. Forums also create an issue by not usually having an app (or at least not a good app) so that would probably turn some folks off, which might not be a bad thing.

Anyway, I’m all for the creation of small online communities. I do feel like the future is in smaller groups that are protected behind a login/password where people can feel a bit more at ease with sharing and not dealing with bots, trolls, and general assholery. I think the hardest part of creating a community like this by not allowing it to become an echo chamber or by allowing one or two people to set the tone for everything. You need active engagement and open minds.

This post led to a great conversation with Parker via email regarding death and our digital life. Parker encouraged me to go with my thoughts of leaving some specific instructions for my wife to help convey the message should I pass away, so I wouldn’t leave people wondering. Parker was speaking from a personal experience, which I will point you toward his page for proper explanation further down.

As Parker and I chatted, we discussed Facebook’s legacy contact, hard copies, and keeping email lists, and Parker mentioned creating an If You Think I Am Dead page. The idea is to leave a public set of instructions online, in the event that let’s say, both my wife and I pass away together in an accident.

I created a bit of an outline, but it’s a difficult thing to put into practice. Before I managed to get mine up and running, Parker created one of his own titled, What to Do If You Think I Might Be Dead.

On this page, Parker leaves a short set of instructions, a list of organizations to reach out to, and a personal list of things he needs to put together in preparation for his own death. It’s a simple page, but an extremely effective page. Everything is in one place and while I’m sure his page is going to evolve; I really love the concept. I think it’s something all of us bloggers need to look into creating. Maybe we do not have to list it on our main headers, but maybe we can stick it someplace in our About pages or in the footer of our pages.

If you’ve been online for a while, it is more than likely you’ve encountered a situation where a blogger just went quiet, or a social media account stopped updating. You assume the worst, after a while, but there is always that lingering thought of, “What if they are just taking a break?” I think these sorts of pages could really help in cutting down that sort of confusion and while it’s not a perfect solution, I honestly cannot think of anything else that is nearly as effective.

Anyway, be sure to check out Parker’s What to Do If You Think I Might Be Dead and read up on what inspired him to put it online. I’ll be working on getting mine together in the near future.

I was intrigued. I, of course, knew of James Bond, but my experience with the character was limited to the short lived animated show James Bond Jr (which had a rockin theme song) and has very little to do with James Bond himself.

I was born in the early 80’s, so I really missed out on the Bond movies before Goldeneye, but in 1994, I was eleven years old and excited to learn more about this character and thus began my love affair with 007.

It all started at my local Blockbuster, where over the course of a month, I rented every single Bond film they had. It wasn’t a complete collection, but it was close, and every weekend I’d watch three or four films and double tape them using two VCRs so I could re-watch them in the future. We actually rented so many movies that month, we became Blockbuster Rewards Gold members, a non-advertised upgrade to the traditional Rewards membership and received tickets to an advance screening of Jumanji.

While anticipating the release of Goldeneye, I also began picking up the Ian Fleming novels as well as The James Bond Encyclopedia. Truthfully, I didn’t finish many of the books, but I had an almost complete collection of the James Bond Classic Library books.

Then in 1995, Goldeneye was released, and my newfound fandom was rewarded with a fun movie and an amazing theater experience as Pierce Brosnan brought the character into the 90’s.

Over the next few decades, my Bond fandom has come and gone in waves. I’ve played all of the video games, read most of the comics, and quite a few of the new books. I’ve also gone back and read some of the classic novels. I’ve rewatched most of the movies and began collecting the VHS and then the DVDs when they were first released with a goal in mind of owning all of the movies. I never accomplished that.

The Bond blu-ray collection has sat on my Amazon Wishlist for years and on Prime Day, it finally dropped to around $60, which was price matched by Gruv with a 20% code, making it a grand total of $48. So, for under $50 I finally own all of the Bond movies (with exception of No Time to Die and Never Say Never) but I’m pretty happy with my purchase. I promised myself I’ll watch every single one of these movies to justify this purchase. This past weekend, I made it through the first three films (Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger) and I’ve really been enjoying myself. Not all of the films are great, but there is a certain nostalgia for me to experience while re-visiting them and there is so much fun to be had watching the stunts, seeing the clothes, and gadgets.

Watching these first three films over the weekend really made me want to replay the Bond games from the early 2000’s. Usually when Bond video games are brought up, people talk about Goldeneye, which was great in itself, but when I think back to my favorite experience with Bond games, I think about Everything or Nothing and From Russia with Love.

Everything or Nothing was Pierce Brosnan’s final performance as Bond and featured Shannon Elizabeth, Heidi Kl, and Mya as Bond Girls. Myya also sang a great theme song for the game and William Dafoe was the villain.

From Russia with Love was Sean Connery’s final performance as Bond and featured a unique expanded version of the movie. Both games played quite similarly, and both felt very much like Bond movies.

Now, the developers of Hitman are making a Bond game which sounds like a perfect match. I can’t wait until they finally announce some details and gameplay.

Some random James Bond tidbits:

-Shirley Bassey, who sung the beloved theme song Goldfinger, recorded a song for Quantum of Solace (which is superior in my mind), but she submitted it past the deadline, so it wasn’t considered for the film.

-Garth Ennis (creator of The Boys) just finished a run of James Bond comics. They are very Ennis in content, which means graphic and a bit overly violent, but it was a lot of fun to read.

-Anthony Horowitz (writer of the Alex Rider series) wrote the three most recent James Bond novels that take place between older novels and mimic the writing style of Ian Fleming. They are actually quite good.

-Ace of Base wrote a proposed theme song for Goldeneye, but their record company pulled them from the project. The song was renamed The Juvenile and released under that title. It’s actually pretty catchy and it’s easy to see where Juvenile was used to replace Goldeneye.

-Amazon released a Bond themed competition last year titled 007: Road to a Million. The host is Brian Cox, who apparently agreed to do the series by accident. He thought he was signing up to play a Bond villain in a movie. The show itself has got to be the most beautiful reality/competition show ever filmed, but it is basically a trivia show and doesn’t make a ton of sense at times. Still, it was a fun watch for the wife and me.

Then when I went to text my father a Happy Birthday and I noticed I’ve barely spoken to anyone in the past couple of weeks. That was when it sunk in that I was dealing with a little depression. I was isolating myself, which is common for me when I’ve had bouts of this.

I’ve been exploring the inner recesses of my mind lately, so I guess I’m not too surprised. I’ve been stirring up stuff and also dealing with some uncomfortable thoughts in my own life right such as being frustrated with my job, feeling like I do not have a purpose, and loneliness. I also have a pretty bad case of negative self-talk going on these days, which is somewhat unusual for me.

So, what am I doing about these things? Well…

1. I enrolled in an online class at my local community college for Sterile Processing. It’s something I’ve been interested in for a few years, and I thought it might be a short class where I can get certified and that could lead to some jobs in the future.

2. I’ve been applying regularly to jobs. I’ve reached out to a few contacts, so hopefully something new will come up soon.

3. I’ve made peace with needing to leave my current job. I know my job will counter if I put in my notice (they have in the past) and I know I could possibly improve my situation here, but it’s not going to fix the core problems that have been making me irritated since I started this job a few years ago. I’ve told myself I won’t hear any counter arguments this time around.

4. I bought some new clothes. I decided that I needed to replace some old clothes and maybe upgrade my wardrobe a bit. So, I bought a couple of shirts that aren’t exactly my style (t-shirt and jeans), and they look good. There’s a certain level of confidence that comes from dressing nice and I need to get that back.

5. I’ve been journaling by hand. I’m a big fan of Diarium, but there is something about journaling by hand that is liberating. I’m a fan of having to slow down my thoughts to meet the speed of my hand and just the idea of creating something that isn’t on a computer is great.

6. I’ve been playing with my cat. My cat loves me, and it drives my wife nuts. She follows me around, sits on me all the time, and my poor wife just begs for five minutes of kitten cuddles, but never gets it. She is now demanding we get another cat so she can have one.

7. I’ve considered going to church. I’ve toyed with this idea for years now. I haven’t been a believer in decades, but I miss the ritual and think it would be a great place to find community. The biggest problem with this is politics. The traditional churches are too conservative, and the progressive churches are too liberal. It’d be so nice to find a church that didn’t prop itself up on politics, but I don’t think that type of church exists.

So, yeah, I don’t really have any solutions other than just getting up each day and trying a few new things and waiting this little depressive episode out. I am going to try to get back to blogging this week and I’m going to catch up my emails and maybe I’ll feel just a little bit better.