WordPad: A Eulogy

Many of you may be familiar with the program Microsoft WordPad or Windows Write, myself being one of these people. After what has been, ultimately, twenty years of good service, Microsoft has decided to let it come to rest. For many of you, WordPad might have been the word processor of choice on your computer for a period of time, until and unless you decided to install a copy of Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, or any other similarly-featured software suite. Personally, most of my usage for the program comes from the Windows XP and Windows 8 versions of the program. When I decided to start writing on my own, I was mostly using older Mac computers and Linux setups, so it's never played a major role in my career.

When I was a child, some of you may know this, but I'd had a computer since I was two… it is, in some form, still alive and pumping, mostly because of a Raspberry Pi that has replaced its components (they were in a flood). I used the thing with Windows 98, Windows Me, and Windows XP, though I only started playing with WordPad after it had XP installed on it. No, I didn't have access to the internet, it was mostly for the various educational JumpStart CDs that existed at the time, as well as some other kid-software (and Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge, as well as what I believe was a Power Rangers game, but I'm not sure. Back to the point). At one point, I actually started wondering what the dimples on the F and J keys were for, and I'm not talking about the ones that came from stuff being spilled and drying on the thing, I mean the notches that are on every keyboard (some Apple keyboards had them on the D and K keys instead, you people know who you are, maybe you could tell me how to type on an old PowerBook without the frustration). I remember that, instead of Notepad, I opened WordPad and started playing around with it, eventually learning that those nubs were on the keys where I was supposed to put my fingers. Actually learning how to type didn't come until later when I would take some kiddie books (I remember the Junie B books very fondly for this), as well as the sheets I would get in Sunday School where we were supposed to memorize a verse from the Bible for the next week, WordPad was my program of choice to type in.

Most of the time, though, after this computer stopped working (thanks to morbidly-curious kid-me), I would use Microsoft Office (if it was already installed on a computer) or OpenOffice, when I learned about that in 2010-2011, but I still preferred Microsoft Office… the other wasn't up to the standard I'd gotten myself used to in that way.

Skipping ahead a few years to a Windows 8 laptop my dad got me (he broke the screen on an Acer netbook that I loved so dearly and decided to get me a new laptop from Walmart a few years later), I was mostly using Google Docs (which I hated, due to being always online when the computer itself wasn't) or Office 2007, after my uncle installed it on the computer, but the first things I did on that computer was to use WordPad to type up short scripts and ideas, as well as a few papers for school. By this point, WordPad had been relegated to a footnote in the back of my head. I had decided that I didn't like it, but it served its purpose. Sure, it would be several years before I would make real use of anything that WordPad wasn't capable of, feature-wise, but at the same time, it was more of a thought process of "I want to get used to this environment and ecosystem so that, if I ever do need the additional capabilities, they'll be here and I won't have to worry about anything being just completely screwed-up.". I never thought WordPad was a bad word processor, it was just not my go-to. By this point in time, I'd played around with Linux as well and had heard the name "Wine" tossed around, but didn't look into it until much later (another thing that's good to set up when you install Linux). I was already adapting to different standards, even though I never really had any use for any of them at the time, something that, when I think back on, I'm glad I was able to have a gateway into it. If it hadn't been for WordPad, I would likely not have started writing, at least not on the scale that I do now, and would've taken a different approach to a career.

Put simply, while I don't like the slimmed-down nature of WordPad, I have more to thank it for than I do to be annoyed at it for. Now that Microsoft has started going through with removing it from Windows 11, it's yet another sign that times are changing and that another chapter in my life has come to an end. If any of you have any stories about WordPad, please put them in the comments below.

That’s it! Old technology!

Maybe you find yourself remembering about the days when you’d have to sift through cases of floppies to open a program on your computer, or maybe you remember having to type an essay in Microsoft Office Word ‘98 and hope Windows Me didn’t crash-and-burn (I have mixed memories, experiences, and feelings with that one)… maybe you even remember getting your first car, the ever-boxy Plymouth Reliant (or Dodge Aires). No matter. You think back and you realize “I’m thinking of a simpler time.”, and then you wonder how we ended up from then to now. No, I'm not saying that just because I still use the Gopher protocol and WebCrawler to browse [what used to be] the Information Superhighway. Hell, I’d still even use a dial-up modem, but I guess the lovely song of America Online is relegated to the past unless I want to try to make a telecom grid and ISP in my house… actually, that sounds interesting- I’ll try that at some point.

Still, what I'm getting at is that, a lot of what makes modern society… modern… is also what’s probably going to ruin us. Yeah, I know, I sound like a rambling nutbar, I get that a lot, but my point stands. In a world dominated by the Internet, (supposedly) Artificial Intelligence, and even Virtual Reality, what happens when you just wanna get out with your friends. What happens when you wanna go get lunch, go see a movie? Just anything, really. Put simply, you don’t. We live in a world where, for most people, the act of using your imagination might be a fleeting thing, though I don’t know that for sure. I’ve seen the horror side of it, but I don’t know if there’s a silver lining to it or not… yes, I feel like a hypocrite right about now, but that’s neither here nor there, I believe.

Everyday, we can always say that everything has already been done, has already been invented, already been discovered… the list goes on, but no matter how much we say, think, and live that, it’s never the case. When I write these blogs, I don’t do it in a manner that I’m trying to get to say “Hey, everyone! Look at me! I’m gonna have big things going on one day, maybe, possibly, yeah!”… that phrase isn’t even accurate. When I write my blogs, I’m trying to keep the same mentality that I have when I write my stories or when I say things to people. This is my raw, untapped, uncensored, and unfiltered mind, this is my raw emotion, this is my true beliefs and thoughts on something. Critical thinking is a very-important skill to have, I believe, and I think that, due to the advance of technology, we’ve lost sight of that. Sure, they may gloss over it in school (stateside, they only mentioned it once during my twelve years that I can recall… make what you will of that), but, in school, the ideal student will have a mind that is cloned from the teacher. That might have been a good system to use during the Industrial Revolution, when following directions in a factory was the life to live, but we don’t live in that age anymore. Nothing is about sheer memorization and regurgitation in life, but it also needs a kind of structure that I feel we’ve lost in recent years.

When I started writing, all of my stories took place in the 1990s, and there was several reasons for that, one of which was that it was easier to make a storyline that didn't rely on over-saturation of impossible-to-describe media taking the place of characters’ thinking; it felt like a more real time, even if I was only alive for the very-tail-end of it. Having a more cynical, analytic attitude during that decade was, to some extent, the norm, so a part of the reason was so I would feel less “odd”, but in reality, just having the time period in that setting made it feel more natural to have characters that were actively willing to say “Whoa, hold on. Before you go any further, I want you to stop and tell me where you’re going with this.” and go draw their own conclusions.

My favorite examples of this are when I let some of my close friends take a look at my stuff and then ask “How do you think Aleks is gonna solve this problem?”, which is a somewhat-loaded question, partially because they make me laugh, but also because how I think he’ll handle it in my story is different from how my cousin thinks he’ll handle it in my story is different from how my friend thinks he’ll handle it in the story.

Before the internet grew to become our new home, it wasn’t easy to get just “pulled into” the Internet. Kids could be kids, people could be people… we lived in the world. Earlier, I mentioned how I still use WebCrawler, and the significance of that is that, while I know it’s just a search engine, it’s the oldest search engine online, but also a piece of what the internet used to be. Just simple, basic, a tool. Now, it feels more-and-more like it’s less a tool and more an existence. I know, for a good number of you, that it’s probably wintertime, but ultimately, what I urge you to do, is to log off of the internet, if for only an hour a day, and go experience the rest of the world, even red a book or magazine. Why? It's a good way to stimulate your imagination. You might even consider taking up a new skill, personally, I enjoy piano alongside writing. Really, though, it can be anything, the point is to get you (mostly young people) to use parts of your brains that aren't necessarily well-used. I’m not saying you’re dumb, I’m less than 25 years old, myself, but even simple thought exercises can go a long way. Is it an end-all-be-all solution? No. Can it give you a wider view of the world and help in you’re day-to-day life? Absolutely.

Overall, having your own thought processes and the ability to decide your own worldview is an invaluable ability, and I’d hate to see the day when it is something only found in the history books.

Who Are You to You?

Just curious: Who do you think you are to you? I know it’s a silly question, but it’s a valid one. I used to be a Seth, then over time, I grew into an Aleks, but I’m not an Aleks anymore. The other night, I did some self-reflection of who I was to me. I’ve never lost that connection to the old and the weird, but personality-wise, I’m not like any character in Aleks’s history anymore. No, I’m not trying to be a fictional character, but the reason that I’m doing this is because writing is therapeutic to me. Could I make a career out of it? Probably not. I’m generally thinking too far out into left field for that. Anyway, so I’ve built a new character who goes by the name «Link». No relation to Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link (that was the second video game I ever played on the GBA SP and in my whole life), I chose the name because it’s a bit of a moniker to what he does: he’s a hacker, but less in a software-sense and more in the physical, frankensteining sense of the word. He doesn’t use his real name (it’s Jackson Hughes) and takes the phrase “It’s my life to live and I’ll live it how I damn-well please!” to heart.

I’ve imagined him as both a human and a furry, though I feel like I’ll be writing him more as a human because I’m not quite sure what I want to do with him yet. Similar to what eventually became Aleks, Link is, in a way, a projection of how I see myself… just a more up-to-date version of it. For a while now, Aleks has been my “main” fursona/character/whatever, but despite the similarities, I never felt like I was in their world (for better or worse). Sure, I had my moments, but at the end of the day, I was basically coming to terms with the fact that, while he may have been an extension of my self in a very true form, Aleks no longer fills that role. Obviously, I’m not getting everything accurate to myself (Link is how I see myself, so there’s obviously some biasing and skewing), but the human representation is about as close to a picture of me that I’ll give. It’s also an approximation of how I picture myself in day-to-day life. I guess that the best way to explain it would be if you played VRChat, Minecraft, or Second Life. You make a character and life as that character in the game. Link is my character, but for writing. I’ll admit that, while I’ve said and done some crazy things, at the end of the day, everyone needs an outlet. Whether that’s building battle bots or writing horrific revenge fantasies, the need is most certainly there. Will this be the last you see of Link? Probably not. I intend to write him into my corner of the world I’ve made for my writing as my character in there, but they’ll mostly just be shorts on my Fur Affinity page (link is at the bottom of the page).

While I’m changing the roles I have for my characters somewhat, Aleks (and the line of characters that became him) will always be my favorite while Link is going to be my “Player Character” (for lack of a better term). The characters are always going to be there, they’ll always be mine, but now I feel like I can interact with them on a more-personal level.

Links (opens in a new tab)

• Fur Affinity Page
• Kobo Bookstore
• HeroForge Character Creator
  

My Interesting is Your Deranged

Here's a motorway in North Korea! It's the P'yŏngyang-kaesŏngkosoktoro! It connects* P'yŏngyang and Seoul! (connection only exists in someone's delusions and on paper. Do not attempt driving this motorway in real life, as it may be very hazardous to your ability to remain alive for obvious reasons).

Here's a highway in Viet Nam! It's the QL1! It connects Kampuchea and China through Viet Nam!

Here's an expressway in Japan! It's the Tōmei Expressway! It connects South Korea and Dongjing (Tokyo, because I read every Chinese character like it's Mandarin, sosumi).

Here's a highway in South Korea! It's the South Korean version of the North Korean one!

Here's a freeway in Iran! It's Number Two!
 

 

 

 

 

 

Am I delusional? Probably. Why did I post five pictures of the same road? Before you say anything, yes it's the same road. My readers in Asia will know, with the exception of North Korea (this isn't propaganda glorifying a crazy little man with an ego the size of his nukes). This is the AH-1 Highway, and I'm doing some research on it because it's going to play a bit of a role in a story that I'm working on… have been working on for years. I've had the plot in my head for what feels like literal eons now, but I've never been able to write it… real pain!

Anyway, like most of what I do involving modern alternate history pertaining to the Cold War, there's gonna be some changes made, in this case, mostly so a witch and a human can drive a Plymouth Voyager from Saigon to either P'yŏngyang or Tokyo… I'm not sure yet, but I've been playing around with some different routes they could take and the two I like the most differ at how they use North Korea… the first uses P'yŏngyang as a red-herring before the duo shoots back towards Mongolia and drives through the USSR to (eventually) Berlin. The second one just uses P'yŏngyang as a regular stop before going the rest of the way through North and South Korea and eventually to Tokyo for their drop point (instead of Berlin). Anyway, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey, and the journey is what you come to remember in life. Yes, I wanna start in Istanbul at the exact spot where the E-80 turns into the AH1 and drive from there to where it ends in Tokyo. I don't know if I'd need a Yugo, Geo Metro, minivan, small motorcycle, what, in order to make the trip… a guy can dream though, right? Although, that's also to say that the closest that fantasy may ever come to a reality is if I can ever get the story written, so we just never know.

One big reason this resonates with me the way it does, a nomadic-style of life, is because I've never felt like I belong in any one place. It's more like one day, I'll feel like I'm a city recluse, living on my family's campground at basically a house on one of the waterfront lots (that's how Penelope's setting came to be). Another, I'll feel like my true place in life isn't with modern society at all, rather, that I should be free on horseback, traversing the Mongol Steppes. Yet, the next day, I'll probably belong in the middle of the Alaskan Tundra in an off-grid cabin. Still later, I might envision myself as one of the many Asian people that I find beyond interesting in an infinite amount… talk about an alliteration. My point stands, the way I see myself is, through-and-through, nomadic. My reality isn't tied to just me being me at where and when I am, no.

This is also why I made the joke about my being delusional before.

If I want to, I can close my eyes and force myself into the mindset that is the 1990s, and I used to do that a lot, I can fill in details mentally when I'm reading a book, I can be sitting down to my piano, blindfolded, and let the feeling of what I'm playing take me to what it is. Put simply, I don't just blindly accept reality as reality, and I'm also aware of it (I consider that to be the main argument in backing up that I'm in control of myself mentally) to the point where I can flip a mental switch and get in the mindset that I need (or want) to be in. You can accept reality as reality (there's definitive proof on so many levels that I'm laying in bed with my laptop, typing this post right now), but you don't have to accept external reality as reality… even though it's extremely healthy to do so. See, one thing I've always liked about the human mind when I realized that I could control the reality I was dealing with (external "real" reality or internal realities) was that when you take a moment to think about how powerful the human brain is, the notion of it alone is astonishing.

I don't consider myself to be mentally sick, just an odd form of perceptive.

What I mean by the above is if you take the notion of a creator (as a Christian, I believe in God), mankind (us), and artificial intelligence. We can create AI, but we were created by God. In a way, it all stacks together like Russian Nesting Dolls: the biggest (God) is bound by nothing, the middle (us) is bound by the largest (God), and the smallest (AI) is bound by the middle (us) is bound by the largest (God). Thinking of it, the analogy falls apart pretty quickly in my own head, partially due to my tenancy to break things down to their fundamental values and not organize them, but I'm sure someone can follow my train of thought.

Anyway, I do hope my thoughts and ramblings here led to some thought-provoking moments! Until next week.