Author: The Joseph Craven

I'm tall, but not so tall that people point and stare.
Craven On....

Dubstep

Imagine taking Pac-man noises, adding broken bass noises to them, then extending them for several minutes, and you’ve got Dubstep music.

Like other great musical accomplishments as M.I.A. and the Gallagher brothers, Dubstep is a British creation. Dating back to the late 90’s, Dubstep is defined as “tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals” which basically breaks down into “the musical equivalent of an earthquake”.

"This is great, bro! I can FEEL my apartment collapsing!"

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This Is What Happens

My Facebook Ban

2008 was a bit of a rough year for yours truly, with many trials and the stress of trying to figure out what would happen after finishing college. Of course, in the life of someone who isn’t even 21 years old, stubbing a toe could qualify for “Worst Day Ever” status.

But I knew things had hit rock bottom when social media banned me.

It’s still hard to talk about. Years have passed, but the pain is still there. There were months without any contact with other people (besides actual, real life contact with other people), and nobody should have to go through that.

But it’s about time that the story is told. Continue reading “My Facebook Ban”

This Is What Happens

My Birthday

Wow.

I don’t really like my birthday too much. Well, let me rephrase that. I like it. I don’t really put much emphasis on it, though. It’s not that I have anything against getting older or anything. It’s just that when it’s your birthday, people pay a LOT of attention to you. There’s a lot of text messages and Facebook wall posts and phone calls. To be quite honest, I don’t like that much attention.

Now, I could go off on a lengthy explanation of how that’s a weird thing because I run a blog that I actively try to promote and blah blah blah, but it’s true. I don’t really enjoy having attention drawn to myself. I just planned on having a stupid post about how celebrating birthdays is kind of weird and then if people wanted to draw conclusions about it, they could.

But then this happened.

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Craven On....

Birthdays

Jeff Winger claims that what separates humans from animals is that we are the only ones who observe Shark Week. This is partially true. Animals do not observe special weeks in which they stare at other animals. No shark is going to have Human Week. But it’s not the whole truth.

This is what that idea gets correct: human beings celebrate things, and no other animal does. When a baby bird first flies, the parents don’t pull out the bird camcorder to preserve that moment for their nest movies. The parents just acknowledge that this is essential for their survival.

When a baby human first walks, however, parents act like their child has discovered the cure for cancer. It doesn’t occur to them that most every other person on the planet can accomplish this same feat. It never occurs that this actions is simply essential for survival.

And that is what separates humans from animals: humans celebrate not dying yet.

"Walking. Awesome. Now go learn how to feed yourself, you lazy bum."

Continue reading “Birthdays”