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Facebook is considered by many people to be a more mature online social networking service¹ compared to MySpace² . Facebook focuses more on the concept of networks: you belong to an area, a school, a company or some other group on Facebook which becomes your primary network. As of this writing, Facebook does not allow you to directly edit the entire layout of your profile, which is considered a blessing and a downside, depending on which group of people you talk to. You can, however, customize where different parts and snippets of information get placed on your layout.

MySpace is considered by many to be the most widely known online social networking service in the world. MySpace focuses more on the concept of adding friends and other people to your profile so that you can get to know them more. MySpace allows you to edit almost the entire layout of your MySpace profile. Again, just like Facebook, this is considered both a good and a bad thing, based on the preferences of different people. Maybe having different preferences is what life is all about, right?

A Facebook account, at the moment, focuses heavily on comments and other ways of interaction to help people communicate. A MySpace account, at the moment, focuses heavily on comments, direct messages, and the actual profile customization to help people communicate. MySpace also has its own instant messaging service, called the MySpace IM that you download onto your computer to chat with all of your MySpace buddies or strangers. Facebook, in contrast, has developed its own in-browser chat service, enabling you to chat with any of your online contacts within your browser, while you are actively browsing or doing anything on your Facebook account.

Do you prefer Facebook or MySpace?

So, back to our original question: based on the above brief information, would you prefer using Facebook or MySpace? Are there some other points or reasons for your answer?

I will stop here so that I can do a few things, including checking a message I got on MySpace and sending a message to someone on Facebook. Thank you for reading.

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An example: some parts of a day in the life of the Bygone Initiative Advocate

So what you do is you get up in the morning and get ready and leave the house. If you forget your house or car keys inside the house and lock yourself out, do not worry: let bygones be bygones. You can think about it later when you get back home. You take the bus to work or wherever you are going. You get on and you pay the bus driver. If you forget to pay the bus driver and he/she says that you have not paid, say the magic words to the bus driver: “Let bygones be bygones.” Are you starting to understand the power of the Bes Bygone Initiative now? You do not do things to get away with them. You do things and after they are done, there is no crying over it. Absolutely no crying at all. Unless, of course, you drop chocolate or your ice cream melts onto the floor; then it is all right to cry².

You get to the coffee shop and order some coffee that you do not like. Once you get the coffee and drink it, it tastes horrible to you, but you remember the golden sentence. You are very happy, since happiness itself is a manifestation of the thing already happening, and you drink it all. Your stomach feels bad, and after throwing up, you are happy since it has happened already. You walk around and meet people you know, and you tell them what your current bygone day is all about. When they ask you if you are stupid or simply listening to some online person too much. You respond with the golden sentence: “No need to worry, forget about it, talk about something else, it’s already happened.” Other people will love you for saying that and flock around you to see who this smart person is. Or they will simply tell you they forgot to do something and walk away.

The Bygone Initiative

What I am thinking and planning here is an actual reaction: whatever action you do, without focusing on the reaction, your reaction can be more of a “it happened, no reason to place any blame or worry about it - time to focus on how to move on or how to cope with it” kind of mentality. Of course, if you think it in term of that quote, it sounds more of a strict philosophy than the cool version of “let bygones be bygones“, no? You will feel more positive in a more honest fashion, instead of the fake honesty that everyone is told to show in their faces today, the way they tell the customer support people at gun point to “smile because they can feel that smile over the phone.” With the bygone initiative, you will feel happier in a more sincere manner and naturally, instead of forcing yourself to feel happier or to put on a fake attitude of positiveness, since you will realize that negative things can happen and that all you can do is to focus on now and the upcoming history, instead of only your past. Your reaction to this very article may let you know whether you can look at the happy and funny things in life, or if you are the person who forces everyone to request your permission to talk to you before they can, well, hmm, talk to you.

The Silver Bygone rule

There is only one rule to this initiative: you do not do things for the sole purpose of following the Bygone Initiative, and instead you follow the bygone initiative once you have done something without thinking or looking forward to the bygone reaction. You cannot start any action for the sole purpose of having the end result be a bygone - things should happen naturally, and the end result, only when it is encountered, should be a bygone. No thought should be given to the bygone before or after that stage - that is the key to this initiative. Otherwise you will destroy the whole Bes’s Bygone Initiative and force someone to put on a fake smile and say “Let bygones be bygones *cough*” - we would not want that, would we?

7 random bygone actions

Here are some bygone trends and practices that should make you wonder if I am listing these to support them or if I am listing these to give you an idea of what a small difference in an understanding can do to our daily lives.

1. You hit someone and since the action is already done, let bygones be bygones.
2. You eat the food at the supermarket before paying for it at the cashier. When you are confronted by the security, you know exactly what to say, right?
3. You write a post and then move on completely, ignoring all the comments and responses to that post. Oh wait, many bloggers already do this! Never mind.
4. You take someone with you to be your driving companion to San Francisco and when you get lost, you simply say “It’s done - this is our new destination.” You end up in Canada and you tell the passenger “Our new home - like it? “
5. When someone hurts you mentally, you give them a dollar and say “Already done - let bygones be bygones. Now go spend it on something good.“
6. If someone hits you, physically, you give them half a dollar. You do not need to say anything in this case - most probably you will be hit a few times until you have given up all the cash in your pockets. That will teach you to carry only a $1.50 cash in your pocket and have a credit card.³
7. Wake up late due to sleeping late and get to work. When anyone at works lets you know that you are late, say “Wait - I thought we are focusing on the now and not the thing that already happened? Want to know what I read online recently? let me e-mail you the link….“
8. Run after a thief who stole something from you and when you get a hold of them, say “Let bygones be bygones, and let bygones be stolen too, pat the thief on the back, smile, dust off any dust from his/her clothes, and walk away without getting the thing that was stolen. Turn around if you want to see the confused thief still standing there.
9. Call your credit card company and say “It’s already happened - already bought things and paid for them. Let’s forgive and forget, shall we?” Unfortunately, you will realize that the credit card companies and their allies of today are not true believers of the Bygone Initiative.

The above reactions can add a level of BesBygoneism into your life, which can make you much, much happier in many situations, or at least think of life in a more positive or realistic manner. Please note that some situations may result in your getting physically hurt, but as long as your mind is happy, let the past be in the past, right?

What is your view of Bes’s Bygone Initiative?

What do you think? Has any of this made any sense, or are you wondering when I will start talking about the real article? Should I myself simply let bygones be bygones and consider this thought or your reaction as something in the past?

No need to cry now - it’s done. You have read this thought of mine and nothing can make you forget it instantly, other than drinking a lot of orange juice or attacking a cat and getting attacked in return as a distraction. You can try telling the cat “let bygones be bygones you aggressive feline beast“, but I doubt that will lessen your punishment.

Thank you for reading.

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Going to a movie
A meeting with a friend or someone else
Meeting someone
Going to an art exhibition
Going shopping
Going for a walk
Going out to run with your dogs
Going out to steal other dogs to run with them and then returning them afterwards
Going to the bar
Going to a restaurant
Going out for anything that can be skipped in emergency situations

The online thing that you may do instead of the offline things:

Chat with someone online, that you know a bit, but that you have never met offline

What do you think?

For this question, let us assume that “it depends on the person” phrase is not available - we are not considering the attachment of an online person here but the existence of such a situation. A yes or no, or some other answer, besides the “it depends” phenomenon, can do better here. What do you think? Is there anything you can think of, that you may never give up offline even once, for anyone online that you have ever met?

Similar example: would you skip going outside just to read an upcoming article at this site? No??!! :’(

Thank you for reading. I hope you skipped and paused this reading in the middle at least once in order to go and do something offline.

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My question pinpoints at whether or not answering personal questions to such people who are not your friends, regardless of the exact type or side of the question, should come with the idea or expectation of having that other personal also give proper attention and response to the answer instead of typical responses like “Oh ok” or “Wow I have no answer to that question” before immediately and randomly moving on to some other random blabbing or some other random personal question. Or would you rather always say “Mind your own damn business!“? If someone asks a personal question, should that person be expected by either themselves or the other person, to actually give thought, attention, respect or something similar to the answer instead of a generic response?

So the question is: Should attention or further response be given to personal answers one gives in response to personal questions online?

Thank you for reading this personal question

Please let me know what you think of this. I am planning to extend this question in other areas related to online bonds, both real and fake, and disconnects, also real and fake, between people. My next questions will probably revolve around the idea of what kind of questions you consider to be personal or non-personal, and whether or not you believe in the concept of personal and non-personal questions. Thank you for reading. I hope the questions I just asked were very personal to you.

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In my view, setting achievable goals does not seem like a good concept. Following are five of the several different reasons due to which setting achievable goals can be bad.

1. You limit yourself before you start.

   People who think of what they cannot do in their entire life usually look for smaller things they can do to feel better. If you want to simply feel better by faking levels of accomplishments by limiting your boundaries, go ahead. If you think your life should improve or you want to keep on improving the satisfaction of your life, you have to increase some thing, like effort or your targets or even your thinking, in order to expect or get more. Since you set goals usually to achieve something, setting limited goals means you want to achieve something that is easy and limited. Even the simple concept of thinking more about thoughts themselves or something helps.

2. You avoid obstacles.

   Have you ever come across the saying “Look for challenges.” Well, people who look for challenges in life simply because they want to face challenges worry me because such people are very weak: they usually simply want to prove to themselves or others that they are better. How about achieving something through a challenge? I am not sure if “The Challenge Facer” is a goal some people are out to achieve: maybe they are. Similarly, people who keep avoiding obstacles and living a life without obstacles usually end up not doing much.

   Focus on what you want. If there are challenges along the path of what you want, then facing those challenges is more logical, reasonable and ethical than simply going around saying “I’m a challenging person. I look for challenges.” Of course, once you are aiming for something, then you can look for challenges or try your best to avoid them. Now you should realize that your goal itself may be to face challenges in life for some reasons only known you². If such a goal exists, then sure, you can go ahead and look forward to such challenges in my view.

3. Life will not improve for you.

   How can life improve when you only set out to do things which are easily doable based on your existing life? If you want to change life, you have to do things differently to achieve a different result than what you are experiencing at the moment. How can a goal, which requires no change in the essential elements or views in your life, result in your life changing due to that goal?

4. Achievable goals are an excuse to simply have goals.

   Usually, it seems, many achievable goals exist simply because one wants to feel better by having any goal in their mind. Thus, you make plans on what to do in a year simply because making such a plan makes you feel that you are doing something good³. Sure, such a feeling is important also, but you can try to convert those feelings into other things also to see if the new results help you even more.

5. Stereotypical tradition of setting goals will continue.

   This reason usually happens because we see many others around us planning their upcoming year or analyzing their previous years to see what goals they can achieve or have achieved. If you set out to do something about your goal planning simply because people around you set their yearly goals, you may be simply making goal plans in order to fit into the society. You already know where I stand when it comes to doing things simply because the society does and loves them, right?⁴

Set goals regardless of their achievable status

Now you should realize that the very idea, of setting up goals that are easy to achieve or are simply achievable since the beginning, being bad also means that any goals you set are theoretically achievable. Thus, when you set goals, do not think about their achievable status or their achievable future. Think of the process and the actual goal. The more dreamy the goal, the more important it probably should or may be for you, even if that dreamy important goal is one of the dozens of other goals in your mind.

As time passes, you will realize that some goals are being achieved, some goals are failing miserably, while other goals have surpassed your expectations, have slowed down, or something else. That is normal, and that is how life is utilized to achieve something.

What do you think?

Please let me know what you think about the idea of simply having goals instead of achievable goals, or if you have any questions or comments or anything to share, like your own goals from the past or why you had them. Please let me know if the above thought or theory can be a universal law, or if there are exceptions where the above listed traits or other traits of achievable goals can do more good than this thought of mine, or if the idea above can be modified to be more accommodating.

When we have goals, we can work on achieving them. If we fail, we will learn and that feeling and experience becomes part of us, enabling us to hopefully try new and different ways of achieving other goals in the future. Say no to setting goals that are easily achievable on purpose. Focus on setting goals based on what you want your goals to be.

Thank you for reading.

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The below Twitter messages exist just because Twitter exists, and just because one can Twitter, and because one cannot think of any other reason to Twitter, and just to increase Twitter followers³. It seems that the same mentality that has turned innocent blogs into money making professional-services-claiming-to-be-blogs and the non-blog arena into website-filled-with-keywords-and-tags-to-please-search-engines world has also flooded Twitter: people keep describing Twitter and similar services with as many complicated terms and terminologies as possible so that the end result will be more direct or indirect money somehow by making people think “Wow, this is useful because it is sophisticated. I’ma gonna use it! COOL!”

It is as if the fact “Bes eats because there is food” has become the universal law upon which Twittering for many people revolves around. They Twitter because there is Twitter. So I present to you 14 Twitter messages that should help you realize as to what the focus of the message is, and what the real focus should be. Keep in mind that the poster of such messages had no reason behind the message other than to Twitter it. You decide what you would want your focus and reasoning to be for each message if you had a chance.

1. In the bathroom.
2. Out of the bathroom. Realized I only went in there to Twitter that I was in the bathroom.
3. Throwing up while typing this. Food poisoning. Crap got some on the phone
4. She is confused as to why I am Twittering during this interview. Just ask me the questions.
5. This exam sucks and the moderator keeps looking as if I was cheating through my cell phone.
6. Waiting for the cash register to process this sale, holding the customer credit card in my other hand.
7. In police station. Handcuffed. Drunk-driving-over-rabbits-offense. Thank god they didn’t take phone away. I can twitter w/phone behind me.
8. I woke up.
9. Neighbors woke up.
10. With my boy friend. He doesn’t know he is my boy friend yet.
11. Wife woke up. $&^%
12. Following this stranger, a beautiful girl, for hours now. Hope she doesn’t notice; I’m only following to make sure she gets home safe.
13. I am Twittering because this is Twitter.
14. I am Twittering so Bes can talk about me.

There you go, my Twitter loving or Twitter hating or Twitter confused beings⁴. The above Twitter messages, and many other Twitter updates on similar notes have no purpose for them. Many people simply use Twitter to let everyone else know what they are doing, while others do it to gain attention through more Twitter followers or through the stereotype that the more you Twitter, the cooler you are.

Of course, the funniest thing is to see how many Twitter-obsessed people have no communication skills, no interest in making real friends, no interest in the well being of others, and no interest in how to focus on content instead of creating a hype through presentation.

Thank you for reading and not Twittering.

I will stop here please, so I can think of what to Twitter now. I hope I made you pause your Twitter for at least a few moments. Please let me know what you think, if you have any comments, or if you would like to see more of such messages or would like to share your own messages or ideas.

Thank you for reading. You can get back to your pro-Twitter or anti-Twitter activities now. I will go back to being confused and giggling nervously in my head⁵.

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Obligations of a shipping company during shipping delays

For me, keeping both me and the sender in the dark about the reason for the delay is something that should not happen. As a customer, you are assumed to have an obligation to make a payment before the shipping company will take your package. The shipping company itself, however, does not feel obligated to some things it should do for customers or the package. Behold below the 4 obligations that I think shipping companies like FedEx should feel responsible for, when it comes to delayed deliveries:

1. Notify the sender after they make a payment

   Did you notify either the sender or the receiver about the reason for the delay after the sender pays for the shipment? Simply saying “On route for delivery” for 2 days in a row through the online tracking system tells me nothing. I know it is on route for delivery: that is why I am paying to have the item shipped. What I want to know is what kind of a route is causing the delivery of the package to be delayed, and I want you to tell me immediately, automatically, when any delay happens.

2. Notify the sender before they make the payment

   Did you notify the sender of any possible delays in the shipment of an item before they paid? If the shortage in staff has been going on for “weeks“, as FedEx told the sender’s secretary, would it not have been responsible for FedEx to tell the sender, before they placed the shipping order. The shipping company can say something like “You are sending this item overnight, but we have to tell you that because of the shortage of staff in the area where this package is going, we may not be able to deliver this item faster than the regular post office.”?

3. Refund the wasted money

   Did the shipping company reimburse the sender for the money they paid for an overnight delivery that took 4 days to deliver in reality? Sure, telling the sender that no overnight delivery is 100% confirmed is a good protection idea, but if you know you are not going to have enough staff to deliver items beforehand, how about reimbursing the sender some of the money they could have saved by shipping using a slower shipping method? The sender paid for overnight delivery, and the package got delivered after 4 days. The sender paid money for a service they did not get because the shipping company hid the fact that there could be delays due to staff shortage.

4. Apologize voluntarily and sincerely

   Imagine someone takes your money in order to do something for you, but the thing they actually do is not worth the money you gave to that person. That someone never apologizes to you until you inquire about the situation, to which they say “Oh yeah, the people I knew could not be found, thus the result was not what you expected. You should have expected it since anything can happen. Sorry”

   Would you consider such a reply to be an apology? If you do not think it is sincere or even an apology, why would you accept a similar apology from a shipping company? How many of us are not robots who would love to hear a sincere apology without us asking for it? An apology is not needed because of wanting emotional attention. An apology because you hid information from me so that you could wast my money, time and plans for your own gain. Very few businesses realize that: that is why most businesses simply keep saying sorry without feeling guilty or even knowing how the customer was affected.

Shortage in staff does not always have to amount to the suffering of the customer

The above points are what a shipping company should keep in mind. Simply being short on staff, which can either be signs of an innocent struggle or bad management, does not mean the only one suffering is the customer. In the above case, FedEx got all the money knowing full hand there would be delays, delivered the item late, and did not notify either the sender or the receiver about the reason for the late delivery. In the end, the winner was FedEx which got more money than what it actually provided in return to the sender and the receiver. In the end, the people who suffered were the direct and indirect customers: the sender who paid for the overnight shipping and the receiver who received the item late.

What do you think?

What do you think? As a customer, do you think a shipping company can do anything differently than what FedEx did above? If you owned or worked for a shipping company, what would you have done in a similar position? Would you have acted the same, or differently?

Oh, before I forget, I went to a FedEx Kinko’s store on Thursday to send a package overnight, and saw around 12 staff workers. 7 were working, while 5 were laughing and talking to each other in different areas. Maybe those 5 should be turned into drivers who can deliver packages in case of “shortage in staff.” The package did get delivered by Friday noon, which was good.

Thank you for reading.

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Now keep in mind that if you would have slapped me first, I could have apologized or done something else, instead of slapping you back. For example, if you slapped me first as a result of me causing you to spill something on your clothes, I could have immediately run away screaming “Wooohooo!! I have a topic for my site!” while you chase me. Thus, a preemptive action is not an action that is the only solution to something that can happen. It is an action that the preemptive person or entity chooses to take.

The Preemptive Initiative

What I propose is that we try some preemptive things, listed below, in our lives. Why can we not take an action before there is even a need for such action in any form or manner? Whether I am serious or joking or being myself, you decide. Life would be completely different in many perspective if we start taking actions, including the act of not doing anything, before there is a need for such actions. The preemptive points listed below will help you get started.

The Golden Preemptive Rule

There is only one rule for Preemptive Actions Initiative: forget every other rule and focus only on the action itself. The below preemptive actions are being committed solely and only because of the very nature of each specific preemptive action itself. There is no other information or reason for which these actions take place. This very article is intended to let you know both the fun things that can result from preemptive actions, and the horrible things too. Hopefully by the end of this article, you will realize a bit more than before as to how preemptive actions and assumptions affect our life in different manners.

12 random & interesting Preemptive Actions

While some of the following may look like pranks², imagine making these part of your life and also imagine accepting the fact that others do the below things to you daily. Imagine that your life is empty without this, and that anyone telling you otherwise would only make you mad. How then will you live your life? Will you be able to realize when you are analyzing something and when you are assuming something?

Here we go:

1. File for divorce before you get married
   Found the girl or guy of your dreams? Take them to divorce court before you even get married. If they ask why you would want to do such a thing, tell them they were going to cheat on you, take your money, or do something else to hurt you. If they ask for proof, tell them your proof is your ability to preemptively analyze preemptive things. See how they react. Even if you get married after that, they may want to divorce you.
2. Break up before you start a relationship
   Similar to the divorce point, but for people not having marriage in sight. Walk up to the guy or the girl you want to ask out, and say “I want to break up with you.” Walk away, and let the gossips start. Launch a preemptive gossip yourself against the gossipers.
3. Sell the car before you buy it
   Go to the car dealership, test drive the car and put the car for sale on eBay or Craigslist while sitting in the salesperson’s office that same day, before you even sign any papers or pay for the car. When the buyer comes, take their money, leave and have the salesperson deal with the situation and that buyer.
4. Run from the cops before they have any reason to run after you
   See a cop and run. When they chase you, catch you and ask why you ran, say “I may end up doing something wrong in the future, which is why I was running since you may catch me then.” Wait a few hours while they search you, your house, your car, or anything else you own, check your background and your DNA and your blood and your pockets, before they scratch their heads in confusion((Please note: They might recommend or order you to go through a psych test to see if you are crazy or not.)). Be prepared to be faced with an authority that does not believe in your preemptive beliefs. If the cops ask you again “Why did you run?” Ask them back “Why did you run after me? You also preemptively though you would catch me before you knew I did anything wrong!
5. Apologize for what you did before you do the thing you apologize for
   Walk up to a stranger and say “Sorry man for stealing your money“, and walk away. Keep looking back to see how the stranger looks at you, or if the stranger comes after you to slap you.
6. Return a call before you get the call
   Call all your friends and say “Hey, I am returning your call. Wassup?” When they say “I didn’t call you…” Say “I know. I realized that there is a possibility that you were going to call me, I was going to be away from the phone and thus I was going to miss your phone call. That is why I am returning your call before you even called me. Wassup? Tell me quickly, I don’t have much time.” See their reaction and make a note of it in your friendship diary. See how many friends start calling you fewer times after that.
7. Tell people you are closing your website, before you open your website
   I want to announce that I am closing my shoe website. It has been a very hard decision, and I know a lot of you would have been disappointed had it actually existed, but I have been forced to take this action since I knew the website would have consumed a lot of my time. On top of that, I do not know if the website was going to sell shoes or talk about shoes or something else. Heck, I do not even know the name of my shoe website or what the domain name url would be. Sorry all, and I hope none of you cry because you miss my shoe website. May my shoe website live in your hearts forever, as it surely lives in mine!
8. Quit a job before getting that job
   Walk into the corporate office of any large company and ask the first employee you see what the proper procedure is for someone who wants to quit a job that they have not yet even gotten the offer for. After that person looks at you for a while, slap them. When you get arrested, refer to my above example and say you exercised your right to preemptive strike as you knew they were going to slap you for asking a weird question.
9. Ask for a refund for your computer before you buy that computer
   Walk into Best Buy and request a refund for your computer. When the sales associate asks you for the item and the receipt, say “I haven’t bought the computer yet.” See whether or not you can end up making the sales associate call for the manager. Say the same thing to the manager and in the end, when you have had enough, say “Ok, I guess you do not respect my preemptive refund rights.” See the reaction.
10. Tell the bus driver “Thanks for the ride” before you get on the bus
    Stop the bus. When the door opens, look at the driver, thank him/her for the ride and walk away. See what happens then. Make sure you have medical insurance; preemptively buying medical insurance is a good thing.
11. Thank the guests for the great party and close the door before the guests even come into your house for the party
    This one is interesting. Invite guests to a party. When they show up at the door, open the door, thank them for coming and immediately say “It was a nice party, bye” and close the door, without letting them in. See what happens, and see if they ring the door bell to ask what is going on.
12. Thank and pay for the food at the restaurant and leave before ordering the food
    Walk into a restaurant and ask for your bill. When the cashier or waiter asks what you ordered or who served you, say “I haven’t ordered yet.” Everything that follows will test your preemptive initiative oath: if you laugh and simply walk out, you were only a prankster playing a prank. If you actually end up paying the money and believe this should happen daily to others and to you, you are preemptively initiating the preemptive initiative.

The above are some interesting preemptive actions that can add fun and frolics into your life. Be careful: not realizing what is the real message in this article can result in a lot of slapping and beating by cops and other people.

Do you support the preemptive initiative?

What do you think about the above points? If you realistically did any of the above, would you feel happy? Would you feel sad? Would you feel stupid? Would you not feel anything? Do you think preemptive actions can result in anything good or anything bad? Do you think such a thinking can improve or worsen your life? Can you think of any other actions, ideas or things that can hint at a preemptive action?

Thank you for reading. I will stop here and will go eat now, since I may become hungry soon.

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A simple example of an article without a picture is my post “Question: do you like using your real name online?.” Sure, an article may have other pictures like the site name logo on the top of this page, though such pictures may be connected to the site directly and may not necessarily be only applicable or connected to the article in question².

Some benefits of a writing without pictures include:

• No distraction, resulting in full focus on the text
• Better understanding of what is being said because of being able to imagine things, instead of being biased by what the picture may be showing
• Understood by many people, including those who prefer having pictures

Articles with pictures

A good example of a post that uses pictures would be my recent article titled “10 stereotypical elements to offline unprofessionalism.” That article has pictures to give some brief examples of what I am referring to in different areas³.

Some benefits of a writing with pictures include:

• Better understanding of what one may be referring to, specially when the picture may explain things when the author cannot explain easily through text or when the author wishes to explain more through the pictures
• A pictorial or an extra word association with the writing itself⁴
• In some cases, a simple visualization of stuff through a specific picture or a group of pictures, as an alternate to reading the entire text

Do you prefer online articles with or without pictures?

As you may have noticed from the above text, having pictures can help or can cause issues in some cases for different people. There is probably no definite answer to whether or not text with pictures is a good thing. So, do you prefer reading articles with or without pictures?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it.

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Following are 10 reasons for which you can avoid American Airlines, as of 2007. I am going to avoid American airlines for these very reasons, and a few more. The list below is not supposed to be in a chronological order: I will go back and forth in my trip to show you different aspects of how American Airlines operates, and how their operations affected me. This is also a way to tell you of my trip: you will find out where I was going and some brief details as to why I was traveling, among maybe a few other things.

1. Their in-flight food service is bad

   There used to be a day when you could eat all you want on a plane. “It’s ok, I will eat on the plane“, I used to think. Now, while the top executives reap in millions, customers are not served food so that the airline can save money. American Airlines only gives out a few soft drinks on most flights.

   American Airlines does allow you to bring your own food, but nowhere is this policy about bringing your own food printed on tickets or mentioned on their website. Only when you are in the terminal or sitting inside the plane do you slowly find out that people can bring their own food. The hunger at that time can drive you into thinking “If I take one or two of her Oreo cookies while she is sleeping, will she notice when she wakes up?” Wondering about that question enabled me to survive the journey while being extremely hungry.

2. Their baggage care and service is bad

   American Airlines lost my luggage when I was flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Then, after more than a day when the luggage was found, I found out that my luggage was missing items that were inside it. I had around $1000 worth of 3 items and a gift from someone that went missing. Not only that, my luggage had a few things and garments that belonged to some other passenger: noticeable, a man and a woman.

   After 3 weeks of phone tags and giving me an investigation numbers, American Airlines sent me papers to fill out to tell them the exact same story. Hopefully they can find my things. Here is the funny thing: American Airlines did not take the items from me that did not belong to me, telling me to hold on to them and someone will get them from me. It has been 4 weeks and I have someone else’s trousers, bra and a few other things. I keep forgetting everyday to drive to the airport and throwing them in front of the American Airlines baggage counter. Throwing them into the trash seems like a bad thing to do.

3. Their prices are bad

   American Airlines supposedly has the largest fleet, and still they charge more than others. Their planes are usually full. One good thing though: they have deals with different airlines, so you can probably find a good time to fly, most of the time, if you are willing to pay the price. Even with all the money coming in, they still complain of losses and other things. Where is all the money going?

   All of the money is definitely not going back into the service they provide, that is for sure. Nowadays they do not offer anything extra, serving only some soft drinks and water. Even when you ask for water 3 times on a 6 hour flight they make a weird face as if you were a kidnapped refugee who was not supposed to ever ask for water.

4. Their in-flight entertainment service is bad

   No TV, no audio jack, nothing. They do not even carry magazines or newspapers on both short or mid-long flights anymore. I remember the early 90’s, flying on several Asian, European, Middle East and a probably-then-Russian airline, and they all had TV’s, audio jacks with local radio, and lots of newspapers and magazines.

   Yet, American Airlines does not offer any of those. You just sit there, bored to death. I guess American Airlines can say “We are in the transportation business, not in the entertainment business.” If you want to avoid boredom, bring your own laptop and see if you can use it while in the air, or fly any of the several other airlines in America, like jetBlue or Virgin America. I tried to play text tags with Valerie while on the plane.

5. In my experience, majority of their staff’s attitude is bad

   Was it just my experience, or does the American Airline staff going from Texas to Alabama not greet or say bye to anyone who is not “white” or “black“? Was it just my experience, or does the American Airline staff going from Alabama to Texas not greet or say bye to anyone who is not “white” or “black“?

   Similarly, at the baggage claim counter in San Francisco, the staff acts as if they were kidnapped and forced to work there, and that they are letting out their frustration on the customers. Sure, when you work long hours you may probably be the person who bites others, but that is probably one of the exact reasons why American Airlines has staff with bad attitude: they do not hire more people to replace the already moody people. Again, where is all the money going?

   How about the attitude of the minority of their staff? I can say that ranged from no moodiness to being very happy to help. This is a very small minority from my experience. There was this very serious old guy who was working near the counter when I was checking in to fly from San Francisco. He was very serious and kept yelling at me to “not go to that counter” or “go to that counter.” Even though he was serious, he started asking me about my flight and started yelling at the top of his voice “You young person, you gonna miss your flight, hurry and don’t be lazy! Run to the gate. Don’t walk, RUN RUN or you cry!”

   It was like me being scolded in front of everyone at the airport as I was the youngest and everyone thought I had upset him or something. A young girl started asking her mother “Mommy, did this guy do something wrong? Why is he [the guy] yelling at him [me]?” Well, since I was younger than most people at that time the old guy sincerely wanted to help, thinking I was not aware of how serious it was for me to hurry. If I had not listened to him and had not run to the security check point and then to the gate, I would have missed my flight as within minutes of me passing through the security check point, dozens and dozens of people passengers started pouring in, and very long lines started forming.

   I prefer this old guys’ attitude and willingness to sincerely care and help instead of all the fake and forced smiles and serious faces that I saw on majority of the faces of American Airlines staff, who did not even care whether or not I am going to get my lost baggage or items back, let alone caring about me missing my flight. If that young girl ever finds this site, she is probably going to grow up to tell all her future kids “I saw Bes getting yelled at, hahaha! Hurry up or you will get yelled at too by someone!“

6. Their “shortage of staff” reason causes massive delays for customers after landing

   When I landed at San Francisco, Los Angeles, then San Francisco, Dallas, Birmingham, Dallas, and finally San Francisco again, the plane had to wait a long time before being able to connect or get near any terminal, each and every time at every airport. Sometimes the wait was as long as 40 minutes. We just sat there, on the runway, waiting for the American Airline or any other staff to prepare a gate for our arrival.

   The pilot gave this as the reason: “Due to shortage of staff in the entire airline industry, we have no one to work on our terminal gate, just like other airlines, and thus we have to wait for a while. Sorry about that.” Sure, it is not the pilot’s fault as he probably has to read the lines that American Airlines tells him to read, but I have rarely experienced such delays, after landing and being stuck sitting inside the plane, on 4 other airlines that I have flown at least 50 times last year alone within and outside California.

7. The probability of accommodations for missed or possible flights is very bad, even though American Airlines promises otherwise

   I wanted to meet Valerie going on my 2nd trip. When I was booking my flight, I called American Airlines over the phone and after hours of negotiation, I was told to fly to Dallas in Texas early in the morning, and to try to see if there was an available seat ona ny flight going to Missouri. I was told that there were usually no full flights going from Texas to Missouri, and that if I asked all the that went from Texas to Missouri, I would surely find something to take me to Missouri as part of a connecting flight that stayed for several hours in Missouri, and then onto Alabama.

   Well, I arrived in Dallas and realized that American Airlines staff there had a thing for beggars. They wanted me to beg. I reasoned, I pleaded. They kept telling me all flights are full and that even if they were not full they could not change my flight to have an extra connection. I told them I was “guaranteed” over the phone that if there was any seat availability I would be able to get it, specially I had paid extra to find a later flight to Alabama just in case I could not find any connecting flight to Missouri. “You would have to talk to the person who told you that over the phone.” Such answers seemed typical of American Airlines. After spending about 7 hours trying to get a connecting flight, I gave up, and flew to Alabama on the last flight for the day. Sorry Valerie for making you drive and keeping you waiting!

8. If you get your luggage but are missing items that were inside your luggage, American Airlines’ solution tactics are bad

   When my luggage was missing, I told the baggage claim counter at San Francisco International airport [SFO] about it. They filed down everything in the computer. Then, a day later, early morning, they called and asked the same information again. I told them the information and they said they have completely different information from what I was telling them. So I had to retell them the whole information. I kept asking them how they could mess up the information, and the lady on the phone kept repeating “You would have to ask those people you told about it.” Great answer, American Airlines. That answer is one of the worst examples of customer service.

   When my bag arrived after more a day, after midnight, I found that it was missing stuff and it had some guy and a girls’ stuff in it, mixed with whatever of my stuff had survived the journey, as I told you earlier. I filed a report about it on the spot, and called and filed another report about it over the phone within 4 hours.

   After 4 days, while I was on my trip in Alabama, I called to ask about my missing stuff from my baggage that had already been found. I was told that American Airlines had no information about me filing such a claim. I was told to contact the baggage service counter at the airport where I had landed, at the time the baggage went missing. That meant I had to talk in person to the people working at the American Airlines baggage counter in San Francisco. I could not fix the problem from Alabama. That was not a bad thing, as hanging out with Ronald in Alabama turned out to be more than a great experience.

   After I got back from my trip and immediately when I landed at the airport, I filed the report again by talking to the American Airlines baggage counter in San Francisco, who also said they had no information about me filing such a claim, and that the people who were present on the day I had originally filed a claim were not working that day. I was told that American Airlines would send me a single paper in the mail that I only needed to sign and send back. When I got the papers after 2 weeks, I found out that they were claim papers, where I had to fill out everything from scratch. I even had to report what items I was missing. Why was I told to file my claim in all those other steps and departments then?

9. The communication between different departments of American Airlines is bad

   The American Airlines phone support did not know that I had filed a claim for lost luggage in person at the American Airlines baggage claim counter at San Francisco Airport. The lost and found baggage warehouse of American Airlines, about 4 miles from the San Francisco airport, did not know about my claim of missing items even though the baggage claim department over the phone did later on. The American Airlines phone support was not aware of me filing a claim for missing items from my lost luggage that had been found, and about some other passengers’ items in my bag. The American Airlines baggage claim department at San Francisco airport was not aware of me filing a claim for missing items from my luggage, which was previously lost, which I had previously filed at the American Airlines lost and found baggage warehouse and also over the phone with the American Airlines lost and found baggage.

   Confused? Imagine what I was going through, running around for almost 2 days from my first flight so that I could recover my lost stuff and baggage before my 2nd flight to Texas only 2 days later.

   I contacted the American Airlines phone support, phone baggage claim, headquarters over the phone, San Francisco American Airlines baggage counter on the phone, San Francisco American Airlines baggage counter in person, the American Airlines lost and found baggage warehouse over the phone, and the American Airlines lost and found baggage warehouse in person. I did not contact these departments on my own. I was told in each case by American Airlines staff to contact these departments to file the claims for the different headaches that American Airlines had brought to me and my traumatized luggage.

   Thus, I followed the proper procedure that I was told, and even after contact them on all those levels, I was sent through all the loops where different parts of the loop did not know I was doing things the loop itself had told me. Now, I have been sent papers to file my claim and start all over again.

10. If you believe American Airlines advertisements, your expectations may be destroyed because of reality, which is not that good

    There is probably no doubt that if all you want is to fly and you do not run into any issues and you do not want any extra service and you do not run into any issues and you fly from less popular airports, American Airlines may do a better job that many other airlines because of the number of flights they have and the number of cities they operate. However, anything more than the most basic, and you can run into issues.

    You know those ads they show on TV, which show the American Airlines staff remembering all the customer names and talking to them like friends? Well, I met and talked with at least 6 people at least 7 times, and every time each of them would treat me as if they saw me for the first time. No one remembered anyone’s name, even the names of passengers at San Francisco terminal who were yelling at American Airlines baggage staff that they had been “waiting for 6 hours to find my luggage, as I have no clothes and nothing to go to my hotel with, and you keep asking me the same information!” Where are all the smiling and caring people they show on American Airlines ads?

Well, that is it for now. These are the 10 reasons I will try to avoid American Airlines in the future unless I book at the last minute and/or American Airlines is the only airline to fly to the city I want to go to. Can you think of more points?

What do you think? Have you ever experienced anything similar?

Thank you for reading

I really, really appreciate you reading all of this. I hope some of this information can be helpful in some manner to you, should you run into any issues with American Airlines.

Thank you.

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1. E-mail

   I remember an era during the 90’s when signing up for dozens of e-mail accounts was cool. Having so many e-mail accounts did nothing; sending an e-mail was still sending an e-mail. People back then had Hotmail [now called Windows Live Mail], Coldmail, Yahoo Mail, Mail.com, ICQ mail, and AOL mail. Now, people also have Gmail, self-hosted e-mails on personal domains, and more. Having more e-mail accounts was once considered a status. Now, even though many people do not realize that each existing and additional e-mail account can bring in its own unique benefits and downsides, more and more people still keep opening new e-mail accounts daily.

   Opening e-mail accounts is one of the longest lasting online trends ever, and e-mails are still one of the most widely used online tools, if not the most widely used online tool.

2. Guestbooks

   This trend also started more solidly in the 90’s, and continued all the way until the first year or so after 2000 under the original name “guestbook“, after which the name continued and continues to lose its popularity to other terms and concepts which have been derived from it. The term guestbook came from the actual guestbooks and the same term used to describe books at places like museums, where visitors could leave comments and remarks for others to see, whether anonymously or with any detail. Online, in many cases, the guestbook became more popular than e-mail during its strong day, not in number of users but in actual fame, among many people who had guestbooks like Bravenet Guestbooks.

   Guestbooks paved the way for public comments that we see on blogs today. Overall, Guestbooks are still around in their pure form and in some evolved forms like online blog comments. Original, pure guestbooks themselves have lost a lot of their original popularity. In many cases, guestbooks have lost popularity and ground to the very concepts that were derived from them, like comments and forums.

3. Online diaries, blogs and their variants

   Online diaries were the sites that brought blogs into existence. Technically, blogs are nothing more than diaries. Of course, the concept of blogging has been commercialized and now online diaries, the very sites that started it all, are considered immature and not worthy by many of the blogs that aim to make money through non-personal content. I know many people who had and have different online diaries for different reasons. Many people would simply abandon one online diary for the other, as the concept of deleting online accounts was not considered as important by many people in the mid-90’s.

   Among the other things that online diaries have evolved into, blogs are the new normal craze now. Many people get more excited about having a blog instead of getting excited of what they want to achieve and what they can achieve with a blog. Online diaries have evolved into many things including blogs, networking sites, and more. LiveJournal can probably be considered an evolved example of personal diaries.

   Blogs are thriving, and are continuing to get stronger everyday. According to Technorati, more than 70 millions online blogs existed as of April 2007.

4. Chat and instant messaging accounts

   Instant messaging started mainly during the 2nd half of the 90’s, and to this day is very popular. Instant messaging accounts allow people to instantly chat with someone online. In the 90’s, people used to lure their friends into using ICQ to keep in touch. Slowly, Yahoo Messenger, AIM and MSN Messenger [now called Windows Live Messenger] brought more popularity to the entire instant messaging arena.

   Instant messaging itself got popular because of Internet Relay Chat [IRC]. IRC allowed people to chat instantly and live, and thus allowed them to communicate a bit faster than e-mail, if the people involved were online and using an IRC program at the same time. IRC evolved into different kinds of instant messaging, and instant messaging itself evolved and divided into voice chats, webcam conferences, live chat via e-mail accounts such as in Gmail, and more. In some ways, IRC itself can be considered an evolution of e-mail.

   Instant messaging ac