Instant Messaging and Me: Part 2: AmitL

As I said, IMing, always teaches me something new. So, after reading the posts from Loon Gal and Mich, I decided, it’s a Thursday, I’ve finished my planned tasks at work for the day and the week, so, why not do a bit of research on IMing words.(Read this as:Not tax my brains too much,and still come up with a post) So, here goes what I came across on some of the famous acronyms which I’ve also grown so used to utilizing or coming across in IM, blog posts, blog comments, et al.

- Famous first acronym: LOL:

It's original definition was "Laughing out loud" (also written occasionally as "Lots of Laughs"), used as a brief acronym to denote great amusement in chat conversations.Depending on the chatter, its definition may vary.

The list of its meanings includes, but is not limited to:

1) "I have nothing worthwhile to contribute to this conversation."

2) "I'm too lazy to read what you just wrote so I'm typing something useless in hopes that you'll think I'm still paying attention."

Other definitions:
the ultimate conversation ender, means laugh out loud, people say it even though they dont laugh at all
dude 1:hey man i saw so and so today

dude 2:lol(silence)

In truth the term "lol" is actually an acronym for "let's order linguini".
Person A: Damn, I'm hungry.

Person B: LOL! (Insinuating that Person A and Person B should both order linguini, a tasty pasta)

- Famous Second Acrynym: ROFL:

ROFL is an internet accronmym for Rolling On Floor Laughing, and like all things internet it has adapted to nerd culture and has taken on new real-life use, though usually in a satirical way.ROFL can be merged with other acronyms also.

Some examples of the merged accronyms are as follows:

ROFLAARP: Rolling On Floor Looking At Assorted Rodent P*rnography

or

ROFLEW: Rolling On Floor Laughing whilst Eating Waffles

Yo dude, these waffles are sweet! rofl.

Are you ROFLEW?

Nah dude! I'm totally eating them at a table.

- Famous Third Acrynym: LMAO

Laughing My Ass Off. Used online only.
Matt: Bill fell off the horse and injured his pelvis in 6 different places.

Joe: LMAO!

- Famous Fourth Acronym: BRB:
1. Acronym for Be Right Back 2. Acronym for Bathroom Break
1. brb. mom's calling.2. brb. i really need to pee.

- Famous Fifth Acronym: WTF: (Keshi, u reading this one and going WTF?haha)
1. What the f*ck.2. World Tae Kwon Do Federation
Guy #1: Dude! I'm going to the WTF world tournament!Guy #2: Uhh... what do you do in a "What the F*ck" tournament?

- Famous Sixth Acronym,nee, slang: Ha Ha:
I read two definitions for this one:

a) something very funny
that guy just drank too much beer and fell over with a dopey grin on his face. It was pretty ha ha.
b) Slang term for going to the loo. Though the reasoning for calling a bowel movement a "ha ha" is generally unknown, it is speculated that the reason invovles the comic value of pooping.
-Mom, where is grandpa?-Oh, he's going ha ha.

Footnote:

Confession: I really did not tax my brains for this one. All the knowledge is courtesy urban dictionary. Till next time, ROFL, LOL, BRB and awl zat Zazz.

IM ME ASAP! (Michelle)

I have always been a huge instant messenger user.My loyalties shifted to MSN a very long time ago because most of my friends use that but now you can add people on YAHOO! on your MSN which is very cool.That way, I get to keep in touch with everybody! There was a point when I was completely addicted to IM-ing.It was the phase where I had to burn the midnight oil and ''study'' for my boards but I was too busy learning new IM words.

I remember using shortforms was totally in vogue at one point.A person was considered super cool...or should I say -''kewl'' (I never understood the use of this one.It sounds so silly!) if they knew all the shortforms to words.

I remember I had sent my friend a text message once and she sent me a reply saying ''Michelle, I did not understand a word of what you typed, how about typing it in english?" I have to admit, it was quite hard typing the entire word!

We're living in such a fast-paced world now, everyone is in a hurry.We don't even have time to write entire sentences!

I think the word that has become universally put to use is LOL.If you really think about it, saying ''laugh out loud'' to something that isn't that funny, is pretty stupid...but I use it anyway! Of course, it is also a very handy acronym as Loon Gal pointed out- you can use it when you have nothing better to say! So, now you know why I ''LOL'' so much ;-)

LMAO.

I am IMin'!(vishesh)

lol :)
brb in 2.....
am back :)
yes??

ha,yes i have been chatting for the past three years or sumthin'.it all started of with yahoo! from then on...i have had a lot of interesting chats with a lot of people...have fought with a lot ...have forgiven and become frnds...but of late i have shifted more to goggle..have lost touch with the yahoo...too many memories and too boring....

but more than chatting it has been blogging of late for me....but chatting is spl in't's own sense..whenever you need a phone no...or say info...just catch someone online...you can't call a person at 11 for fun...but if they are on you can buzz 'em....you can also send 'em links and all and get going....now face bk has added a chat and am going to get to that...

so anyway gtg :)
catch ya later :)
tc :)

Instant Messaging and Me - Amrita (Red Soul)

I started chatting online when I was in high school. Since then, I've seen Rediff Bol, Yahoo Messenger, MSN, GTalk etc, and avoided some like AIM or AOL because they never really crossed path with me. It was a wonder in the beginning for me because I had never communicated openly with even my friends in school, and here I was: just username and password away from millions of fascinating people, all over the world, as if just sitting there, typing away to talk to me about their culture, their countries, their lives, their college grades or boyfriends/girlfriends. When it comes to something new, I always get greedy about it. I want to have it all. And such a platform was just what I needed to really start the process which I loved so much - observing people going through their lives.

I made some really great friends through IMs. With it, I've lived red and blue times (happy and sad times.. lol). At times in India, when my internet package used to get over, it felt like I was so far away from the world - I had to reconnect to my space, to my comfort zone which I had created in my messenger list, to keep in touch with my best friends that I had made online.

Instant Messaging and me are like best buddies now. I've shared good music through it, movie reviews and updated my to-read books lists all the time through chatting with friends. These days, who really has the time and energy to talk on phone. IMs are very convenient to keep relationships intact, without letting a lot of distance come between the people who mean a lot to me. I have grown as a better person through the things I have learnt from people, strangers or friends through this little chat software. I love Technology when it is used in the right way. (This is how I would have concluded my school essay on "Science - a boon to the society or otherwise?" :p ) Way to go IMs!!

P.S. Oops I missed Skype!! I remember I once had a chat with an elderly African American man who was still enraged at every mention of a blonde because of all the racism against blacks in the early years. It gave me an insight to a black American man's feelings in current world and it shook me. This was just before I was preparing myself to come to US to study. So you can imagine how IM touches you.

Mother Nature (Keshi)

Happy Mothers' Day especially to Ishi from BUF, and all the mums in the world! Here are some great quotes about Mothers by some very great people.


All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his. ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895


Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime.
~William Shakespeare


I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. ~Abraham Lincoln


Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own. ~Aristotle

Here's another quote by a not so great person :)

We are a part of our Mothers, and that means they never really die.
~Keshi

Have a good one with your Mums, Grandmums, Aunts and Friends all you BUFers!

Instant Messaging and Me: AmitL

Yahoo!!(Pun intended) Instant Messaging! Anytime, anywhere- on your PC or your laptop or your cellphone. If you don’t use any of the messengers, you are looked at with pity. Like you were an untouchable. As if you’re not from this planet. Why, anybody who’s somebody has a messenger id and chats with his or her family, girlfriends,boyfriends, pals,even unknown people thusly, be it a three year ole or a thirty three year ole or even a seventy year ole. Who has the time or the inclination to go to Archies, buy some stationery, some good fountain pens and then pen down a letter, for heavens sake?(That is a monologue I heard from someone, some time back. For me, that’d still be a pleasant event.)

Today, instant messaging is all the rage. It’s the quickest form of communication with anyone around the world. When the internet and IMing first became popular(Was that in y2k or earlier?*muses*), I remember actually being afraid to log on to YM or MSN. Perhaps it was the fear that it would bring with it a virus which would foul up the precious computer(And, believe me, even a Pentium I was more precious than the latest models today) which I just couldn’t have afforded to get removed.

I also remember being thrilled to bits, about having created my first yahoo and hotmail ids. And, it was even more of a thrill to know about msn messenger and yahoo messenger, which were totally new concepts.

In the beginning, conversations used to last for hours, with all the developments of the last few days being discussed with friends/ family, down to the minutest details, including how the neighbour’s cat had run away with the other neighbour’s dog.

Conversations range from the most inane to the most serious to the most humorous, depending on who you’re chatting with. Someone could be chiding you for not keeping in touch, someone could be conveying their happiness at being able to keep in touch. (I usually stay in invisi mode on them, so it’s usually the first one. LOL).

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Footnote: IMing is a boon for expats who're alone out here, with their families at home. Every week, they have an hour or two or three fixed, when they give a missed call to their wife/GF/BF/anyone, and that's the signal - come on line.They settle themselves at the cyber cafe with or without a cuppa coffee, and begin their chat with everyone they know- Bhai,Behen,Kaka,Kaki,Mama Mami,Dada, Dadi...the cam's definitely switched on,and,I can imagine everyone on the other side being thrilled as well.

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On the inane side, what would you make of such gibberish, if you were not used to messenger- ing lingo:

BTW, AFAIK him, he must be ROFLLHAO at how we us. LOL.

Anyway, I’ve GTG now. TTYL, in the next post. HWP.

(Anyone willing to decipher the above, without googling? If you do, you're a true messenger user)

The Good and the Bad.... (Ishita)

::: Hey Amit… I know you had a post ready for today but I’ll be off again till next week, so here’s one from me :)

A few lines about BUF before I get on with my choice of topic!

Once upon a time there was a blog with a whole lot of faces – familiar and new. With bloggers who wanted to share and be part of a group with a common love for writing and expressing their views. Some were old friends, some didn’t really see eye to eye. What seemed like a successful idea then turned ugly when opinions clashed and personalities overshadowed the basic premise of friendship. Bruised egos walked away and some who simply didn’t get involved but despised the constant bickering, preferred to stay away. What remains now are a handful (?) of people genuinely interested in the idea of keeping a space called “Between Friends” and some who silently stay on for they feel walking away would seem so frivolous and probably they feel their non involvement is a way to keep out of unnecessary conflict.

Anyway… every time I get back to do a post here on BUF, I can’t help but make an observation on the rather dismal state of the blog and us who seem to be waging a losing battle to keep it going….as they say *sigh*…

So if you’ve managed to read through the last two paragraphs without rolling your eyes and going “not againnnn ishiii!!”, here’s my take on one of the several interesting topics put up by Amit :)


I’ll write about the first one “Compliments and Brickbats” but in a different context. I’m simply going to narrate two instances here in blogsville where I felt really good and one which made me think about what could be termed as an observation that made me look within and change myself.

The first one is rather easy and has to do with a random comment I received for one of my blog posts where a guy had put up one of my posts (in fact my only attempt at writing a story) in his blog and spoke of how reading it had inspired him to take up blogging too. Coming from a complete stranger, this one instance gave me a whole new high :) and of course a lot more confidence in my ability to express myself in words! It made me believe that through my words I can make a difference…

The second instance of a negative situation has a lot to do with the way I handled BUF and still do. And here is where I have learnt a lot about myself and my sensitivity to issues which at times I should have simply let be. To get so passionately involved in a diverse group is bound to give rise to some unpleasant situations and put us in situations where we find ourselves making difficult choices or forcing others to do the same. It took me time to learn to think and not to simply feel… or should I say use my head and not my heart to define my equations with people. That I guess saves us from a lot of emotional upheavals and constant hurt.

Either instance – positive and negative – worked towards making me a better individual. I may never be satisfied enough to say I am happy with the kind of person I am but I know that IF I am constantly learning and getting better, I think that’s more than enough to keep me feeling positive and hopeful about each new day!!

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

- Maya Angelou quotes