My 2020 was about Covid. I can't sum it up any more succinctly than that. I feel like I didn't grow at all…but of course, this is one year I will remember for the rest of my life.
For the 18th straight year, here is my annual run down of how I spent my year 2020.
Karol: The show starts at 7pm, right?
Mel: Yeah. I'm heading there 5:45ish with Marlo.
Mel: Ness, are we supposed to save seats for you or you guys gonna be backstage the whole time?
Nessa: We're in the first act, so we'll sit with you guys after intermission.
Krystal: Save two seats for Karol.
That is a texting conversation I had with my friends on Saturday with the group texting app, GroupMe. We actually started playing with the app a couple nights before, but Saturday we finally saw its true value.
As shown in the conversation above, GroupMe comes in super handy when going out with friends. Simple situations like, "Hey, I just got parked. Where are you guys?" can be easily addressed with GroupMe.
Without a group texting app, how would you solve this situation?
Twitter? You can, but you'll easily piss off your mutual followers because you're spamming their timelines with a private conversation that doesn't concern them.
Call/Text people individually? Messy and inefficient. Plus, it leaves the possibility of someone accidentally getting left in the dark.
With group texting, you're in touch with everyone that needs to be informed. Everyone is on the same page. Everyone is in sync.
During the concert, GroupMe switched from being a utility to pure entertainment. In a setting where it's rude to talk to each other while the performer is on stage, GroupMe gave us the freedom we wanted.
(Okay, texting each other during a performance isn't exactly the most polite thing to do either, but hey, at least it's discrete.)
Because the chat is private and everything goes directly to everyone's phones, the experience is a lot more intimate than Twitter ever could be.
One thing that made GroupMe stand out to me over its competitors: it's compatible with Google Voice.
Personally, I am a very, very loyal user of Google Voice. It's the only number that I give out. I am absolutely addicted to how I can type out & send text messages from my computer. And so far with all of the competing apps I've tested, GroupMe is the only app the lets me use my GV number.
This is important to me because when friends install GroupMe and the app scans their Address Books, I will actually show up as a suggested friend.
With the competing apps, I simply couldn't use my GV number; I was forced to use my cell phone number, which is the number that nobody has.
With just one full day of using GroupMe in the real world, I can tell this app has serious potential for my nights out with friends.
Will it go mainstream? I hope so but I'm not sure.
There is always the possibility that Facebook might integrate their Messages 2.0 feature with Groups, Places, Events, etc. And we all know how Facebook has a knack for making early adopter ideas into mainstream hits.
Google has the opportunity to come up with something too. They have all the pieces: Gmail, GTalk, Google Voice, Disco for iPhone...I'd LOVE to see them integrate all of those technologies into one seamless experience.
Hell, Apple has the same opportunity as well, with Facetime, iChat, and iPhones. It'd be like adding that Steve Jobs magic to RIM's precious BlackBerry Messenger.
But those are all pipe dreams of mine; 100% speculation on my part based on zero insider information.
In the meantime, I've got a group of close friends on GroupMe. The cool thing is, if I want more friends to get on this, I don't even have to wait for them to install the app -- I can just add them to a group.
Even if the app never catches on with the rest of my friends, I've already got my closest friends on it.
That's good enough for me.
Thank you, everyone, for all the birthday wishes! I feel so young turning 21 again for the 7th straight year! My phone would NOT stop buzzing all day cuz of all the @replies, facebook notifications, tumblr posts and text messages...birthdays like yesterday remind me how blessed I am.
Hopefully I got everyone in here that gave me a shoutout (over 240!?!). Love you all! <33
-Mel
I don't expect you guys to read all of this...but I hope you take the time to answer this survey yourselves just to reflect on the past year. If you do this, answer truthfully and with meaningful answers that you can look back on several years from now; it's amazing to look back on how you've grown.
This is my 7th straight year of doing this, and it's an absolute TRIP looking back and my old posts. Anyways, here it is.
So this is how it feels. The greatest feeling of accomplishment in my life. I've never done ANYTHING like this before...but after months of driving to San Diego, TokBox meetings, promoting, hair-pulling hair-receding stress...everything fell into place.
And it was EPIC.
Double-Double with onions, protein-style and Animal-Style fries wrapped in a warm flour tortilla.
biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :nogrin:
Holy crap! Thank you guys so much for all the birthday wishes. My facebook, twitter and cell phone were going crazy the whole freakin' day!
Not gonna lie, I've had some miserable birthdays in the past...so I've learned to appreciate the simplest birthdays of facebook/myspace comments, twitters, text messages and just being around people that I love. Yesterday was all about that and I loved it.
A few days ago, I was thinking of doing something like, "for every person that wishes me happy birthday, I'll do a body roll for one second." Damn, if I actually did that, it'd be a video of me doing body rolls for over 2.5 minute!! :laugh: Maybe next year. Maybe.
Anyways, lotsa love to the people that wished me happy birthday (in chronological order):
And on a random note...
This Ralph Emerson quote popped into my head yesterday. I've posted this before but I just love this quote so much I wanted to share it with you guys again:
Ralph Waldo Emerson:
To laugh often and much.
To win the respect of intelligent people,
and the affection of children.
To earn the appreciation of honest critics,
and endure the betrayal of false friends.
To appreciate beauty.
To find the best in others.
To leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition.
To know even one life has breathed easier,
because you have lived.
That is to have succeeded.
Love you guys. <3
I have a ton of things to be thankful for these past few months. Lemme start from the beginning...I'm thankful that:
The thing I'm most thankful for is how all the stuff mentioned above is just the beginning. Since Oktoberfest, there's been a bunch more things to be thankful for like:
This list keeps going on and on...
And just to think, all this madness just started at the end of September! I've met more people in the past 2-3 months than I met all of last year. Just this morning I was rewatching that video of Jeremy co-hosting Nessa and it trips me out seeing all these names in there that I didn't know back then but I know so well now.
So much has happened since that recording, it feels like that was several month ago! It just goes to show how much can happen in just 30 days, and how even the smallest, most trivial things -- like Meliss flaking out on that one guy that one night -- can have such a profound affect on a person's life later on.
I'm lovin' every bit of it.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Much love to my BTVfam: (in order of when I added them as friends)
:grouphug:
