Year: 2009

You know, for kids…

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From the YouTube vid:

This is my 7 year old son who had an extra tooth removed last summer, 2008. I had the camera because he was so nervous before I wanted him to see before and after.

He was so out of it after, I had to carry him out of the office. The staff was laughing and I had tears it was so funny.

He is doing fine now and the teeth are great.

Best of all he is the best kid as his brother William. I couldnt have asked for two better sons!

N.B. – This is not my son.

The banality of Twitter

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I use Twitter as do many of the folks I work and play with. Why do we use it? I think there are four types of Twitter users:

1) Try-anything-oncers – They made an account and stopped using it immediately.
2) Lifecasters – Folks who are basically telling about 10 close friends what they’re up to. The vast majority of Tweeters.
3) Egocasters – I’ll admit that I’m in this category. These are Twitterers who Tweet to be heard. “In plane on way to sex with the Queen Mother” or “@scobleizer I was just thinking that while I was making lots of money on the Internet” are two egregious examples. Others are “Hello, Tweeters! Just had my coffee” and “I like turtles.”
4) Robots

I woke up this morning to read a flurry of Tweets from many of the leading lights of the Internet revolution. Some examples: “LOL! Just had two shots of espresso!” “eating breakfast with @barakobama and @stanleykubrick’s son” “Just spilled my cereal on my floor!”

It was like reading the rantings of a narcissistic incarnation of Hello Kitty: cutesy and full of false bravado masquerading as innocence. As a result, I released a series of Tweets describing my toilet habits. The result was a series of Tweets back claiming I had been hacked, as if my little rant had been the work of drooling juveniles. Maybe it was, but I had not be hacked.

Samuel Pepys wrote about his bowel movements. Charles Bukowski wrote about his drunken rages. William Burroughs wrote about gay sex under the influence of opiates. What does our generation write about? Hitting #starbucks at #sxsw09 with @juliaalison and @cyborggerbil. Seriously, people. We can now transmit our thoughts to millions of people. Let’s make those thoughts count. Let’s talk about human things. Let’s talk about how to solve economic problems. I seriously do not care about your cat, your drive to work, or the fact that you’re on a flight to Cabo. Let’s man up.

GW’s gift to the American people: Circuses but no bread

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From Patrick Farley:

All my life I’ve heard Baby Boomers bitching about Nixon, even after he was dead. I used to wish they’d just GET OVER IT, but now I understand their bitterness. It wasn’t what Nixon did that infuriated them so much. It’s what he got away with. Nixon was nudged out of office by a momentary gust of public disfavor over a botched burglary attempt — not, say, a Congressional investigation into the bombing of Cambodia. There was never a thorough reckoning of the misdeeds of Nixon’s White House, just as there will probably never be a full accounting of the perversions and swindles of Bush’s presidency. To the majority of Americans, Bush will be that guy who invaded Iraq and wrecked the economy.

But I guess that’s the good news: as today’s events testify, the Neo-Con Superstorm eventually blew itself out. Exactly how and why, I don’t fully understand. It’s like the alien war machines toppling over at the end of War of the Worlds because the Martians all died of natural causes. Strangely anti-climactic, but WTF, they’re dead all the same. Perhaps it doesn’t matter that 30% of Americans STILL believe Saddam Hussein planned the attacks of 9/11. As today’s events testify, a majority of Americans aren’t buying the Think Tank New American Empire bullshit anymore. When all is said and done, jingoism doesn’t put food on your family.

Hm. I think I’ve worked out the epitaph for the Bush administration:

All circus and no bread.