Face Time

So, I’m on Facebook now.

And after a few weeks I still don’t comprehend the appeal of any of these social network sites. Why would anyone want to “friend” someone they lost touch with 20 years ago? Seriously, if you lost touch with someone long ago don’t you think there was a reason? Maybe you’ve forgotten how much you hated their egotistical, self-centered view of the world. Perhaps they did something horrible to a friend of yours and you stopped taking their calls. Hell, maybe they just have bad body odor. Whatever the reason was, you stopped keeping in touch and now, after all this time has passed and your lives have been going fine without each other, you’re suddenly interested in them again?

I call bull.

I think I’ve got a valid working hypothesis for why these sites are so popular, and it goes a little something like this… every person is the star of the movie in their own head and believes that all the people they once knew MUST be missing them something fierce. Face it, if you’re on Facebook you probably have 50+ “friends” half of which you don’t really know or care about knowing but still want to be “friends” with because… well, why exactly? Why do people feel the need to “know” all these people online that they would only speak to once in their lives in real life? There are people I know who think it’s awesome that they’ve been able to get back in touch with their first love, who’s now twice divorced and living in a trailer park, even though they haven’t thought about them in 25 years. I also have some friends who are actively searching for people just to compare their lives and make themselves feel better about the choices they’ve made since losing touch with that old flame or professor who told them they’d never amount to anything.

What’s the point in that?

Honestly, I can’t understand the draw of reestablishing contact with the very same people you actively, or passively, lost touch with in the past. Are there a few people I’d like to “catch up with” from my past? Of course. But I’m man enough to admit that the ONLY reason I’d want to know what they were doing would be to compare my life to theirs and make sure that I was in a better place than they so I could go to sleep at night with a smile on my face knowing that I made the right choice in leaving them behind. And if they were doing better than I? I’d cut them off and lose touch again in a heartbeat. I mean, who needs a constant reminder that you made a mistake? Shallow? Yep. Sad? Uh-huh.

The deep down honest truth? You betcha.

I’ve been told that even though I don’t “get” it now, I would if I were willing to use my real name on Facebook and started reaching out to my current friends. That way I could finally start using Facebook the way it was meant to be used, to keep in touch with the people I care about and to see what they’re doing every minute of every day via their status updates/news feed/wall. Of course, once you have more than 20 or so friends you begin to get news overload and have to start filtering out some people which kind of defeats the whole purpose. Then there’s all the little “pokes”, “tags”, “polls” and other junk people send you. It just seems to me that after a very short while it would all become more and more like noise rather than anything useful. Maybe I’m just jaded, or perhaps I’m too much of a paranoid individual, but I really don’t understand the appeal of divulging my REAL personal information in the hopes of being virtually popular with people I already know in real life, and/or with people I’ve purposefully forgotten in real life.

But hey, maybe it’s just me.

Maybe I’m just too old, or boring, or stupid to understand the obvious appeal of these social networking websites. These close-walled gardens of friendly stalkers and ego-mirrors. They’ve certainly been around long enough to have died if they were going to die, but here they are still going strong. I blame it on all the lonely people with nothing better to do than constantly check their “walls” and update the world about how their last Starbucks coffee wasn’t nearly as good as the one from yesterday even though the girl behind the counter is still the cutest coffee barrister in a 50-mile radius. Of course, all this might come off a little silly seeing as how I’m a Blogger and all. But the truth is that a blogger can be anonymous to strangers but known to friends which allows a certain kind of freedom to express yourself. The social networking sites however, don’t really work unless you are using your real name which is great if you’re only interested in finding “friends” or if you don’t care about your privacy, but really sucks for those of us who don’t want all the people we no longer care to know to find us. Honestly, do you want your 8th grade Spanish teacher to contact you again and remind you how much you sucked at Spanish? Which reminds me, my Jr. high school Spanish teacher flunked me 5 semesters in a row.

Mr. Brown, you suck!

Erble Grworf? Guhnah!

I’m actually deliriously sleepy.

After a nice 18 hour day of work the day after arriving in Greece I’ve now been working 36 hours straight so far “todays” with no end in sight. I’m tired beyond belief and am actually amazed that I’m coherent/stupid enough to write this during my brief 15 minute break instead of collapsing in a corner and power napping. I’ve gotten to wondering if long blinks can count as sleeping.

On the bright side, my overtime compensation is gonna rock!

Greek to Me

Headed to Athens today… whoopie.

When people find out how often I travel, and then discover all the “great” places I travel to, they invariably say something to the effect of, “I wish I had your job! It must be nice to see all those awesome places.” To which I am forced to say something along the lines of, “It’s nice, but I don’t actually see anything but my hotel.”

No one ever believes me.

Which is odd, since if I was seeing all these awesome places you’d think I’d brag, even if only a little. I mean, I’ve been all over the U.S. and to a whole lot of other countries, too. But the truth of it is I usually DON’T see anything when I’m traveling other than my hotel room and a hotel ballroom where there’s a business meeting going on. Once in a while I’ll have an evening free to wander around, but even then most of the attractions are closed, the people are in their homes and the only thing I can actually do is eat a quick meal and then get to bed so I’m ready for my next 6am meeting.

Oh, the woe that is I.

In most respects my job IS pretty awesome. But whenever I say I’m headed to another exotic location it would be nice if just once someone understood when I told them that doing the job in Athens, Greece is the same as doing it in Athens, Georgia. Or even Newark, New Jersey. Now, while it’s true that sometimes, in very rare circumstances, I’ll be given a day to myself to explore the city I can’t stress enough how horribly boring it actually is when the norm is for me to fly to another city in another country and never set foot outside the hotel unless I’m headed to the airport. Alas, I already know that most of you reading this are playing the world’s smallest violin and shedding a single, sorrowful tear for me because you just can’t imagine how my job, with all it’s travel perks, could possibly be as hard or boring as I’m trying to impress upon you. So, for all of you doubters and all the other people who don’t travel as often as I do and who still think they’d love my job BECAUSE of all the travel, all I have to say to you is this;

Neener-neener-NEEEEEENER!

Tiny Link

Tiny Art Director.

I’ve been reading this blog for a while and it is just awesome. It’s like my own personal nightmare brought to hilarious life. I bet that once The Mighty Baby can speak in full sentences she’ll be giving her daddy “helpful” direction when he’s doing graphic design for his clients. “No daddy! That logo is too blue! It needs more pink. MORE PINK! And a butterfly. A princess butterfly. Do it! Do it NOW!”

Lord help me.

Forget It Geek…

It’s Chinatown.

Word to the wise. If you desperately need to lay down in a quiet place because you firmly believe you’ll kill someone if you don’t stop the exceedingly painful sleep deprivation headache you have, don’t even think about trying to lay down in your hotel room if it’s anywhere near San Francisco’s Chinatown. Especially during Chinese New Year. OMG, I hate fireworks.

Happy New Year, now STFU!

Filthy Hobbitses!

Small… but fierce!

I’ve been following this developing scientific story for a while and it’s making my Geek brain spasm with joy thinking that there might have once been a group of living creatures on the planet that were really and truly elves/hobbits/pixies/etc. So, when will we find the fossilized remains of giants?

Oh man, I’ve got to dig our my 20-sided die!

Old and Busted Gives Way to New Hotness

It’s official.

After eight years of the leadership and policies of an administration that I believe will be remembered as the worst in American history, we the people have sweeping new leadership in Washington… for a little while, at least. I don’t know if this new administration will actually deliver on the messages of hope and change that they have been continually bombarding us with over the last two years, but what I do know is that if this change in leadership had not taken place, then the America that the world has known for the last 200 years would have died. The outgoing administration has so vilified America in the eyes of the rest of the world that I dare to say that this new administration cannot possibly cause more harm without resorting to filming Americans soldiers cooking and devouring foreign toddlers as the President looks on and smiles.

And even then I’d hedge my bets.

To say that I’m optimistic about the next four years of President Obama’s administration would be a little misleading. But only because optimistic is too weak a word. Now, while it’s true that I would have been happy with nearly ANYONE who promised to alter, change or reverse as much of President Bush’s policies as possible, I must say that I was behind Barack Obama from the moment he gave his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. It was obvious then that he would be a great political force to contend with, and I dearly hoped he would run in 2008.

And then Hillary threw her hat in the ring.

Not in my wildest dreams did I think a young, political neophyte African-American could come even close to winning once Hillary joined the race. She is a Clinton after all and voting for her would net TWO presidents for the price of one, but still I held out hope that Barack Obama might be her pick for VP when she got the nomination. Then the momentum started to build behind Obama and it became a two person race between the old and busted leadership and the new hotness that America could become. And then, against all odds it wasn’t Obama who was fighting to be Hillary’s VP, but Hillary who was trying to garner a spot in Barack’s administration. Talk about surprise endings! All of which brings us to today. For the first time in eight years there is a president in office who I believe can do what we the people need him to do. And what do I believe we the people need most right now?

Leadership.

I hope that President Obama will lead us through these dark times the same way he led his presidential campaign, doing what was necessary in an open and inclusive way without anger, without fear, without hatred. Leading us with humility, strength, intelligence and understanding while forgoing the divisiveness and heavy-handed fear mongering of the previous administration. I pray that President Obama will continue to lead all of us through his example; taking the high road of intelligent discourse without blindly attacking when provoked. Use his humility where those before him used smug righteousness.

Show the world our compassion instead of our judgment.

I also hope he makes use of thorough, comprehensive study so that he fully understands the problems we face before he makes the hard, long-term policy decisions that may take years to come to fruition but will certainly be better than a quick and hasty fix that is meant to show involvement but solve nothing. Will he solve every ill that has arisen in the past 8 years? Can he fix Wall Street, the housing crisis, health care, the banks, our economy, our reputation and all the other things that are failing or threatening to fail?

I don’t know. But for the first time in 8 years, I have hope.

I’ve got a lot of my faith in the democratic process and the American way of life riding on President Obama’s shoulders, and so do a whole lot of other people in America. That’s a whole lot for anyone to bear, let alone a young and newly appointed President who is also the first African-American man to ever lead this country. But I believe Barack Obama can, and will, prove to the world that America can survive. That we did not all join the dark side and drink the cool-aid of hate, fear and isolationism. We the people, with the right leadership, can repair the damage that has been done by those who came before. If the incoming administration truly believes its own message and follows through with its promise of hope and change, then America will once again become the world’s brightest beacon of freedom, equality and opportunity. I’m not saying our new president will be the answer to every one of our problems because it will take all of us working together for many years to right this ship and make a better future for this country. One person, no matter how charismatic or talented he, or she, might be, will never be enough by themselves to bring about the changes we now know we need. But one person can lead us out from our yesterdays of dark despair and into the light of the bright future we have nearly lost hope of reaching. We need a leader with vision, fortitude, solid morals and intelligence and it is my firm belief that President Obama is such a man.

And now tomorrow doesn’t seem so scary to me anymore.

History Happens

And I’ve got something to say.

But it’s taking a long time for me to get the words to come out the way I want them to so I’m going to have to post my thoughts on this historic moment tomorrow. I know, I know… I should have prepared something in advance, but truthfully I am to busy right now to do my writing beforehand so you all have to make do with a simple “WooHoo!” until tomorrow.

And that’s all I have to say right now.

7’11”?

If you’re an aspiring robber, stay away from 7-11.

I went to a 7-11 today for the first time in years and saw something that simultaneously made me smile and cringe. I’m not sure if this holds true for every 7-11, but at this particular store in downtown San Diego, there were height stickers on the doors so that the cameras could be used to estimate the actual height of everyone who enters or leaves the store. In fact, as I was leaving, I did the height-check thing and passed my hand over the top of my head to get my measurement. Nope, I didn’t grow since the last time I checked, but I did get a real kick out of the looks on the cashier’s faces when I did it. On a similar note, no matter how hungry you think you are, don’t eat 7-11 sausages. Seriously. Just trust me on this.

Anyone know where I can get a gallon of Kaopectate and a stomach pump?