For a few years, I have resisted the urge to get on Twitter. Our friend on the left in this video seems to sum up many of my feelings about the majority of Twitter use.
I stated the majority of Twitter use, as some organizations such as the Red Cross have been looking for some time at using Twitter as a communication tool in the wake of natural disasters and other such catapstrophic events. To me, this is where this sort of technology really earns its chips.
So my dear friend Rebecca got on Facebok tonight, and posted the follwing status:
Rebecca is craving chocolate cake. *sigh*
This led to the following comments:
Jon: We have leftover birthday carrot cake. :) Me: You need my aisian five spice chocolate cake.... ;) Me: Erm...ASIAN. I really can spell. Rebecca Oh yes. I do. Me: Hehehe....next time you're in Bama, I'll have to whip one up.. Me: Why do I always do these in two parts? It's a flourless cake...VERY rich and VERY tasty. Rebecca : Oh just stop. Me: Oh just wait until you try it.... :) Rebecca: I need a Spring Break destination in mid-April. :) Maybe I can bring down some beer in exchange...... Me: Just so long as you get here before the 24th...that's when I leave for Dark Lord Day... :) Michael: I suppose you wanna eat it too? Rebecca: Um, yeah. :) Me: Plates....we've got plates. Forks, too!
So all this led to the following e-mail from Rebecca, which gets the point across very effectively:
Subject: Cruel Message: Cake. Want.
The lack of cake appears to have made her write like a computer geek or a lolcat. This is serious. I shouldn't have provoked her, should I? I feel my life may be in danger.
17.3.09 | It may be a crackhead got hold of the wrong stuff....
Big thanks to my former co-worker scott for posting a favourite St. Patrick's Day story from a couple of years ago. Sometimes, my state makes me swell with pride....
19.2.09 | 15 minutes? Heck, I'm tickled to have 2 seconds of fame.
I meant to post this some time ago. It seems one of my friends spotted me in Geekbrief TV. For the impatient types, scroll to the blooper reel in the end credits. I'm at 3:51.
Some of you have asked about what happened out at CES this year. I prefer instead to show you a little travel documentary done by our friends over at Woot! It seems they may have had slightly more fun than I did.
It's been more than three weeks since I've posted- and it's not because there's been nothing going on. It seems there's been quite a bit.
Just after the post about Ken and my shoes, I left for Las Vegas to attend the Consumer Electronics Show. As always, it was fabulous- but it was also quite draining. In addition to getting a good workout seeing the show, I was also blogging the trip, recording two segments, and doing a live shot. The live shot was the best part of a 21 hours day. I got to do a tandem shot with Jessica Corbin. I used to watch her on TechTV- and she was one of the people who made me think tech reporting might be a cool thing to do. I was very happy to find she seems a genuinely nice person, and was easy to work with (as were all the people form DWJ media). Later in the week, I also had a chance to meet a fun bunch of Australians who were on their first trip to CES. The ringleader, Marcus, is a main sales rep for D-Link. Another guy whose name I can't remember is a top buyer for Australia's largest electronics retailer.
Getting back to work wasn't much fun. First day back, I had to do a double shift that included an overnight- the first of three overnight shifts that week. That was followed by a weekend shift, then within two days, another overnight! I was very happy to end that week, and you'll have to read the next graf to find out why...
Friday I headed to Atlanta for a late birthday lunch for my friend Dave at Fogo de Chao. Unfortunately, work issues and other things got in the way, and Dave couldn't make it. That night, we both attended an early birthday party for my friend Scooter, then drove up to Chattanooga for the 'Dojo of the King' party at Chattacon, which was put on by our friend Sean. It was a fun time, and Dave and I had a good drive up that allowed some bonding time.
Next morning (after 5 hours sleep) we headed to brunch, where I got to see my ex, Ashley. It was SO good to spend a little time with her. That night, my brother and I headed up to Athens to see some friends (Pinkie was WAY too happy to see me), and have a few beers. I even got drafted to do some web site work!
We had dim sum before heading over to yet ANOTHER birthday celebration- This time for Scooter's stepson, who was turning all of 4. It was a good time, and Veg and I were happy to see our old friend Jenny. We don't get to see her enough.
I've left out a few things, so I'd better catch up: the weekend was marred badly by hearing that 20 of my co-workers were laid off. The cuts will affect me, but I;m still working. This has weighed heavily on my mind since I heard it, and I'm still working through it a bit.
The other is kinda cool, to temper the bad news. I got to spend some time with my dad and my stepmother, and I'm happy about that. I'm also amused that my stepmother bought a cute lil' red Smart Car.
Finally, a favor for a dear friend. The lovely and talented Lisa is trying to raise some money for a service dog needed by a friend. I said I'd be happy to post a donation widget here. I do hope the data pipe just isn't working here. It shows no contributions right now. :(
The year was off to a decent start until this morning. I headed to my local house of UU, only to find that one of my friends from the congregation had passed away that morning. Ken Pruitt was very involved in the church, and had alwyas been very warm and friendly. He'd battled health problems for a bit, and they finally overtook him. It's a very great loss.
The other loss today is more of an annoyance. I went out to find some shoes to replace the ones I wear virtually ever day. I found the type I wear now has been discontinued. I wanted a very good walking shoe, and decided on one from the same company- but to my dismay, the best replacement has laces. I haven't had to bother with them in a few years.
I'm having to post-date these last couple of blog entries due to an issue with Blogger, but here they are at last. Today, I must keep up my Christmas day tradition and post the following bit. This was written by by Col. Merian Cooper, an American airman who helped the Polish fight the Bolsheviks after the end of World War One. Cooper had been captured, and on Christmas 1920, was being held in a Russian prison. I love the way this gives the sense that even if a Christmas is atypical, and not how you wanted to spend it, it can still be fulfilling and spawn indelible memories.
I love a good cigar. To sleep warm or to sleep cold, downy bed or cement floor, black bread and a dab of grease or a dinner at Voisin's in Paris- I make it my boast that they are all the same to me. But the smoke of a good Havana cigar is as the air of Paradise as I draw it deep into my lungs.
And Orlanorf Petrovich, formerly one of the richest men in southern Russia, had a real Havana. This little fat Armenian, who slept just three bunks from me, had received one in a food parcel. What a luxury in a Russian prison!
I took stock of my scanty belongings. It did not take long. Here was something of tremendous value in Russia, a pair of shoes. They were too small for my swollen feet, but Orlanorf's feet were as a woman's. And I knew him to be an Armenian, and therefore a trader; and the shoes were worth more than the cigar.
Two minutes later I was in the prison yard puffing away on the Havana, and Orlanorf, in childish joy, was trying on his new footgear.
Our commandant, not a bad fellow, had permitted a Polish priest to come into the prison. In a damp stone cellar- once my prison cell- he was holding a mass.
On the hard, cold stone floor were kneeling some hundred persons, attired in a strangely different assortment of nondescript garments, a few were well dressed, but most were in rags or near rags. The priest was hearing confession. He placed his hand over his eyes, in order not to see the person confessing. A woman knelt at his feet. She whispered the story of her sins in his ear. Beside her was the most famous woman blackmailer in Europe in her day, a marvelous musician who speaks a half dozen languages fluently. I looked curiously at the crowd. There was Count Szechenyi, the cousin of Gladys Vanderbilt's Hungarian husband; the little boy Crown Prince of Khiva, no Christian he, but looking on curiously at this infidel worship; a famous Russian scientist, dressed in padded cotton trousers and torn shirt; twenty different nationalities all mixed together, making as strange and heterogeneous a congregation as ever knelt together at the feet of a priest.
Out I went to look at the high walls of the prison, once a monastery and fort combined. For a moment I forgot where I was. I seemed to see clearly through the three-foot thickness of stone which kept me away from the world, the palmettos and orange groves on my own warm homeland. Then I remembered my strange prison mates at prayer on a dungeon floor.
I somehow feel I have to make a new Christmas Eve tradition here on S9. I'm posting a clip from my required Christmas movie, Joyeux Noel. It seems odd that my Christmas traditions here on the blog are related to word war one, but I think you'll understand when you see the clip.
