Here is a word cloud of all my tweets since May 20, 2007, created using Wordle (be careful, it’s addictive). Behold: the last two years of my life summed up in one convenient cloud!
Massive thanks go to Voidious for inspring me with his unique and amazing blog entry, retrieving my tweets with his Python Perl Script Rip Archive Dump Tweet Backer-Upper™, and last but not least for creating a script to extract the raw tweet text from XML. You rock bro!
Lately I’ve been hearing lots of “inspirational” stories about people “reinventing” themselves in response to our challenging economic climate. For example, this one from CNN describes a couple forced to sacrifice “beloved trips to the opera and museum” in order to work on a farm (tragic, ain’t it?). I saw another on Fox News last night, a touching personal story about a thirty-year financial sector veteran who took a job “in retail” to make ends meet. I believe she was described as “heroic”.
As my young colleagues might say: “Lolwhut?” Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s wonderful that these people have adapted to the present economic situation, but since when is supporting yourself some heroic act? Isn’t it what you’re supposed to do?
Throughout my career, I’ve encountered many individuals who think they’re special for doing what they’re supposed to do–workers citing their completion of projects on-time as justification for a raise; salaried employees trumpeting the fact they stayed 15 minutes late (or, god forbid, came to work on Saturday) to meet a deadline. Since when does doing the job right merit special recognition?
When performing a task, you inevitably fall into one of three categories:
Lame (“You suck.”)
You don’t do the task, you do it poorly, or you do it too slowly.
Normal (“Thank you.”)
You complete the task as expected.
Awesome (“You rock!”)
You do the task better or more quickly than expected
If you suck, you should be punished. If you rock, you should be rewarded. There are no points for normal.You don’t get a pat on the back for doing what you’re supposed to do. There’s no reward for fulfilling your obligations.
Well hello there! Isn’t this a pleasant surprise? After our last encounter I naturally assumed you’d moved on to more fulfilling pursuits, but I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you decided to return. As always, my innate sense of decorum precludes me from speculating on your reasons for doing so, considering the frustratingly hollow nature of a post such as this one. To do so would be as futile as the very post itself, for as we both know, you are still reading it. Why concern ourselves with your motivations, knowing that neither of us will ever discover them?
I can say with some degree of pride that, unlike last time, the purpose (such as it is) of this particular piece of mind-numbing drivel is not merely to provide myself with superficial optical comfort, but rather to ascertain whether or not Facebook Notes will properly import my blog entries. As you know, I would never be so callous as to fill this space with mere placeholder text, though I’m sure we’d both agree that a few paragraphs of “lorem ipsum” would be equally enlightening, perhaps even more so.
However worthless the above text may be, and no matter how much agony you must have experienced while reading it, the fact is, we are communicating. In the end, what does it matter what is said? What difference does it make whether I type this word or that one, when it is clear that you will read whatever words appear before your eyes, as you are right now?
Obviously, we don’t need words to understand each other.
It’s a disease, and it gets worse over time. “Fried my soul” is the metaphor I was going for there. No denizen of teh internet is safe. Be careful or it’ll get you next!
One day when I was a young lad, I was sitting on the floor directly in front of the television, watching this cool new cable channel called “MTV”. Suddenly, white text in the lower left portion of the screen informed me that a music video for a song called “I Ran”, by A Flock of Seagulls, was about to play. I watched the video and instantly fell in love. My fondness for this pop masterpiece has never wained, and I currently have an mp3 version of it in my iTunes library.
It wasn’t until today, however, when I heard the song on Jack FM here in Buffalo, that I realized the true meaning of the song. All these years I’d been so captivated by the evocative electronic melody that I failed to grasp the (now quite obvious) context of the lyrics. It’s about abduction by aliens! Duh! This is not one of my zany interpretations–I subsequently discovered that the theme of the entire album is alien abduction. The lyrics are below. I don’t think any explanation is required.
“I Ran”, by A Flock of Seagulls
I walked along the avenue.
I never thought I’d meet a girl like you;
Meet a girl like you.
With auburn hair and tawny eyes;
The kind of eyes that hypnotize me through;
Hypnotize me through.
And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldn’t get away.
A cloud appears above your head;
A beam of light comes shining down on you,
Shining down on you.
The cloud is moving nearer still.
Aurora borealis comes in view;
Aurora comes in view.
And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldn’t get away.
Reached out a hand to touch your face;
You’re slowly disappearing from my view;
Disappearing from my view.
Reached out a hand to try again;
I’m floating in a beam of light with you;
A beam of light with you.
And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldn’t get away.