The Happy Moron

My chances of being invited to parties have just tanked.

I’ve discovered Legistics.

When you think about the fight for clarity and the disambiguation of language, the legal folks are truly champions of the cause.

I’m off to fight the good fight of avoiding the usage of “comprise” (use “composed of” or “consists of”) and “notwithstanding” (use the commonly used ‘despite’) in my everyday communications.

Despite the high and lofty impression left by a text composed of high-falutin’ words.

Depressing news here.

I can’t help but wonder if Jesus’ teaching on divorce applies here. He cites hardness of heart as the basis for a concession.

When human limitation reduces what would otherwise be a good and right situation to one that is abusive and untenable, it’s time for a step back.

Maybe a vow of celibacy is a good and right thing. But if you can’t keep it you shouldn’t make it. And maybe you need to take a reasonable look at things and understand when it’s time to step away. If the fruit coming from a situation is desperately wrong, the solution is rarely as simple as, ‘try harder’.

I don’t know, I don’t particularly care.

But I have friends who are happy to argue for hours about it. The instigator was a poor innocent kettle that waltzed the discussion through mechanics, thermodynamics, wedges and tympanic membranes.

I admit to my own role in the drama.

I’m posting this for the innocents. Don’t argue over pointless things. I want my two hours back.

I just lack the motivation and the time to post.

So here’s a link -

a fascinating article for those who like to think about the quirks and foibles of humanity.

Fabio Capello is a man who knows what he’s talking about.

Current manager of England’s national football team, he’s won titles with Real Madrid, Juventus, Roma and Milan – and the Champions League to boot.

When England wanted the man to fix their woes… they called Fabio Capello.

So far, he’s delivered the goods, and he’s done it by making them all sit down at the dinner table together.

His take on the England squad?

They have too much money.

Apparently it does young men no good to have too much money.

There’s a modern “hands off my life” mentality that says, “As long as I satisfy my obligations to you, you have no right to comment on my character. (Perhaps it’s not a modern mentality, maybe it’s always been around). From this perspective, it makes no sense for a football coach to be commenting on a player’s wealth.

But character doesn’t work like that. Character underlies everything we do.

It’s impossible for a football coach to not be concerned with character and the money that is ruining his players’ lives.

That is, if he wants a winning team.

Cheers, Fabio!

I got my first email from an MLA the other day.

I didn’t recognize it in the inbox, but when I clicked on it I saw that it was a form response to a petition that I had supported.

I say ’supported’ because, well… I never actually signed anything. The whole thing went like this:

• Friend posts good cause link on Facebook
• I follow good cause link to good cause site
• Prewritten form e-mail is there on site
• I customize form e-mail with my own two paragraphs
• I click send
• Time passes
• E-mail from MLA appears in my inbox

Hmm… seems kind of mundane. I admit, there’s nothing special about receiving a form letter from an MLA. But it seems a little special that I got to send one. I’ve never sent a form letter before, even if I just sent one copy of it.

I guess what gets me a little excited about this boring story is that it’s a real life story of new tools at work – new tools of communication and organization. The playing field of who can say what to whom is changing.

The playing field of who will listen to what from whom will probably stay forever unchanged, though.

Or maybe I’m just cynical.

The only thing more painful than a jerk is an incompetent jerk.

Right now the Olympics are going on, and if I have to say one thing about the Olympics, it is that they are old. We’ve been mucking with sport for a long time. What I don’t get is, “Why?”

I think there’s probably a couple posts worth on this topic, but I’ll start out with an unsupported premise, and a story.

The premise – Sport is an exercise in glory and power. It is a manufactured conflict that reveals a glorious or a powerful aspect. Resolution, strength, courage…

The story:

My favorite sports moment is when I was playing volleyball at a picnic. The net was one of those inexpensive portable kits you set up – the kind that rely on tension to stay upright, with the little nylon cords for guy wires. I actually have two great memories from that game. The first is when I slipped trying to dig a ball, but with my second effort I was inches away from making the play nonetheless.

But the second was far better. Only a handful of people ever saw it. I’m certainly the only one who thinks about it or remembers it. But I remember it clearly.

An errant return from my team was headed out of bounds – sideways, out of our court, and I was determined to save the play. I was scrambling low on slick grass footing- stumbling and staggering off balance, but churning my legs as fast as I could to try and make the distance.

I saw the guy wire at the last possible second. It was inevitable – I was going to tumble into it and take down the entire volleyball set.

I don’t know how to describe what happened, except that it was unlike anything I’ve done before or since. I planted my left foot, letting my momentum carry me forward, falling forward over it.  Then I pushed off and launched myself in a little backroll over the silly little nylon cord. I think it was like what a bowling ball would do if you put a penny on the lane – the ball barreling down,  hitting the bump, and doing a little hop – a jump spinning forward in the air before crashing back down and carrying on through.

I carried my little hop on through into the grass and rolled a couple times.

To the picnic observers there can’t have been much glory on display that day, but for me there was. It felt glorious – I felt alive! It was about as small  a platform for glory as there could have been, but in middle of all the adrenaline and the endorphins and such, I was living in the manner for which I was made.

It was a good moment.

This is an angry post.

Recently Facebook “updated” its interface. I noticed no great improvement, but the bugs really riled me. Try to write a comment… doesn’t work. Okay then.

When I logged in to my yahoo mail, there was a little box asking me, “What are you doing right now?”

Do you remember back when e-mail was just e-mail and your webmail provider was happy just to show you ads and track your browsing with cookies? When it didn’t feel the need to pry into your current goings on? Why does my webmail care what I’m doing right now?!?

I’m trying to check my e-mail. Grrr.

Oh look… In my inbox is an e-mail from Amazon telling me I can save 14%… on a book I already bought through them. In case… I want a second copy? If you’re going to run a smart recommendation system, at least make it smart.

Google Buzz is already getting deserved flak for:

1. Auto-populating your followers lists with the people you email the most
2. Making that list public by default.

Honestly, who thought it was a good idea to DISCLOSE TO THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD THE LIST OF WHO YOU TALK TO MOST WITHOUT EVER ASKING YOU???

When all you ever wanted from Google’s webmail service was, umm.. WEBMAIL!!!

Whatever happened to not bait and switching your clients?

I get that these are all free services. I get that they owe me nothing. But all I see right now is a bunch of big companies who see me as a tiny little chip in their battle to exert their control over the web. I get that everything they’re doing is probably allowed by the Terms of Service that I agreed to without reading carefully.

I get that I’m just angry and cantankerous because of other things and that they’re just receiving the brunt of it.

But they’re still abusing me. With broken software. And it hurts.

Pain, ladies and gentleman. Web 2.0 pain.

But it’s still better than AOL.

Oh, AOL. All of the sleaze, but none of the rounded corners and unoffensive light blue color schemes. A walled garden community where customers were a valuable resource to be exploited.

You were truly visionary, but you were 15 years ahead of your time.

Thank God for Lent. I’m not sure how I’d survive computers, otherwise.

…before someone did this:

Please rob me searches twitter for tweets that indicate someone is not at home.

It’s made the news; a lot of the news. You’ve probably already read about it before you read this post. My first thought is, “Darn, I should have done this.” Hopefully it raises public awareness.

This is only one piece of the puzzle needed to rob someone, but it’s not hard to imagine the other pieces coming together in a socially networked world. Why not buzz over to their twitter profile page and grab their real name?

Hmm… could you automatically look them up in an online phone directory if you know what city they’re in?

If you are able to link a twitter account with a Facebook account, things get a whole lot easier.

You want to know if their family (friends with same last name?) are away. Do they have anyone coming to house-sit?

Oh, and forget burglars… they’re just one on a long list of people who might be interested to know this stuff.