Classic SNL: Devil on People's Court

This is not new. It's irrelevant to everything happening in the world today. It is also hilarious and one of the few SNL bits in history that is truly funny from beginning to end. (Disclaimer: the views and opinions of the devil expressed herein are not espoused or supported by this blog or its authors.)

Ten Things to Like about Twitter

It's been so long since I started making this list of 10 Things to Like about Twitter, I forgot to list them all in one top ten list. But to call this a top ten is a misnomer. It's hardly the definitive 10 best things about Twitter. I haven't even touched on the commercial possibilities Twitter presents, the potential for social change, or anything all that much bigger than my own private Twittersphere.

That's the point, really. This is my list. These are 10 things you should like because I like them. If you're an experienced tweetist, you may hate some of them. If you're new to Twitter . . . you might hate some of them. But I like 'em. Humor me.

I guess I should also preface this with a brief tutorial. If you want to partake in the Twitterfest, it's really not hard, far simpler than Facebook or just about anything else you could do online. Twitter is a place (or a method) for updating and getting updates on anything or anyone. To get started, just go to Twitter.com, browse, sign up, go to my page, and click "Follow." Alright, this is a long preface. Here's the 10 Things I Like about Twitter:

10. Trends. When a topic gets tweeted a lot, the keywords show up at various places on Twitter (the home page, the sidebar). You can find out what people are talking about almost as soon as they start talking about them.

9. Hashtags. That's Twitterese for putting a # in front of your update's (or tweet's) keyword, so you can easily find tweets about the same thing. It's more useful (and less confusing) than it sounds.

8. No Commitment. You don't have to read everything your friends, followers, or followees post. You don't have to join groups, causes, or drawn-out comment threads. It's light, casual . . . we're just friends with twitterfits. That was terrible.

7. The Return of Editing. You only have 140 characters, and everybody can read it. You best clean up your spelling and grammar, there, kid.

6. Twt.fm. And other easily postable links to the music of the moment. If a song is stuck in your head, why shouldn't you lure some unsuspecting soul to wallow/revel in it.

5. No Computer Necessary. Most Internet experiences get a serious downgrade when you switch to mobile. Twitter was made for mobile. You don't have to live like a nerd to get your geek on.

4. Anyone Can Do It. Kelso from That 70's Show is the Twitter king. If you can't at least get started . . . okay, there's no then statement. You can at least get started.

3. We, Not They. Twitter users determine what reigns on Twitter. Not The Media. Not The Government. Not The Corporate World. It's ours, people. We have no one to blame but us.

2. Conversation. I like to think Twitter is just one big conversation. It's in the moment. Blogging is more of a journal for posterity. Twitter doesn't wait around that long. Twitter is now. Twitter is a party to which everyone is invited, everyone can hear (almost) everything anyone is saying, and it's real easy to sneak away.

1. Words. In a world of video, images, CGI wizardry, Twitter is governed by the almighty word. Thank God.

Some Children's Vitamins Aren't What They Seem

How upset should I be about this?

We brought home a bottle of Transformers gummy vitamins. Complaint 1) Addison thought they tasted like feet. Complaint 2) They aren't Transformers gummy vitamins. As the pictures here somewhat clearly show (how clear an image can gummy vitamins really portray?) the vitamins are Thomas the Tank Engine gummy vitamins.

For what it's worth, Addison seemed more inclined to consume these homogenized globs of fortified corn syrup when he found out they were Thomas. I really don't know what to make of that. But I wasn't going to let that happen.

The good sign, I guess, is that Health Science Labs does sell Thomas the Tank Engine gummy vitamins. But that's small comfort to the fact that this bottle of children's vitamins is mislabeled. Health Science Labs also sells gummy vitamins for adults (yeah . . . go figure) concocted to combat osteoporosis, heart disease, and irregularity.

Would the adult gummies, Infinity8, be harmful to my kid? The nutritional info says it can be taken by children over the age of 2. But here's the problem: the dosage for Infinity8 is one gummy; the dosage for the children's vitamins is two gummies. So if Health Science Labs is in the habit of putting their vitamins into the wrong bottles, some other poor kid could be chowing down on two black-cherry Regul8 gummies with 6 grams of fiber when he thinks he's getting a balanced blend of vitamins and nutrients.

I am fairly upset about this. For me, the bottom line is that this company doesn't know precisely what they're putting into their bottles. I've emailed their customer service department, and I'll update this if and when I hear back from them. But I've seen nothing on their site in the way of an announcement of any kind.

Am I being silly? Wouldn't be the first time. I'm just curious what people's various states of alarm would be if a bottle of something dangerous enough to require a child-proof cap—something intended for your child's health—didn't contain what it said it did.

Thoughts?

Poppy the Puppy Song

Colin: Sing "Poppy the Puppy" song!

Me: (thinking) There is no "Poppy the Puppy" song. It's a lift-the-flap book you turned into a rip-the-flap book.

Me: (out loud) Addison, make up a "Poppy the Puppy" song.

Addison: (3 seconds later, to the tune of "Five Little Ducks") Poppy the Puppy loved to play / all, all, all, all, all, all day. / He didn't know a lot of stuff / but he liked to say, "Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff."

Colin: Good song, Addison!

Good song indeed.

William Shatner Turns Palin into Poetry

I don't want to ruin this with a lot of talk, but I was wrong. This video will change your life. William Shatner reads Sarah Palin's resignation speech . . . to bongos. Live on Conan.

This Video Will Change Your Life

Especially if you live in a house made entirely of privacy Plexiglas.



I love science experiments that consist of revealing strange phenomena by playing with everyday stuff. This is just one of those things.

I Missed This

Last night, I went to play in a softball game while Heather and the boys went to the beach. It looks like I missed a lot of fun. So much fun, in fact, that Colin had absolutely no interest in ever looking at the camera. I can understand that one.

I'm glad Heather saved some glimpses of those moments, but it strikes me how pictures almost always fail to tell the whole story. Life tends to seem a bit cleaner in pictures.

For example: None of these photos accurately portray how Heather had to hose the boys off

before they could set foot in our house because they had sand caked everywhere. Or how they then had to take baths because, for real, the sand was everywhere.

The pictures don't show how frustrating it is when the batteries go out on your camera and the back-ups are nowhere to be found.

The shots also don't quite capture what it's like not to be there. That's why God gave us words like dookie.

Investment Insurance = Crappy Health Care

If you want to read more than just my vast oversimplification of the national health care insurance crock, you can find an in depth look at the latest confession from within the health insurance industry at the Daily Kos. Here's my take:

The health insurance industry is owned by investors. Investors will invest in only those insurance providers who can insure a low medical loss ratio (aka no more than 80% of health insurance premiums being used to, you know, pay actual medical bills). Insurance companies start covering too many of their customers, investors will find other suitors, stock prices go in the tank, and health care insurance providers that insure customer health instead of investor profits get penalized for being who they say they are.

I like to think of myself as a conservative, but if wanting to completely overhaul the corrupt health care system makes me a radical, so be it. Is it that radical to think any industry that lives or dies on its ability to satisfy the snakes on Wall Street is inherently evil and crippled and doomed to become a complete sham?

I guess it's the fear of being viewed as a radical, socialist, communist that makes most people wary of national health insurance. So it's pretty fascinating to hear someone from within the industry admit that the aforementioned fear is the industry's only hope.

In the video below, former CIGNA PR head honcho Wendell Potter admits that Michael Moore (and Canada and a lot of Europe) was on to something. He knows it. The insurance giants know it. Government involvement in the health care system is a good idea for everyone except the people getting rich off of the current scheme.

Things to Like about Twitter: #1 Words

Yes, there are links and myriad technological innovations. Yes, there are avatars and background wallpaper images. But the main course at the Twitter table is the written (or typed or texted or however it arrives on screen) word.

It's kind of fun to track how the evolution of communication technology brought us to the age of Twitter. The Phoenician alphabet, the Chinese invention of paper, Gutenberg's printing press all collaborated in the industry of putting words on paper for the masses to read in portable, reproducible fashion. Then people found ways to reproduce and record more than just words. With the photograph, the microphone, the telegraph, Morse code, the typewriter, the phonograph, the camera, the telephone, radio, motion pictures, television, tape recorders, and transistor radios, electronic media could capture and deliver codes, sounds, and images. We could communicate with color and volume and inflection. Words were just one weapon in an arsenal of long-distance, timeless messaging. Then computers, the Internet, email, cell phones, and the ability to shrink infinite data into infinitesimal compartments opened up an entirely new world of communication.

The cell phone became a mass media world of its own. In a box the size and weight of a deck of cards, we hold our photos, music, telephone, television, movies, Internet, email, cameras, video cameras, planners, news sources, calculators, athletic trainers, video games, GPS navigators, road maps, restaurant finders, sniper rifle cross-hairs, fashion statements, and who knows what else.

And with all that—given the world of entertainment, diversions, and applications with which our cell phones are equipped to delight us—the grandest sensation that is blowing everybody away consists essentially of sending and receiving strings of 140 letters, numbers, and symbols.

We could be stimulated, intoxicated, or carried adrift by the tumult of mindblowing displays of technological genius. But millions of people are captivated instead, once again, by the mere exchange of words.

Twitter is ticker tape on steroids, the telegraph for dummies. It's a bunch of words flying around the world, getting caught in the Internets, and I absolutely love it for that.

Previous: #2 Conversations | Follow Me on Twitter |

Things to Like about Twitter: #2 Conversation

Twitter is basically a bunch of people talking on the Internet. That's it. Ignore the hooey about the question, "What are you doing?" Tweets do occasionally take that form, but people type whatever they want into their 140-character containers. Twitter is really just one gigantic conversation.

That's the beautiful simplicity of it. Whether by phone, by Web, by Twitter app, or by the plain old Twitter home page, Twitter is just a single silo of tweets. The gross complexity of it is that it's also a billion random tiny conversations that can be categorized, searched, hash-tagged, nested (on Tweetboards), replied to, sent privately and directly, posted for all the world to see, linked through, linked to, deleted, and retweeted (RT). It is equal parts organized and chaotic.

It's like a party where all the Jesus people, atheists, anal-retentives, pack rats, control freaks, free-thinking hippies, slobs, nerds, geeks, preps, righteous dudes, Ferris lovers, school administrators, Scrabble lovers, Harley riders, sellers, buyers, poets, dreamers, hummers, and screamers are all invited. You can get advice, inspiration, laughs, alerts, pictures, stories, summaries, games, tech news, good news, bad news, fake news, and stuff you didn't know about Argentinian airlines.

Or, you can just check in on how your friends are doing.

This is a big revelation, especially for Facebook users who try to read all their friends' updates and are expecting more of the same from Twitter. Like any place where conversations are being held, you can listen in, speak up, and/or ignore to your heart's content. You can catch up on practically any thread you please, but you needn't.

On the other hand, if you are planning on revealing the deepest, most guarded treasures of your very soul to everyone you hold dear as a kindred spirit . . . Twitter might not be the way to go. I mean, feel free to tweet your heart out, but recognize that you're probably talking with only those people who are listening at the time; you can't expect everyone who has ever heard your voice to hang on your every word.

Still, the twitting and tweeting has more permanence than a normal chat at a dinner party. People in Iran can actually hear you talking about Iran. You can selectively eavesdrop on almost anything. You can bend your ear toward whatever whispers you want.

But when it comes right down to it, it's just a lot of people talking.

Previous: #3 We, Not They | Follow Me on Twitter | Next: #1 Words

Things to Like about Twitter: #3 We, Not They

When the 10:00 news leads with a story about Drew Peterson and Rod Blagojevich's secret gay marriage on the set of The Hills, our typical reaction is, "Why do they put junk like this on television?" And usually, the answer comes back, "Because they know that's what people will watch."

That's just the way the media business works. News. Entertainment. Newsertainment. PBS. They are all in the business of publishing/airing what they think we will want to consume. Of course, when we don't approve of what they are broadcasting, we separate ourselves from the intended audience with the term those people. Because we aren't those people, we have higher standards. It is they who are in control of the content who truly decide what we can read, view, and hear.

With Twitter, though, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Twitter is media without the control of business. It is still open for business, and corporate entities definitely can influence which way the twind blows. But they can't control it.

A look at Twitter's trending topics at the moment reveals a widespread interest in Michael Jackson and Iran and a quiz about what McFLY song you might be.

One could argue that those trends represent three distinct groups of people, but one would be wrong. There is plenty of overlap in those trends. If you follow enough people on Twitter, you'll see plenty of people who tweet both the frivolous and the serious. You'll also see people filling their tweets with nothing but trending topic references and a spam link.

Those people. :)

It's not perfect. But I love that there is this global sampling of people and their interests that is governed almost exclusively by the interest of the audience itself and not just some big-wig's greedy interpretation of it.

Previous: #4 Anyone Can Do It | Follow Me on Twitter | Next: #2 Conversation

A Victim of a Selfish Kind of Love

I'll get this out of the way: I was terribly saddened to learn that Michael Jackson died today. My first thought: No way. My second thought: On the list of People Most Likely to Fake Their Own Deaths, Michael Jackson is at the very top. My third through thousandth thoughts: Damn.

It's hard enough on a normal day to know how to feel and what to think about Michael Jackson. His music is stamped on our souls. His personal life . . . we can't wash away the stink of what we've heard about that man. It's impossible to know how much of it is true, but it's tough to prove a shred of it false. Besides, the maelstrom of shocking doubt and bizarre intrigue seems to be the image MJ wanted anyway. But I don't think he wanted exactly what he got.

The thing about death is, it's the personification of everything bad in the world. When someone dies, you remember the good stuff and the bad—no matter what the optimists say to the contrary—you remember it all, and it comes in a flood.

You remember the disagreements that never got settled. The regrets. The questions that never got asked, or were asked without a satisfactory answer. You remember unkind thoughts. Faults that won't get mentioned. And the good things, they just turn sour when you remember that the person who brought you happiness is gone.

And when someone dies, the full weight of all that is wrong with the world converges at one point that pierces your heart, the chronic pain of life uniting in an acute moment of agony.

So Michael Jackson presents a little problem for us, don't he? The loss of the musical master, the entertainment icon, the moonwalker (I didn't exist when JFK died or Armstrong leapt for mankind, but I remember where I was when I first saw MJ moonwalk); the nonexistent childhood and the troubled family; the mountains of abuse that categorized his life . . . MJ died, and I felt like I had to process it all while watching The Tale of Desperaux with my two sons.

I'll remember where I was when I heard about Michael. It was an awful moment. But I will carry with me the music, the moves (they live on in me, Michael, rest easy), and the memory of every "don't do this" child-rearing lesson he ever taught me. I still don't know how to feel. I don't know where MJ is now. I just know that whatever people say about him, whatever he might have done, we all need a lot of grace. We're all lucky ever to shine. And we all . . . well, we all die. There isn't anything good about that.

Still, when it ends, mourning the loss of what's good is less painful than crying over trouble that never got resolved. So I'll just say that waiting to make peace is the worst kind of procrastination. To MJ, I hope you finally found the peace that so long eluded you.

Things to Like about Twitter: #4 Anyone Can Do It

When I say anyone can Twitter, I don't just mean anyone can have an account or anyone can do it if they really try. I mean anyone can absolutely take over Twitterdom.

Case in point: Ashton Kutcher, aka aplusk. I'm not happy he's using my initials to further his twittermania, but the dude was the quickest to amass 2 million followers.

Yeah, A+K is the reigning king of Twitter. He's no longer Kelso from That '70s Show, The New Bruce Willis, or the dude from Punk'd. Ashton is Mr. Twitter.

So if you don't think you can make Twitter work for you, take a good hard look at who can.

Previous: #5 Mobility | Follow Me on Twitter | Next: #3 We, Not They

Things to Like about Twitter: #5 No Computer Necessary

I don't tweet by phone. I don't really text much by phone, either. I use my phone to, you know, call people. I'm old school that way. I just can't see paying $100 a month for service, but what do I know?

For those people who do use the features on their power/smart/mega phones, you'll less-than-3 Twitter. For all the bagazillion things the Internets offer, Twitter is the one that makes the most sense in the translation from PC to phone (okay, maybe it's in a tie with mapping/GPS applications).

Twitter gives you that sense (be it quasi or genuine) of being connected, and the quality of the experience is by no means diminished by the limitations of your phone. It's actually enhanced, because, unlike PC-based functions that require you to be home* on a Friday night to hang with your e-friends, phone Twittering allows you to maintain your virtual network while also enjoying an actual life. You can have your geek and eat out, too.

As for me, I'm still sitting when I'm twitting. But for those of you with lives, take heart. Twitter (and all your techno tweeple) can follow right along.

*or in your dorm room, library, office, or the local Panera where you and your laptop are usually stationed

Previous: #6 twt.fm | Follow Me on Twitter | Next: #4 Anyone Can Do It

Things to Like about Twitter: #6 twt.fm

You can accomplish the same effect with blip.fm (with more features, if you're into that, but I like Twitter for the simplicity), but I really like the ability to share music one song at a time with twt.fm. Sometimes you hear the whole thing. Sometimes you hear a :30 clip. But you know what? Sometimes all you need is :30 of MJ to turn your day around.

You're welcome.

Previous: #7 Editing | Follow Me on Twitter | Next: #5 No PC Necessary

Things to Like about Twitter: #7 The Return of Editing

If you've had any conversations in the last five years with anyone who has ever taught you anything about language, you've probably heard that person (those people) bemoan the demise of all things literary. The electronic era was supposed to have destroyed the concept of stringing words together by now, but Twitter, I believe, has brought about a resurgence or sorts.

People just don't write anymore. Word processors made everybody lazy, and email made us careless. But texting? It spawned a generation whose typical communications look more like vanity plates than personal messages. The average text message (which is limited to 160 characters, here's why) is devoid of substance and vowels. W00t. L8r. Ttfn.

It wasn't the medium that took meaning from the messages, it was the context. Continuing in email's carelessness, texting is casual. We've all collectively decided our friends aren't worth writing for. But what if our texts suddenly weren't so private? Then we'd have to make sure that somewhere beneath those 160 characters hid a clean pair of underwear and a decently constructed thought.

Enter Twitter.

Limited down to 140 characters to accommodate usernames, tweets are meant to be noticed, to attract, to communicate something personal albeit trivial. To fit in your thought, a link, an @reply, and a #hashtag, you can't just spit out whatever words come to mind. To tweet, one must edit.

Sure, most people simply use shorthand to squeeze their lengthy missives under the 140-character wire. But others actually start eliminating that, nixing the passive voice, and axing frivolous adjectives and adverbs.

The bottom line: every tweep or twitterer must edit. How they do it and how well they do it are totally up to them. But Twitter is teaching texters the value of every letter and inspiring them to text with meaning and purpose.

Let your 6th grade English teacher know there's still hope for the future.

Previous: #8 No Commitment | Follow Me on Twitter | Next: #6 twt.fm

Things to Like about Twitter: #8 No Commitment

Fake friends. Everybody on facebook has them. Heck, everybody in the world has them. It's been that way pretty much since the beginning of time. Caesar had Brutus. Hamlet had Rosencrantz and Gildenstern (and vice versa). Heck, even Abel thought Cain was his friend.

Cain: "Hey, Abel, come here for a second, would ya?"

Abel: "Sure, buddy, what's up?"

Cain: "Remember how the serpent told mom, 'You won't surely die,' that one time?"

Abel: "Of course."

Cain: "Yeah, I don't think he meant you."

But these days fake friends don't kill you. At worst, they invite you to send e-Karma to other fake friends or join their "Bring Back Dungeons & Dragons" group. At best, they boost your fake friends statistics and give you links to dancing Jonases in leotards. But for those who aren't totally comfortable with fake friendship and all the emotional fabrication it entails, social networking is just big tangled mess of electronic awkward.

First you have the friend requests you don't want to accept but are afraid to refuse. Then you've got the endless streams of invitations to groups, causes, games, and other. And the "decline" options are always worded to make you feel completely devoid of compassion. "Your fake friend wishes to share this wonderfully joyful application with you. Do you care enough to just click a couple of times?" And then your options are, "Yes, I'm a good person," and "Ignore," "Turn a blind eye to their cry for attention, " "How 'bout a rude gesture, instead," or "I loathe you."

And there's pressure. Pressure to comment on the notes, the links, the statuses, the photos. Pressure to engage in the debates. Pressure to "like" stuff when you just can't think of anything to say. Pressure to wish people happy birthday and thank them all for the pressurized wishes.

Well with Twitter, there's no pressure. Tweets are like dust in the wind. You send 'em out, and the people who notice, notice. The people who don't, don't. Maybe they're more like farts in the wind, now that I think about it. I'll address that subject more in a later post, I'm sure . . . minus the flatulence, hopefully.

And friends on Twitter make casual facebook friends look like Diana Barry and Anne Shirley. Somebody follows you on Twitter, you don't have to follow them. You can, but the pressure is gone. What do they notice? They don't need to know what you're doing, they have Ashton and Demi and Shaq to keep them company. You're too good for me? Huh, well, at least Barack Obama can follow me. Yes he can.

So yeah, I like the no commitment. The no requests. The no groups. The no structure. I can have real Twitter friends. I can have fake Twitter friends. I can have fake Twitter friends who are real Twitter stalkers. It doesn't bother me. It's only 140 characters.

Previous: #9 Hashtags | Follow Me on Twitter | Next: #7 Editing

Liked Ravinia, Loved Patty & Friends

Heather and I had the pleasure of seeing the Three Girls and Their Buddy tour stop at Ravinia last night. For as much as I loved the performances by Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, and Buddy Miller, the show was really just Patty Griffin & Friends for me. I love me some Patty Griffin.

The concert itself was pretty much one big surprise. The four headliners were the onlyliners. No supporting band. No set list. No intermission. Just some guitars, a few makeshift percussion instruments, and four earthbound voices of ethereal richness singing the best songs that came to mind.

My favorite moments came from unexpected places, like Shawn Colvin's, "I Don't Know Why," a song she said was written for her daughter . . . about 17 years before she was born. The strange thing was, I knew exactly what the song was about the minute I heard that synopsis. I have no excuse for not knowing and loving that song prior to last night, but I'll try to make it up to you by letting you in on the gem.

Buddy Miller's highlight was a cover of a Stephen Bruton song called, "Heart of Hearts." It's so obscure, I couldn't locate it with the lyrics I could remember. Even after discovering a YouTube performance of the song with a band called The Resentments, I found precious little evidence of its existence anywhere else. Heather called it her new theme song, and I just loved it. I hope you enjoy it, too—although as Buddy played it (in honor of his friend, the songwriter Bruton, who died while Miller was recovering from a heart attack earlier this year) I couldn't help thinking that there has been no advancement in the audio industry capable of recreating the sound of a live performance.

I was thrilled to the point of aneurysm when Emmylou Harris mentioned a forthcoming album from Patty (produced by Buddy) dubbed a "lapsed Catholic" gospel album called Downtown Church. This struck me as particularly humorous since just this week I had used Patty Griffin's tribute to her grandmother, "Mary," as part of the soundtrack for a slideshow honoring Heather's grandmother Mary (a devout Catholic, and a delightfully unboring human being). I knew Patty was unlikely to play the song in a concert where she performed only a handful of covers and originals, so I took this small emotional tie-in as sufficient coincidence for the evening.

And then, after the stage was cleared and the artists were beckoned back for an encore, Patty & Friends treated us to a quasi-a capella spiritual hymn followed by one last group performance, a song Patty called their benediction: (yeah, you guessed it) "Mary." There were tears.

Things to like about Twitter: #9 - Hashtags

What the @#!$ is a hashtag? On Twitteria Lane, it's when you put a # in front of a word to facilitate real-time searching. So this thing I like about Twitter is actually two things.

1. By using a hashtag, you can easily search Twitter for a real-time list of twerps from everyone in the entire land of Twit who is intentionally discussing a topic in installments of fewer than 140 characters. If you want to discuss So You Think You Can Dance, you simply add the #sytycd hashtag to your dia-twibe, and anyone perusing an active search of that topic via Twitter's search feature or TweetDeck or any of the twillions of other Twitter-related applications.

And unlike Facebook or MySpace, you aren't just discussing with your friends, you're tweeting it up with all of Twitter. Everybody is gathered around one giant water cooler.

2. The hashtag also brings more practical usage to yet another rarely used character on the keyboard. For quite awhile, @ was reigning as the otherwise-useless symbol du jour, but # has taken its rightful place among the inner circle.

It's not just pound or number, anymore, baby. Make way for #, the hash master.

Previous: #10 Trends | Follow Me on Twitter | Next: #8 No Commitment

Things to Like about Twitter: #10 Trends

Twitter tracks the most-tweeted topics in twitternity. Today, it's Joe Jonas and his "Single Ladies" dance. I can't even comment other than to say, thank you, Twitter, for this:

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