Part 12 (1/2)

* The presidential election settled one thing: Who is president for the next four years. All the rest of it is up in the air. And a lot of it will be up to you, and us.

How do I feel about Obama's re-election? As I said last night: Relieved. Pleased. And ready to move forward.

Congratulations to our president.

Congratulations to the United States.

Let's get to work.

A Note to the Anonymous Man Sitting in the Bathroom Stall Next to Me Earlier Today It's not necessary to narrate.

Really.

That is all.

And Now, For No Particular Reason, a Rant About Facebook Jan

19.

2011.

A friend of mine noted recently that I seemed a little antagonistic about Facebook recently-mostly on my Facebook account, which is some irony for you-and wanted to know what I had against it. The answer is simple enough: Facebook is what happens to the Web when you hit it with the stupid stick. It's a dumbed-down version of the functionality the Web already had, just not all in one place at one time.

Facebook has made substandard versions of everything on the Web, bundled it together and somehow found itself being lauded for it, as if AOL, Friendster and Mys.p.a.ce had never managed the same slightly embarra.s.sing trick. Facebook had the advantage of not being saddled with AOL's last-gen baggage, Friendster's too-early-for-its-moment-ness, or Mys.p.a.ce's aggressive ugliness, and it had the largely accidental advantage of being upmarket first-it was originally limited to college students and gaining some cachet therein-before it let in the rabble. But the idea that it's doing something better, new or innovative is largely PR and faffery. Zuckerberg is in fact not a genius; he's an ambitious nerd who was in the right place at the right time, and was apparently willing to be a ruthless d.i.c.k when he had to be. Now he has billions because of it. Good for him. It doesn't make me like his monstrosity any better.

Which is of course fine. The fact is Facebook isn't made for someone like me, who once handrolled his own html code and then uploaded it using UNIX commands because he was excited to have his own Web site, and back in 1993 that's how you did it. I've been maintaining and actively updating my own site in one form or another for the better part of two decades now, and (quite obviously) like to write at length on whatever thought is pa.s.sing through my brain at the moment. Committed loggorheic nerds like me don't need something like Facebook. It's made for normal people, the ones who just want to stay in contact with friends and post pictures for them to see and maybe play a game or two, and have a single convenient place to do all that sort of stuff online. Facebook is the Web hit with a stupid stick, but that doesn't mean people are stupid for using it. They see Facebook as letting them do the things they want to do, and not making them jump through a bunch of hoops to do it. Again: Fine.

But again, also: Not really for me. I look at Facebook and what I mostly see are a bunch of seemingly arbitrary and annoying functionality choices. A mail system that doesn't have a Bcc function doesn't belong in the 21st Century. Facebook shouldn't be telling me how many ”friends” I should have, especially when there's clearly no technological impetus for it. Its grasping attempts to get its hooks into every single thing I do feels like being groped by an overly obnoxious salesman. Its general ethos that I need to get over the concept of privacy makes me want to shove a camera lens up Zuckerberg's left nostril 24 hours a day and ask him if he'd like for his company to rethink that position. Basically there's very little Facebook does, either as a technological platform or as a company, that doesn't remind me that ”ba.n.a.l mediocrity” is apparently the highest accolade one can aspire to at that particular organization.

So, you ask, why do I use Facebook? The answer is obvious: Because other folks do, and they're happy with it and I don't mind making it easy for them to get in touch with me. But my Facebook immersion is relatively shallow; I save the majority of my deep thoughts for this Web site and the majority of my short thoughts for Twitter, so Facebook tends to get whatever's left. I don't use much there that would allow some obnoxious third-party program to either clutter up my wall or inform all my friends that I've bought a pig in a video game; they don't give a c.r.a.p and I wouldn't want to inflict that information on them. I work on the a.s.sumption that Facebook is working by default to make me look like an a.s.shole to everyone who's connected to me, because I've seen it do it to others. As a result I think I've managed to avoid being such to others there. Or at the very least, if I'm an a.s.s on Facebook, it's my own doing and not because of Facebook. Which is all I can ask for.

I really do wish Facebook were smarter and less obnoxious to use. I wish I could sign on to the d.a.m.n thing and not have the first thing I feel be exasperation at the aggressive dimness of its UI and its functionality. I wish I could like Facebook. But I don't, and I'm having a hard time seeing how I ever will. I understand there's a value for Facebook making itself the stupid version of the Web. I really really really wish there wasn't.

So what's left to me is to take comfort in the fact that eventually Facebook is likely to go the way of all companies that are stupid versions of the Web. This is not to say that Facebook will ever go away completely-its obtuse process for deleting one's account at the very least a.s.sures it will always be able to brag of its members.h.i.+p rolls. But you know what, I still have accounts for AOL, Friendster and Mys.p.a.ce. Ask me how often I use them.

Obama's First 100 Days: A Complete and Utter Failure Apr

29.

2009.

Why? Well, I'll tell you.

1.I'm continuing to go bald.

2.I haven't lost any weight since January 20.

3.I AM STILL AGING.

4.In March, one of my cats (or more-conspiracy!) peed in the corner of my closet.

5.My hot chocolate this morning was distinctly unsatisfactory.

6.Last week, after four years of service, my beloved Vans sneakers-the ones with bats on them-ripped, making them unusable, and Vans doesn't make them any more.

7.Rosario Dawson has not phoned my wife to get clearance from her for a sanctioned night of Grainy-s.e.x-Tape-Posted-to-BitTorrent-Worthy Debauchery with me.

8.I was not transformed overnight into a ninja spy with mega awesome secret LASER POWERS.

9.I still have to brush my own teeth; no one else will do it for me.

10.I have not been provided a 2010 Mustang. I mean, really. It's not like I'd hold out for a GT. The V6 Premium package would be just fine. I'm not greedy.

President Obama has had 100 days to address each of these issues of vast national importance. How many of them has he tackled? Not a one. This is the change we can believe in? I don't think so. I did not vote for Obama just to have ripped sneakers, unsatisfactory beverages and no spousally-approved hot s.e.x with Rosario Dawson in my b.i.t.c.hin' new muscle car. There's a word for the emotion I'm feeling right now, Mr. President. And that word is: Betrayal.

Yes, I understand that President Obama has said that sacrifices need to be made by each of us. Fine. In the spirit of this national sacrifice, I will still brush my own teeth. But Mr. President, you have to meet me half way. Where are my ninja powers? And my Mustang? And why are my telomeres still degrading, meaning that every day I look more and more like Ernest Borgnine? This is not the America I want to live in, Mr. President. You have to do your part, too.

And the fact is, he hasn't. Not a single one of the items above, which Mr. Obama agreed to solve when he and I met in my mind on that hot sunny day last August when I was trapped in a car with the windows uncracked, has been resolved. You can't tell me I haven't been patient. The dude has had 100 days with the entire apparatus of the United States government at his disposal. It's not like he has other things to do. These things should have been dealt with, quickly, forcefully, fully. But they have not. And now look at me. I'm a middle-aged balding man smelling of cat pee. And it's all Obama's fault.

For shame, Mr. President. For shame.

And thus, for your first 100 days, Mr. President, you earn a richly-deserved F. But I still have hope that in the next 100 days, you will stop doing whatever distracting things you are doing and finally focus your attention on the things that really matter; specifically, that thing about Rosario Dawson. America needs that one. Yes it does. Desperately. Oh, and the Mustang, too. Thank you.

Observations on a Toothache Sep

3.

2009.

Well, I'm scheduled at the dentist at 3pm to deal with the cracked molar, and until then I have a toothache which occasionally throbs up, but is mostly under control at the moment thanks to the dynamic duo of ibuprofen and Orajel. Be that as it may it's too distracting to allow me to be terribly creative at the moment, so instead allow me to offer some thoughts on me and my toothache.