Actually, my 11 year-old did this, though he denied it. I was laughing so hard when I noticed this I couldn’t properly reprimand him. Who knows how long the word has been up on the refrigerator.
SO, this is how you curse *properly* with Word Whammer…
Posted via email from The Absence of Alternatives
Even on the Interweb, we cannot escape our evolutionary past. According to The Economist article: “Primates on Facebook”, some of things that we do to/for each other on the social networks over the Internet can still be defined as “Grooming”: you need to ping your peeps, follow up on their status, read their Tweets, comment on their Tweets, reply to their Wall because they have left something on yours. These all take time. So does monkeys’ grooming each other.
A while back ago, Dr. Robin Dunbar concluded that our brains simply cannot support a social network with unlimited size: think of having to memorize all the names! Probably only Mr. Monk will be able to do that, but of course, he probably has the tiniest social network known to man… Irony, isn’t it? Anyway, Dr. Dunbar suggested that the magic number of network limit any animal will be able to maintain is: 148.
Even though in the virtual world, it seems that we can grow our social networks indefinitely, to a certain extent obviously (say, like, 6 billion, the number of entire population…), the average number of “Friends” on Facebook turns out to be 120. And the number of Friends with which Facebookers interact with on a regular basis by leaving comments on their “Wall” is even smaller: 7. That’s it. For men. Women are more social, 10.
Even for Facebookers that have more than 500 friends, the number remains relatively low at 17 for men, and 26 for women.
Here is a nice way of explaining this:
“[P]eople who are members of online social networks are not so much ‘networking’ as they are ‘broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle’… Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.”
This also concisely explains what a “social network” such as Twitter represents for a lot of its users, or Tweeple, as they call themselves. Only that it is even beyond the “outer tier of acquaintances”, all the way into the nether.
Somebody should give the gal or guy who is in charge of Subway’s “5 Dollar Foot Long” marketing campaign a raise. Oh, whatever. They are probably making a ton anyway. I don’t worry about their financial health really. But when you see a genius move done by a corporation, that seems to be the right thing to say, even though the people may already be up to their ears in stock options.
Here is what my Kindergartener said last night:
MOM! I am 48 inches tall. I am FOUR SUBWAY FOOTLONG!
Posted via email from The Absence of Alternatives
There is NO scary mascots, no company team building events, no overblown space stuffed with TABLES & BARS. Just a good old-fashioned penny (albeit nickel) arcade the way you remember it from your childhood, IF you are old enough. FREE classic games in the back of the room completes this little piece of heaven. Is that Pac-Man I see? Yes, I do suck at the game, that’s why FREE is just perfect for me!
Posted via email from submom’s posterous
Humbleville, Interweb – Local woman awoken from her solipsistic stupor by designer’s sincere, genuine interest in feedback of his creation. Submom received a wake-up call when designer Joey Roth replied directly to her random vent of his creation, Sorapot. When asked to reflect more carefully, Submom admitted that she DID enjoy watching the Chinese flower tea bloom in front of her eyes inside the ingeniously designed Sorapot, when she had time to do so. “The last time I remember when I was able to sit down and relax was the day after Christmas. I have been on my feet ever since.” Her defense for her unfair criticism? “I only have one hand now because of my Twitter thumb, and I was getting frustrated last night because you cannot disassemble this teapot with only one hand!” Submom vowed to refrain from being a spoiled bitch, and to stop and smell, eh, drink the flowers. She compared Mr. Roth’s reaction to her complaints to the likes carried out by “Lands’ End who has my undying loyalty as a customer.” After a pause, Submom said quietly, “Honestly? I didn’t think that an artist living in NYC would care about the feelings of a suburban mom. We must seem like philistines…”
Posted via email from submom’s posterous
was a good idea for a great Xmas present… is a f** idiot and can come & take it!
My husband’s attempt to surprise me at Xmas was a success if he only meant to surprise me… This “teapot” was an overpriced piece of, eh, paperweight. If you have no intention of washing it, then do NOT get it for me!
Yeah. Now can you honestly tell me that it looks just as stylish sitting on my kitchen counter next to my high tech rice cooker, as the air-brushed picture you have shown?
Seriously? And you did at least 2 reviews of this last year? The review in May was not enough for you, and you had to give it another plug again towards year end, AND on the 2008 Wish List?
My husband, who, despite my well-known wish of getting an IPod, decided that Sorapot was just as good, if not better. It has been two months now since I am the owner of the most expensive glass teapot in the whole god damn world. Why am I pissed every time I have to gingerly take this thing apart and wash it and then assemble it together? Well, you be the judge! Sorapot or IPod??!!
Posted via email from submom’s posterous
Who says that size does not matter? When I first started following Rainn Wilson (of The Office Dwight the Beet Farmer & B&B Operator fame) on Twitter, he only had a meagerly 60,000+ followers. And that was like, last week. Here is a Tweet that he just sent out, in celebration of the 100K threshold which his Twitter account just crossed.
A job well done. Now he is in the big league, playing with the big players, the likes of Mr. and Mrs. Kutcher.
Mr. Wilson actually often has witty and wise things to part with his followers. Like a prophet to his disciples. Well, most of the popular Tweeple have taken on that quality. And I am looking forward to the day when Mr. Wilson’s followers reach 200,000 plus. Then I think he will start growing horns with all that power going to his head…
I cannot believe that in my previous post of celebrities that tweet I forgot about Demi Moore. Sorry Mrs. Kutcher. And of course, her lovely, always good to look at, but probably illegal for me to fantasize about because of his young age, Mr. Kutcher.
Mr. Combs. How could I have forgotten Mr. Diddy? Yes, indeed, you are Diddy. THE Diddy.
And of course, Ooops I did it again. I forgot yet again our lovely Ms. Spears. She has 230,328 followers as of this moment. Amazing! But it does not seem that she does tweet herself. Sometimes. But not always. This cuts down on the fun exponentially.
My NEW fav? Stephen Fry. Mr. Fry has truly embraced the Web 2.0 social media phenom. If you cannot beat them, you join them. And do a much better, top-notch job. I wonder whether that’s the Brit spirit at work. He is constantly taking and sending pics to Twitpic, so that we could live his celebrated life vicariously. Thanks much, man! You rock! You will never see this post, but a true fan will not mind. And keep up the good work.
As of now, Mr. Fry has 241,247 followers. Please please please. Keep your lead position. When Ms. Spears has more followers than you do, then we know the world is going to the loos.
p.s. Twitterholic tracks popularity of Tweeple. Check it out. It serves as a barometer of our times. Me thinks. Prez Obama, naturally has the lead. He is the World Lead so he has to win at every single competition…
This is Twitter’s stated mission (or designed usage) on its homepage:
“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”
Here is my observation: most of the people are using Twitter, not to keep their social network updated with what they are doing, how boring would that be? but to keep track of what celebrities are doing in real life.
Because they are famous, anything they say seems to carry so much more significance. A one-word Tweet becomes some sort of cypher waiting for you to discover its higher meaning. Their random observations of life are so much more hilarious simply because they are famous — on the Internet, you cannot argue that it is funny because of the delivery. This is NOT Seinfeld. “Newman!”
(Speaking of Jerry Seinfeld. Did you hear that he is going to do a reality TV show about marriage? I bet he and his wife are happier than the lot of us because they have a 24-hour nanny…! So what would his advice be? Become really wealthy and then your marriage life would not be bogged down by arguments about who does more when and what…)
Rainn Wilson. MC Hammer. Luke Wilson. Elizabeth Banks. Jimmy Fallon. Neil Gaiman (he WAS already a celebrity in my household, now with the movie Coraline, he IS a celebrity…), LeVar Burton (of Star Trek fame, Yes, the cool blind dude!, and of Reading Rainbow, eh, fame), Shaq (yes, THE Shaq, under the moniker, The Real Shaq), and I am sure I probably miss quite a few. With some of them tweeting constantly. One cannot help but imagine Rainn Wilson tweeting on his BB in between takes of The Office. Does he show his Twitter stream to his co-stars? Do they suggest to him what he should tweet next? Do they laugh at clever responses back to @RainnWilson?
Yes, responses!
In the Twitterverse, you, apparently, are allowed to “Reply to” these celebrities’ Tweets. And if you are lucky, if your star shines on you, THEY may actually Tweet back @ you. This stuff is what dreams are made of. And the real stuff that the wet dreams are made of? That is when the stars FOLLOW you back.
Then you will be a made man (or woman). You have arrived in the Twitterverse.
Here is my brush with fame today with a 10-foot pole:
Wil Wheaton, Gordi in Stand by Me, and also of Star Trek fame, although he probably prefers to be known as one of the Geek gods, a published writer, and a celebrated blogger (see: The Geek Gods), lives in the Twitterverse (again, see: The Geek Gods).
In one of his hundreds’ of Tweets today, he gushes about The Onion:
“I love the Onion so much, I want to marry it!”
After I alerted The Onion about the raging endorsement, The Onion responded with a ringing rejection:
“America’s Finest News Source Politely Turns Down Marriage Proposal From @wilw”
(My seminal role in this comedic exchange can be proven by the timeline shown in the search result, and of course, this picture).
God, I am a loser…