Here’s a short video I made for the last project in my “Creativity: Ways of Seeing” class, part of my Creative Writing and Publishing Arts MFA at the University of Baltimore. I made all the video and music. Part of the assignment was to make our project public, whatever it is we did. So, here it is!
First of all, Mashable and TechCrunch are too busy losing touch and being needlessly judgmental, so I’ll say what they both should have said: Congrats, Dana and Tracy!
On November, 21st, fellow Marylanders Dana Hanna and his bride Tracy got married. At the alter, he whipped out his cell and updated his Facebook status to “Married” and blasted out a quick tweet about getting hitched. He handed his wife her cell and she got in on the fun, too. Dana and the minister were the only ones in on it, so it was a big surprise for everyone in attendance.
Okay, it’s geeky, but it’s also a sweet gesture. His tweet reads, “Standing at the altar with @TracyPage where just a second ago, she became my wife! Gotta go, time to kiss my bride. #weddingday” See? Sweet.
Yesterday, tech blogger and semi-professional dick Michael Arrington shared the YouTube video in an article with the snarky title, “Really?” Commenters chimed in with, “Nerds!” and, “Weirdo nerds!”
Mashable’s coverage is also suspect. Jennifer Van Grove writes, “While all of us at Mashable are very avid Twitterers and Facebook users, updating our status at the altar might fall outside our comfort zone.” You’ve got to be kidding me. You guys make a living covering every aspect of social media, and the unique and fun ways in which people take advantage of them. When did you decide you were qualified to make judgement calls?
Some of the comments on Mashable are really harsh. “If I were her, I would have smacked him. That’s also so rude to their priest and the guests in attendance.” As noted above, the minister was in on it.
Another commenter writes, completely without irony, “There are some ethics that an intelligent and well-mannered person should respect. The person in the video is an obsessed, social networking addict.” Yes someone wrote that comment on a blog that focuses on social media and social networking in order to call someone else a “social networking addict.” Precious.
There seems to be a subtext of religious outrage and entitlement here. A Mashable commenter just can’t let it go, and posts the same re-worded comment almost a dozen times. ”Houses of God aka churches, are not places in which in the middle of ’sacred ceremonies’ you pop out your mobile phone and tweet or Facebook about it.” What is this, the sixteenth century?
Hanna has also caught some serious heat on Twitter. I’m scratching my head about how this can be interpreted as anything but a fun, über-geeky stunt.
So let me get all of this straight. Michael Arrington and Jennifer Van Grove, people who make their livelihoods writing about the nerdiest of nerdy tech news, along with their nerdiest of readers who are nerdy enough to post nerdy comments on their nerdy posts have the audacity to suddenly look down on a nerdy stunt? And the people who learned about it on sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are declaring this somehow out of bounds? Really?
It’s insane what people choose to get worked up about.
Hanna puts it best in a tweet he posted last night. “To all the criticizers of my video out there questioning my sanity: You don’t get it. I was having fun at MY wedding! Loosen up, have fun!”
Word.
I am obsessed with this bag. It’s the Saddleback Leather Company’s briefcase, Made with high-quality boot leather and backed by a one hundred-year warranty (yes, that’s 100), this is the last bag you would ever need. Sure, it’s a little on the pricey side, but when I think about all the messenger bags and backpacks I’ve purchased that lasted only a few years before ultimately wearing out, I could easily spend just as much on sub-par bags in the next decade. The large size is big enough to hold my laptop, charger, and all the writing materials I carry around. Plus, it looks really, really sharp, so I could haul it to all kinds of situations, from formal to casual.
I mean, just look at it! It’s the kind of bag Indiana Jones would use. This bag could kick Jack Bauer’s bag’s ass any day. Time to start saving.
I woke up this morning to the sound my phone makes whenever I get a new email. A few seconds later, it happened again. Then a third. Then, a fourth and fifth in rapid succession. They were comment notifications from WordPress. Apparently, some spam bots were making the rounds and decided to leave comments of various lengths and incomprehensibleness, with links to potentially harmful (or at least annoying) spam websites.
I was halfway through toasting a bagel when the repetitive email alert sound got to be way too ridiculous to ignore. Dozens of spam comments had been posted. I booted up the laptop and finally installed the Akismet spam plugin for WordPress. Like magic, the onslaught of spam stopped.
So, hopefully you didn’t notice the flood of spam comments. If you did, I apologize. If you clicked on a link and use Windows… well, you should probably get tested.
I’m kind of addicted to this site. Gilt Man, part of the Gilt Groupe, has a bunch of new sales that start every weekday at noon. There’s some seriously hot stuff on here. Shirts, shoes, suits, pants, watches, and other designer and grown-up-looking gear. Sometimes they have apartment decor. Currently, I’m in the middle of a hunt for the perfect watch (I don’t have one at all right now), and I’ve come across a couple amazing pieces on this site. The catch is that these sales are in limited supply, so once they’re sold out, they’re gone. I let a gorgeous D&G timepiece, on sale at a ridiculous discount, slip through my fingers because I was a little late getting to the site.
It’s an invite-only site. The only way you can take part is if a current member sends you an invite. So, if you want to check it out, you can use my invite link here.
They have some nonsense about an incentive system, claiming to give $25 when people you refer make their first purchases, but that has nothing to do with me choosing to post it here. It’s the only way to get people into the site. I’ve spent a good part of my recent lunch breaks there, so I thought I’d share it. I’m not spamming my own site!
Wake up and find the children, their bodies told them.
The rear half of the house belonged to fire.
Melissa, their youngest, raced outside with the dog.
The hallway belonged to toxic, inky smoke.
They found Ramona, frozen in bed.
Adrenaline made lifting her effortless.
The fire roared hungrily.
Outside, they huddled.
They watched.
Together.
My dad always told me that carnival games were rigged.
I won Melissa’s stuffed bear in only six tries.
In her basement, she said she was pregnant.
Impossible, we were virgins until last month.
She cried and I held her.
She called from the doctor’s.
She couldn’t see me.
Her mom said.
I begged.
Wait.
“Withdraw as much money as the machine will let you.”
From the knife, I could tell he wasn’t joking.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
He jabbed my neck to say yes.
Accidentally, I entered the wrong PIN.
The knife probed my back.
I tried once more.
Crisp twenties emerged.
He fled.
Richer.
I recently did a series of flash fiction for my workshop class. A few of them turned out pretty good, I thought, so I’ll post them here. This particular exercise starts with a ten-word sentence, followed by a nine-word sentence, and so on down to one word.
It was bright, even for a Saturday morning in June.
Erica’s beauty gave me and my plan new strength.
Thank God I made it with enough time.
“Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”
“Yeah, I’ve got something to say.”
All faces snapped around, horrified.
What’s-his-face glared.
Erica’s eyes sparkled.
I spoke.
Persuasively.
Oh, Glenn Beck. This might be one of the most brilliant things I’ve seen on the Daily Show. If you’ve never seen Glenn Beck’s show on Fox News, yes, this is what he’s really like. It makes me wonder, if Beck had a live studio audience, would it be this hilarious?
Maybe it will turn out that Beck has really been doing comedy all this time, but it’s so advanced that our generation simply isn’t capable of appreciating it. Decades, perhaps centuries, in the future, he’ll be lauded as a humorist vastly ahead of his time. Maybe it’s an act, a character who is a paranoid, angry, emotionally unstable, vitriolic television show host with no clear area of expertise. Maybe that character will become the mold for all comedians in the future. Maybe he’s pulling a fast one on us. Maybe there will be a moment in the distant future when the people of the world will say in unison, “Ah, I get it!” and the resulting laughter will unify the planet in peace, ushering in a new era of reason, prosperity, and happiness.
No, he probably has very serious emotional problems. But just imagine!
