Damn, Grandma was Hot!

Online social networking currently holds my generation, and many others now, in an extremely tight brace. Most have a profile on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google+, Tumblr, and Pinterest (whatever that is), or some combination of the aforementioned. There's even a social networking site for "professionals," LinkedIn. With all these different mediums of social networking, I sometimes wonder how people decide which on to update. Do you update your status or post a tweet? Some people solve this problem by linking their Twitter account to their Facebook, so their tweet is essentially a status update. Ever since high school I have been growing up in the online social networking world and there are some interesting aspects to the development of social networks over that time period and what the future holds for them.

The first subject I want to address is Twitter. I don't like when people say that Twitter is stupid and unnecessary ( I don't like the word necessary either, why is it so hard to type?). I would actually go as far to say that Twitter was a brilliant idea. Twitter took one of the most popular features of online social networking, Facebook's status update, and built another social networking site out of it. Twitter is basically a series of status updates, no bullshit, just updates. Twitter can also be used as a great source for information about topics of personal interest, which is mainly what I use it for.

Hi friends!

 Twitter allows users to get information quickly and read more in depth if the user desires or can be used to see what your friends are up to, that is, if you have friends. Therefore, Twitter is not a stupid or bad idea, it just has a much simpler interface with less options. Recently Facebook went through another makeover and now is a "timeline" of users' lives. I think the Facebook people did this because they recognize that if the website didn't become something that encompassed users lives as a whole then the site would eventually lose popularity and end up like MySpace, a has been in the social networking world. However, increasing the longevity of social networking sites really makes me think about the role these sites will play in the future. Right now I would find it very strange if my grandmother had a Facebook profile, but in the future, if everything goes in Facebook's favor, grandmother's will have Facebook profiles. Imagine looking at pictures of your grandmother when she was in her teens and as a college student? You might sit there and think "damn, grandma was hot!" It's f**king weird. I don't know if it's a bad thing, but it sure is weird. There's another picture of grandma taking a shot of tequila. Oh, and here's a status update about her locking her keys in her room or something, one of those things that you should keep to yourself.

Now let's change perspectives, what about your grandfather? Here's your grandfather in college, he's participating in Edward 40-hands and there's a picture of him with the girl he was banging years before he met your mother. I really wonder what role social networks will have in the future. I could be wrong, but I honestly think social networks are going to create very different upbringings for the future generations. I don't think anyone's parents tell their children as much about their youth as social networks do. I realize there are privacy settings, but I'm not sold that these measures will keep future generations from looking back on their parents' youth. As a recent graduate of college I am well aware of the pictures that people post on Facebook and the information that is disclosed in social networking sites through posts and status updates. My main question and point of interest is how will online social networks be used in the future and what impact will that have on future generations? I don't know the answer to this question, nobody does, but I am sure interested to see what happens.

I've mentioned my dislike for social networks in the past admittedly in quite harsh words. However, my main grudge with social networking is its overuse. Social networking online is actually an incredibly great idea because it allows people to stay in touch through life even if distances get greater and greater (whether physical distance or friendships going in different directions). The overuse that I'm speaking of is quite simple, it involves pointless and meaningless status updates/tweets, too many pictures, and what I would call an addiction. The status part speaks for itself, I'm sure everyone has read statuses and tweets and thought "cool story, Hansel." So, I digress. If you are taking pictures of yourself in the mirror or just holding the camera out in front of you, there is a good chance you post too many pictures. I'm not singling out girls on this one either. Guys, I don't care about your new tattoo, I don't care where it is or what it says, so I don't need to see a picture of it. I could probably go on for another hour or so about pictures, but I'm not, I think you get the point. In general, people's addiction to online social networking is the main driver for the overuse. I actually have a difficult time blaming people for this, though, because most people like to interact with friends and the internet lets you do that at not so close distances. Also, some people are very social and speak a lot anyways, so it's really just their personality coming out. 

Random interjection, I just thought of another reason why Twitter is a great invention. When situations get awkward or you're at a party and you don't know what to do, many people pretend to look at their phone like they have something to do such as answer a text. Well, Twitter makes pulling this move off so much easier and better because you can actually amuse yourself by reading tweets rather than pretend to text no one. Maybe it is just about the same thing, but at least it's another excuse to look at your phone, which brings me to anther point. Isn't it funny how much people look at their phones now? I've been in situations where the person I'm eating with or just having a conversation with spends more time looking at their phone than at me. At least in these situations you can judge how important you are. But it really is amazing how much people look at their phones now. People are looking at them walking down the street, while they're eating, while they're taking a crap, while they're driving, and the list goes on and on. I think a lot of phone looking can be attributed to social media since it can be accessed from phones now. 

One of the things I dislike most about the overuse of social media is the "I saw that on Facebook Effect," that's what I'm going to call it. The "I saw it on Facebook Effect" can be used for Twitter, too, but Facebook definitely deserves to have its name in the official label. I'm sure we've all been in the situation where someone asks you if you know about something to which you or the person you are speaking with declares that they saw it on Facebook. That is the "I saw it on Facebook Effect." I think that online social networks have created some sort of transparency on our lives. People get too much information from sites like Facebook and Twitter. When I see my friends, especially those I haven't seen for a while, I like to have things to discuss with them. But if they post everything in their life on Facebook and I've seen it, then it makes conversation boring and stale. I like gleaning information from the source, from the person who actually wants to tell me something. Personally I've gotten away from checking Facebook very often, a process that I started probably about midway through sophomore year of college, so luckily I don't have to deal with the "I saw it on Facebook Effect" very often.

Well, let's see where online social networking goes. I'll sure be watching with great interest.

Paper Jam

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Machines: A Recipe for Success

Most portrayals of the future draw a dark, unfair, and bleak image of what society and the world will be. Maybe this is done for entertainment value, but maybe the use of technology and machines isn't a bad thing. Yes, technology and machines are taking jobs off the market, the opposite effect that politicians like to be associated with, but maybe eliminating jobs is the right direction. I don't know about you, but from my point of view, people would usually prefer to spend their time doing other things besides work. I might be wrong, but that's why vacation exists. What would be better than vacation all day, everyday? You might say you would get bored, but I beg to differ, because in a world where no one works, everybody needs something to do. Therefore, granted you have friends, you should find some people to do what you like, whether that be playing sports, acting, discussing books, getting drunk, getting high, satisfying your preversions, playing video games, watching movies, dancing, etc. However, you might ask yourself "how the f**k is that possible?" It's simple, we kill the Batman. Actually, no, we continue with the development of technology and machines until we, the people, are no longer necessary to perform any job whatsoever.

Once we hit the point where machines can carry on all the necessary tasks and duties that humans do, then we the people, no longer work and money is thrown out the window. You might ask yourself who's going to take care of the machines by performing maintenance and checking up on them in general. Again, it's simple, there are machines to check on the machines and machines to check on the machines that check on machines. In this model, machines run the world while people are free to do as they like. You can go to a restaurant and order food that is brought to you by a machine that was prepared by a machine and the ingredients were farmed and processed by a machine in a different department. In reality, this world would function exactly as the one we are in now, but there would be no currencies and machines would do all the work. This model works because machines do not crave monetary value like humans. Machines would work because that's what they are programmed to do.

All the machines should have personalities like WALL-E!

Of course people will quickly look to find flaws with this model, such as crime. These people will say that crime would become a huge issue, but I say nay. Crime would probably exist to some extent, but when there is no money, there is no monetary value. Everyone would have access to the same goods, same amenities, same weed. Why steal any of these things when you could just get it from a machine for no cost? Boom, problem solved again. On to the next problem, disease. People will keep fu*king so new people will continue to arrive and machines are immune to the common cold as well as diseases such as AIDS,  HIV, lime disease, other STDs, or malicious viruses carried by birds or mosquitoes. I realize machines can get computer viruses, but I don't know how they'll get them because people can't look at porn on the machines that would be serving us and there wouldn't be much of any incentive to load a virus onto any of them since money is not an issue. In the off chance that some deviant prevert does put a virus on a machine, then the machines responsible for maintenance work can take care of that.

While I do enjoy the tales told in various forms of entertainment such as The Terminator, The Matrix, I-Robot, 12 Monkeys, Dark City, 1984, and Brave New World, I do prefer to envision a futuristic world in which people can frolic in freedom doing whatever their hearts desire. No need for money or work, after all, the real reason people work is to obtain money. Leave work to the machines that people's hard work in science create so we can spend the rest of human existence having a good time.

This could be everyday!

 Well, that's my incredibly strange vision of what a sweet future would be like. This all came to me when I found out that the MBTA just introduced a new pay-for-parking system where people who park their cars at the station now pay a machine. I went on to jokingly ask if that was creating more jobs, at which point the aforementioned idea developed inside my small brain. In other completely unrelated news (I think I'm going to start referring to my thoughts as news on this blog), the Olympics came to an end yesterday and I was thinking about my favorite moments from the 2012 games. The first two things that came into my mind were Usain Bolt's continued domination, he has definitely achieved legendary status, and how delighted I was when two Americans took first and second in the 110 meter high hurdles. Both of these highlights stand out in my mind, but there was a third that I think will go unnoticed unfortunately, and that moment belongs to American 400 meter runner Tony McQuay.

The USA's second place finish to the Bahamas in the 4x400 relay has definitely overshadowed McQuay's absolutely beast third leg of the race. When McQuay got the baton he was trailing Bahama's third runner. McQuay hauled ass like crazy to take the lead and hand the baton off to the anchor leg, Angelo Taylor, in first place. I was hoping Angelo Taylor, a 400 meter hurdler, would be able to hold the lead, but the Bahama's anchor was able to overtake him. However, McQuay's split was something absolutely ridiculous, like a 43. something low! That's a boss leg and I think the guy should get some recognition for that. McQuay ran only 45.31 (I wish I could run anywhere near that because that's still really fast!) in the open 400 and didn't qualify for the final, but he sure did put it all together in the relay. His leg was one of my favorite parts of the Olympics this year and he deserves some major respect.

I'll get you the lead

McQuay is only 22 and I'm looking forward to following the rest of his career with great interest. You can count me in as a fan. I also cannot forget to mention that another one of my favorite people was in the news today, that would be Jose "The Special One" Mourinho. Man do I really like this guy! He knows how to win and he knows how to hit people where it hurts the most. I still enjoy thinking about the time that Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger took a shot at Mourinho. I don't recall exactly why he was calling out Mourinho, but I loved Mourinho's response, "Where are all his trophies?" No fooling around, right to the jugular. Anyways, with Mourinho's Real Madrid winning La Liga this past season, The Special One has now won the English Premier League, the Italian Serie A, and La Liga, not to mention the Portuguese League, too. He is the only coach to win those three leagues, arguably the three best leagues in the world. He then went on to say that maybe people should start calling him the "Only One." I need say no more. Click here for a short article about it.

That's all I have for now, but before I go, imagine a man that was a combination of Jose Mourinho and Jack Donaghy.

Discovering the Greatness: Limericks

After recently playing the game Quelf for the first time, I discovered just how incredibly great limericks are. Limericks are a type of poem, short and quick to the point, and of a comedic nature. They don't have to be funny, but for the most part limericks are jokes. When used in serious tones they tend to suck ass. A limerick consists of five lines that follow the rhyme pattern AABBA. Sometimes they follow an anapestic or amphibrachic meter, but I looked these up and don't really understand them, nor do I care to take the time to understand them. I decided to hell with those meters, I just want to have some fun with words. Also, the fact that limericks are sometimes referred to as nonsense makes them even more appealing to me. If you have read some of my posts then you know how random my thoughts are and how often they drift. I happen to think that my random thoughts are a great source for creating limericks of wonderful variety. They probably suck, but I'll let you judge that. All that matters to me is that I had a fantastic time coming up with these. So without further ado...

I know nothing of anapestic meter
But that should not make this poem teeter.
     Rather I'd like to create entertaining content
     Like imagining myself forcing sex without consent.
I hope to accomplish this goal like a relentless wife beater.

Yo, my name is Jack Bauer,
I possess a tremendous amount of power.
     Interrogating baddies is incredibly fun
     while I neutralize terrorist threats with only my gun.
And I did it all in just 24 hours.

There one was a man from Nantuckett,
He sat down on a spiky bucket.
    Excruciating pain shot down his spine,
    All his thoughts ran out of line
So he raised his hands and said "f**k it"

Zack de la Rocha sat smiling like the Joker
Contemplating his next political poster.
     Sifting through a pocket full of shells,
     His mind filling with loud yells
Until he pulled the trigger on his super soaker.

He has smiled in his life

There one was a man named Pat,
He had a lot of trouble with his fat.
     The folds of his rapidly expanding belly
     Produced odors oh so smelly
But no one could move him from where he sat.

Timmy went to the gym to get buff
In an effort to score all the muff.
     He lifted the bar with all his might
     But it collapsed on his chest without a fight.
Who knew getting a girl would be so tough?

I'm sure you've heard of this thing called religion.
It has people eating from its hand like pigeons.
     You have the freedom to choose what dogma to believe in,
     Or else risk being considered a heathen.
So tell me, what will be your decision?

John Terry isn't very kind to every race,
But he should be careful because he lacks their pace.
     Better go hide your wife
     Or else he's going to ruin your life.
Hard to say he's not a disgrace.

Alec Baldwin plays the best business man.
Anyone else should be considered a backup plan.
     Reaganing as Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock,
     Who wouldn't want to be in his socks?
I can honestly say I'm a big fan.

So there are some of my pathetic efforts to make limericks. Maybe I'll come up with more some other time, maybe I won't, but you can't say I never gave you any poetry on Sycophantic Laughter. On an unrelated note, I apologize to anyone who may have read any of my postings from June until around this point because some of them might have been somewhat depressing, pessimistic, and sort of unhappy. I think everyone goes through those types of phases in life, though. No need to fear though,  I'm clearly back as evidenced by my previous post about the Olympics where I mentioned things that irk me. And since I brought that up, let's talk about how South Africa's 4x400 relay team was allowed to get into the finals despite not even finishing half of the race. I'll tell you why this happened, because that guy they refer to as "Blade Runner," or "replicant" (as I like to refer to his not so human self), is on the team. That's all I'm going to say about that. The good news is that Usain Bolt has won both the 100m and 200m sprints for the second consecutive Olympics, a feat he stands alone to have accomplished. My favorite quote from the 2012 Olympics also belongs to Bolt who said "I'm here to cement my legend status." Well done, Usain, you have accomplished that goal.

I don't know how anyone can dislike Usain Bolt. He has become one of my favorite athletes since I first found out who he was during the 2008 Olympics. From his mannerisms to the way he speaks and how he dominates when he competes, I think he's likable guy. Maybe only Carl Lewis is the only one who's not a huge fan, but I think he's just envious of how good Mr. Bolt is. Bolt is a legend and he knows it, yet I don't think he flaunts his greatness in a disrespectful manner. He carries himself in a way I've never seen, he's definitely cocky, but only because he does know that he's the best. No one has run the 100m or 200m faster than him, so I think he has earned the right to celebrate the way he does and say that he is going to win.

I can't get enough of this guy!

I'm glad track has such an exciting and fun person. Every sport could use a Usain Bolt. He easily makes my list of favorite people. Maybe that's a good idea for a future post, I'll make a list of my favorite people, famous people that is. I am not getting into this with people I know personally, it would be like the MySpace top friends all over again. I'll begin doing some brainstorming on that topic, and maybe one day there will be a post about it that no one will read. Back to the Olympics, though. Since swimming has so many events, like I was referring to in the post before this one, I think that 100m walk like Bernie race should be included, along with other events such as the hot dog eating contest, tether ball (thanks 30 Rock!), and wiffle ball. There are probably some other events that should be added, too, but I don't feel like taking the time to think about that right now. Mainly the walk like Bernie race should be an Olympic event and why not, synchronized diving is already there.

I hope you enjoyed my terrible poetry, and no, beer pong should not be an Olympic sport nor would you win the gold medal.

Olympic Screams... See What I Did There?

I declare that it has been far too long since I've gone on a rant or bitched to a great extent about something. To remedy this I'll speak about the 2012 Olympics that are currently going on in London. When watching the Olympics I can't help but think about how many athletes will have their medals stripped years from now for testing positive for banned substances. The Olympics used to seem like such a big deal to me, but now that I'm older I honestly could care less about the overwhelming majority of the events that make up the Olympics. I'm biased, but I only care about the track events. While I like soccer, Olympic soccer is not allowed to be great because all the players have to be under 23, with 3 exceptions. That rule definitely doesn't exist just to keep the spotlight on the World Cup. Think about it, if all the players from a country were allowed to participate in the Olympics then how would that competition be any different from the World Cup? Not to sound like a total ass clown, but I belittle the Olympics with the exception of the track portion.

Another thing I think should not be used in Olympic competition are sports that are judged. I like competition that's straight forward. You know if a team or competitor won if they got to the finish line first or scored more points than the opponent. I don't like the subjective scoring of events like gymnastics. I'm not claiming that the judged sports aren't incredibly difficult, because they are, but who is to say if one person is better than someone else? I think there's far too much grey area here. One set of judges might determine three people to take gold, silver, and bronze while a different set of judges could possibly choose three other athletes. I just think it's way too subjective. And the point deductions, how the hell do they come up with those? There's probably some method that I don't care enough to look up, but no two people are going to screw up in the exact same way, there are unlimited possibilities.




I've also been very annoyed about all the talk surrounding "Blade Runner," or Oscar Pistorius. There has been great debate about him using prosthetic legs to compete in the Olympics. I side with the people who thinks he should NOT be allowed to complete. Mostly because I'm an asshole, but more because he IS getting an unfair advantage. Some moron on the radio said he wasn't getting an advantage because he didn't win anything, he only made it to the semifinal. So does that mean it's ok to use performance enhancing drugs as long as you don't actually win anything? I call bullshit, he does get an unfair advantage. You want to know why? Take those prosthetic legs away from him and then let's see if he can qualify for the Olympics. I'm not an expert in anything, but I'm rather certain he would not make it. If you don't have legs, then you can't run. It's as simple as that. I have nothing against the guy, I'm glad he makes the effort to be an incredible athlete, but it's just not fair. Why not just use science to make the best athletes possible then? And by the way, Blade Runner is not a complement. However, Pistorius should be nicknamed "Replicant," not Blade Runner. Blade Runners are normal people, to the best of my knowledge, and in the movie Blade Runner they are hunting down Replicants, which are bio engineered or biorobitic beings. Meaning that these replicants are not all human, a people enhanced by science. If that's fair, then anyone competing in the Olympics should be allowed to use steroids or HGH.

Also, can I point out how poorly NBC has planned to broadcast some interesting events? As a track runner I'm very interested in the running events, but unless I watch them live on the computer, because apparently I can't watch them live on t.v., then I have to wait until nearly midnight to watch some great races. I wouldn't mind this so much if they were on near midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, but NBC is using this scheduling program on Sundays and Mondays. Hell they'll probably do it all week. What they do is start coverage at about 7 or 8 p.m. and show an interview with Michael Phelps that had already been aired. Speaking of Phelps, my Joe do they like to stroke his dong. I'm not done with Phelps, he's the subject of my next paragraph. So they start coverage at about 7 or 8 and have interviews and stories I could care less about. Then they show like diving or some event that I could also care less about. I want to see the men's 100m final! Oh wait, I can't because I want to go to bed so I can get a decent amount of sleep. Joe damn it NBC, you should have let Jack Donaghey do the television scheduling for the Olympics.

It's because I'm a replicant isn't it?

So back to Phelps now. Like Pistorius, I have nothing against Phelps. He is a tremendous athlete competing within the limits of his sport, swimming. I'm not going to argue that he isn't the greatest swimmer of all time, but I don't like when he's referred to as the greatest Olympian of all time. Yes, he does have a tremendous amount of medals, I think 18 gold, which is absolutely absurd. However, I think you have to be a swimmer to garner that many medals. I can't think of any other sport where an athlete would be able to get so many medals. Then you look at sports like soccer and basketball. These sports have a tournament system in the Olympics and there are only 3 medals for the entire tournament! I also would not include track and field as a sport where you can win that many medals. The only way I think that would be possible is if they made more events, like having the 100m sprint as normal, the 100m sprint backwards, the 100m  wheelbarrow race, the 100m skip, and so on. Only then would a runner have a chance to capture so many medals. I think the nature of the swimming sport allows there to be far more medals that are reachable by the same athlete. Not to take anything away from what Phelps, or any other swimmer has accomplished, because they are great athletes, especially Phelps.

Writing this post was incredibly fun. There's something about ranting and/or writing posts in an angry fashion, they just come out so smoothly. There you have it, some of my views on the Olympics, take them or leave them, I'm apathetic so it doesn't bother me.

We could have organized this better