I Tweet, Therefore, I Am (?!?)

Last night - I am not sure whether it was due to curiosity or I was simply woozy from lack of sleep - I set myself up on Twitter.

I am proud to say that I have never set up an account on either MySpace or Facebook - there aren't very many people whose lives I want to know that level of detail about, and I suspect they feel the same towards me. These sorts of social networking sites bother me - it seems as if all anyone cares about is having the most 'friends', letting us know the precise moment their kid became potty-trained, or re-connecting with that boy who they ate paste with in Kindergarten. (Currently, I think we collectively have 18 people waiting for us to respond, but we are too lazy/irritated/apathetic to do so...)

However, if President Obama and Shaq can tweet, so can I - we are all that brand of cool. Or so I thought at 11:30 PM, Wednesday night.

Once I got to my new Twitter account page, it was very unsettling to see such a clean slate. Obviously, when I set this blog up, it, too, had no content and no one to read it (and the number of people who read it now probably can still be counted on one hand).

But the premise of Twitter - as opposed to this sort of static blog - is that it is very dynamic and time-sensitive. So if I want to let people know exactly what I think of the proposed National Health Plan - or, more likely, what I had for dinner - I have to go and ask people to sign up to read my tweets.

Which basically is akin to me asking them to be my Facebook friend, so I think I just answered my own question if I am ever going to actually tweet.

(I admit I did not think through how the process works to determine who exactly received my pearls of wisdom, but I did not anticipate my having to exert any real effort...)

I think I'll use the time I saved by not using Twitter and do something less-involved - that World of Warcraft thing seems to be getting a lot of press lately.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. (Arthur C. Clarke, not me...)

Right now, I am coming down with a bad case of Tivo Anxiety.

Here's the thing - every new innovation that is supposed to make your life more fun/efficient/fulfilling also brings with it a new set of unexpected and unwanted stressors. In this case, I am feeling totally overwhelmed by the number of shows that my trusty Tivo unit has patiently and scrupulously lined up for me to watch.

With a new work schedule, good weather for working outside in the yard, and my attention span decreasing to what seems like 15-second intervals, it is increasingly harder to set aside an hour or two daily to just sit on the couch and veg out watching TV. I have thus become entirely reliant on my Tivo to faithfully record the approximately 15 shows I try to follow - I cannot tell you the last time I watched a show live, with annoying commercials I could not zip past.

This brings up the issue that there is only a finite amount of space available to store shows - eventually, older shows get deleted to make way for new ones. My viewing schedule has thus evolved from when shows are actually broadcast on TV to when the last possible date is that I can see a show before it gets deleted. Trust me, you don't want to be around when I am a day too late to catch the latest "Check, Please".

When it comes to sports, that is a whole different arena of stress. If I know that I have Tivo-ed a Bears game or a NASCAR race, I am like a maniac in terms of not wanting to know what happened. I will avoid reading the newspaper for days, lunge with cat-like quickness to turn the radio channel when they do sports updates, and have to loudly announce to anyone I come in contact with that "I have not seen the game, so please refrain from discussing any part of it - or the results - in my presence, thank you". (And they just thought I was going to say "Hello" or "Good Day"...)

I fear that I am falling farther and farther behind and I will never catch up - I don't know if they successfully finished the journey in "Expedition Africa", if anyone ever 'won' on "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here", or if Jack Bauer eventually caught up to those evil hostage-takers (although, based on his previous track record, I have a sneaking suspicion he did).

So, basically, my mind is just a jumble of open-ended, unfinished story lines at this point.

It's gotten to the point now where I avoid turning on the TV entirely - hoping my Tivo unit can sort through the shows, let me know which were truly the funniest and the most enriching, and set aside an appropriate amount of time in my schedule for me to watch them.

(Oh, and having a bowl of Rocky Road or a box of Reese's Pieces ready for me would also be great.)

Bonnie Tyler - the Original Cougar?

Normally, I am not the type to e-mail or otherwise bother people, telling them to: send this chain letter and a lottery ticket to 10 of their friends, view that YouTube video of our awesome vacation in Pyongyang, or check out the other 100 cute pictures of puppies and kittens on Flickr. Usually, if I get these sorts of things, I flick them directly into the trash.

However, I feel I must make a very important exception to this rule - one especially relevant for those of us who grew up watching "Friday Night Videos" and witnessed the beginning of MTV (you get a gold star if you can name - sans Google - who the original lineup of VJ's were). And for those of you who were too old to get into the whole video craze, it might just explain how your kids turned out the way they did.

You simply have to see the YouTube reboot of 'Total Eclipse of the Heart (Literal Video Version) - recorded by Bonnie Tyler in 1983. According to her website, she has "established herself worldwide as one of rock and roll's most appealing artists" - and it is quite easy to see why here.

The conceit of the Literal Video Versions are that the original lyrics have been replaced by simple, literal descriptions of the over-the-top images, action, and singing that typified old school rock videos.

For Bonnie, this includes: choir boys with glowing eyes, multiple pieces of flying cloth, fencers in the dark, preppies attempting magic tricks, and, of course, ninjas. (Mmm...just watch it...it makes more or less sense each time you see it...)

I can remember tons of videos from back in the day - from the ethereal "The S-A-F-E-T-Y Dance" to the unforgettable "Come On Eileen" (I never wanted a pair of one-shouldered overalls so badly in my life) - but I have absolutely no recollection of witnessing "Total Eclipse of the Heart". Perhaps I did, but I just chalked up the bizarre goings-on to brain freeze from Slurpees or a sugar high from too many Jello Pudding Pops.

See for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-x9ygQEGA

To Dream the Impossible Dream

With there being well over 6.7 billion people on this planet, that represents a heck of a lot of people's wishes and dreams. Individuals that listen to National Public Radio would probably like to see Peace on Earth, die-hard Cub fans would like the team to finally win the World Series, and perhaps those pesky North Koreans really just want unfettered access to Starbucks and Webkins - who knows for sure?

As for me, my aspirations are far, far lower - but no less personally meaningful.

All I am looking for is the perfect low-cost, low-mess way to dispose of our cats' litter.

Sure, it is nice having four cats - being the persnickety types they are, at least this enhances the odds that one of them will actually like me at any given time (often those odds are better than with my wife...). Plus, they make great bed heaters in the winter, and we can use the fur they shed as cost-effective and plentiful kindling for our Weber grill.

However, just like the old Dunkin' Donuts commercials, I have to scoop up the litter, no matter the time of day or night. It really is amazing how much they (ahem) output on a daily basis - and that is in four separate litter boxes that we have to maintain. I fully expect to see a note from our garbage man one of these Fridays, explaining we were over our limit - hence the un-emptied can.

Yes, I have seen the many different models of high-tech litter boxes - but these eventually all still need to be emptied and refilled with litter. And we just do not have the space in our basement for a veritable farm of these contraptions, whirring all day and night and jacking up our electric bill, too.

The low-tech version (as seen above) is not an option, either. One of my friends tried unsuccessfully to trick their cat to go in the toilet - so we are going get all of our cats thusly trained? And even if we did, we'd be flushing the toilet even more frequently than scooping the litter...

So, I am magnanimously passing up the opportunity to make this fortune exclusively by myself to toss this idea out to you (the three or so of you that accidentally happen by this blog) for help. I am convinced if we can come up with the right idea, we won't need universal health care at all - we'll make so much friggin' money, we can each have one of those CVS Minute Clinics installed in our homes.

And, I have the perfect name all picked out:

"The Lit-Ter-Minator".

Just say it in a Schwarzenegger-like accent - guaranteed to make you laugh.

I want my piece of the Future!

Well, quite frankly, I am a little disappointed...no, make that disgusted. All those 1950's optimistic predictions of the future have not turned out to be correct at all. You've seen them in the old black-and-white news reels and in museum exhibits: announcers excitedly heralding a new age of technology. Full of confidence after winning World War II and having learned how to split the atom and put rockets in space, there was no end of inventions that could be created to make life easier and more productive.

I'm not talking about cool, fun gadgets like the Ipod, Tivo, or HDTV - I'm talking about things that would radically change my whole life for the better. Where is that machine from "The Jetsons" that will brush my teeth, shower and shave me, and dress me in clean clothes that actually match? Where is that cheerful robot who will cook my meals and clean my house without asking me when I am going to mow the lawn? Where is my flying car that can bypass the perpetual construction zone that is the Illinois Tollway System?

I'm not asking for fantastical stuff like underwater cities or eating a pill that contains a whole meal's worth of nutrition. Just give me more than the Segway* and the Roomba (whose greatest contribution to date is a rather risque "Saturday Night Live" parody commercial).

Somehow, somewhere, smart people are dropping the ball here. I mean, if the guys in "The Big Bang Theory" were like, real, and not so intent on scoring with women, I am sure we would have a great new, affordable mode of transportation in no time. Let's divert the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the war between the Iphone, the Blackberry, and the Palm Pre and make something truly revolutionary. (But then again, that wouldn't be as interesting to the readers of US magazine or TMZ watchers, so maybe I proved my own point here.)

You might logically ask "Then, why aren't you doing anything about this, Greg?" Well, I have neither the limitless budget, the access to resources, and there are probably some new pictures up today on awkwardfamilyphotos.com that I have to go check out now. (Plus, isn't that the purpose of blogs in the first place - to write some snarky, condescending comments about people who actually do things?)

* - Full disclosure: I have ridden the Segway and it is really quite nifty - but an invention that is featured prominently in "Paul Blart, Mall Cop" is probably not going to become anything more than a pleasant historical footnote (see: the Wacky Wall-Walker, wristwatch calculators, and electric cars...oh, wait a minute...).