It's official, I'm a Twit.

A twit is, for the sake of definition, "a silly annoying person".  Having read some Twitter posts, I'm not surprised this is the name Twitter's founders came up with.


With that said, however, I have joined the dark side.  I am now a Twit.  Check out @nerdy_fat_guy for proof of my twitty goodness.  If you can.  I honestly have no idea how to find somebody's Twitter feed in all the thousands of profiles out there.  If you know, please tell me.


I just want to fit in.  

(This, of course, means I need to get a new phone, since I apparently can't download Twitter to my ancient Crackberry.  And posting when I get around to it does tend to remove the spontaneity of the whole genre.  Might be a problem.)

Deja Vu All Over Again

Oh, dear reader, how I've missed you.  It's been a busy week at Chez NFG, what with the packing and the unpacking and the driving and such.  N'glavin. 

For anyone who doesn't already know, we're now Ohioans by residence, if not yet legally. (Still featuring America's Wang on the license plates and driver's licenses.  Can't do everything at once, you know....)  I've been working here, off and on, for the last six weeks, we're finally permanently ensconced.  No more hotel pillows for me, thank you.

Somewhere in the midst of this, I passed the 50-mark on subscribers to this little queso-centric world o' mine, so I thank each and every one of you kiddoes, my dear, dedicated readers.  You deserve so much better, you really do, so I'm gracious for every little word you choose to read here.  We'll get this train back on track soon enough.  I've been dreaming up new quizzes, and there are pictures and stories to share.  (And I'll be here when the day is new, and I'll have more ideas for you.)

Our movers were great, and ask and ye shall receive, we had the same driver that moved us to Florida back in '07.  Mike is a wonderful guy, and seeing that big white and yellow truck in front of the house brought back memories.  He recognized many of the boxes crushed by our previous move, boxes that never got unpacked in 2 1/2 years.  We even happened to pass him a few times on the road, and stopped at the same rest area for lunch so chatted for a little while.  Not that I could hear my phone ring in the car, but he also called to warn us about some impending road construction while he was ahead of us.  I have no desire to participate in another cross-country move any time soon, but he's the go-to guy if change rears its difficult head at us again.

Moving also meant new discoveries.  When Lori moved a shelf in our old living room, she found a mummified frog, a remnant of the frosty winter we had in Florida. 

We had a few stowaways, lizards that haven't quite come to terms with the sudden temperature shift.  One hitched a ride inside the rim of my potted rosemary bush, and the other managed to stow away inside Lori's desk.  It was 95 degrees the day our movers packed the truck down in Florida, and the last few days here have been in the low 40's with rain and hail.  Sucks to be cold-blooded, apparently.  Though I'll take lizards over cockroaches "palmetto bugs" any day.

Made our first meal in the new kitchen last night, herb-stuffed chicken breasts with a roasted beef marrow risotto.  Worked out very nicely, though I still need to fine-tune the location of some of the more popular utensils.  Oh, and we still need to find the box with all of our flatware. 

The dammit is transitioning as well as can be expected, he seems to recall quite well what the bark collar does.  He may have a few more bouts of collar-wearing until he figures out on his own that there's nothing to bark at (except the giant squirrels).  Hopefully he figures that out before he figures out the battery's been dead for three years.

And after more than a month spent sleeping in rented beds, air mattresses and the floor, I'm glad to be back in my own bed again, this time for more than a few days at a crack.  And despite Lori's flagrant use of earplugs for dramatic effect, I know she missed my snoring over the last month.  I'm sure of it.  Just ask her.  No, wait, don't ask.   Just trust me, she's fine with it.

Really.

Into your life it will creep

I love conspiracy theories. Even better, I love theorists who shoot down other conspiracy theories for being 'too predictable'. Because what conspiracy is predictable? (For example, Lady Di faking her own death? Conspiracy theory fail.)

But man, paranoia is striking quite deep of late. And it has nothing to do with diet pills or 'Saved by the Bell' reruns played in sync with Dark Side of the Moon. Come on, MyLinkedAlumniTwitLifeBookScape, don't you think things are getting a little out of hand?

Years ago, the daughters were on MySpace, and being the concerned parents we were, we joined as well. I got sucked into groups, started a blog, made MyFriends and had MyConversations with people around the world, pulled MyHeists in MyMafia and wrecked MyCar in MyStreetracing. Suddenly, it became all too junior high, and everyone I knew disappeared over to Facebook.
Which is where things actually got a little stalker-like. Facebook instantly suggested people I hadn't spoken to since high school, or in some cases, elementary school. For better or worse, I've linked to them, and gotten more requests from other people who found them, and I've linked back to the MySpace friends I cared about in the first place, along with some of you, dear readers. As of right now, I only have one person on the list that I can't identify, no matter how many old yearbooks I fan through. What's next? A friend suggested, long ago, that I check out MyLife, whose ads grace the sidebar of Facebook. Why she suggested it, I don't know. But despite my refusal to pay for social networking, and my generally slim participation in the existing social outlets, I still get teaser emails from them, telling me random facts about the people who searched for me. Based on the demographic info they've provided, I can almost guarantee that at least 75% of these people weren't looking for me when they typed my name into a search engine. And it does prove to be less than a perfect marketing tool, when the same four searches come up each time and they all happened two or three years ago.

I'm not opposed to Googling the whereabouts of an ex, or that girl I went on one date with in college, figuring that if they aren't completely hooked up to the matrix by a plug on the back of their skulls, they could be dead, and not all obituaries come up online. Perfectly acceptable to think they couldn't bear to pine their lives away for me anymore. But it doesn't mean I have any interest in reconnecting, I'm usually just curious about their arrest record or death by speeding locomotive.

But when I went to delete the MyLife spam the other day, I noticed it was different. Instead of "Look who's searching for you", they've added a twist: "Look who's searching for your significant other!" Think your spouse is cheating? Confirm that by throwing their junior high school boyfriend at them during a fight. "Who's this 23-year-old Male in Branson that searched for you in 2006?" That's constructive. Because if someone searches for you, obviously it's because you sent out that 'I'm available and yearning for your 7th grade hotness all over again...' vibe.

Just because I can eat an entire pumpkin pie in one sitting doesn't mean I should. Just because I can add bacon to something for .25 doesn't mean I should (but yes, I should, really.) Just because you have access to the Internet 24/7 doesn't mean you have to seek out those long-lost romances or the fat kid you picked on in 3rd grade. Stop making the planet smaller.

In theory, preying on people's innate paranoia isn't wrong, I just want in on the action. If I'd thought up CreepyStalkerInYourCloset.com, for example, I'd want advertisers to cough up big bucks. (And for the record, I did think up CreepyStalkerInYourCloset.com, I demand credit for it and all subsequent ideas contained in this paragraph.) People could go on there and search through the deleted items folder on their stalkee's computer, looking for keywords like 'I love my stalker' or 'she's the only one who gets me' or those shower photos that accidentally showed nipple (while they were afraid to wash their hair). You could then link to everyone linked to your victim love interest, to stalk take an interest in them, too. Make sure they're not unhealthy influences on your stalkee, suggesting such ridiculous things as 'restraining orders' and 'witness protection'.

But make sure you keep it safe and above-board, people. Because if you do step out of line, maybe 'the man' will come to take you away. Then you'd better hope they offer Internet privileges in the pokey, and that CreepyStalkerInYourCloset.com isn't blocked.

Random Acts of Thursday - Socialism is for Twits

Despite claims to the contrary by my lovely wife, I am not a social creature. Sure, I've come out of the shell that cursed me through my entire childhood and a large part of my adult life, I talk to strangers as the character 'Social Butterfly Elliott' (or sometimes as 'Horst, the inappropriate German tourist'), but there are still parts of our lives that I prefer to be private.

And that's how it should be.

I will share a candid reaction with a stranger in line at the deli counter, or share my life's history with a waitress at the Waffle House, but these are still selective choices.

So I guess where I draw the line is with this Twitter thing the kids are doing these days.

Really, do you care to know the instant it happens that 'my second Guinness went down smoothly', or when I exclaim 'Mmmm, pie' five times a day? Doubtful. I don't judge, I know many of you have these 'Twitter' accounts, and many of you are datavores and need input. (Because Number Five is alive.) I just don't feel the need to be part of an instantaneous collective consciousness with millions of my fellow earthlings.

Anyone who knows me knows I generally shy away from any new technology. I still have a cassette deck in my car. I didn't own a cell phone until my last nearly fruitless attempt to find a pay phone in the city of Milwaukee, when I finally settled upon a greasy roadside receiver in a graffitied and recently torched phone booth, sucking bus fumes while trying to talk to my office. I have no iPod and I less-than-secretly hope our 20-year-old television dies so we can give up television, not so I can buy a 50-inch high-definition flat screen. Because I don't know the difference between plasma and LCD, since LCD is what made my Timex digital watch so cool back in 1983, and plasma has something to do with blood.

I can't be trusted to come up with something share-worthy even weekly on my Failbook account, do you really think I'm going to spend the time to share every thought I have, 140 characters at a time? Have you even seen my poor texting skills?

What sort of twit do you take me for?

(Especially since I am so clearly a nerd. Like this segue?)

Simple quiz this week, one question, one question only. Pass or fail, just like my typing class in high school:

What uncommon career opportunity do actors Sonny Chiba and Meredith Salenger share?

Show your work, kiddies.

I can feel you but you're nowhere in sight

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I am a nerd of the multi-purpose variety. However, you may have also discerned by now that I am not, despite my work in the software field, a gadget nerd. I was the last person I know to buy a CD player. Ditto with the cell phone. I don't know what I'll do if the cassette deck in the Buick ever gives out. I only have a laptop because work provides me with one. Ditto with the cell phone. And I own no mp3 players, Bluetooth devices, gaming systems or flat-screen televisions.

It isn't that I don't like these things, per se. I just don't feel compelled to own the latest and greatest.

I mention this mild technophobia because until a few months ago, my crackberry was set to vibrate with every email I receive. That's about 80 in a normal work day and 20 more after hours, and it was getting to where I couldn't concentrate on the task at hand. I finally found the 'phone only' setting, to fight the compulsion (and uncontrollable compulsion it was!) to check email every time the phone went off, and now it only vibrates when my phone rings, about five times in a normal week.

The issue I'm having is that my hip and leg still vibrate 20 times or more in a given day, even when I don't wear the phone. People refer to this as "phantom vibration syndrome", or "vibranxiety". Apparently our bodies just grow so accustomed to the vibration that when the phone isn't doing it, our bodies take over and mimic the sensation. Cell phone companies have paid doctors to insist there's no real nerve damage behind this phenomenon. That's akin to the National Diamond Council suggesting the appropriate price for an engagement ring. Can you say conflict of interest? Good, I knew you could!

Because apparently our nervous systems are screwing with us.

I used to just worry about the potential brain tumor from the phone's radiation, but now it's attacking me even when I'm not talking.

At least I can rest securely knowing that as I struggle furiously typing my manifesto in a tiny shack in Montana (on a manual typewriter, of course), I'll never develop Texting Thumb, or Guitar Hero Wrist, or Wii injuries. I'd be especially worried about that last one.