15 Minutes of Shame

First of all, I decided that it would be sweet if I added an adult content warning on my blog. Why? Because it's awesome. Also, think about it. What would screw up a kid more. Seeing nipples? I mean, come on. For heaven's sake, in everyday TV we see most of the boobie anyway. Heh. I just said boobie. Anyway, would seeing a nibble be more harmful than being exposed to my ramblings. For example, earlier today I was at the book store, and was just enthralled by:

Two of my historical heroes. Available on Amazon.com.

It wasn't so much that I wanted to read the book (it was mainly pictures), but it was more that I liked the idea of having that on my coffee table as a conversation piece, much like my other coffee table books ("Modifying Retarded Behavior" and "Understanding Abnormal Behavior"). That's me, in a nutshell, and this blog is an extension of that. And really, where else do you get to hear my thoughts on 12th trimester abortions and mandatory euthanasia of senior citizens? I have to say that pictures of boobies are great and all. But my thoughts are much cooler. Perhaps that's why my readership is right around 6.5 people.

Of course, I also managed to find another cool book in the book store today:

I don't have many goals in life. Being on this list has become one of them.

I'm not sure what sort of destructive things you have to do to make it into this book. But I'm sure that I can come up with something. Sadly, I took a peek inside this book. Mainly, it's about a bunch of hippie, liberal professors who bitch and moan about stuff. The only Illini in there? Some dude named McChesney, who's in Communications (now renamed the College of Media), which is generally useless. Like most English or Womens Studies academics. How's he so dangerous? Even he doesn't think so. Lame. When I see the label of dangerous, I want to see people like Ken Shamrock. Or Chuck Norris. Or Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber, for those of you who have never watched Good Will Hunting). I want to hear about Iranian nationals working on nuclear secrets here in the U.S., or Chinese engineers working as professors to develop high tech processes that can be used in weapons of mass destruction. Not some professor organizing a bunch of grad students to write newsletters full of incomprehensible logic.

I'm starting to think that we should've slapped that "adult content" warning on this page a long time ago. We'll see how long it lasts.

So anyway, on to the shame.

The nature of social networking has helped us develop shame in a variety of ways. I was hanging out with one of my buddy Fierce, when he looked over at this girl, and goes, "She's really familiar. Where do I know her from?" Of course, she wasn't particularly attractive, so I didn't really care. I'm sort of shallow that way. But then again, it's perfectly reasonable from a Cognitive Miser perspective. My focus went back to the tasty Guiness that I had in front of me at the time, while Fierce continued his contemplation.

"Wait. Now I remember. I think she has a blog on Xanga."

I sort of snorted. And started laughing. I could only get a couple of words out: "Wow. Awesome."

"Yeah, that's sort of creepy, isn't it?"

Yeah. And then some. There's nothing like stalking someone online, and then recognizing them. I mean, some things are fun to do with online stuff. For example, having a laugh over the pictures of people on Match.com has long been a way that I've killed time. Trust me, this is hilarious, particularly if you live in east-central Illinois. I've also used facebook as a quick background check on people. After I get a phone number, I'll generally facebook a girl to see if they have a boyfriend, which helps me in deciding whether or not to actually call. It's one thing to do online dating. And even Craigslist is sort of out there. But to actually meet someone online who doesn't know that you're meeting them? Yikes.

Of course, it could be worse. You could be one of those folks who actually does this regularly. So Fierce tells this story to some of his colleagues at lunch, expecting to get the same mocking from them that he got from me. But instead, he gets something to the effect of:

"Oh yeah. That happens to me all the time. Did you see what her interests were? If you know what kind of music she likes, you can have something to talk about."

Wow. Even Fierce was dumbfounded. Instead of having a laugh over someone's poor behavior and spicing up lunch conversation, we get some guy who takes social behavior to a new level of ineptness. Sad. And I'm sure that he's not nearly the worst one out there. It's stuff like this that makes me want to really push for my social engineering initiatives in my 2036 Presidential run.

-Chairman