Is Facebook/Twitter (Twitface?) the first step on the journey from Human to Borg? Certainly, one could say that any sharing of information could be a precursor to eventually having some sort of collective consciousness. But I think that there’s a fundamental difference between the underlying technology that allows for interactive information sharing (telephone, internet, etc.), and the “need” to use that technology to apprise each other of our current whereabouts and status. And it’s the normalization of that need (or desire) that is key to the acceptance of the notion of a collective consciousness.
There’s another key step in the process, though, that I think would be met with enough resistance to prevent a full “Borgification” of the world (at least one in which we’re witting participants in our initial assimilation). And this step would be that in addition to updating our statuses, we would have to allow our statuses to update us. Instead of “I am picking up milk on the way home” may we’d get an update saying “pick up milk for Bill Jones on the way home” and in return we’d get Fred Smith to pick up our drycleaning, and Fred might have Bill pick up Fred’s kids at school, all based on our current proximity to the resources each of us needs. Which all sounds like kind of a cool idea until Bob’s wife wants some lovin’ and her closest male friend gets the call to come service her. Unless Bob’s into that sort of thing, obviously.
I’m not sure why this bizzare train of thought popped into my head or why I thought I needed to post it on a blog that nobody will ever read. But I suppose as long as I’m capable of independent thought and action, I’d better make the most of it.
Ended up playing a game of Settlers of Catan over the weekend. I hadn’t played in a while. It’s a fun game, but things get much more entertaining when the wood jokes start flying. I kicked things off right away with the gratuitous “I’ve got wood for sheep” joke. After that, things just went down hill. I (S) was playing with my cousin (R), her husband (D) and my sister (M). Here are some of the highlights (lowlights?):
R: I’m not getting enough wood.
M: You need to take that up with your husband.
M: I’m in the market for wood.
R: That’s not what I hear.
S (simultaneously with her): So I’ve heard.
D: M’s like a saloon door. She swings both ways!
D: I just rolled a 10.
S: Great! That gives me wood!
M: I’ll trade you one wood if you have one brick.
S: Ok, here you go. Ew…gross. My sister just gave me wood!
All: Ewww!
Last night, my kids were getting on my nerves.
This is not really out of the ordinary. There are 4 of them trying to outdo each other for attention, and I’ve just spent an hour on the train next to a speed-freak wearing an ensemble from the Ted Kazynski spring lineup with his little white iPod headphones cranked up to 11. And this is after spending 8 hours with the most annoying co-worker in the world. Plus, my kids are Annoying Little Fuckers, so there’s that.
My oldest son (ALF1) was being as contrary as possible. If you told him he was being contrary, he would have said “yes I am” just because he knew that “no I’m not” would be the expected answer. So when he was told that it would be bedtime soon, he proclaimed that it would not be bed time until some time after armageddon. ALF2 asked what armageddon meant. ALF1 said “You know, like doomsday.” To which ALF2 replied, “I hate doomsday! No…wait…I hate Tuesday.”
And somewhere in the back of my head a little voice added “Narf! Poit!”
Ever since Joe stopped updating the Cackling Klaknak site, I’ve had tons of ideas to “carry on” the site in spirit if not in deed. I’ve always loved the idea of a gaming humor website. It combines two of my favorite pastimes (humor and games…duh!). And for my money, you can’t beat the original CK forum, where nothing was sacred and everything was ridiculed (especially people who took things seriously).
The fatal flaw in that idea is that I don’t game very much anymore. So a site dedicated to a particular game would not work for me. And sites like Penny Arcade do a pretty good job of taking the piss out of the gaming industry as a whole. So I think I’ve resigned myself to not pursuing that particular path. For now I will probably just use this as the occasional dumping ground for (hopefully) funny ideas. Things that pop into my head that make me chuckle. Maybe the occasional rant. I don’t want it to be a generic blog about my pathetic little life. I’ve got Facebook for that.
Hmm…a thought just occurred to me. One of the great things about the old CK site was that it wasn’t real. None of it. It was rantings about a game. It was all frivolous stuff. Sure eventually some of the forum discussions moved to weightier subjects like politics, sex, and religion. And normally I’m all for sharing my ideas on politics, religion, and things that are broken in the world. But there’s so much of that these days. Maybe it’d be nice to just have a place to be frivolous. I like that.
So without further ado…some frivolity.