BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

One might think that I am referring to the May 5 astronomical event, in which the moon was at its closest point to earth in its egg-shaped orbit, AND was full at the same time. Full of what? Cheese, most likely. Although I suspect there is also a case to be made for Helium 3, but it’s too early to get into that right now.

However… No. I am NOT talking about that particular moon. I am talking about this morning’s moon. Odds are you missed it. The fact of the matter is, I caught it purely by chance, and it was a sight to behold.

You see, we have this cat.

Odd way to start this story, I suppose, but trust me, it’ll make sense.

Said cat is named Tiger. I personally call him Nachos el Tigre – or Nachos for short. Why? Because my daughter gets upset when I call him Almost Roadkill. Like any animal we have around the house, Nachos is a rescue. He came from the middle of the highway as a tiny kitten who was apparently washed out of his home during a flash flood (probably a storm drain) when he was on the order of 4-5 weeks old. I won’t go into the sordid details of us adopting him, suffice it to say he came to live with us, but while you can take the cat out of the feral, you can’t take the feral out of the cat. ‘Nuff said.

And so… Nachos has wreaked all manner of havoc throughout our house, up to and including ripping holes in the underside of our mattress foundation and using the resulting hollow as his “Nachos Cave.” His personal fort, so to speak. What does this have to do with the moon? Nothing. And everything. Yeah, it’s sorta like that.

You see, the redhead – yes, her worship Evil Kat – is none too pleased with his penchant for ripping up the mattress foundation. In fact, if he was… oh, I dunno… just some guy, and not a cat, he’d already be wearing one of her stilettos as a hood ornament. Then we’d have to change his name to Jimmy Choo the Unicorn. However, since he’s a cat, and not a dood, he gets a sorta free pass. Meaning, she just yells at him instead of stomping on him while she yells at him. Odd how that works. Maybe I should get myself a tail and some whiskers… But I digress.

And so, today was no different, or so I thought. Her worship was getting dressed for work when I returned from dropping off the o-spring at school. Upon entering the house I heard a ruckus, followed by the redhead screaming all manner of expletives at Nachos el Tigre. It was pretty obvious to me what was happening, or again, so I thought. The ruckus and screaming continued, so I went to investigate.

There… Below the horizon… as in down on the floor, clad in naught but her lacy undergarments, was the redhead, screaming at the dust ruffle while fishing around underneath the bed with one arm.

Let’s just say Downward Facing Dog does little justice as a description for the moon rising in the doorway. And I have to say, it was super…

Suddenly, the yelling stopped. A moment of quiet fell, then the redhead looked up. “Is this going to be a blog?” she asked.

My reply was simple. “It is now.”

Later…

Le Swerv

Yep. I’m on Twitter. I’ve blogged about it before. Hell, I even toss a bit of flash fiction out there every now and again.

Recently, however, I was on a panel at a SF/Fantasy Con… Actually, I was on a crapload of panels, but that’s not the point. I’m talking about a specific panel – that being a “Social Media” panel. I was really the odd man out on this particular gig. All of the other authors seemed to know one another, whereas I had no friggin’ clue who any of them were, nor they me. So, they all sort of sat toward one end and left me to make sure the opposite end of the table didn’t float away. All good. Just to be sure, though, I checked – I DID use deodorant that day, so that shouldn’t have been a problem. Of course, it didn’t really matter much because 75% of the audience attending the panel happened to be close, personal friends with one of the other authors on the panel, so I probably could have stayed at the bar drinking beer with some folks. At any rate, I didn’t do that. I showed up, I tossed my opinion in there every now and then. Got a few blank stares from the other panelists. Engaged in one of those nifty marketing tactics by handing out some free books. Answered the question, “Why are you handing out free books?” Stared blankly back at them when they couldn’t grasp WHY I would hand out free books even after I told them why. You know, the regular drill…

I know… So what… Big deal. (2 points to anyone who gets that obscure movie reference…)

The thing is, Twitter was one of the topics. Well duh… of course it was, Sellars. Social Media. Twitter. Yadda yadda.

Okay, okay. So THE thing is, one of the other authors on the panel concluded, announced, and/or otherwise stated that one tweet a day is more than enough. In fact, she went on to say that she had made it a point to UNfollow other authors – whose work she enjoyed – because they had the unabashed nerve… the pure audacity… the unbelievable lack of restraint… and tweeted 12 times in one day.

12 times.

One day.

That being 24 hours.

24/12 = 2.

An average of one tweet every two hours.

I don’t know about you but that seems like a pretty laconic tweeter to me.

Even if we are talking about 12 tweets in the span of one hour, that would be what? One tweet every five minutes… Still pretty reserved if you ask me. However, that’s apparently still way too much. It interferes with the busy schedules of others – all that incessant chattering, ya’know… An absolute din of 140 character info bytes causing a “visual cacophony” in the glassballs…

But hey, whatever trips your trigger. Follow, unfollow, I don’t really give a flying rat’s whatsits. I personally see Twitter as yelling into the void and hoping someone hears you. Hasn’t stopped me from yelling into the void, of course, but I don’t really count on anyone hearing, or taking notice if they do. Just one of those things.

Still, for me, the anti-tweeter mentality sort of begs the question, if you’re so damn busy then why are you on Twitter so much? And moreover, why the hell are you counting other people’s tweets?

OCD much?

Later…

Murv