Much Ado About Facebook, What To Do With Life

I don't know what to do with Facebook anymore. When Mr. Union Socialite Male who lived in my building ran through McAfee's court informing everyone he saw that Facebook was coming to Union (or rather that Union was coming to Facebook), the news met my ears with indifference; yet little did I know that this meant that my world as I knew it was about to come crashing down around my ankles.

I embraced it pretty early on, but while everyone around me seemed obsessed with sending messages to and setting up events with people that live in their building or across campus (professors included), I mostly became interested because I enjoy keeping in touch with old friends from across the country and world. While I never became obsessed as some who can sit for hours checking statuses, it kept me interested and gave me something to do instead of study.

But I have started to realize more and more that it has become my worst enemy. It turns out the people I care to keep tabs with are too smart to be spending their time on Facebook. And since I am a person who appalls stupidity and narrow-mindedness...is there a any place more ridden with filth than the Facebook homepage and everyone's mind-numbing updates? Sure, some gems can be found in the rough, but few are worth stomaching everything else.

And if I so much as speak my mind or say something that I believe very dearly with all of my soul...the narrow-minded, "I-don't-think-for-myself-but-I'm-loud-about-it" comments start pouring in.  And it stresses me out.  And so lately I snipe updates from Twitter, without ever having to grace the pages of Facebook and snicker to myself when people comment on my page without realizing that I probably won't respond.  No hard feelings, I'm just not there.  The only times I go to Facebook now are to check my wife's page to see what she posts about my daughter.  Yes, I could spin my chair around and give Sofia a giant hug and talk to my wife about my day, but I decide to traverse the disconnected waters of the 'net to find out things I already knew.  And so I am a first-class idiot who happens to be riding coach.  And that last sentence may run away with the award for worst metaphor ever.

It appears in our quest to become more connected, our humanity is being erased and the fiber of our being is being compromised.  I know now for a fact that practically nobody has any clue who I am.  And nobody cares.  But so help me if I mumble something that doesn't line up with their hastily developed "world-view," if such a term can even be connected to it, since the world has nothing to do with their views.

The truth is Facebook has become a place for sad, lonely people to come away with some self-affirmation, myself incredibly included.

So will I leave it entirely?  I haven't decided.  But when something becomes much more popular with 10 year-old girls and the middle-aged, chances are it isn't quite for me.

And while Twitter eats into what I actually blog (since most of my past blogs were little more than collections of unrelated 140 character-long sentences which confused the masses), I struggle to find my footing in this mess we call existence.  We don't so much as exist as much as we make excuses.  We're just collections of excuses.

I am quite alone in this world.  This shall change.  Or I'll just come up with some more excuses.

Paul McCartney Concert

Kim and I went to see Paul McCartney in concert at fedex Field in Landover, Maryland (DC area) over the weekend and it is definitely worth recapping.

I have a very short list of goals to accomplish before I die...seeing a Beatle is actually on my list of things so good that they could never happen. So I was stoked when I found out that Sir Paul was playing at fedex Field, my favorite team's venue, a mere two hours from here, the weekend Kim and I were set to celebrate our three-year anniversary.

As a quick aside, I have a bit of a closet obsession with The Beatles. My first two CDs were their albums "Help!" and "A Hard Day's Night." I began writing songs because of them. I bought guitars because of them. Heck, modern music exists because of the work they did in the 60s. Paul McCartney essentially penned half of their songs, and is quite possibly the best song-writer of all time.

Even so, I tried to tame my expectations. Dude is in his 60s, afterall. I thought maybe his voice would be hoarse after years of smoking. I thought maybe this would be a sissy rock concert because he is perhaps known for the ballads "Yesterday," "Let It Be," and "Hey Jude." Turns out, his immense talent is perfectly intact. His voice sounded amazing. And the man can play some mean guitar, as was made perfectly clear in a rendition of "The End" in which him and his two bandmate guitarists basically exchanged ripping guitar solos for two full minutes. Make no mistake --- this was a rocking show, with plenty of raging guitars and feedback.

In short: Paul was stellar. His band was immaculate. THE CONCERT WAS EPIC.

His setlist was as follows (* indicates a Beatles' song):

*Drive My Car
Jet
Only Mama Knows
Unknown Song (with a cool piano solo)
*Got To Get You Into My Life
Unknown Song (first line I believe was "you gave it softly"?)
Highway
*The Long And Winding Road
My Love
*Blackbird
Here Today (A song Paul wrote for John after John was murdered)
Dance Tonight
Calico Skies
*Michelle
Mrs. Vandebilt
*Eleanor Rigby
Feel The Changes

Band On The Run
*Back In The USSR

*I'm Down
*Something
*I've Got A Feeling
*Paperback Writer
*A Day In The Life/Give Peace A Chance
*Let It Be
Live And Let Die
*Hey Jude

Encore #1
*Day Tripper
*Lady Madonna
*I Saw Her Standing There

Encore #2
*Yesterday
*Helter Skelter
*Get Back
*Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (reprise)/The End

Yes, that's 34 songs, a set that lasted nearly 3 hours. And it basically got better the longer it went on, as you can see by his song selection. And how about those encores? Just, wow.

Some highlights:
- "Got To Get You Into My Life" featured video from the upcoming The Beatles: Rock Band game. I had heard about him doing this before, but I had forgotten --- very cool.
- While I knew about most of the stories he told that night, I had no idea "Blackbird" was a symbolic song written about a black girl dealing with the strife in the south in the 60s, not being able to go to school --- very cool, since this is one of my favorite songs.
- the "let's hear it for John!" moment and thunderous applause
- Paul playing George's song, "Something", on a ukulele that George had given him
- 60,000+ people singing "Give Peace a Chance"
- Somewhere in the middle of the sublime "Let It Be," it hit me where I was and what I was witnessing and I took a minute to soak in the whole spectacle...Paul's perfect ballad and singing...the Redskins' massive stadium and my family's old season-ticket seats on the deck below...thousands of cell phones waving in the air (the modern cigarette lighter)...my beautiful wife sitting next to me...just magical.
- Live And Let Die - I said to Kim at the beginning - "This is going to be epic" - seconds later, flames burst on the stage and fireworks shoot into the air - nothing better to wake us up at 10:30 at night! (see video below)
- a 10 minute version of "Hey Jude", the whole crowd singing (without instruments) led my Paul at the end.

Final notes: I thought that Paul would mostly play his signature Hofner bass, but he changed instruments a LOT. In addition to the bass, he played 3 or 4 different guitars, the piano, and two different ukuleles. All of his new songs (including the ones I didn't know) were very good, but I felt kind of bad for him because everyone just wants to hear the old, classic stuff. And, my God, everything from "Back in the USSR" through the two encores equaled the perfect concert in and of itself. It was one knockout punch after another. The second the epic "Live And Let Die" ended and he started the opening to "Hey Jude," Kim was like "OH...MY...GOSH." Just when it seemed like it couldn't get any better, it just kept getting better.

And of course, the best part for me was Kim's journey through the whole night. She had no idea what she was getting into. By the end of the night all she could say was "you can't really call that a concert, it was more like an out-of-body experience." And I really can't add to that.

Enjoy a few semi-decent videos we took below. All right!







I'm not going to bother posting pictures here. Instead, visit here for them all. Enjoy!

Ten Things I Think I Think

So, I am fed up with lists and quizzes taking over Facebook. Lists should stay on blogs and Facebook should have a system that separates people who hate quizzes from the little kids and lonely people who are obsessed with what kind of STD they are.

In support of this, I bring you my first(?) list (lame as it is). And basically, I stole its theme from Chris Cooley.

So here we have it, the 10 things I think I think:

(1) I think that hobbies would solve most of the world's problems. My hobbies have always kept me sane and I love discovering new ones. Have an Adolf Hitler problem? Introduce him to knitting. Wife getting on your case? Buy her a motorcycle. You get the picture.

(2) I think that druids are the only class deserving of a nerf. Kthx.



(3) I think that this week needs to end. And that mental anguish tasted like chocolate.

(4) I think we are all mistaken about things that we believe. And when we die God will totally be like, "wtf, mate?"

(5) I think that soccer should be popular in the United States. I mean, this is pretty much the only country in which it isn't. And the sport is awesome. Tune in to the World Cup next year, you'll be hooked. (Go USA!)

(6) I think this weather has been fantastic. The average temperature has been something like 75. Want to buy more of it, though I'm sure August will strangle us with its mugginess.

(7) I think that peppers and hummus is the best snack, EVER, usurping the nice run hand-cooked russet potato chips and blue cheese had.

(8) I think I need to make an effort this year to not burn out on football by week 10 like I did last year. I definitely need to apply my moderation philosophy to my obsession with football.

(9) I think this year's anniversary will be off the hook. Two days with my wife in D.C., and PAUL MCCARTNEY. And it looks like we may get to go to the Redskins training camp sometime, which will be cool since I haven't visited it since Norv Turner was haplessly commanding the team back in '96 or '97.

(10) I think I'm going to be grilled by the Chief Deputy Attorney of PA tonight, with the help of all his friends.

The day capitalization made a comeback.

I could go on and on about my history with capitalization on the net. The plain truth of it is I'm tired of switching between my casual blog/net typing and my formal typing. Too often I've sent emails with both. If you are one of the unlucky to witness the inconsistancy, I pray your grammar-consistency forgiveness.

Now if only my poem with all lower-case letters [except for the capitalized first letter of every noun] would ground itself within your ring of acceptance...'twas inspired by the German language and it totally, like, makes sense and stuff. I promise.

Tool.

What a cataclysmic week.