Where's my cane? I need to shake it.

The tipping point has been passed. I'm officially old. Two new technologies have arrived and I officially "don't get it." The first technology I just don't get is Twitter. Is it just me or is Twitter essentially the height of egotism? I think I'm so important that I need to let everyone know what I'm doing at any given time. We already have IMs for that. How do you improve on Instant Messaging? Apparently by Instantly blowing the message out to everyone you think might care. I'll admit that I was a bit late to the text message game, figuring "if you can type out a text message, you can just call me, dammit." I now realize that texting and IMing has a very distancing effect because you use them when you don't really want to talk to one of your friends. Apparently the way you counteract a distancing technology is to use it more often. That's like proving that being a pot-head hasn't made you lazy by showing how your productivity (as measured in bong hits taken) has increased infinitely since you started smoking.

Even worse than Twitter is Second Life. In this world, people live, get this, Second Lives. I can only assume people live second lives because they aren't satisfied with their first. You know what might make you appreciate your first life more? Not spending so much fucking time on your second one. Look at it this way, if you have a dog and you don't spend much time with it, you never play with it, and you just aren't sure it likes you because of these two things - you should play with your dog, not get another one. The problem I have with Second Life is the same problem I have with The Sims. I can already do those things. I play Madden 2007 because I will never line up at outside linebacker to blitz the strong side out of the 3-4 defense. I play Timesplitters 2 because (I assume) I will never shoot a giant living gingerbread man in the crotch with a crossbow. I won't play Second Life because I CAN forget to load the dishwasher before going to bed to wake up with flies in my sink. In fact, I'm pretty sure I did that last night.