General Lordisimo’s Apocalypse

So the government, that giant ubiquitous entity which we love when it benefits us but hate when it is a hindrance, is launching an initiative encouraging people to create short public service announcements (PSA) about cold and flu prevention.  The government will choose a winning video and award the PSA creator with $2,500 (though I bet they take like half back in taxes . . . fuckers).  Alright, fine, good, nobody wants to get the flu or a cold so why not encourage the creation of some PSAs that help educate people how to prevent these illnesses?

But here’s my question . . .

What about zombie prevention?

I mean seriously, yeah colds and the flu are annoying (and the flu can be deadly) but zombies are pretty much a sign of the end time.  Furthermore, this government initiative is unevenly in favor of those who understand that washing your hands regularly and not sneezing or coughing in other people’s faces is the best way to prevent flu/cold spreading.  But what about the people who know how to stop a zombie with just a 9-Iron?  Or the innovative individual who figures out how to anti-zombie retro-fit his families mini-van (much to the displeasure of the wife mind you)?

Come on government, get your head in the fucking game.  Nobody wants zombies, but nobody will be prepared for prevention if you are focusing on common sense PSAs on how to avoid getting the sniffles.

Fact: Michael Jackson died two weeks ago. I’m pretty certain that the only people who have not been made aware of this news at this point are a few random folks who’ve been holed up in bomb shelters since the 1960s in fear of the Soviet bombings.  Everyone else has been made exhaustively aware of the King of Pop’s demise, of the legal battles over his wills, of his huge memorial service earlier this week . . . etc. etc. etc.

My interest here isn’t really about Michael Jackson, his death or his bizarre life (though if you need something to sum up about how I feel about the late musician, might I direct you to Roger Ebert’s enlightened obituary of Mr. Jackson which I think does the best job I’ve encountered at summing up the person).  No, my real interest is all about this bizarre, often obsessive, fascination that we all have with the concept of celebrity, and how even the human penultimate of death is not enough to kill off our embrace of all things celebrity.

The concept of The Celebrity is one which has philosophically fascinated me for several years now.  While I think that I had concepts and ideas about celebrities prior to it, I really think it was the end of my senior year in college where I began solidifying these concepts into a greater analysis of what celebrity means and is.  My major effort at that time was a paper which examined the role of celebrity in the VH1 reality television program “The Surreal Life” which I paired with a number of post-modern critiques, especially those estabilished by Jean Baudrillard in his  Simulacra and Simulation.  Conclusively, the paper detailed how reality TV as a whole is a form of celebrity creation (albeit often more minor than other outlets to celebritydom) and as such actually creates a complete detachment from said “reality.”  I argued that “The Surreal Life” was perhaps one of the best reality TV names (whether so intended or not) because it noted the absolute un-reality of the whole celebrity dynamic and also the un-reality of reality television.  Essentially my stance, which has not changed a whole lot in the past two years, is that The Celebrity is an absolute simulacrum of that which is the human reality.  The Celebrity is not a self free being but is instead a trapped existence in the hyperreality created by the adoring (or loathing) public.

Basically what my opinion and conclusion of celebrity is, is that these people that we call celebrities, whether they be actors, musicians, sports figures, politicians, etc. are not actually free humans but an extension of the will of a society that needs a kind of scapegoat of attention.  We highlight and embrace the good admirable qualities of The Celebrity but scorn and judge the failings, but all of it is done with a loyal, almost addicted, fascination.  When The Celebrity succeeds we think about how great it would be to be a celebrity ourselves, but when they fail we are quick to pull on the cloak of moral superiority and point out how much better we are then them.  It is a strange dual dynamic which we, society, do not seem to be able to get around.  We want these people to represent the best attributes of humanity but at the same time we want them to be the scapegoats for all of human kinds greater failings.  The Celebrity is kind of an uncontrolled sacrificial role for the appeasement of the whims, morals, and desires of the the greater society.  They are at once both our greatest leaders and worst criminals.

And they are never free.

Even in death.

On the wonderful New York Times’ blog “Schott’s Vocab” we are offered the word “obitutainment” to describe the morbid public fascination with celebrity deaths.  I think the reason why we see such fascination is that, The Celebrity, as a kind of societal idol, is not actually dead, only the physical human body, to which The Celebrity was attached, is actually deceased.  The Celebrity will continue to be an entity, and thus alive, for as long as the public maintains an interest with it.  As such we can look at celebrities who have been dead for years and years and still see a recurrent fascination with them.  The death of the body, the living breathing human who was The Celebrity, is merely a slight paradigm shift in the whole simulacra of The Celebrity’s hyperreality.  True celebrity death only comes when The Celebrity is completely forgotten by everybody.

It may be this pseudo-immortality (along with potential riches and fame) that can make us feel a desire to exist as a celebrity ourselves, but in truth I would suggest that this extended life in the interests of the public is in actuality a curse.  It is a curse because The Celebrity has, at best, very little if not any, actual control over the way that they are perceived.  They may strive to perform and appear in certain manners but that will only go so far in influencing the conclusive public opinion.  And once the human body of The Celebrity has died then all that ability to influence is lost and left entirely to the interpretations of those who examine The Celebrity’s life and works.  In many ways The Celebrity is like a book that is no longer in the author’s control.  It is the readers, the audience, who have the ultimate say on the meaning and value of the story, and while the author may state his or her ideas, goals, and/or intentions, those truly mean very little to the reader bent on a particular interpretation.  As such The Celebrity’s real or personal life serves as a kind of author function to the narrative which is the visible, interpretable celebrity life.

I wonder though, as much as The Celebrity is a prisoner to the collective understanding and desire of the viewing public, the vast and relentless audience, if we, that very same public, do not in fact allow ourselves to become prisoners in the reality of The Celebrity.  Our infatuation and insistence to make celebrities into these simulacrums of real humanity seems to cheapen and degrade the value and influence that each and every one of us can play in the collective whole.  The Horde does not need to dote on each individual piece that makes its mass, in the ultimate it just needs a few token beings to play that simulacra role as celebrities.  They will always be created, revered, reviled, interpreted, misunderstood, over examined, under appreciated, and, finally, a being of utter fascination to our collective desire to frame humanity in a sense of idyllic or legendary understanding.

Well, I logged into my account because I thought I had something worth writing about, and now hear I am drawing up a blank.  I can’t remember what it was that I wanted to write about this morning . . . maybe David Bowie . . . that seems like a possibility I guess (actually I do want to write a blog post about David Bowie but I haven’t fully planned and drafted it out yet, you’ll just have to wait).

in the meantime:

This dude is such a goblin king . . . codpiece and all

yep, that just about does it.

Sometimes I feel like we are all a little too tame in our day to day experiences.  I don’t want to suggest that we have to be off the fucking wall blown away by every mundane moment of our lives (ex. Holy mother of God Cheerios are like fucking little donuts and they floats like inner tubes.  Ahhhhh amazing shit this cereal!), but I feel like we could all use a little bit more letting loose here and there.

Allow me to demonstate a visual example (originally appearing on this io9 post):

That is my kind of enthusiasm . . . F-bombs and all

 I bet if Neil Armstrong’s first words upon stepping in the Moon had been “Holy living fuck!” we’d have had Moon colonies for at least the last thirty years.  But no, gotta keep it calm and cool and look what that has given us?  douche bags who claim the lunar landings never happened.  Nobody would doubt it if it had sounded like the astronaut had just pissed himself with pure existential glee and amazement.  I’m just calling it how I see it.

I wonder what other moments could have used a few well placed moments of purely awed cursing.  Probably when the Trinity Bomb was tested would be a good one.  Mr. Kenneth Bainbridge almost got it right by saying to J. Robert Oppenheimer, “Now we are all sons of bitches.” Not half bad, but more appropriate probably would have been a long drawn out “Fuckin’ A!” (of course Oppenheimer ha to one up Bainbridge by later being all scholarly and saying he was reminded of the Bhagavad Gita verse which says something along the lines of “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”).

So yeah, if the moment is right, and there is a feeling of excite, I say let a fuck, shit, hot damn, son of a bitch , and/or any other colorful language you can think of fly freely.

Last night I wanted to watch a movie before going to bed so I began to browse Netflix Watch Instant, which was kind of foolish since there is rarely anything that I really want to watch on the Watch Instant (Dear Netflix, I think we all agree you could be doing way better with this area of service. Sincerely, Gen. Lordisimo).  Well, after browsing about for a bit I finally settled on “Mad Max: The Road Warrior” (aka Mad Max II).  It had been some time since I last saw this second installment of the existing Mad Max trilogy and so my thought was, “hey, why the fuck not?”  The problem is that I got about twenty minutes into “The Road Warrior” and I was just like, “damn, this apocalypse just isn’t practical anymore.  Also, how did ‘Mad Max’ (the original movie) progress to ‘The Road Warrior?’”

Let me actually approach the second question/point first.  How does the time line of the original “Mad Max” (a wondrous cult film, easily the best of the three, and possibly one of Mr. Gibson’s best works . . . there I’ve said it, Mel Gibson should have called it quits after this one) progress into “The Road Warrior” and eventually “Beyond Thunderdome?”  The original “Mad Max” does a wonderful job of portraying a collapsing society, without wasting time going into the whole apocalyptic scenario and background.  We can draw our own conclusion about the state of the world by observing the lawless violence that saturates “Mad Max” and the inability of the characters who are supposed to represent “order” and “justice” to actually deliver such things.  If anything “Mad Max” may be one of the best examinations, and arguments in favor of, vigilantism in a world that has failed to provide suitable order.  Sure “Mad Max” is pretty cheesy at times, ain’t nobody claiming that  Toecutter is a really well developed and hashed out villain, in fact he just about epitomizes the whole cheesy quality of the film.  Still, even in it’s weaker moments, “Mad Max” has constraint and understands exactly what it was doing.  It presented the opposite of the Totalitarian Dsytopia, such as Nineteen-Eighty Four, in that the rigid order cannot even be realized.  Law and order are the elements that that are lacking, not oil and other resources, but the very fabric of society that keeps people from acting like complete crazies and deviants.  Personally I call that a genius contribution to the plot.

Then a few years later we get “The Road Warrior.”  The problem is, instead of maintaining, and utilizing the strengths of that anarchic portrayal of failed society which makes “Mad Max” successful, “The Road Warrior” decides to highlight those cheesy Toecutter qualities of the first film, and pretty much forgets the message that worked so well in the first.  The conflict of maintaining the intangible resource of order is replaced with the desire for material commodities, specifically oil.  The villains, now with an even cheesier leader named The Humungus, exaggerate the ridiculous qualities of their predecessors beyond much redeemable quality.  Sure the bad guys are quite ruthless and violent, and seem to be related to the lawless deviants of “Mad Max” but they come across as more of a parody of anarchy than an actual worthy examination.  Likewise with the good guys who are holed up inside the refinery fortress.  Unlike the ambitious police force in “Mad Max” who pursue their job with an almost zealous obligation to the ideal of maintained order, the protagonists of “The Road Warrior” lack any really convincing philosophy beyond a seemingly foolish materialism and ultimately a kind of defeatist mentality.  Sure in both “Mad Max” and “The Road Warrior” the protagonists are not really able to realize there goals or ideals (even considering the relatively weak ones present in “The Road Warrior”) but at least in the first film, the solution of Max taking the law into his own hands, and thus in many ways being forced to relinquish it, carries a weight.  When Max becomes “mad” in the original movie, we see the real climax in character.  The idealist who wants to maintain that semblance of order must shed the ideal to destroy the opposition.  The moment when Max drops the hacksaw and explains the time frame for cutting through a steel chain versus a human bone is perhaps one of the most interesting looks at dynamic between law and lawlessness in pursuit of the ideal of justice.  “The Road Warrior” does not have a single moment that comes anywhere near that great scene from “Mad Max.”

I could go on and point out the further failings in “Beyond Thunderdome” but truth be told I rather enjoy the concluding film, even though it continues to build that absolute ridiculousness which is in “The Road Warrior.”  By the time you get through the trilogy to “Beyond Thunderdome” you kind of just have to accept that you are not going to see any of the good stuff from “Mad Max.”  Just got to sigh and move on.

Now for my first question or point of whatever the fuck it was above.  The apocalypse in “The Road Warrior” and “Beyond Thunderdome” just doesn’t strike me as that practical or realistic.  Yes, I know, I am talking about the “realistic” qualities of very obviously fictional movies and exaggerated plots, but give me a moment to make my point.

If the world continues to use oil at the rate it currently is then the finite fossil fuel will eventually run out, this is a fact, the supply is not even close to limitless.  Will this cause some pretty serious conflicts in the future?  I’d say it is quite likely.  That being said though, I’d suggest that, considering current developments in alternative fuels and energy sources, we would not see a complete collapse into anarchy where various factions are fighting for limited resources.  People are innovative and resourceful, and if there are individuals who can figure out how to make an oil refinery work then there will probably be some people (maybe the same ones) who could figure out how to, say, produce and use ethanol as a fuel or maybe re-discover the use of steam power. 

Furthermore, even considering a nuclear holocaust which could greatly reduce the population of Earth, I imagine that a general order would be relatively quickly established, and society, through necessity, would re0order itself and begin the production of needed resources again.  Would there be lawlessness and anarchy?  Very likely there would be some, but the problem with this chaotic disregard for order or establishment is that it is not self-sustaining.  You might have wild no-man lands populated by brigands and all around scum, but these individuals would lack the necessary capability to organize to be a real threat to other areas that have re-established a system of law and order.  Even after a real dramatic apocalypse I would think that there would come to be a number of small city-state like areas, which are able to produce and maintain resources and thus support a population.  Now eventually several of the more successful city-states might find themselves in direct competition, and it would be these moments in which real conflict would arise, where two established powers vie for control and rulership.

Still, I will say, for all the general weakness  and ridiculousness of the second two movies, I have to recommend the whole Mad Max Trilogy just because it is a cult classic.  I have heard some whispers about the creation of a new addition to the franchise.  I would suggest, if such a thing was to happen, that the best choice and most interesting option would be to do what many other franchises are doing, in re-starting the story.  Go back and re-make everything which was good about “Mad Max” and try and avoid getting swept up in the cheesy costumes and ridiculous characters.  Sure, some purists might not like this very much, but I think that it would ultimately make for a more enjoyable film.  The original “Mad Max” raised some questions about moral ambiguity and how to maintain order in a disordered world, long before Christopher Nolan did with “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” and even before Alan Moore wrote The Watchmen.  It offered the grim conclusion that the only real way to preserve justice was to choose to seek it outside the constraints of the law, even if that made you a monster in your own right.  Quality stuff, which done right could fit in with much of our current interest in dark brooding heroes in a unforgiving world.

I love the various little New York Times op-art pieces that pop up every once and awhile.  I find a particular degree of fondness for said op-art pieces when they include a historical story about the creation of dinosaur models and how Tammany Hall saw them destroyed and supposedly buried in Central Park.  Dear Mr. James Stevenson, thank you for your contribution to art, history, and the love and fascination brought about by dinosaurs.

James Stevenson's Rendering of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins

What did everybody else do this Independence Day weekend? I went to a ton of cookouts and made a bunch of food.

Food that I have made thus far this weekend:

1. A rice salad on Thursday evening
2. A chicken salad for lunch on Friday
3. A potato salad on Saturday
4. Also a pear mint chutney on Saturday

To make still:

1. Salsa

Here is the basic rundown of the various salads (and the chutney)

1. Rice Salad

This is one of the easiest little recipes you can encounter, which still makes a delightful addition to a meal.

What you’ll need:

• Two cups instant white rice (you can use non-instant rice if you’re more patient than I am)
• 1 can of black beans (substitute other beans if desired)
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 2 small tomatoes, chopped
• one small or half a medium-large onion, chopped (no specification, I used vidalia but red would work just as well)
• 1 or 2 chopped cloves of garlic
• 1 or 2 jalapeños chopped (de-seed if you want to control the heat a little more)
• About 1/4th cup chopped cilantro (if you do not care for the flavor of cilantro very much I recommend using less)

Dressing:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• salt & pepper
• a bit of cumin
• a bit of chili powder

Basically all you need to do is boil the rice and chop up the vegetables.  Once the rice is done, and cooled a bit, stir it up with all the chopped ingredients, and then drizzle the whisked dressing over the entire thing.  You can eat it right then, but I think that it is best served chilled.

2. Chicken Salad

Chicken salad is one of my favorite sandwich making things.  There are tons and tons of different ways that you can make the chicken salad but my basic rule (which goes along with most salads I make) is that it includes a lot of chunks of vegetable to add flavor and color.

What you’ll need:

• about a pound, a little more or less, of cooked chicken chopped up (I boiled mine but if you have some left over or want to grill it up I see no reason why that wouldn’t work as well).
• half to 1 bell pepper, chopped (I used a yellow one)
• half a medium-large onion, chopped (as above the kind really doesn’t matter, I used the other half of the vidalia)
• 1 or 2 sticks of celery, chopped
• several (1-3) small tomatoes, chopped
• 1 to 3 cloves garlic, chopped

Binding Agent/Dressing: I don’t mind mayo for things like chicken salad or potato salad as a binding/flavoring ingredient, but I feel like 1) it is overused and 2) it is kind of boring.  Thus in this, and in my potato salad I amp it up a little bit.  Note that the measurements are pretty guesswork.

• 2 ripe fresh avocados, flesh removed and pretty well mashed (it is nice to leave a few chunks in there though)
• About 3 to 4 tbsps mayo
• about a half tbsp of mustard (I used yellow because I had it handy, other kinds could work just as well)
• Salt & pepper
• Fresh or dried dill

Basically, like the rice salad, all you need to do is cook the chicken, chop up the ingredients and mix everything together.  For the mayo-avocado I recommend that you combine these ingredients together in there own little bowl prior to adding it to the whole chicken salad.  This stuff comes out good enough to just eat with a fork, but it is also pretty tasty spread on a good roll with a glass of cola and some chips.

3. Potato Salad

I love potato salad. I’m not entirely sure why, but I quite literally will have cravings for it.  As such I try and cook some up every couple of weeks or so.  As with the above two recipes, I like lots of chunks for flavor and color.

What you’ll need:

• Depending on how much you want, use between 1 and 2 pounds of red potatoes, boiled and chopped up
• 2 sticks of celery chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped (for color I used a bright red one)
• 1 medium red onion chopped (for this salad I strongly recommend the red onion.  Other onions could work but I think that red onions have the best flavor for a potato salad.  Also the purple color is really great).
• 1 yellow tomato, chopped (you could use some type of red tomato but the yellow, again, adds a great color.  Also the flavor of yellow tomatoes is spectacular)
• 2 or 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Binding Agent/Dressing

• 1 good sized poblano pepper, roasted and finely chopped (like chop it nearly to oblivion after roasting.  To roast throw it on a grill, on a Foreman grill, or just in broil it in the oven for a bit)
• 4 to 6 tbsps mayo (adjust as needed.  Mix about 3 tbsps with the super-chopped poblano first, add more if the salad feels too dry)
• About 1 tbsp of horseradish mustard (you could use other mustard, but that horseradish element is just wonderful)
• Salt & pepper
• fresh or dried dill (feel free to use a good amount here, I think dill is excellent for a good potato salad)

Like the previous two salads you pretty much cook the named ingredient and then mix all the chopped elements in.  I definitely suggest that you stir the chopped poblano into some of the mayo as it will help spread that wonderful rich poblano flavor.  Personally I can dig right into potato salad as soon as it is well mixed.  Some people prefer to let it all cool down a bit.  You can pick or choose your preference.

4. Mint-Pear Chutney

I have become a huge fan of chutneys. I think that there is so much potential for creativity and experimenting in their creation, as well as an opportunity to have a wonderful fresh condiment for a meal.  Evan had bought a leg of lamb as part of the 4th of July meal yesterday and we had gotten into talking about what  to do with lamb.  The leg was going to be smoked on Bear’s smoker and it was already decided that it would be stuffed with full garlic cloves and somewhat basted with rosemary and olive oil.  But what about when the meat was done?  Traditionally people eat lamb with mint jelly, which is fine and good, but we agreed that we could do better.  Thus it was deemed a chutney would be perfect.  Here it is.

What you’ll need:

• 4 pears, peeled and finely chopped (I used Bartlett)
• 1 apple, peeled and finely chopped (I used Fuji)
• 1/4th cup golden raisins, finely chopped
• 2 serrano pepper, finely chopped
• half of a medium red onion finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh chopped ginger root
• about a half a cup fresh mint leaves, finely chopped (I am not sure if it matters what kind of mint you use. This might be worth experimenting with)
• 3 to 4 sprigs fresh rosemary, peeled away and chopped
• about 1/4th cup, or a little less, vodka
• Olive oil
• white pepper
• ground red pepper

All right, here’s what to do.  In a good size fry pan heat up some olive oil (about 2 tbsps) and then add the garlic, ginger, serrano pepper, and onion.  Let this sautee on medium-high heat for several minutes until you begin to get some good carmalization from the onion (be careful not to take a big whiff of this as the hot pepper might cause some irritation).  Splash in a bit of vodka (not all of it) to de-glaze the pan, then add the chopped pears and apple, turn the heat down slightly, and sprinkle on some white pepper and ground red pepper.  Cover and let this cook for a bit until the pears are really softening up, occasionally adding a little more of the vodka.  After the pears seem to have lost a good amount of their solidity throw in the chopped mint and rosemary, and the golden raisins stirring everything up, adding a little more white pepper, and finishing off the vodka.  Move heat to about medium, recover and just let simmer for about another ten minutes, stirring occasionally (there should be a good bit of liquid in the form of a pear sauce on the bottom of the pan, though there will still be some chunk looking bits of pear and apple).  After everything has cooked down, this is just about ready.  Chutney can be served warm or cold and if kept in the fridge in a covered container last for about three days.

This came out as a wonderful condiment to top on the leg of lamb.  It has a complex flavoring which pairs sweet (from the fruit) with spicy (from the serranos), as well as a very distinct herb characteristic (from the mint and rosemary) which definitely works to remind of the mint jelly that normally goes with lamb.  The smoked lamb was good enough to eat just by itself, but adding a little bit of this chutney to the top was absolutely fabulous.

I mentioned that I want to make salsa today, which I fully intend to do, but I haven’t decided yet the best way to make it, so I will maybe write another post on it later.

So, from the above recipes, you should probably be able to determine that some of the main ingredients I love are peppers (bell and chili varieties), tomatoes, and onions.  Fact: just about everything should have garlic in it. Another fact: salads are more fun if they have good chunks and lots of color.  Final fact: making good food should be 1 part knowledge, 1 part experimentation, and all parts enjoyable . . . don’t stress it, take your time, and have fun making delightful food.

Fact: I like Jalapeños . . . just pointin’ this out.  But it is more than that.  I like spiciness . . . specifically that from capsaicin producing peppers.  But that being said I have been rather irritated recently by the pain in which jalapeños are contributing to my life.  Not my tongue mind you, that is spicy pain which is desired, but my hands.

Yes, my hands.  Recently it seems that every time I chop up a jalapeño (and maybe other chili peppers — I haven’t developed constrained scientific standards of analysis) I find my fingers suffering from a rather significant burning sensation.  Furthermore it lasts.  I had cut up some jalapeños a week or so ago and my fingers felt a burn for almost three days after.   Is this just psychological or is there something about the peppers which is irritating my hands?  And if it is something about the peppers is there something that can be done to stop the burning?  I like to cook, and as I’ve said I enjoy spicy food, but I don’t want to be irritated by fiery hands.  Dear World/Existence is there a solution to my conundrum?

Mini-Contemplate: Is chili (hot) pepper consumption, or food flavored with capsaicin, masochistic?  I mean it hurts right? Burning hurts . . . am I wrong?  Yet many many people, societies, and cultures seem to greatly enjoy the spiciness that is inherent to various peppers.  Why?  Why does this burning sensation equate a pleasurable experience for us?

Of cousres I assume all eating is pleasurable (it is for me — love the eating thing).  Somebody explain, I am at a loss.

I still love jalepeños by the way.  Hard to give them up

I think this is going to be kind of a stand alone contemplation, in that I do not really have any articles in particular that have sparked this piece (I am sure, knowing the nature of the subject, that there are plenty of other pieces that have written about this very thing).  Furthermore, I am not certain that the title is entirely the correct one (close, but not perfect).  I intend to deal with it. This contemplation has been a bit of a long time coming, as I compile various ideas, opinions, thoughts, bits of junky synaptic moments, etc. with all the jazzy things on the big ol’ Internet these days and how they can best be used.

Seriously, the Internet vast, anybody with even an ounce of Digital Era savy should be able to realize this.  I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a great deal of debate about the nature of this vast behemoth technology, which has achieved a ubiquety that was probably never imagined before.  I use the Internet a ton for a great variety of various things. Online I pay bills, I read the news, I watch television, I do parts of my job, I stay in touch with family and friends, I write, etc., etc.  In fact I have a hard time imagining not having Internet connection at my disposal (for this reason the decision between cable TV and Internet connect was an easy one to make).  I enjoy the Internet and all of it’s functionality . . . but I wonder about the limits of it’s usefulness.  I wonder about the threshhold of practicable need and of of some tools where others may lack such claim or value.

I was thinking about this in regards to Twitter earlier today.  I use Twitter and in general find a degree of enjoyment in said use.  Ultimately though, Twitter is not a necessity in my life, because it really has failed to offer much more than a look at brief snippets of other people’s lives as well as giving me a platform for putting out my own breif snippets.  I know that if I desired then I could probably upgrade my personal value of Twitter to a degree by further refining my folowing parameters, those fellow Twitterers (Tweeters?) who offer me only, or primariyl only, information that is going to be useful to me on a daily basis and in this regard I might find little purpose to tweet myself, as I can see little value of offering my random snippets of life to the great vast web (essentially the fact that I do tweet is just kind of silly, with the occasion successful comunicated moment).  Now is this the only use?  No, of course not, Twitter can be used as a sort of searching device (though personally I think a general web search engine will always be superior), it can also be used similarly to an RSS reader (though again, I think the the actually RSS reader is superior – albeit with it’s own clump of faults). And then if you are one who is trying to market a product it can be valuable to get info out there.

Considering Twitter as a marketing/branding tool, to spread awareness of a product to an audience, I imagine that there must exist (perhaps somebody better at math than me has done this) an equation that can find the maximum value in reagrads to a number of set factors.

1. Number of people following you who will be exposed to you tweets.  Obviously the more people who can see your Twitter updates means the greater exposure of your product/brand.  If you are trying to use Twitter in this way, this is exactly what you want, people to see you, and as such you want to compile a quality following.
2. But having followers isn’t enough, I’d assume, because you have to tweet and make sure those followers see those tweets.  I would guess that this is the hard part of the whole thing.  You see, the chance that your product/brand will be seen becomes dependant on the factors of not just the number of people following you but also the likely hood that those followers will see you tweets, amongst the other tweets of the other Twitter users they happen to be following.  If one of your followers happens to follow a great number of other Twitter users then there is a diminishing degree to which your message gets through.  To increase the degree you would need to tweet more to make the meaasges more available (you can also hope that the follower checks and reads his/her Twitter account regularly).
3. As such I’d suggest that from a marketing/branding standpoint the ideal would be a lot of followers, who, in turn, do not follow a lot of other Twitter’s themselves, and who also check into Twitter regularly.
4. Of course you can do that whole increased tweet posting, but then yo run the risk of being SPAM-y, at least if you push the whole product thing too far.  You don’t want that, because that can decrease face and value (and probably loose followers).

Interestingly I can imagine, and think I have seen, the beginning evolutions of Twitter ethics in what is the proper way to pedal a product or brand on the micro-blogging site.  But these ethics of the Twitter using comunity are likely to develop implecations beyond just businesses attempting to spread awareness of their company and products.  Is there not already certain rules of etiquette in play in regards to being followed and then following?  What about how one chooses to @reply or RT or give a #tag?  How often should tweet and how often should one check Twitter to see what others have in turn tweeted themselves?

When these rules, procedures, common practices, etc. develop on the Internet in regards to certain sites, or online tools, I would suggest we are seeing the growth of specified cultures in that realm.  Social Media and Social Networking seem to be thrown around a lot to describe the uses of some of these Web 2.0 tools and uses, but I wouldbeg that it is more than just social . . . the social is only the first stem in this cultural development.  The tools tend to be open for whoever whats to use them for a price (there is always a price of some sorts) but the use in and of itself does not immediately make one “cultured” in the tool, site, application.  To be “cultured” one must use but also adjust to the propiety of the ethics that surround the tool, must follow the rules that govern the tool, and ultimately must contribute to the tool in such a way that they benefit the existing culture (and hopefully recieve recognition from within that culture).

Well that is just some thought . . . with a lot on Twitter . . . though I could just as easily go off on Facebook or blogging or RSS or whatever else have you.  I like them, I use them, but I still wonder about the value.

As the ardent absurdist I have to kind of assume that the Internet is in and of itself perhaps one of the greatest absurd masterpieces of human creation.  Love it, hate it, what ever the fuck you want . . . it’s here.