I was watching the Big Bang Theory the other day (side note: really good show, great for nerds, I like it dispite its sitcom nature), and I just happened to check Twitter during a commercial. Actually, to maintain my geek cred, while my wife was fast forwarding through commercials on the Tivo. Anyway, a friend mentioned how he was looking forward to watching BBT later tonight. I started to reply to him to tell him that it was good. The show came back on, but instead of returning my attention, I finished tweeting.

So, I missed a few moments of a show because I was tweeting about how good the show was instead of actually watching it.

All this is trivial, yes, but this might be a trend. Is talking/posting/tweeting/IMing/emailing/discussing events becoming more important than the actual events? During Obama’s address to Congress, all people were talking about were the Congressmen tweeting during his speech, and drown out some of the message and importance of the actual event. If anything marginally exciting happens in the world, places like Twitter and Digg light up.

Is the meta now more important than the data it describes?

I got in the elevator with a stranger the other day. Quite a harrowing experience in itself, to be sure. He looked a little bummed out, for reasons unknown. He opened with the standard “how’s it goin’?”, but with such a dejected tone that I was caught off guard.

“Not bad, yourself?” I replied.

He hemmed and hawed a moment, then said something so significant that I tweeted it as soon as I could so I wouldn’t forget.

“Some people aspire to be average.”

Perhaps it was just the mutterings of an odd guy with a few life problems. But at that moment, it struck me as one of the most kick-in-the-pants inspirational statements I’ve ever heard. Sort of a “don’t end up middle aged and mediocre like me”.

I’m trying to aspire to something above average.

I’ve neglected this site for too long. My apologies to my non-existent readers. I’ll do better. Starting tomorrow.

With services such as Twitter and Facebook, do boring people like myself even need a blog anymore?

I think I enjoy filling my Netflix queue more than the actual movie watching.

I suck at fantasy football.

I went to Jared.

President-elect Obama. Sounds good.

Considering the vast plethora of problems reported in the past two elections, as well as the ease with which electronic voting machines can be compromised (see Hacking Democracy, amongst many other demos online), One might think we’ve learned a thing or two and improved the process. But since there are already documented cases of votes being switched in a number of places during early voting, it is apparent that we haven’t. Toss in a bunch of illegal voter registration purging, and things appear a bit more concerning.

(I can cite sources all of the above statements, but I’m too lazy. And I’m not a journalist.)

For all you connected people out there, you can use Twitter to report any issues to Twitter Vote Report, which will aggregate the voting issues on election day (and before). Who knows if anyone important will notice trends and try to correct them, but it doesn’t hurt to make the information known.

Now, go vote.

Last night at the gym I was forced to watch Fox News, as it was about the only think in front of my eliptical machine (those things are hard to get used to). I think it was Hannity. They were discussing whether or not race will affect the election. Three white males expertly determined that no, race is not a factor. There were no minorities present to opine.

Go Republicans!

It’s getting cold. Frost in the mornings. Sad.

I’ve read more in the past six weeks than I had in the previous year. Yet another bonus to riding the bus to and from work.

Does my house smell like a dog to guests, but not to me because I’m used to it? Am I one of those “pet people”? I think no.

I’ve started going to the gym again. In case you haven’t been to a gym in a while, yes, the old people still walk around the locker room naked for an uncomfortable amount of time.

I take back any lieniency or sympathy I might have portrayed in my last post. McCain and Palin have turned their campaign into something aweful and disgraceful. They are inciting hatred, and doing nothing to quell it. They instilling fear and terror, and doing nothing to temper it. They are responsible for the calls of violence at their rallies.

McCain needs to put an end to this runaway train of fear, hate, and proposed violence. If he does not, what kind of a leader does that make him?

I know I said I wouldn’t talk politics, but I couldn’t resist.

Keith, as always, laying it down.