Tag Archives: facebook

Texas Geeks Know Sam Houston > Rick Perry

Anyone who knows me understands that I’m one of those annoying Texans who really digs being a Texan.

I blame my parents. You see, I actually grew up in rural Texas. So we had horses, cows, cattle guards, and dirt roads. Not that I lived on some big glorious ranch. More like ten acres of hard-packed red clay with patches of bull nettles and ragweed. Ragweed so prominent that I sweetened milk out of instinct for years afterwards because of what it did to our cows. Hell, my first girlfriend’s dad knew me because he recognized my last name from all the times he’d been called out to our house to turn off the electricity for delinquency.  A cavernous maw of washed out dirt and gravel quite capable of devouring the undercarriage of a county utility vehicle served as our driveway, so I’m sure he remembered the trips distinctly.

Now, I admit that for all that Texas cred, I lean to the left. I’m a mild liberal by most standards–or a dirty pinko socialist by my uncle’s standards (he always meant it with love). So the fact that I dislike Gov. Rick Perry might not be a big surprise. That said, his secessionist rant this week should offend anyone who embraces the name Texan.

I’d like to point back to a true leader of Texas who opposed secession, Sam Houston. Yep, the Raven opposed secession in 1861. I understand that Perry is full of himself and doesn’t have the cajones to do anything like secede. He just wants some face time before Kay Bailey Hutchison kicks him out of office next year. However it’s still worth acknowledging that Houston opposed secession when it was an inevitable tide here in Texas. It’s an important distinction. Perry’s sedition of ego versus Houston’s willingness to put aside personal power out of dedicated belief could not offer a more stark contrast in what it means to be Texan.

Me, I have enough pride in the term to want to talk about the the Raven over footnote Texan Goodhair. So, not just to annoy Sam, I started up a little Facebook page to further illustarte my contrast. It seemed the geeky thing to do. 

For some extra enjoyment, here’s Perry making a fool of himself and then being granted an unwanted education on Texas law by Rachel Maddow:

WordPress RSS feeds are the devil

An hour ago, Mike mentioned wanting to link to a post on a FaceBook profile he’s about to create. The context of his question was such that it had nothing to do with where I took it. Mike wanted to know if anyone would be annoyed because the Basement is looking a little shabby at the moment.

But I ran with the question and began wondering if he could establish an RSS feed of the Basement that would auto-post to his FaceBook thingie when he made a post here on the basement with a specific tag. (I have no idea if FaceBook can do this, so whatever.)

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Social Networking Sites Are Bullshit

There. I said it.

Oh, they were alright back when Tribes was good for getting laid and you could be emo before emo was a word on LiveJournal, but these days? Not so much. Sure, there are some out there that serve an actual purpose like LinkedIn, but for the most part? Bullshit.

But here’s the thing, social networking sites are one of the biggest things out there that promotes the mainstreaming of Geekitude. So here I am, a geek, looking for broader acceptance of my geekery, basicly biting the hand that feeds me. Why? Because you should all be ashamed of MySpace.

Here’s a look at the current big three in social networking:

MySpace. This is what hell would look like if the devil was a 14 year old with an obession with My Chemical Romance and taking pictures of themselves. Speaking of taking pictures of themselves… It’s MySpace’s fault that I now know who Miley Cyrus is. Do you think that idiot knew that it was just a matter of time before her self-pics that verge on child pornography ended up in the public domain? Who cares. I now have this crap in my brain and it’s all MySpace’s fault. MySpace is great if you want to make people look at animated gifs and listen to music that’s so overplayed, even pop radio stations won’t touch it any more. My little brother used to use MySpace to share music he created with the masses. Talking about that now embarrasses him horribly. I had a great analogy about MySpace being this generation’s {Blank}, but it completely slipped my mind. Sorry.

FaceBook. Remember that guy in highschool? The one who fucked with you all through your algebra class freshman year? Well, he’s 15 years older and the rosey glow of nostalgia makes him want to be your bestest friend ever and tell you all about his job as a sales associate at the local Ford dealership. Facebook might have started out as a way for real social groups to keep in contact online, but these days? Not so much. It’s now the Nostalgia Machine where all the people you made an effort to avoid after graduation can find you and tell you about their children. And here’s a dirty little secret you probably aren’t even telling yourself: If you had wanted to keep in touch with any of the hundreds of people on FaceBook desperate to make a connection with someone who also went to BFE High 17 years ago, you fucking would have done it. You wouldn’t have lost touch with those people in the first place. You would have made the effort to call them every couple of months, or send them an email. you wouldn’t need to have them remind you who they are and how you should know them. My girlfriend recently got a FaceBook account and she’s been telling me about all the asshats from high school who want to be friends with her now that everyone’s hormones have settled and the pecking order that seemed set in concrete back then as ben revealed as meaningless.

Twitter. 140 character microblog site. You can update as you go about your day, and check updates on other twitter account with your phone or whatever. The site’s ease of use promotes constant updating, and a lot of the accounts I’ve followed have at one point or another forgotten that there is no privacy on Twitter. Once you make your account public, everyone can see every post you’ve ever made. Sometimes that’s funny, but other times it’s just sad. Like the congressional Republicans bitch-tweeting during President Obama’s first speech before congress. Then there’s the TMI tweeting: “Just saw A Lot of Penis…” (This precious update was from earlier in the week on an account that’s being followed by someone else I follow.) Honestly, Twitter is the social networking site I have the least problem with. It’s only as “social” as you want it to be and you just need to remember that everyone can see the crap you choose to post about.

Confession time: I have a twitter account. And yeah, it occasionally brings me shame. I resisted getting an account on Twitter longer than your grandma did. Fear my herculian powers of resisting peer pressure. I got it for a journalism class last year and I kept it once I found I could use it to get all the reporting updates on local politics in one place. I’m too lazy to use RSS feeds, I suppose.