Category: Humor

E-friends Are Best!

e-friends

One of the coolest side effects of our society’s relentless technology is Social Media.  It has allowed us to turn our world into one gigantic village — which means we’re all cyber-neighours.  Everybody on this planet is now one tap, swipe or click away from everybody else, and billions of us have taken advantage of this.  Think about it!  We all know someone we’ve never talked to, never touched, never smiled at, or even seen.  These are the strangers who are our friends – our e-friends – and in the 21st century, we all have them.  There is still some debate over whether these e-friends are as good or even the same as IRL (In Real Life) friends, but in a couple of generations, this won’t even be a question … because … and here’s the best bit – e-friends are way better than real ones.  Let me demonstrate.

E-friends never waste your time with long, boring stories.   Regardless of how drawn-out their particular tale of woe might become, you don’t have sit there and listen.  The truth is, most people just scroll down to the end, type ‘awesome,” and move on.

E-friends never drag you off to places you don’t want to go.  When you live on the other side of the world, this never comes up on the panel – thank God.  So you don’t have to sweat the oboe recital, the fishing trip or what’s-her-name’s graduation – just to be polite.  All you have to do is make the right noises when your e-friends post the pictures.

They’re never mean to you.  E-friends are notoriously good-natured, and if they ever do go off the rails, all you have to do is delete them.

When e-friends talk about you behind your back, you’re never going to hear about it.

You don’t have worry about cleaning the house when e-friends come to visit.  In fact, you can talk to them in your pajamas if you so choose – and people frequently do.

You never have to put up with your e-friends’ annoying spouse, or know-it-all sister, or idiot dog who peed on your carpet or any of the other baggage IRL friends always bring along with them.

E-friends don’t force you make hard decisions like “Does this dress make me look fat?”  Normally, those photos are deleted long before they ever get to you.

E-friends never give you the flu.

E-friends don’t make promises they can’t keep.  Ganjit, from Chennai is never going to volunteer to help you move and then disappear the day the boxes are packed.  (I’m looking at you, Sam Newton!)

E-friends always listen.  When you’re talking to them they never get distracted by their phone – cuz you’re the one on the phone.

E-friends don’t borrow your stuff and forget to give it back.  You never have that awkward moment when you discover your e-buddy Betty is serving cake off a plate that she borrowed from you two Christmases ago.

But the best thing about e-friends is:

Age, gender, race, religion, nationality, income, etc., etc., etc. don’t make a damn bit of difference to e-friends.   They are the most egalitarian groups of people on this planet.  So, while most of the world is shouting and swearing and calling each other names, there are tons of little groups of e-friends, kicked back in various small corners of cyberspace, trying to get to know each other.  And that’s totally cool!

Quit Taking Advice!

advice

During my many, many (many?) years on this planet, I’ve noticed a lot of useful things.  Stuff like toddlers are sticky and can’t be trusted, donuts weight a lot more after you eat them and customer service usually isn’t.  But one of the most useful things I’ve ever run across is this — happy, successful people very seldom offer unsolicited advice.  Why?  Because they’re too busy being happy and successful.  The people who are always first off the mark with words of wisdom are the ones who’ve taken the “hit and miss” approach to life, and they subconsciously want to get you in on the plot.  Plus — and this is the important bit — they always have their own agenda.  Here are just a few people you should never take advice from.

Relatives – I have 3 standard responses to advice from the family.
1) “Thanks for the information, but I don’t think you’re qualified to give _________ (legal, medical, real estate, etc.) advice.”
2) “Thanks for the information, but I don’t have enough money to get rich quick.”
3) “Thanks for the information but ….  Are you out of your mind?”

Co-workers – Does it make any sense to take advice from a person who never washes their coffee cup, hides porn on their computer, invested a bunch of money in ostrich eggs and would cut your throat to get your parking spot?   No — no it doesn’t.

Strangers in a grocery store – When some hairy old person corners you in the vegetable aisle, starts talking about fiber and constipation and the only thing they have in their cart is 10 kilos of cauliflower – well — it’s time to move on.

Insurance people – Remember: their job is to take your money and never give it back — and their powers of persuasion are off the charts.  Listen to them for ten minutes and you’ll end up with flood insurance that doesn’t cover water damage, life insurance that’s automatically cancelled when you die and a $10,000 deductible on both policies.

Facebook – Statistically speaking, 50% of the people on Facebook are stupider than you are (Folks, that’s 1.16 billion people!)  Plus, somewhere north of 200 million profiles are babies, dogs and cats; over 100 million are serious drug users and another 80 million are fake.  The odds against you finding someone who actually knows what they’re talking about on Facebook are astronomical.  You’d be better off to go to Vegas and talk to the Blackjack dealer.  At least they legally have to tell you what your chances are.

Anyone under 25 – They begin every conversation with “It’s totally easy” and then start tapping icons on your phone like some Rhesus monkey with ADHD.  Eight minutes later, you have an Instagram account under the name of Wilbur and you’re doing all your banking at the Honest Shepherd Savings and Loan in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Old people – This is an easy one.  These fossils are always telling you what to do because they didn’t have the cojones to do it themselves when they were young.  Besides, they know they’re never going to have to face the consequences when things go south.  And don’t fall for that old “Don’t make the same mistakes I did” bullshit.  That’s just a sneaky way for old people to say “I think you’re stupid.”

And finally:

Me – At a time when the Internet allows you to have any identity you want, it doesn’t make any sense to choose to be an old, white, middleclass, heterosexual man.  This is the first group everybody accuses, the last group anybody listens to and the only group left that everybody can kick around with impunity.  So, why take advice from a guy who wasn’t smart enough to tweak his online persona just a little to get a bit of street cred?  Think about it!

Suddenly, Every Day Is Special!

calendar 15

Yesterday was Pi Day, a celebration of the number 3.14159 etc., etc., etc.  Numbers don’t usually get a day, but mathematics is not what you’d call a labour-intensive profession and Math Nerds have a lot of time on their hands.  Today is the Ides of March, an ancient Roman something-or-other festival that nobody would care about if Brutus and his buddies hadn’t taken the opportunity to turn their pal Julius Caesar into a pin cushion.  And Sunday is St. Patrick’s Day, a day when everybody tries to drink themselves green because a pack of 19th century New York Irishmen got homesick.  Folks, I think we’re getting a little over- scheduled.

Back in the day, primitive humans observed a couple of annual events to break up the monotony of trying to stave off starvation.  They celebrated Spring because they’d lived through the winter.  “OMG! We made it!”  And they celebrated the autumn harvest because there was food on the table.  “Yay!  Let’s eat!”  Aside from that, there wasn’t all that much for primeval humans to get excited about.

Enter organized religion.  When you have nameable gods, it makes sense to pause from time to time and thank them for life, liberty and the pursuit of getting enough to eat.  “Oh, Lord!  You’ve been awful good to me this year.  Thanks for letting me kill that mastodon.  Here, I made you a necklace out of his bones.  Any chance of getting another one before winter sets in?  Amen.”

From there, it was an easy step to commemorating tribal events — things like the death of a great leader, a particularly successful hunt or a military victory.  “Hey, Benny!  Remember last winter when we kicked the crap out of the Neanderthals?  We should set aside a special day to have a howl and a dance and tell our kids that story.”

The calendar wasn’t all that crowded, and these were important occasions.  They were seasonal or religious events or days of national pride, and for hundreds of years, our society used these times to celebrate our common beliefs and aspirations.  We even added a few new ones, like Thanksgiving and Labour Day, and allowed a couple of “not-so-serious” days to come along for the ride – notably, Hallowe’en and Valentine’s Day.

Welcome to the 20th century.  We loaded up the year with enough “special days” to give every date on the calendar five or six notations.  It all started with Mother’s Day in 1908 because, of course, everybody loves their mother.  She deserves a special day.  But, what about dad?  We couldn’t leave that poor bugger out in the cold.  He needed a day.  And from there it was just open season – Grandparents’ Day, Groundhog Day, Farmers’ Day, Secretaries’ Day, Road Construction Day, Robbie Burns Day, Bloomsday (June 16th) Star Wars Day (May the 4th) and on and on and on.  Suddenly, every day was special.

So, today, if you don’t want to celebrate the 2,062nd anniversary of the death of Julius Caesar, you have some choices — and BTW, these are all official days.  First of all, it’s International Day against Police Brutality (kinda self-explanatory.)  Next, it’s World Consumer Rights Day (Good luck with that one!)  But, it’s also World Day of Muslim Culture (which, depending on where you live, could tie in with item #1) World Speech Day and Eva Longoria’s birthday (she’s 44.)

Personally, though, I’m going with World Contact Day.  That’s right:  This is the day that the International Flying Saucer Bureau wants you to go outside and try your best to contact extra-terrestrials — telepathically.  Don’t knock it!  It beats the hell out of World Malaria Day.