Facebook and Twitter

Twitter is about the world. Facebook is about you; allow me to explain.

I have about 800 friends on Facebook. I am not sure how active they are, but I think that most go on and post things regularly, be it to play one of the many games on there, to write about their mood, or tell people what they are doing. The problem is when you have 800 friends, you could not keep up with them unless you spent the whole day doing it. That being said, some people interact with each other and this allows conversations to start between groups of people bonded only through their connection to me. Thus, you can have a debate about healthcare on Facebook between a few interested people quite easily. It’s all about what you want to do with it, because once you have a certain number of friends who are active, its all good in the hood.
Twitter, on the other hand, is useless unless you have only a very few people who you interact with. Try following National Public Radion, your feed will explode will all sorts of useless crap. Don’t follow Union Radio unless you need your feed filled with tweets from a live radio show every day. “Then Brian said this, and now Rebecca said this, things are again being said, chocolate pudding, Union Made….”. You can try talking back, and it can work, sometimes, but once you get up there, there is just too much information out there for you to really connect with other people. Twitter is good for targeted strikes, such as “Hi, I want to start a labor union at my restaurant, who should I call?” But its not so good for “I am worried about losing my job”, because for that kind of thing, you want you real friends to respond, people who you are likely better friends with on Facebook than you were when you knew them in real life. Obviously if you are being hunted through the streets of Iran by death squads, Twitter is the way to go. Facebook would have worked too of course, if they had it in Iran. Perhaps they do, unsure as to why it was Twitter that got all the good press on that one.

This is why what Twitter wants to be is what Facebook actually is. With Facebook, you have total control over your interactions, with Twitter, you just gotta strap in and get ready for Le Deluge. I read awhile back that Twitter has a future as the program that allows medical equipment to Tweet to another computer something like “You need a new pacemaker” or instructions……..

Anyhow, it will be interesting to see where this all leads.

That’s my two cents.

A Story By Ernest Hemingway

For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.

On Advice

I hate people who give advice when it is not explicitly asked for.  Allow me to explain how to give good advice, and why people are always giving it out.

The best advice is asked for, paid for, given by a disinterested professional, and comes after a long battery of probing questions that aim to get you what you want by coming to understand you as a person.

Most people overlook those key points.  Here’s why.  Imagine a person who is wise, and is asked his opinion on important matter by many people who know him.  How do you think that person feels when they look in the mirror?  Now imagine the opposite person, and imagine how they feel.  Which would you rather be?

So what if no one asks you for advice?  How can you change that?  Simple, just start giving it out.  If you say a wise thing and someone takes your advice, then boom, you may be their go-to in the future.  If you give unwise advice, the opposite will result.

The latter scenerio plays out all the time.  We all know people who tell us what to do without being asked for help.  They are doing it to make themselves feel good, and they are doing it by exploiting you.  In my opinion, this should make you angry.

For one thing, by giving unsolicited advice, they are insulting your intelligence, just as they are robbing you of the chance to develop your own problem solving abilities, abilities that you will need to lead a full, independent life.

For another, they are showing contempt for you, by assuming that they know more about your life and understand what you want better than you do.

“Go to college”, “Deal with it”, “You should apply for an adjustable-rate mortgage and take the equity of your home”.  Is this bad advice?  It depends on who is giving it and why.

Here are some examples of bad advice.  I am on vacation on the beach, when a stranger approaches who has a business, my family engages the stranger and introduces us with a little nudge that we should talk about doing business.  I do not talk with him about business, because I do not want to work with this man.  Had my family simply known what I wanted, they would not have suggested that we talk.  Another is from my father, who told me that he could help me get a particular job, and reached out to someone for that reason.  Problem, I do not want to work in that field, for those people.  He should have known this.  He is, after all, my dad.

Here are some examples of good advice.  I have a neighbor I know quite well, a younger man, who is just starting to find his place, and comes to me for advice about things relating to school and work.  He does this because when we talk, I tell him about my life, and he asks me questions about my experiences.  He does this regularly enough that I understand what he is looking for.  Because of this I say to him unsolicited, “If you want to try to find work in my field you should X, Y, and Z, it is what I did, and it worked for me”.  It worked for him too.

One last example of good advice.  I was trying to decide amongst graduate school programs and sought out a favorite professor in his office.  I explained how I saw my options, and what I wanted, before asking him what I should do.  He told me what to do, and gave me good reasons for the choice.

Two final points.  You know you are getting bad advice if a person has a stake in the outcome, because this prevents the advice from being freely given.  If a person ever tells you that  you never take advice, you should smile at them and say, “I hope you’ll keep that in mind before you offer it to me”.  Finally, people usually tell others to do what they would like to do, keep this in mind.  If you think joining the Navy is the way to go, then so be it, if someone else is telling you to do it, keep in mind that there is a reason they are telling you.  My dad still misses the cheeseburgers and swimming off his ship in the Indian Ocean.  I told my dad he should sign back up because 1.  I’m not into swimming in the open ocean, 2.  McDonald’s works for me, and of course, 3.  As a humanist I’m not really into warfare.  Again, things he should have known.  Bad daddy, no biscuit.

O.K. one more final point about advice.  Asking for it from people you do not like is an excellent way to make them like you, which will allow you to get things from them that you want.  Try it, go up to that one person at work who you always have problems with and ask them for advice.  It tells them that you see them, that you respect them, it gets them talking about themselves, and if you take their advice it will make them like you more because it makes them feel good about themselves.

That’s my advice.

The Minority of the Opulent

It’s a little known fact that the United States of America was set up intentionally by our founding fathers to protect the rich from the rest of us.  James Madison, who was the main framer said, “The purpose of government is to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”  His rationale went like this.  Right now most of us are rich, but in the future things are going to change.  The poor can vote, and they are going to take our land.  Because of this we need protection.  Interestingly enough, if you go out to a bookstore and find an edited copy of Madison’s Secret Notes on the Constitutional Convention of 1787, you will note that that quote will be reworded by said editor.  I have checked this out personally.  You may find the quote here http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_626.asp.  It is the first thing out of Madison’s mouth.

How A Large Bank Kills People

Selling cars is another really shitty job that is easy to get and will turn you into a monster who hates people.  I got out before the changes became permanent.

One day I am walking the lot and this really nice kid is looking at a Dodge Neon in Silver with a price of $5,000.  I walk up to him, we start to talk, and it is clear that he has fallen in love with what he wants to be his first car.  We take her out for a spin and we start to talk. He is 18, he lives in a bad area of the city, his father is a pastor at a little church with a lovely name akin to “The Most Sacred Place”.  This kid plays the organ at the church.  I really like this guy, he’s really genuine and nice.  I am going to get him the best deal I can, and I can’t wait for him to drive off.

So we head back, I run his credit.  He has a small down payment, but he has no credit history.  We call the bank, they won’t loan him the money, we call another, and another, and another.  No dice.  Head held high, he leaves us.  I am angry.  Months later, on the news, I hear about a young organist who was killed in front of his church while waiting for a ride.  The name of the church was the same one this nice kid said.  I hoped they had more than one organist, but figured even if they did, it was doubtful they would share the same name.  His name was Isiah.

America, the scam

For all of you new college graduates out there I want to teach you a lesson about America, and how the real world works, in case you are unaware.  Go to a job seeker’s site and post a resume.  When the phone calls come, take the interviews and take the jobs when they are offered to you.

I used to do this for fun.  With my political science degree from a prestigious school I found myself qualified for a large array of interesting positions that offered “Unlimited Earnings Potential”.

I will always remember my dream job, the caller asked me if I would be interested in a position that would pay $100,000 the first year, not including residuals.  I later wondered how many would be seekers said no.  I jumped at the chance and soon had a position driving to minority-owned businesses in bad areas of a large city, trying to sell them credit card processing machines.  I soon discovered where we keep all the social dynamite, after they surrounded my car at a gas station and asked me for money.  I gave the asker the 85 cents I had on me, and he politely told me how to get back to the highway.  I’ll never forget that.

The images from that scene are burned into my memory.  I pulled off the highway and saw a gas station, I drove towards it, through what was apparently a large block party.  It was not a block party, it was a neighborhood suffering from what looked like 80% unemployment.  I pull into the gas station, which looked to have better defensive measures than Air Force One.  A young man approached the car, holding a golf club sans head, with a rusted out end.  As he asked me for money, others surround my car, looking into it.  I wonder if they know that under all the garbage in my shitty car is a nice laptop, which I use to trick people into buying what I am selling.

“Hey, I think I need to leave, now”.
“Yes, I think so too”.

It was a civil exchange, in spite of the drama.

Another day in a similar area I became acquainted with what are known in some circles as the “Jump-Out Boys”, which are police officers who drive around in high crime areas looking for people to assault.  They take their money, they take their drugs, they beat them.  Go, see for yourself, because when the J.O.B’s see you walking down the street in a suit, carrying a laptop, they will be sure to circle the block you are on, for obvious reasons.

Another dream job was very simple.  I was asked to be the agent of a foreign company that for reasons unknown could not open a bank account in the United States.  They wanted to have their clients send me cashier’s checks, which I was to take to a Western Union, cash, and then wire 60% of it to them.  They told me that I should expect to be cashing about $100,000 a month.  I went to the company site, and after poking around, could not figure out what a German transnational development corporation working in South America would need me for.  I looked at open positions, and there was my job, the spelling wasn’t very inspiring, but it appeared they were indeed hiring.  I told them to send me the checks.

Just kidding, I did tell them that, but did not cash it.  Instead I got ahold of the F.B.I., hope they caught them.

Other jobs included selling books of discount coupons door to door supposedly for the benefit of a team of disabled basketball players, dressing up as a guy from the gas company and trying to get people “discounts”, and so on.

I would encourage you to take these jobs and work them a little, learn about what types of jobs exist for those of you with a worthless college degree.  It is actually entertaining, and it will teach you a little more about the dark side of America.  The late night informercial side, the side that tries to scam people out of their money.  What you learn will prove of use to you in your future dealings, I promise.  Just keep rule #1 in mind, you are not going to make much money, unless you are a con man.

Invictus

If you are anything like me, you are drowning in debt, have poor job prospects and live in your mother’s basement, in a state of despair.  Fortunately, life goes on, even for a pathetic man such as me.  The first issue I shall raise is one of indebtedness, and how to escape from it.  I should note that I am not an attorney, and am not giving out legal advice.

Anyone in dire financial straits knows that there is no one out there who can help you who won’t be doing so in exchange for a small fee.  Among the actors out there who are vying for your valuable coinage, there is not one of them who is not working their own angle.

So without further ado, allow me to tell you how I am going to handle the simple fact that I can’t pay the $30,000 I owe to two credit card companies.  I have already taken the first two steps.

Stop paying.
Ignore the phone calls
Wait for them to sue you
When you receive notice that you are being sued, go to James Publishing and read through their offerings on litigation, such as this http://www.jamespublishing.com/books/gd.htm.
Attack!

When they sue me, I am going to walk into court with my best cheap threadbare suit and old stinky running shoes, argue that there was no contract, that if there was a contract they acted in bad faith, that if they did not act against me in bad faith they loaned money to me in a discriminatory fashion, and anything else I can think of.  This means I will be filing what is called a cross-claim; I am going to sue them back, and make it as expensive as possible for them.  I will try to win on the merits, but intend to make it a war of attrition.  If they win, I will immediately file bankruptcy, as a final coup de grace.

My goal will be to get into Federal court, and have a nice educated jury let me tell them about being a slave, just like their children likely are.  I will talk about Jesus a little, and am going to cry a few times.  I will talk of my mother dying of emphysema, of my drinking problem, of the death of my hope for the future, and my shattered dreams.  Yes, I will talk about my “garden apartment”.  And let me tell you folks, those tears will be quite real.

A note on the fact that I am walking away from the debt.  I have wrestled with this for years, but always intended on paying back every dime.  Almost all of my income went to them for years, with little or no progress made, until one magical day when I just could not afford the minimums, and could not afford them the next month.  At that point I realized that even if I could still afford them, such an arrangement was not sustainable.

It’s not easy to be crazy, but I’m doing the best I can.

Invictus

Greetings from the dark recesses of my mother’s basement, which is the home base from which I self destruct.  Join me, as I relate the intimate details of just how pathetic I am.