Welcome To The World Of Tomorrow

(Before we begin, I'll remind you to visit THANKSGIVING COMES FIRST on Facebook. LIKE it, damn you!)

(OK, perhaps that was a little too authoritarian of me. If you LIKE it, I'll tell you a story.)

(Thank you. Here goes.)

(But first, let me allay your fears. With a title like the one I've given this piece, and coming on the heels of Election Day here in America, you may have the idea that this will be a political diatribe. It won't. For one thing, I wouldn't even know where to begin. The many and myriad ways this country decided to send itself down the tubes yesterday leaves me so dispirited that I can't speak on any one subject without foaming at the mouth. If I start talking politics here, and you stick with me, neither of us will get any work done and the economy will tank even further. That seems inevitable now, anyway, but if my shutting up will stem the tide a little, I'm willing to do my bit.)

(I will say, though, that The 5% Rule seems to have once again been proven true.)

(And now we'll find out if the liberals are willing to put their money where their mouths are. When Bush lost the popular vote, but won the electoral, the pissing and moaning could be heard from coast-to-coast. With it looking as though Romney will have won the popular vote, but Obama will remain in office due to an electoral college win, we'll see if the complaining is on par. I tend to doubt it, but who knows?)

(Anything else? Yeah. I'm happy about one thing. Medical Marijuana was approved in Massachusetts. Opponents said that this was an attempt to have pot completely legalized via the back door. You bet your ass it was. Now that we have a foot in the door, my fervent hope is that we use the other foot to kick the fucking door down completely.)

(Elizabeth Warren. Oy.)

(Sorry. I can't help it. If I kept this shit in, I'd become an ax murderer. At least when I vent it by writing, lives are spared. Here comes the friendly part of today's stuff.)

MY WIFE and I have finally made it to 2012. This past Saturday, we bought a trio of services from RCN. Instead of my having to access teh intertubes exclusively at work, we now have access at home. We had a landline phone until the past weekend, but now we have phone service via our internet provider. We also upgraded our cable TV service to include TIVO.

What this ultimately means, of course, is that I can once again pretend I'm way younger than I actually am. Not having an internet connection at home labeled me as an extremely ancient fart. I was outed daily as a geezer when I revealed we still relied on a landline for our communication needs. When folks found out I still suffered through actual commercials while viewing TV, I was regarded as some sort of mentally deficient relic from prehistoric times. Now I can go into chat rooms, pretend I'm 16 while talking to teenage girls, and nobody will be any the wiser!

No, maybe that's not such a good idea. Still, I could if I wanted to, so I have once again become potentially dangerous (which is, by most measures, a sure sign of youth.) Meanwhile, MY WIFE has shown early warning signs of addiction.

We had decided to get up early on Tuesday and go to the polls at 7am to vote, the earliest possible time in our precinct. I awoke at 6:20, came out of the bedroom, and found MY WIFE at the keyboard with slightly bloodshot eyes. I asked her how long she had been surfing. She confessed to having been doing so since 5am.

I tried to be understanding. I've been able to satisfy my cravings for internet interactions whenever I've gone to work, but she hasn't. This is the first time she's been fully free to explore any and all aspects of world-wide webbiness. Her job, unlike mine, did not allow her to freely graze in the pastures of electronic delight. Her travels were highly regulated and confined, whereas mine were graciously allowed (so long as the work got done and was up to snuff.) So, I didn't get all snarky on her ass. I did, however, raise a slight ruckus concerning one thing she had done.

She left messages for people using MY Facebook account. By any measure, that is considered a serious breach of netiquette.

One of the messages wasn't so bad. She wished my sister-in-law a Happy Birthday. I probably would have done that myself if I wasn't entirely self-absorbed. I think she also asked her to vote early, vote often, and vote Libertarian (two-thirds of which I'm in favor of.) It was the other message that irked me a bit. She commented to one of my softball teammates concerning his profile picture.

I can't remember the exact words she used, but it struck me as something that had the possibility of making me look totally gay. I don't have anything at all against gay people, but I prefer to have my sexuality recognized for what it is: unapologetic heterosexual horndoggery. And so I sent a follow-up message to my buddy:

"MY WIFE is all excited about having The Internet, so she's been sending you messages in my sleep. By the way, what IS up with that photo?"

I'm not sure if that cleared me. If it didn't, I'll make fun of his weight the next time I see him. As much as I don't want to say anything that might hurt his feelings, I'll have to. Straight guys are the only ones who make fat jokes these days. Women and gay guys don't do it because... well, I'm not entirely sure why they don't, since fat jokes are almost as funny as dick jokes, but they don't. And my being a total a-hole will prove to my buddy that I'm not interested in being his a-hole. Or something like that. If you're a straight guy yourself, you understand. And more's the pity, probably.

So, anyway, yeah, I've entered the current century (electronically, if not mentally.) I'll try to get MY WIFE to set up her own Facebook page next, and she has also expressed a desire to have her own blog. This, of course, means that there will actually be somebody on-line who can fact check my blog and offer rebuttals, so I'll only be half as entertaining as I am now since much of my value as a writer resides in my stunning ability as a liar. However, in the first two days we had TIVO, she recorded three shows, so she may never get around to it.

(TIVO is like some big, friendly, completely retarded cousin. Just like that relative who kept telling you to try the asparagus au gratin at the last family reunion, it keeps suggesting stuff to us that, in its lumbering way, it thinks we will like. MY WIFE recorded the following shows: CBS Sunday Morning, Call The Midwife, and The Mark Twain Prize telecast. Working from that list, TIVO suggested that we would like Pardon The Interruption, James Robison, Remember The Titans, and The Glass Menagerie. I'd usually insert a joke at this point, but why bother?)  

Soon, with more better stuff (although, if you see my profile pic suddenly changed to a LOL cat or something, it may not be me, so be wary.)