Enter The Plankton
If I’m lucky!
Spoiler alert: I’m not exactly the world’s greatest conversationalist.
For the curious, the opening line above is an example of my patented Start-By-Telling-Them-How-You-Suck approach to writing. You can buy a pamphlet describing the technique – and much, much more – for only three easy payments of $19.99. -Ed.
As the holidays cascade down upon us like a perfect storm, I’m already anticipating how I’ll surf that wave and/or navigate the complex maze-like quagmire of quicksand in quixotic fashion.
The holidays means lots of group settings of social interactions. Historically I do not fare well in these and opt instead to spend my time studying in minute detail the nearest potted plant. I’m bringing my magnifying glass just in case.
Since I remain ever hopeful, however, I’ve been role-playing various stratagems in my mind that might increase my odds of getting the occasional word in edgewise. Or I could give up in advance and just play the lotto.
A normal conversation consists of the following:
Person A: Me.
Person B: No, me!
Person C: Bloody hell to both of you. Me, me, me!
Person D: Did I ever tell you about me?
Person E: Did you say something?
Person F: … Apple’s tri-tone sound …
Person A: Ahem. You weren’t listening. I say again …
Every once in a while as the conversation morphs dynamically through these shifting realities, I may actually have something interesting to add. I hate it when that happens.
Person A: Yeah, there are a lot of elephants in Thailand
…. 20 minutes and 420 topics later I finally awkwardly interrupt and take my dream shot …
Me: An elephant sat on my head once.
Everyone: What the fuck are you talking about?!
Yeah. About that potted plant.I’ve heard that one thing that helps make you seem interesting is to ask questions about the other person. Especially if you can appear thoughtful and fake sincerity in the process. If successful, your only job is to tlean back, stay silent, let their mouth do all of the work, and celebrate a job well done.
I’m looking forward to trying this out. To that end I have prepared some questions in advance.
My only worry is that the conversation will run through a googolplex of permutations before I get my first chance to speak. That would be bad and could go down like this:
Person A: So, can you tell us what’s new with your son?
Me: Eeeeiiiiii!
… swift kick to the nards …
Me: I was gonna ask that question!!
Person B: Someone dial up the whambulance!
Lastly, sometimes the floor is occasionally dished my way. If and when that happens I should be ready. Usually this is a provactive attempt to surprise me so much as to induce heart attack. Assuming I survive long enough, I usually succumb to the intense pressure. The stress of filling that space is simply too high. I usually stammer out something like, “Goo goo gah gah.” Then everyone shrugs, wonders why the hell they bothered to give me a chance, and resumes talking about the fractal shapes of their bunions.
Also, something about the spirit of the season and it’s better give than receive but I can’t remember any of that crap right now. I’ve been much too busy with the pre-conversation planning.
I just hope I’m not over-thinking it. Perhaps I should limit my dreams to the Ribbon of Participation.
Embedded: Twitter puts outage
Hide and seek. Did I scare you?
Earlier this week, Twitter went down. It went down hard. It was scary. I know because I was there. I now officially have the PTSD. At last, I’m finally somebody.
The duration of the outage was about 45 minutes. That’s approximately twice the amount of time Apollo 13 spent out of radio contact when it was behind the moon. I just got a double dose of what it must have felt like to be in Mission Control. And I’m a non-smoker!
It was the longest outage since Twitter’s IPO and the second crash in the last nine days.
The outage was described in the strongest possible terms as the “longest outage since the IPO.” What those two things have to do with each other I have absolutely no idea.
Some in the media took the opportunity to write quippish jokes about the mayhem. (Hint: It was too soon.) Jokes, I must say, that practically wrote themselves.
- “Twitter Suffers Outage During Biz Stone’s Panel at SXSW” – I don’t know what a “Biz Stone” is but I bet it was pissed. Source: WSJ.
- “Twitter Outage Takes Site Down for 45 Minutes, Users Stranded” – I bet a lot of them were forced to hitchhike. Source: Newsmax.com.
- “Twitter goes down, chaos and productivity ensue” – What the fuck are you implying? Source: Washington Post.
- “‘We Experienced Unexpected Complications’: The Language Of Twitter Outages” – Hey, that’s the hip new lingo. Source: Lifehacker Australia.
- “Twitter Goes Down: Something is Technically Wrong” – You have a firm grasp of the obvious. Souce: The Next Web.
- “Twitter Briefly Goes Down, Silencing Millions Of Horrible, Unnecessary Twitter Jokes” – That hurts, that really hurts. Source: Huffington Post.
Again, as your intrepid embedded reporter, I was there on the front lines. What follows are my eyewitness firsthand accounts of the action as it unfolded.
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Listen Up
I am a stranger in a strange land.
I’ve done something more notable than even Michael Phelps winning eight gold medals. (Yawn.)
I went out in the world and listened. To another person. Hells to the yeah.
It was the most startling experience.
A conversational pause does not mean the person has finished speaking.
–Tom B. TakerInterpreting every single pause since the dawn of time as “my turn to talk” means you are an asshole.
–Tom B. Taker
My wife was speaking to me. I was listening. Wow. I know. It can happen. Okay, okay. Stay calm. Don’t blow it. Keep it together, man. So far so good.
Then she paused.
This was an industrial heavy-duty kind of a pause. A good ten seconds. In today’s world that is literally an eternity. I had my feelers out. Was she done? Was she waiting on me to comment? Was it my turn?
I still don’t know what came over me but I decided to wait. I was in it for the long haul.
Then, simply, she continued. And she expressed an additional thought that added more to what she had just previously said. A thought that, if I had interrupted, I would never have heard for the rest of my life.
This is it, I thought! The land of milk and honey over the rainbow. That land that assholes never get to see.
It was so earth shattering that a few days later I even tried it again.
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TOM Regurgitated
Today we have elected to revisit one of our favorites from the series of posts known as TOM Talks. Actually, I think this is also the only post in the series, but I’m not really sure, since I haven’t been listening.
For members of Generation Z, please feel free to load the post on your favorite device. Perhaps even the iPad strapped to your lover’s back. There is no read to interrupt your important business, such as the act of coitus, while you enjoy this talk.
Click the link below to begin the presentation.
TOM Talks: Conversational Masturbation
The iPad Conversationalist
What is it to have a conversation? Don’t ask me, I sure as hell wouldn’t know. I live in a land populated by bulldozers but I am decidedly not a bulldozer.
It is common for babies, once they’ve reached the age of two, to go through an “I have a ball” phase. “I have a ball,” they say. They grasp a ball tightly in their little hand with their little kung fu grip and show the ball to everyone they meet. “I have a ball.” They can be rather monotonous.
It really boggles their little two-year-old brains so much that they have a ball. And they really love it if other people show interest in the ball, the one thing they’ll never ever share. “Ha! I have a ball!” At least until people show interest in something else which they’ll immediately covet and take for themselves. Then they’ll say, “I have this other thing.” Damn two-year olds.
I don’t want to put too fine a point on it so I’ll get on message and I’ll be brief: “I have an iPad!”
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Bulldozer Science Chit Chat
I’m the cutest slice. Orange you impressed?
I’m formulating a new hypothesis to fit observable phenomena pertaining to the human act of communication. If you can call one-way verbal vomit “communication,” that is. We may have to take a few liberties with our assumptions.
The lab is a controlled environment: A square room with dimensions of 20′ x 20′ and four test subjects locked inside.
It’s a beautiful human-based ballet and we get to watch it play out. Isn’t science a gas?
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Shouts from the Abyss 
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