Um, welcome to the future, mofos. Check this video out.

MS Sustainability (http://ohhello.tv/video/MS_Sustainability_web.mov)

Sure, it’s Microsoft and as a result, not as cool as Apple, but I can’t waiiiiiiiiiit for this. We’ll all live in disc-like cylinders on really narrow beams of steel and have robot maids. Also, do you think planes in the future will be as ridiculously spacious as this one is?

The Magic 8 Ball says all signs point to YES.

As a final thought, what about this feel-good music, right? I want this to be the soundtrack of my life. You’ll know I’m coming around the corner when you hear the angels of techno-lite singing my anthem. You can’t deny that everyone wins in that scenario.

How weird is this post?

So yesterday, Candace posted a rant about Twitter on her blog “life is a playlist.” This is a response to that post.

First of all, I refuse to be the knight in shining armor to come along and defend every twit who ever tweeted on Twitter. It’s not my job, and it’s not my view, either. But as a former skeptic, I will say that Twitter is surprisingly useful and interesting. Or, it can be.

I should also point out that Twitter does themselves absolutely no favors in putting their best face forward. They have an introductory video that everyone is supposed to watch before signing up. It’s about two minutes long. Below is an excerpt. The assumptions are astounding:

So, what are you doing? It’s one of the first questions we often ask friends and family. Even if the answer is just mowing the lawn or cooking dinner, it’s interesting to us. It makes us feel connected and a part of each others lives. Unfortunately, most of our day-to-day lives are hidden from people that care. Of course, we have e-mail and blogs and phones to keep us connected. But you wouldn’t send an e-mail to a friend to tell them you’re having coffee. Your friend doesn’t need to know that. But what about people that want to know about the little things that happen in your life? Real life happens between blog posts and e-mails. And now, there’s a way to share.

Take a step back. Let’s examine the logic of this. We have needs and wants. E-mails are for needs, Twittering is for wants? Is this what they’re getting at? Either way it comes off as a terrible marketing strategy. Think about how dull your day to day life is. NOW LET’S BROADCAST IT!

To their question “But what about people that want to know about the little things…?” my answer is really? At this point a lot of people say “get a life” and worry about your own crap. But let’s be honest with ourselves. Though we may enjoy our lives and the stuff that happens during our day, an extremely small fraction of that is worth saying aloud, let alone “microblogging.” So not only are the people losers who post that they’re “eating a sandwich,” so are those who are just dying to know what kind of bread you used.

Keep in mind I’m saying all this, while being a twitterer myself. There are a few aspects of Twitter that make it worthwhile and not the most annoying form of social networking to date. And they are:

1. Links. As a news junkie, I appreciate a good scoop on a news story as much as the next guy. Reporters (that is, the famous ones, and we’ll get to that point in a minute) can upload stories at an incredible rate this day and age, but it’s even faster to post a 140 character message before you type up your 3 sentence blog post that Hillary Clinton accidentally made a fart joke into a live mic. (Note: She did not fart into a live mic. That would be crass.) Essentially Web sites like “TinyUrl” make Twitter possible. They take long Web addresses and shrink them to 25 characters, so you can still add witty comment and people will know what they’re clicking on. Like so: Candace’s blog post, shrunk to 25 characters http://tinyurl.com/dzoyvv

2. People that matter. In general, there are two kinds of people on Twitter: the beautiful people and the rest of us. The rest of us are busy describing the rye bread and salami of our delicious sandwiches, while the beautiful people (who are more than likely not actually beautiful, but are important in some way—politics, entertainment, sports, international chess champions, etc.) are telling us things that are interesting. This is where there is a slight divergence of opinion, not surprisingly, since we all have different tastes. I like politics, and so following George Snuffleupagus is interesting to me. (Note: John McCain is not. John McCain is that annoying friend on Facebook that updates his status every HOUR, and you know what I mean) Since Snuffy is reading breaking news stories and reporting himself, he can pass along interesting things he reads and finds. Kind of nice, right?

3. I thought for a long time, and there is no #3. That’s pretty much it. Advocates try to push these sob stories about how a reporter in Egypt got arrested for free speech and he tweeted this to his friends and they came to his rescue immediately. But for you and me, this is as likely as Pitt winning the NCAA Tournament (I WENT THERE).

So there you have it. My half-hearted, luke-warm, guilt-ridden defense of Twitter. Take it or leave it.

The University of Texas was rocked to its core today with news of impropriety in the student government elections held last week. The Daily Texan’s Sean Beherec reported that a student government board co-chairman tried soliciting votes for a particular ticket via e-mail to a secret society.

In short, people are LOSING THEIR MINDS over this. As evidenced by the picture, The Daily Texan felt it appropriate to dwarf their own flag with the headline that spans two lines in all caps. The only thing missing is three to five exclamation points. Furthermore, their journalistic credibility still stands tall by the fact that they scanned the e-mail that was supplied to their office anonymously (DEEP THROAT!).

Unfortunately for the paper, their credibility for not being a group of D-bags drops, due to the fact that they published everyone’s e-mail address when they scanned the e-mail. Classy move.

As I walked around campus today, I conducted random “man on the street” interviews about this crisis. “My life has no meaning now,” cried one woman from a balcony on the Main Building, while dangling a baby over the edge. Cries of rage and desperation rose up among the crowd as she shouted from the balcony. We later discovered the child’s name to be “Blanket.”

Groups dressed all in black roamed around campus, pulling at their hair and beating their breasts. One man fired a semi-automatic gun in the air several times. Bystanders said they believed this was an appropriate response to today’s news.

Let me help you out with a little more perspective. For years student government has run as an aristocracy. A mythical “binder” containing all the rules and bylaws for on-campus campaigning was passed from class to class. This party system was nobly dissolved by the current administration and independent candidates campaigned against one another. Even still, this Liam O’Rourke character won this year’s by almost 4,000 votes (only 10,000 votes were cast). That is a lot.

The election board co-chair, who is apparently just some dude who looks way too old to be concerned about ridiculous student government elections, sent a letter out in support of O’Rourke. The e-mail recipients were all part of a secret campus organization that apparently goes by the name “Zesty.” (….lingering to allow that to set in.) The e-mail begins, “Dear Zesty friends.” Seriously.

The e-mail sender, Cesar Martinez Espinosa, broke the sender list down individually, asking for their help from whatever organization these Zesties were in. For example: “Matt R — please twitter constantly with all you friends - especially in Spanish.” Example #2: “Cody - I think it would be great if you were to dance at Monday’s game with a Liam-Shara t-shirt.” Obviously all solid ideas. The man had been thinking, you see.

He closes with the letters “ZFL” which can obviously only mean “Zesty for Life.” Thank you for that. Seriously.

Finally, the comments on the online version of this story are simply fantastic. I’m going to post this entire comment because if I took any part of it out of context, you might be confused. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still be confused, but I want you to know you’re seeing the entire thing:

Why are people like oh he just sent a single email. what damage could that have done. if you read the details of the email you’ll see the diff focus groups.
when we start talking sororities and fraternities. all the need to do is to vote and get their sister and brother fraternities to vote for specific name.

and then they got the emails of the entire student body n spammed the heck outta us. and then theese eyes of texas that have got their hands everywhere, also have it down the pants of many other organizations…n the chain just goes on.
Believe me hun, one email can do alotta damage

That poster’s name is “Keshav and transparency= paradox” (Keshav being our current president). Highlighting done by me for emphasis.

I have absolutely no way to end this post, but with the words of Phillip Tau, the losing candidate who thinks that if this e-mail had not been sent, he would gained close to 4,000 votes (i.e., a 40 percent swing).

“I would put my life on it that if it wasn’t for all this helping of Liam and Shara, then I’m pretty sure that there would have been a runoff,” Tau said.

Hey friends. So, slightly inspired by my brother’s birthday videos for Eli (seen here and here), I decided I wanted to figure out how iMovie works. In an unrelated note, my friend Sarah Dossey and fellow bandmate Sarah Monteen, known as The Reliques (REL-icks), released their first CD last night. The EP, titled “Peacock Wood,” features five tracks that the two have worked on over the past few months. It is, to put it mildly, fantastic.

Anyway, to combine those two ideas above, I decided to put to their music some photos I’ve taken over the years. I hope I’m not stepping on any toes or infringing on any copyright laws, and if I am, I’m sure I’ll be served with papers soon. But anyway, below is my little ode to their new release.

The song is called “Reconciled” and it’s the first track on the EP. Enjoy the beautiful harmonies, and if you want more information about The Reliques, check out their MySpace page.

Also, apologies that the photos don’t really go with the music at all. They’re really just “something to look at.” And apologies for ending a sentence with a preposition.

This and two other tracks can be found on their MySpace page as well. “Peacock Wood” is $5.

So, tell me if you’ve ever noticed this game that people play: they go about their day-to-day lives, ignoring the fact that living among us are terrifying murderers and scavengers. I’m talking, of course, about birds.

Not to belabor the point, but where is the public outcry? This video, courtesy of Videogum, is nothing new to me. As many of you know, I was attacked as a young child by a literal flock of seagulls (and by literal, I mean not these guys). While I will concede the fact that this may give me a natural anti-bird bias, facts are facts. Birds are horrendous. Fact. At least that’s what the UT Journalism School has taught me.

Check it (but don’t if you’ve just eaten, are sqeamish, or prefer not to watch birds consume raw meat):

Need I say more? To be honest, this video did not really shock me. Growing up, we would go to the beach every year, and I watched this phenomenon in its seashore variety. Seagulls, pelicans and other terrorists would take clams to high altitudes in the hard sand and drop them to crack open the shell. Ingenious, yes. Potentially devastating to human life, YES. What’s stopping a flock from working together, lifting you up into the air and dropping you off a rocky coastline? You saw what they did for Cinderella!

Turtles… clams… It only makes sense humans are next. Need I remind you they took out a plane in New York City?

So I basically broke the story that Jimmy Fallon was taking over for Conan O’Brien in this post from last April. Read it. It’s eerie how prescient (GRE vocab word! pre=before, scient=to know, hooray for learning!) my analysis was. Enjoy reading how correct (and therefore awesome) I was:

I don’t know if Fallon’s nervous and often fidgety behavior at the news desk was an act or not, but it was truly obnoxious. The article I sited above made mention that Carson Daly would certainly not be getting the job, and I have to say I’m not sure that this will be much better. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t know. Playing opposite Craig Ferguson’s “Late Late Show” on CBS, the 12:30 a.m. EST hour might soon have the potential to be the worst hour on television. (Bring back Kilborn!!)

I go on to say that I hope I’m wrong and I wish him the best, which is all true. And I also make mention of that fact that Letterman and O’Brien took years to establish their voices and comedic styles. All of this is true. But… what am I supposed to do in the meantime?

I watched his premiere last night. My stomach churned and my palms sweated. I thought he did a pretty good job with the monologue (obnoxious fidgeting aside). The “Lick it for $10” was just awful. He called out three people from the audience to lick a brand new lawnmower and a fish bowl (I can’t remember the third). Why am I watching this?

His first guest was Robert De Niro, which sounds good on paper, but have you ever seen a De Niro interview? He makes Joaquin Phoenix look like a chatty Cathy. I guess there’s something to be said for starting out at the bottom? He closed the night with Van Morrison doing a revamped version of “Sweet Thing,” so the hour wasn’t all bad.

Do yourself a favor: watch U2 on Letterman tonight (and all week!) and turn your TV off. You can watch TV at 12:30 (EST) in three years.