Pick a little, talk a little...

This morning I was doing what I do every morning, Mon-Fri. I was watching the local morning news. I’m not one of those whiny people who watch the news and then bitch because they are subjected to stories about things they’re not interested in. I don’t know if that happens in other places but it sure as hell happens here.

Granted, I’ve been known to whine when I thought the coverage was excessive. But it’s what happens. We’re pulling out of Iraq, BP hasn’t finished the job in the gulf, and Tiger Woods got divorced. There’s a LOT of news time to fill and, while stuff like Tiger Woods divorce may not be hardcore news, it’s certainly an event of sorts. Don’t care? Don’t want to listen to it? Go get your coffee then.

This morning, during the news, there was a story about Paris Hilton. Not news either. I personally don’t get the fascination with her but I don’t resent it either. After they got her and her stilettos off the Bentley in that hamburger ad I pretty much tuned her out. However, that doesn’t mean that I’m not sorry her house was broken into while she was in it, and I’m certainly distressed that the miscreants were brandishing knives. That shouldn’t happen to anyone and it would probably make the news if it happened to someone I had never heard of. I’m also happy the police got to her house and no harm was done.

Want to know how I know all of this?

SHE WAS ON FREAKING TWITTER THE ENTIRE TIME, THAT’S HOW I KNOW! Well, okay, that’s how other people knew, because I don’t do Twitter.

Twitter, I have come to realize, is the crack of the internet. Once people start, they can’t stop. I’ve never seen anything take over people’s lives as pervasively as Twitter. I personally know people who have no idea what goes on in the world except by way of other people’s “tweets”. I know someone who watched both the Golden Globes AND the Oscar’s by reading people’s tweets about the show. Picture it. Someone sitting in a room with a big screen TV tuned to a show. That someone has their laptop open and fired up. Said person misses the ENTIRE SHOW because they’re reading Twitter. Out loud. “So and so says that Mr. X is already potted. They said there’s no food there, just booze.”

I knew so and so was toasted, I SAW him get up and stagger to the stage. Because I was watching the show, not the Twitter feed.

It’s not just me. The Twitter addiction in my own home is pushing crisis and that’s not hyperbole. I am almost to the point of grabbing the laptop and heaving it out the front window, shattering a lot of glass, while I scream at the top of my lungs ‘LOOK AT US!!!!!! PAY ATTENTION, WE’RE ACTUALLY TALKING TO YOU!”

It occurs to me that I’m not alone. Paris Hilton, people with KNIVES were breaking into your house while you were THERE? Why the HELL were you on fucking Twitter? For God’s SAKE. I’m just trying to put myself in her place. I’m rich, I’m pretty and because I’m rich and pretty I have an iPhone with an unlimited data plan. I hear someone trying to break into my house. I grab my phone and I crawl under the bed. I do this because a) a phone will be handy in this situation and b) I’m rich therefore I have a personal trainer and am thin enough to actually get under my bed.

Now I’m under the bed. What do I do? Do I call 911 and then shut the hell up so that whoever’s breaking into my house might think I’m NOT HOME? Do I send a text message to the hubster and my sons so they know not to just wander in the front door?

No. I start sending Twitter updates.

I understand some things about the way people use Twitter. Roger Ebert is on it constantly. It’s his lifeline, his conduit to the world as he has all but lost his voice. His tweets are actually clever and show a keen mind, a liberal spirit and a love for life and what he does in it. He does not tweet things like “OMG, I just took a crap that looks like Donald Duck“and “McDonalds on Main St for lunch. Big Macs. YUM.”

Everybody is important. As Horton the Elephant says “A person’s a person, no matter how small”. Tweeting your every freaking empty headed thought doesn’t make you any less important. But it does make you look stupider and stupider. Lest I get bitched at for saying people on Twitter are empty headed, no. That’s not the point. There are empty headed twits everywhere and having access to the internet hasn’t altered that. Interesting noun use there, isn’t it?

Anyway, my point is, we all have empty headed thoughts, all the time. Sometimes I think things to myself like “Damn, what should I make for dinner?” and “Oh, I have to go to the bathroom” and “Oh shit, the cat’s barfing. Again.” None of these thoughts (except maybe the cat as in the damn cat’s barfing and some one ELSE is going to clean it up this time) are worth vocalizing.

If you wouldn’t announce it verbally why the HELL would you blast it all over the Internet?

Come ON, people. You’re just NOT that interesting.