I guess it's now passe to do this.....

So, if I'm blogging, then it must be past it's prime. Sure, I can find all sorts of goodies to post, ramble on about subjects where I have enough knowledge to get myself into trouble, or just generally let loose all the pent up weltanschauung that I harbor by simply existing. I guess it's more age-appropriate than a MySpace page.

Some I know can get away with such things but it just doesn't fit me well. I find MySpace amusing, most certainly, and I won't be prevented from going there if someone sends a link. However, I can't quite get into the whole "Here I am, here are my peeps. Love me more than you did before simply because I'm me and I'm HIP" pretext that is MySpace. I guess I just can't hang with the kidz anymore. I'm also not a "viral marketer", simply because I have nothing to sell. MySpace is really all about viral marketing for peoples' personalities and hobbies, in truth. Put out some tags about a subject and watch to see how many people search for those tags and find you. I know that it can be done with blogs, too, but due to the content of your average MySpace page, it seems more appropriate to label things done with MySpace as "marketing".

Back to "Raisin'-da-Roof" I go, since that was about the last time I was anywhere close to Hip(tm). Now it's just me and Oprah who are the only ones to do that anymore. Wonder if she knows that there's only one other person in the USA who still raises-da-roof on a regular basis?

Here's to keeping it real, or something like that. I felt odd being on a jury recently and being the one who had to translate some rather tame slang for the rest of the jury. I thought I was pretty much a suburban honky who wasn't down, but the other folks on the jury didn't know what many of the witnesses were saying and the rest of the jury are all very bright people, so it was surprising that the duty to translate some of the testimony fell on me. Perhaps the other folks on the jury actually have true intellectual pursuits, haven't listened to rap music since the mid-80's, and otherwise find themselves not watching the crappy television and other pop culture that I do.

"See, I'm hip, I'm with it...."

On the other hand, it was interesting knowing in advance what the testimony meant before having to review it. I've only ever been someone who has picked up interesting phrases of other languages, but never actually gotten to the point where I could hold a decent conversation. Knowing how to say "Fire the Wave Motion Gun" in Japanese, the Roach Motel commercial in Spanish, or some choice phrases in Punjabi is fine and good, but if I were to be dropped somewhere where people spoke those languages exclusively, I'd be screwed. Being able to translate "hood" into more regular English is about as good as it gets for me. Guess it's good I can do other things aside from butcher other languages.....

blah.