The Social Network - A Post Mortem

The Social Network, the movie, is the story about Mark Zuckerberg, the world’s youngest billionaire, who co-founded Facebook together with Eduardo Saverin, his best friend and CFO who unwittingly signed away the bulk of his stake in the company through naiveté on his part and subterfuge on Zuckerberg’s.

It reminds us all that in the business world, even among the best of friends, there are no loyalties, nor ethics, for Zuckerberg also stole the idea for Facebook from fellow Harvard students whose idea it was for a college campus social network site Zuckerberg was offered the opportunity to jointly develop, the latter evolving into a legal dispute eventually settled out of court for tens of millions of dollars and the former similarly settled for an undisclosed amount.

Sorry, Mark, for being unable to idolize you after having watched the movie. Eduardo didn’t have anything to do with its conceptualization, did he? (I can almost hear him saying, “Oops,” in reply to that.)

Overheard On Facebook

Dad: Honey, where’re my socks?

Mom: In your undies drawer, dear.

Melissa: Mom, can I go over to Kate’s tonight? The girls are having a sleepover.

Mom: Ask your dad.

Melissa: Dad’s logged off, Mom. Can I?

Mom: Send him a message. He’ll get it when he reaches the office.

Dad (30 mins later): Ok, Mel, you can go, but nothing you’re not supposed to do, alright?

Melissa: Sure thing, Dad, have I ever let you down?

Dad: No, but there’s always a first time.

Mom: Oh, come now, dear. Mel’s all right, you know that. Johnny, doggy needs to go outside. Take him, will you?

Johnny: I’m at Billy’s house, Mom, thirty miles away, remember?

Dad: That Billy Boy’s no good, son. I hear say he’s into contraband goods.

Mom: What?!? You get back here this instant, John Boy!!!

Johnny: Aww, Dad, Billy’s alright. It’s not like he’s a smuggler or something.

Dad: Well, he’s sniffing it, ain’t he?

Mom: John Boy, you get back here this instant or I’m gonna whip your sorry ass next time I see you!!!

Johnny: Hey Bill, I gotta go, buddy, something’s up.

Bill: Sure thing, pal. Hey, tell your old man it’s no big deal. My dad says they used to do worse things in school together. LOL

Johnny: Pot calling the kettle black, huh? LOL

Dad: Watch your mouth, son. Tell your friend his dad’s got his school buddies all mixed up. I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

Billy’s Dad: Hey Tom, old buddy, how’re you doing, man? Glad you brought that schooldays thing  up. It always bothered me wondering what you and my gal Sally Ann were doing behind the tool shed on the last day of school. Oh, one more thing. Unless you’re the town sheriff or his deputy, don’t you go mouthing off dishonorable things about my son. That boy is as good a boy as they come, a chip of the old block, if I do say so myself.

Johnny’s Dad: Hey Jack, nice to see you too! About Sally Ann, well, you can’t really blame a gal like that if her guy’s not giving her the attention she needs, now can you? LOL

Billy’s Dad: Well, Tom, old buddy, that’s what your gal Lucille said about you when she and I went for that long walk in the woods soon after you and Sally Ann disappeared behind that shed. LOL

Mom: Ok, guys, that’s enough. But thanks all the same, Jack. That’s one affair Tom didn’t tell me about before he popped that all-important question. When he comes home tonight, he’s gonna tell me why.

Billy’s Dad: LOL

Johnny: LOL

Melissa: LOL

My Pregnant Pussycat

My pussycat's so pregnant I fear it might explode

Although it's yet to happen to cats in pregnant mode

But here inside the matrix where programs always change

Exploding pregnant pussycats would not be all that strange.

For Barbara

Am I missing you?
Yes, I am, about as much as did the ocean a drop of water that got splashed ashore, 
The desert a grain of sand that got blown away
And the universe a meteorite that disintegrated upon entering Earth's atmosphere.

Does it hurt?
Yes, it does, about as much as did a splinter the hoof of a buffalo,
A hook the skin of a crocodile
And a thorn the armor of a rhino.

So, all's well then?

Well, I did admit to missing you, didn't I?

May You Not End Up Like Gaddafi

A rabbi, known for his fire-and-brimstone sermons, was heard addressing his flock.

”Hear, O Israel,” said he, “ the Lord is one. As a father admonishes his children so that their errant ways might be corrected, so too do I admonish you.”

“Follow the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength, so that it might go down well with you.”

“If, however, you do not do as I say but instead choose to follow the inclinations of your own hearts and bow down to foreign gods, gods that neither you nor your forefathers had known, as surely the Lord lives, He who created the heavens and the earth, the Lord is his Name, He will send his armies against you to rid you from the land he gave to you and your descendants to be your inheritance forever, a land overflowing with milk and honey.”

“Even if you rally your finest men to defend your city walls, He will send his hordes again and again until the land vomits you out like the stomach vomits out rotten food and putrid wine.”

“If you do not do as I say, I tell you the truth, you will end up like Gaddafi.”

“And it will be said about you, from that time onwards, that because you did not follow the Lord your God but chose to follow other gods instead, He stretched out His mighty hand against you so that you suffered the same fate as Gaddafi.”

And indeed, from that time onwards, blessings were pronounced, “May you not end up like Gaddafi”, and curses, “May you end up like Gaddafi”, among other things too numerous to be mentioned here.

Firecracker Madness

No one's stopping you from playing with officially banned firecrackers;
Go ahead, by all means;
Only do it in the middle of a field the size of three football fields during the day,
Not in front of a house that's in the middle of a block of linked houses three doors away from mine at ten o'clock at night
In accordance with what you were taught in school, 
Remember?

Cowboys In Bedouin Clothing

Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s second-in-command, upon his capture was eventually sentenced by an international military tribunal to life imprisonment, he who was part of an organization responsible for forty million deaths in Europe alone during World War Two.

Had Hitler not committed suicide, he too would have been captured alive to stand trial for war crimes regardless of the outcome.

Of the twenty-four Nazi war criminals tried at Nuremberg, only twelve were sentenced to death. The others were sentenced from ten years to life with two acquittals.

But you cowboys in Bedouin clothing, you drag your deposed ruler and dictator through the streets upon his army’s defeat and his capture and shoot him like a rabid dog, such is the brand of justice dished out in your Bedouin tents.

But then again, what else can be expected from cowboys in Bedouin clothing brandishing AK-47s and jeep-mounted AA guns in desert surroundings except exactly what you did in keeping with your cowboy-in-Bedouin-clothing upbringing and mentality?

Outcast

Who snatched you from your mother's breast

And dumped you on my doorstep,

You who can't be more than thirty days outside the womb?
But let us pray for him that his soul might be saved, 

Yes, let us pray for him that his soul might be saved.

The Human Intellect Compartmentalization Theory

                                (...states that...)

The human intellect is compartmentalized into numerous segments, or chips. Each segment, or chip, corresponds to a specific skill. The degree of responsiveness, or responsive factor, of each segment, or chip, to its corresponding skill determines the range of skills or accomplishments someone may or may not acquire or achieve in his life time.
For example, say a subject's academic chip has a high degree of responsiveness to its corresponding skill, i.e., academics, while his sports chip has a low to medium degree of responsiveness to its corresponding skill, i.e., sports.

This combination will result in a subject with high academic skills or accomplishments and low to medium skills or accomplishments in sports.

Each segment, or chip, in turn, has numerous component segments, or component chips corresponding to a specific field.

For example, say the science component chip of a subject’s academic chip has a high degree of responsiveness to its corresponding field, i.e., science, while his arts component chip has a low to medium degree of responsiveness to its corresponding field, i.e., arts.

This combination will result in a subject with high skills or accomplishments in the field of science and low to medium skills or accomplishments in the field of arts.

Each component segment, or component chip, in turn, has numerous sub-divisional component segments, or sub-divisional component chips, corresponding to a specific field.

For example, say the biology sub-divisional component chip of a subject’s science component chip has a high degree of responsiveness to its corresponding field, i.e., biology, while the geography sub-divisional component chip of his arts component chip has a low to medium degree of responsiveness to its corresponding field, i.e., geography.

This combination will result in a subject with high skills or accomplishments in biology and low to medium skills or accomplishments in geography, and if the soccer component chip of his sports chip has a high degree of responsiveness to its corresponding field, i.e., soccer, the subject will also possess high skills or accomplishments in soccer.

From The Missing Pages Of The Gospel According To John

A young man, having quarreled with his father, the king, and other members of the royal household, fled to his relatives' estate in the countryside, fearing for his life, thinking he would be safe there.

When the king heard about it, he sent his best troops after his estranged son, commanding the captain,"Before you execute my relatives for their involvement in this, be sure to say to them,'For the crime of aiding and abetting an enemy of the king, the punishment, by royal decree, is death,' and then have them put to the sword, together with all they possess - their servants, their horses, their camels, their donkeys, their dogs and all their livestock. No one is to be spared, whether man or animal, including the young prince himself, who has made himself a stench in the king's nostrils. Then burn it all down as a lesson to others."

When it was done, the king held a feast for all his loyal subjects; for three days and three nights they feasted on the best of foods and the choicest of wines from dusk to dawn to dusk again.

When the whole kingdom was at the peak of its drunken stupor, the armies of the neighboring kingdoms attacked as one, kingdoms bearing ancient hostilities towards each other, from all four directions of the wind.

Sons will turn against their fathers, fathers against their sons; daughters will turn against their mothers, mothers against their daughters; brother will turn against brother, sister against sister, and neighbors will wage endless wars against each other, yet the end is still to come.

Snippets

Greeting Card Contents

What's on the cover's nice
Like the sugar and the spice
Which you yourself were made of
From your head to your feet
Of which every inch was sweet
And delightful in the sight
Of one who loved you dearly day and night.


Unrequited Love

Loving you was just as bad as loving walls of brick
Twenty inches thick
For just as they responded not to messages of love
As walls were wont to do
Neither, dear, did you.


Keeping In Touch

Forgive me for the silence
From which I'll brush away
The cobwebs of a lifetime
And the dust of an eternity.


Valentine's Day Greetings

May this be yours before this day is through:
A romantic candlelight dinner for two,
He in a tuxedo, flowers in hand,
You the prettiest in all the land.
Happy Valentine's Day.


New Year Greetings (SMS)

Nothing fancy, nothing cute,
Just Happy New Year, toot-toot, toot-toot.


Still Holding On

Time has sprouted wings it seems
As day turns into night,
Yet were you still in my dreams
However swift its flight.


Missed Opportunities

Two ships passing each other in the middle of the night,
Each with its own full cargo, each with its own full agenda;
Will they ever pass each other again?
Perhaps, someday, in the scrapyards of time.


A Gal I Once Knew

Say something nice about her
And she'll smile as big a smile
As a fraction of a mile:
Locating it might take you quite a while.

Her magic touch does wonders
As does her charming smile
But when she's mad it thunders
And you'll run for a mile
But since she's only human
You'll brush it off at once
While meeting such a woman
Will trouble you for months
As potent was her magic
Upon the souls she touched,
Yes, potent was her magic
Upon the souls she touched.



Riddle: What's the difference between a bottle of champagne and a beautiful, charming woman?

Answer: The packaging.

Why Painteth Doth A Painter?

What shall my message be as contained herein this verse
Should it be chanced upon such as, say, a missing purse
Somebody left behind and knew not just where it went
And only then regret losing what might have been spent?

What should my message be as contained herein this verse
Should there at all be one like a doctor and a nurse
Were for each other made like the seashore and the sea
Were for each other made like the pea pod and the pea?

Should there a message be somewhere hidden in this verse
Such as a booby trap that brings forth a hearty curse
And also if so meant bits of flesh and drops of blood
That if allowed to flow might be graded as a flood?

Should I just hold the wheel like the captain of a ship
Whose vessel on a screen was a storm enshrouded blip
And adding to his woes had no engines that would work
Perhaps as someone had somewhere screwed up like a jerk?

Why shouldn't verses be so designed to warm the heart
Till sagging spirits soared like a hit song on a chart
Or shine like beacons did in the darkness of the night
Or make an audience rise to applaud in sheer delight?

Why painteth doth a painter on canvas or on wood
Regardless of the outcome as long as it was good?

Sonnet Soup, Anyone?

The spirit of the Bard doth beckon me
To conjure up a sonnet for this book
As though somewhere was kept the recipe
And all one had to do was for it look
And thereupon draw up a shopping list
For what was needed for the cooking pot
Once sliced or chopped by skillful knife and wrist
And which once cooked was served still steaming hot
Which Grandma says was how it's done with soup
Regardless of one's current state of health
Or coffee on one's own or in a group
For ten bucks where such prices signaled wealth
Which would of course make Grandma shake her head
And wonder at what else was up ahead.

The spirit of the Bard doth beckon me
To conjure up a sonnet for this book
Although if still alive today were he
I'll bet he'll say I was a lousy cook
As lofty was the language he employed
Unlike the common street tongue that I spoke
Which in a sonnet wouldn't be enjoyed
Unless like me you were a common bloke.