#21: Your ex-lover is dead.

This episode's title courtesy of a track by Stars, whose album I'd very much like to find myself buying in the near future.

I don't mean to sound sentimental, but gosh darn it if I don't still want to find that special girl, who gives me tingliness in the pants. And that was humour for those of you not well-versed in the fine art of irony.

And I know you're out there.

When did Wikipedia become the big thing, I wonder? I was not really aware of it until recently, although it feels like I heard of it a long time ago... and now it's got enough noteriety that I've got teachers warning me about its perils - warnings I ignore, as I find it to be totally invaluable. Where was this during my high school years? Why did I not know it existed?

MSN, too, is a funny thing. About a week ago I was on my way to work and I was contemplating MSN, and I thought it'd make a good post. Then I quit, and that seemed much more urgent (for obvious reasons.) I first got it in Grade 8, when I signed up for Hotmail in order to play a cruel, unnecessary and ultimately unsuccessful prank on someone who was a friend-but-not-really. Then I added a few close, actual friends to my list. Then at the end of Grade 8 the yearbook was published and many of us, including me, volunteered our MSN's for a contact sheet -- including pervy Math teacher Mr. Pritchard (shiver...) -- and my list exploded, and I regretted getting sucked into this lame SNL Joke for an MSN name, which I'm embarrassed to tell people (for the record, the joke is from a Celebrity Jeopardy skit, "Who is Kraven Moorehead?" "Apparently you are, Trebek!") Anyway, I got an influx of people added to my list who I never talked to again. But it's been an important part of the whole teenage scene all these years. It's helped me keep friendships I probably shouldn't have had in the first place, make new friends, and even nearly ruin a few perfectly good friendships.

And now it's the only thing keeping me in contact with most of my friends. And getting it in the first place was a kind of accidental thing.

Which is kinda like this blog. All my friends are apparently reading it (as well as people I've never met, and many others,) and I only got it because all the cool kids were doing it.

Maybe that's my life, man, an attempt to emulate the cool kids, even if I never wanted to be one of them, I wanted to be cool in my own way. Up until I was about 16 or so, I was very concerned with coolness... at least, I had it all tangled up in knots with this concept of popularity. It was only in later years that I'd learn the truth about cool. I'm like a modern beat-cool in that way, man. No matter how much time passes between me and that that class, I'm pretty sure the beatitude of it all has stuck right along with me.

Play it cool, dig?

And on that note, I think I'll call it quits for tonight. I'm going to go do some writing, which I've gotten back to.

Keep on rockin'
Scott "I wish to create cliches that are entirely my own" Williams