… you’re one of the “syndicated” readers I have who are (know it or not) experiencing the wonder of RSS during my yearlong sabbatical from social networking. Despite the fact that you are on Facebook (or wherever else, but that’s the one that leaps to mind), I am not. I left an automatic setting to seed my random rantings there from my actual blog, where I broadcast unabated. I’m in your living room/phone/cubicle without ever leaving wherever I am. Cool.

That said, I am also aware of conversations happening around these writings, conversations that I am not taking a part in. Why? Well, as you could find out easily if Ping.fm’s shortcut URLs lasted longer than Lindsay Lohan’s sobriety, I’m still in my year-long self-imposed exile from social networking and, to be honest, I’ve learned some things.

• I miss Twitter. A lot. I’ve come to get a gang of news from the 126 subscriptions in my Google Reader feed (which feeds my linkroll on the web and on my mobile site) but the immediacy of Twitter, the pithy interactions with my people like Ja Bir or my wife or Craig or Ritch or Encyclopedia Black or Chinedum even Tax Hitler (also known as “Senor Sidekick”) … I won’t lie, I miss it.
• I don’t miss Facebook. At all. Facebook’s mobile site went through more alterations than Heidi Montag (yes, I’m keeping up with even celebrity gossip … kind of ), taking away the most useful functionality points (remember press “4″ for new notifications?) while becoming more of a beyotch about privacy and generally annoying me even without my presence. Moreover, I’ve seen and participated in some of the dumbest conversations (Roman Polanski leaps to mind) on Facebook, stuff that I’d have been embarrassed to be seen in were it Usenet or some more civilized locale. I won’t abandon the site when I come back, but it won’t be my “home” online.
• Laugh if you want … I kind of miss MySpace. The same people were closer, had less fleeting interactions, had less privacy worries while having more of a public platform. I’m just saying.
• I don’t need to have a conversation on LinkedIn unless it’s about money. I love that.
• No, I don’t miss Friendster or wish I’d have enhanced myself on Bebo, Hi5 or anywhere else “ghetto” like that.

More lessons learned when I get back, I’d wager. I just wanted to apologize if you’re trying to interact with me and it seems like I’m ignoring you. I’m not really there, you see. I’m just a pigment of your emancipation. Or a fragment of your intoxication. Something like that. Work it out for yourself, I’ll be back in four more months to discuss it.

Playing (Music): “Dynamite” remix by Taio Cruz feat. Jennifer Lopez

The Hundred and Four* will, among many other purposes, serve as an information clearinghouse. The ancient art of blog-fu helps with that, practiced by many but mastered by few, and which I practiced for years aggregating content for CBR’s Comic Reel column (now run by the illustrious and praiseworthy Erik Amaya, who I did my best to train in the Sith ways).

Let us begin with a quote from the brilliant but cancelled TV show Kings (much beloved of Entertainment Weekly’s Marc Bernardin)** …

Jessie Shepherd: “People with destinies, things don’t go well for them. They die old and unhappy, or young and unfinished.”

Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I’ll begin:

- Let’s start with some news about living in the future. Like what? How about a computer that can read lips, which is a wonderful advance for all the Big Brother/Dick Cheney wet dreams of capturing information that wants to be free?

Not far enough for you? How about scientists creating a star right here on earth? Yes, that sounds outlandishly unsafe, but that’s probably part of the appeal. Kind of a Venkman and Spengler sort of thing, doncha think?***

Why there’s even practice for a mission to Mars, because so many of us are desperate to get away from this potentially godforsaken rock that people are lining up to take a ride even close to space? Perhaps they can see the writing on the wall about how it will all end**** and are trying to plan ahead like a macro-scale game of Civilization 2. Hard to say.

- Let’s move on. Remember Friendster? Few people do.***** The numbers seem to indicate that MySpace is learning some hard lessons about obsolescence. Sure, 70 million users is far from chicken feed, but trends being what they are … in my own limited experience, I’m seeing more young people return to or adhere to MySpace (judging from the customers at bars where I host karaoke — more on that in a bit******) whereas more adults in their late 20s and onwards are Facebooking it up. Twitter? It plays by no rules I’ve seen (with its tools for power users, artists using it as an alternative revenue stream and even ways to share music, plus everybody knows I love Twitpic), and in my own idiosyncratic experiences, has kept the annoying outages to a dull roar.

Anyway, Rupert Murdoch-powered MySpace soon afterwards announced a big staffing cut, which makes MySpace look like a wounded elephant. Only important because our virtual homes are becoming more of where we spend our lives and interact, so looking at the management becomes relevant for a grasp of the zeitgeist. Developing …

- Speaking of battling multi-million dollar companies, Google is ready to get into the OS game and Micro$oft strikes back with a web-based, free Office option. Whaaaat? It’s all true.

Google’s hippie PR and egalitarian image belies a corporate juggernaut, but one far less obvious and mean-spirited in its rapaciousness than the rowdies in Redmond. As a lifelong Mac evangelist*******, any attack on the House that Gates Built, Stole and Oppressed His Way Into******** gets a cheer from me, and this fight is a battle for the way people think digitally, so it’s surely worth keeping an eye on.

- Fnord.

- What else is up? Well, of course that Philadelphia swimming pool incident proved that, Obama or not, plus le change, plus le meme chose (or as Talib Kweli once said, “conditions in the hood don’t change with the president”). Racism? Discrimination? Prejudice? Alive and well even far from the fields of Dixie. One has to look no farther than the Inglewood police department (which, fun fact, is in a predominantly Black city, ha ha, funny old life) to see that in action every single day. Thanks to Boston’s Dart Adams for the heads up on that.

- Don’t think about escaping into music, pal. Not when those bastards at the RIAA wanna fine a 32-year-old single mother eighty thousand dollars a song for downloading. What’s the total on that? Brace yourself — one point nine two millon US freaking dollars. That had to be typed out so it’d be clear that the number of zeroes wasn’t a typo. On a daily basis, you can see LAPD cops running red lights sans sirens or not using hands free devices to speak on cell phones as they drive. But they have more guns than you. Bend over and relax your muscles, it’s easier that way.

- To quote the erstwhile Blade, “bu-bu-bu-but wait, it gets worse!” In “fan fiction goes horribly, horribly wrong” news, Eli Stone visionary and Green Lantern scriptwriter Marc Guggenheim is — wait for it — writing a new comic book for Dynamite Entertainment — brace yourself — based on Galactica 1980.

Get up off the floor. Yes, you read that correctly. This is really happening. Yes, someone thinks this is a good idea. Spirit help us all, yes, someone will probably buy this. What’s next, a comic book adaptation of Hell Comes to Frogtown by Robert Kirkman? Listen, people — some things just need to die. I know we all love the nostalgia wave … well, some of us. Anyway, some things don’t need to come back.

If Guggenheim creates a work of such awe-inspiring wonder that Eisner Awards will cloud around it like a butterfly crown,********* I will let Marc Guggenheim punch me in the stomach. Chances are, this is a catastrophically bad idea, even in the hands of a writer as skilled as this one. Oy.

- “Damn, Hannibal, you’re awfully negative!” Actually, no I’m not. I have a beautiful pregnant wife and an adorable, brilliant stepdaughter. I have a job where I make good money and I’m good at it. I even recently closed a deal to bring one of my novels to life as a comic book and possibly an animated project as well. Despite a lot more gray hairs than I ever expected and quite possibly being clinically insane, I am essentially fine and dandy.********** The rest of you seem to be almost irreparably f***ed up. Don’t blame me as I hold up a mirror to your lunacy.

How do I illustrate the new wonder of me, the one that makes so many so sick to see me so fly that NASA calls me for directions? I do it by sharing love, with all of you. How do I do that? With karaoke Skeletor drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon (thanks to Robot 6 for that one). I give you the opposite of gangsta. With you I share the statistics of red shirts, give you a peek at the awesomeness of a Death Star grill and let you know about the world’s largest air sex competition.

I’m a giver. It’s not my fault so many of you are cuckoo for crack-o-puffs.

In the end, who should you blame? I believe this*********** closes the book on that discussion.

Behave.

Or else.

FOOTNOTES:

* = Yes, I will bold the name everywhere. That’s consistency of style. Learn it, live it, love it.

** = It’s kind of scary how gay he is for that show.

*** = Yes, Ghostbusters 3 is happening, and you probably can’t do anything to stop it. I’m sorry. Well, I would be, if I cared. Maybe.

**** = Would you have preferred accelerated heat death instead?

***** = Go on, Google “love” and “friendster.” It’s sad.

****** = Maybe not today. Maybe not even on this blog. But soon.

******* = My 15″ Macbook Pro is called, by virtually everyone who knows it, “the precious.”

******** = Please don’t forget that the entire Windows OS is stolen from an early build of Mac OS, and then bloatwared to death. After Microsoft Word 5.1, that company hasn’t done a single thing right.

********* = Like that call back to Kings? That’s how you do it. However, whenever I see the show, I think in my brain, “have you ever seen a kingdom with a butter fly crown? Rulin’ is a habit, get like me …” Hm … maybe I shouldn’t tell people these things.

********** = Si se puede. Universal paradigm shift. Choose joy. Patent pending.

*********** = Anedge hirak Michael Joseph Jackson.