My Friend Number
Posted on May 1, 2013 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ

I have 22 Facebook friends.  That is a smaller number than reported by any other of my Facebook friends.  My Facebook “friend number” (the total number of friends of those friends of mine who share this information) is 5,156.  My average friend has 213 friends.  My most friendly friend has 1,336 friends and counting — his “friend number” is probably in the hundreds of thousands.  I must be his most insignificant friend-number addend.

My network is small.  I narrow-cast rather than broadcast.  I am happy enough that you, yes you, are reading this sentence.  You know who you are — you are one of my friends.  Hopefully you have not tired of being part of this small, select group.

Tomorrow I am going to Ottawa for a three-day photography outing with several of my in-the-flesh friends whom I have not seen in a decade.  I look forward to enjoying their company, and I hope to return with my eye refreshed and my artistic spirit rekindled, numbers be damned.

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Thoughts at Large: 13
Posted on April 30, 2013 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ

• Anyone who begins a sentence, “He has every right to say what he wants,” not only disagrees with what was said but thinks it was irresponsible to have said it.

• The 100 Billionth Person “I’m Not Sure How to Spell It but That’s Not Going to Stop Me from Saying It” Award goes to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reader James C. Ramunno for  describing a Pirate outfielder’s demeanor as laxadazacle.  This made my morning.

• Non-believers should not be so hard on religion.  More to the point, they should not be so selective in their opposition to religion.  After all, religion is only one of many systems that humans developed over the millennia to help us rationalize our irrational behavior.

• Some people head down Asshole Road without much of a push.

• Nothing makes people cry more reliably than reminding them of their lost youth.

• The older I get, the more I accept that the world will not on its own become what I would like it to be in my lifetime.  (Diagram that.)  For example, I don’t understand why people make paramount what is unimportant in practice — to wit, this Second Amendment fetish that many U.S. citizens so passionately express.  Why guns?  These are devices that launch projectiles with the intent of felling living things (or in the movies, blasting open locked doors).  I have never needed to use a gun.  For weeds I have Roundup; for ants there is Amdro.  With people, I can use words, or silence, or locks, or the police.  Sandy Hook notwithstanding, I don’t live in a world where I need a gun.  I don’t think you do either.

• In the end, as treasures, we have our families, our friends and ourselves.

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It’s Only April
Posted on April 28, 2013 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ

Today the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the St. Louis Cardinals, 9-0, their third straight victory against St. Louis.  After 25 games, the Pirates are now leading the National League Central Division.  The last time the Pirates were in first place was July 18, 2012, when Mitt Romney was leading Barack Obama by one point in the polls.*

In case any of you have forgotten (we die-hard fans cannot): from that point, Pittsburgh won only 28 of their remaining 71 games and finished the 2012 season with a record of 79-83, their 2oth consecutive losing season and a record for futility in major-league sports.  Those 79 wins are the most any Pirates team has mustered since the Heartbreak of 1992.

I know, as all Pirates fans are obliged to remind themselves, it’s only April.

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* As it turned out, Mitt Romney also had a losing season in 2012.  In case any of you had forgotten.
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