They say the meek shall inherit… and I’m hep to the jive!

So, yes, Terry, I did have to go ahead and blog this (it’s one of the damn coolest birthday cards I’ve gotten… thanks!)

[e-card below, via Plaxo’s neato ecard offerings]

I work in a small office with three other Googlers.  That’s pretty typical around here; I don’t know of a single person that has their own office, though we’re always free to roam to a quieter place with our laptops and ubiquitous wireless access.

It’s also a delightfully multicultural office:
- One Croatian fellow.
- One Chinese guy.
- A Bulgarian guy.
- And me, the boring American.

We often will break up the day with little chats about cultural issues… food, linguistic confusion, traditions, etc.  Today, though, our heads-down work was interrupted when P came in, sat down, and looked a bit concerned.

P:  Something is wrong with my chair.
[silence]
P:  Did someone change it?  Something’s off.
Y: [taking notice] Hmm… my chair’s kind of funny today, too.  Maybe someone took both our chairs?
P:  It’s too low.  This is strange. [pauses, looks out the door of the office, as if to catch the chair thief / chair transmogrifier]
Y:  Mine’s kinda high.  Doesn’t feel right.
Me: [finally paying attention] Um, guys.  Maybe you just got each other’s chair?
[P looks at Y.  Y looks at P.  They swap chairs.]
[contented brief silence]
Y: Ah, mine’s the black one.  That’s right!
P: Yeah, that’s better!
[shaking head]

I’ve been duly inspired by my friend Graham.  And given that I’m too lazy / cautious / tired to do a deep and meaningful and original blog entry this evening, I’ve decided to instead just share a few thoughts about the search phrases people have used to get to my humble BLADAM 2.0 site over the last 3 days.  Each phrase is linked to the entry on my blog that the searcher clicked through to (providing a fulfilling-but-sometimes-scary-bladam-blast-from-the-past!)

First, the odd but undoubtedly heartfelt declaration:
i have bad luck
I’m sorry, fella.  I’m not quite sure what sort of solace or answers you were seeking in this grand set of clogged tubes, but luckily another BLADAM visitor feels your pain and offers this advice:
dont feel sad about bad luck
Well, there you have it!  Now we just need Bobby McFerrin to pop by and it’ll all be hunky dory.

Oh, and speaking of heartfelt, I had a few zillion folks visiting here searching for advice about girls (specifically, how to win them over and settle down happy ever after, or at least see them naked).  Faithful readers… let me just be straight with you up front here:  you’re asking the wrong guy, and you’re definitely browsing the wrong blog.  Do I look like Oprah to you?  [hint: the answer to that should be NO.]

So, without further ado, here are the lovestruck searchers:

Love Avenue Q?  Appreciate Jewish humor?
Watch what happens when the cast of Avenue Q mashes up with the cast of Fiddler on the Roof!

P.S.—I’d like to hat-tip a fellow blogger, but I can’t remember exactly where I first saw this (I just re-found it via a YouTube search).  Much apologies.  Next time, I’ll be more careful about blogtribution.

Okay, I admit it.  I missed the boat and jealously hollered that naming anything Web 2.0 is a bunch of crap.  So more recently I thought, hey, that’s no problem, I’ll just glom onto Web 3.0, the semantic Web.  I mean, look, I have lots of nice Jewish programmer friends, so who am I to be anti-semantic?!

But dammit, then I discovered that Nicholas Carr has already laid claim to Web 3.0!  The bastard!

Never fear, dear BLADAM readers… I have the solution!  I am hereby claiming as my own Web 4.0… with t-shirts and stickers, special edges, an expensive conference, and a network of blogs.

Yes, yes, I hear your skepticism already:  So, Adam-you-total-killjoy-smartass, pray tell us… what exactly is Web 4.0?  Well, I thought you’d never ask!  Allow me to explain this scintillating new Web with crystal clarity.

Tomorrow night I’m heading off on a plane to once again attend a camp for swingers.  As you can imagine, posting on my blog and sorting through my t-shirt drawers will be far from my mind.

Take THAT, Lisa Barrone

Anyway… if you’re interested in all the details (including lots of photos!), visit Swing Out New Hampshire’s Web site.

See y’all in a week or two

[Added to reduce chances of some folks having a heart attack:  It’s a swing DANCE camp, people.  Lindy Hop.  Jazz music.  Sheesh… such dirty minds ]

Unless you’re a fan of the RIAA or a bitter, clueless artist… I urge you to run, er, click, not walk to go hear Weird Al’s new ditty: ”Don’t Download This Song.” [warning: music autoplays].

I’m looking forward to the music video promised for this evening, but in the meantime, you can hear the song in its entirety (and, of course, download it!).

So, what do you do when you’re home alone on a Saturday night, you don’t feel like going out, and you also aren’t in the mood to be very productive?

No, not THAT .

Why, you optimize your t-shirt drawers, of course.  Exactly!  And so far, I’ve determined that I have:

• 13 Google t-shirts (fewer than half gotten since I became a Googler, interestingly enough)
• 13 dance-related shirts
• 13 other somewhat-decent shirts that I may actually wear (okay, this is weird… I had no idea my t-shirt collection was so bad-luckedly symmetrical!)
• 5 [whew!] remaining t-shirts that I don’t want to be caught wearing, so I’ll donate these to Goodwill (:cough: unoriginal and oft-oversized swag)

A sampling of some of the stranger ones:

I have an envelope on my desk from the American Cancer Society.  A very, very worthy organization, and one that I do indeed plan to support financially.  But—being the strange bird that I am—I’d like to do so creatively, selfishly, and, well, with your help

No, I’m not going to ask you to send me money… at least not until I’m masochistically running some 42K fundraiser race or whatever where I have to raise [$x] and [x] is some relatively high number.  Instead, I’m going to ask you to do work for me.  Let me explain…