Yesterday was my birthday.

Happy birthday, me.

It’s always a surprise when people remember my birthday. I almost never mention it. I mean, it just seems so pointless.

In any case, four friends called me.

All while I was asleep. Imagine that.

“Happy Birthday Phil,” one of them said.

“[incomprehensible mumbling] mmph-irrthday? [groan] mmphto ytoo?”

“Not my birthday. Yours,” she clarified, “Were you sleeping?”

“No,” I lied.

“Well happy birthday, then.”

“[incomprehensible grumbling] mmph–tastic, we’ve circled the sun again.”

“It’s your birthday. It’s an excuse to be happy. Stop being so grumpy.”

I’m such a grouch. Even on my birthday.

It was all very sweet, though I’m not sure why all four of them were girls — I wonder if girls are just naturally more attentive towards these things.

One of them even brought over this beautifully wrapped present for me, complete with lavender silk bow and expensive wrapping paper.

Shocked — the only thing I could do was give her a peck on the cheek and an awkward hug.

I’m a misanthropic, overworked grouch. But I have friends.

Friends I don’t deserve.

I bet they’ll realize it one day. And then I’ll still be a mean grouch, but without any friends.

When it comes to Christmas, I’m a bit like Scrooge.

To be honest, I guess it’s just that I haven’t had anybody to share it with.

Family is family, of course.

My mates are still as friendly as ever, though they’re more the Lets-Get-Together-Every-Once-in-a-While-and-Relive-Memories kind of chums.

And through bad timing and perhaps worse luck, I don’t think I’ve ever had a ladyfriend to share Christmas with. Perhaps the months before, perhaps the months after, but never the month of.

But that’s the way my life goes. I know that.

It’s just that Christmas season — moreso than any other season — is just so inescapably lonely when you’re…well…when you’re lonely.

It gets to you. It eats away at you.

And the only thing you can do is huddle in a dark booth at the local coffeehouse and do some work, hoping it passes quickly and painlessly.

Wow. Depressing.

And then there’s you guys.

The readers. The writers. The bloggers.

The people who’ve been privy to my affairs, both private and public.

Bless you people. Because without you, I’d be just another nut with his math.

But you don’t want any of that mushy mushy stuff do you?

I bet you’re all, “Where’s my presents, yo?”

So here we go.

Enjoy your presents and deepest apologies for any blogging friends and aquaintances I may have missed.

To Macarena…

To Rhys…

To Annie, Tracy, and the IT2M gang…

To Roselle…

To Hot Coffee Girl and Jane…

To Cornell, Sharon, and Michelle…

To Dave, Jon, and my old high school mates…

Peggy Post says:

So enjoy your Labour Day folks, and don’t let those snooty friends of yours bully you into putting away your whites.

la petite anglaise

“Asked to collect my belongings together and leave the building immediately. The words ‘faute grave’ were used. Translated into English: gross misconduct. Petite Anglaise: the blog that got me fired. Call me naïve, but I really didn’t see that coming.”

Catherine Sanderson

Today I stumbled across a charming Parisian blog which has recieved a lot of attention in recent days. Petite Anglaise (translated as ‘Little English Lady’) is a witty and wonderfully written blog by an English secretary who onced worked at accountacy firm in Paris.

That is, until she was fired for her website.

Her blog is an engaging equivalent to a Bridget Jones’ Diary where she writes about, among other things, her single/romantic musings, the enormous difficulties of maintaining a french girlfriend, and her pleas to get married soon. There’s certainly more than enough charm to win me over as a reader.

In her July 18, 2006 post, ‘things falling apart’, she explains that her mysterious two week hiatus in April was caused by a short meeting with the boss of her accountacy firm.

The meeting began with “Can you come down to my office for five minutes please?” and ended with “I’m going to have to ask you to collect your belongings, and you will then leave immediately.”

The reason? Her internet website was cited as evidence of “gross misconduct”, though,

“b…but I hardly ever mentioned work…”, she stammars.

She’s right. Her collection of work-related posts are nothing more than a few scattered recountments of cute encounters with colleagues . Certainly nothing malicious or worthy of being labeled as a “gross misconduct”. Certainly nothing worth losing a job over.

But lose her job she did.

Then moments later, the shit hit the fan. And boy, did it fly.

Articles from CNN, British and French newspapers reported the news. Television and radio interviews pepper the press portion of her site. Her readers wrote in hundreds of comments.

Sympathetic comments. Angry comments. Worried comments.

There’s been so much inprecedented attention that her site continues to have problems keeping up with the traffic. As a closing remark, she modestly adds,

So what does this all mean? What valuable lesson have I taken from our Parisian friend?

Certainly, it means that I’m going to have to be careful about what I say in the future. Doubly careful. Even some of the most subtle and innocent comments have a way of embedding themselves into Google’s crawl.

And kicking you in the face when you least expect it.

Remember the Star Wars Kid? Remember ‘All Your Bases Are Belong To Us’? Remember that cute - slightly creepy - dancing baby that shook its booty accompanied by the ‘Hooked on a Feeling’ tune?

Ooga Chaka , Ooga Ooga Ooga Chaka, Ooga Chaka. So cute. So wrong.

Anyways, these infamous examples of internet phenomenon are about to be joined by the words of an 82 year old Republican Senator from Alaska.

Oops. Did that make any sense? I guess not. The quote is credited to Senator Ted Stevens, a Chairman of the (US) Senate Commerce Committee — one of net neutrality’s chief opponents. Now before I get the chance to tear this poor 82 year old Senator apart (have I no sense of decency?), I guess I should explain what net neutrality means.

The aims of net neutrality are simple: web applications, services, and content should all be given the same treatment insofar as speed and quality of service. It’s usually taken for granted, but it’s not always the case. An internet provider can perhaps choose to provide speedy, convenient access to a company for which they share a promotional deal, and instead limit or block access to a rival’s website. Does that sound fair to you?

internet = tubes

“And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.”

Senator Ted Stevens

Supporters of net neutrality include the big high tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Yahoo, but also includes individual support by many high profile men and women, such as the very pretty, very charming, and I must say, very vivacious Alyssa Milano.

And the bad boys? The opposition of net neutrality primarily comes from the corporate heavy hitters: broadband companies like AT&T and Verizon Communications. To them, a legislation on net neutrality would impose unnecessary restrictions on the internet. It is, after all, their service they’re offering to the public. They should be allowed to set the rules, right?

You stew on that. But I’ll take whatever Alyssa’s having, thank you very much.

Okay, let’s get back to Senator Stevens. On June 28, the US Senate Commerce Committee narrowly rejected a bill that would have enforced net neutrality (to quite a sizable degree). During the proceedings, Senator Stevens, gave an interesting 11 minute speech on how the internet really works. Well, according to him.

Look. I get it. He’s old. Give him a break. Back off, sister.

But see, it doesn’t work like that. Whether the Senator is an eager young man in his 20s or a graying senior citizen in his 80s, is it too much to ask for him to display some degree of competence towards an issue for which he’s suppose to decide on? Let me be honest here, dispose of any eloquence I may possess, and suffer the wrath of all you geezers:

Senator Stevens is a moron. Morons should not be deciding the future legislation of the internet.

Right, okay. But (un)fortunately for Stevens, his ignorance seems to have taken the internet by storm. You can see mock slide shows of Stevens’ speech, fashionable t-shirts, and even a bass thumpin’ techno remix. In fact, Stevens’ related parodies are cropping up faster than Myspace homepages, created by pubescent and hormonally challenged boys. Okay, bad example.

Give it a week. I’m betting that somewhere, in this vast mess of tubes we call the internet, someone’s going to make a video of a very familiar Senator, buck naked, and dancing to that rhythmic chanting we all know oh-so-well.

Ooga Chaka , Ooga Ooga Ooga Chaka, Ooga Chaka, Ooga Chaka…