End of life

My friend said he wasn’t reading Scoble, Scobes, the Scobleizer, the Scobie-dobie dude. I asked him why. He said, I can’t fathom why I should. Why anybody would. I looked at something someone pointed to. Utter bilge. What world is this that people have time for Scoble?

Well, I think the following critical insights that the Bobbleizer burped today should prove my friend wrong. [UPDATE: I HAVE BEEN REMINDED THAT IRONY IS DEAD, THAT THE VAST MAJORITY OF READERS ARE SUCH CREDULOUS SHEEP THAT IT BEHOOVES ONE TO ENTER THE FORMAL DENIAL OF LITERAL INTENTION BEFORE PROCEEDING FROM THIS POINT. TO THAT END, THEN, LET ME SIMPLY SAY... NOT. The following actually CONFIRMS my friend's observation that little but meaningless drivel flows from the blog of Scoble.] Bob said,

1. Blogs have lost their humanity. Their weirdness. Instead we’ve become vehicles to announce new products and initiatives on.

2. We’ve gotten too caught up in the TechMeme games.
3. We’re bored. The interesting stuff is happening off blogs. This afternoon, for instance, I’m meeting Hugh Macleod and we’re just going to hang out in Palo Alto and have fun. Meet at the Apple store at 3 p.m. on University Ave.
4. Creative stuff and ideas and questions are getting spread out all over the place.

Anyway, hope you’re having a good weekend.

Actually, Bob, I’m having a weekend with some ups and downs. I’m in the kind of mood that I wouldn’t even be distracted by a vicarious fascination with the antics of Paris Hilton or Ozzy Osbourne. You might almost say that I’m “on teh[stet] rag.” I was sorry to hear about your company’s end-of-life crise though, Bob. I was perhaps not as upset as you were that a parody site would sound the death knell for your over-funded, under-conceived, video-yawn project. But a sense of humor and equanimity have never been strong points for you, if I’ve been reading your blog correctly, Bob. No, I would have to say that you take yourself too seriously. You lack a well developed sense of humor.

An important part of a developed sense of humor is the capacity to take yourself lightly, even though you may take your work or your problem very seriously. A sense of joy in being alive is an intimate component of the human will to live.

The phrase “end of life” has emerged with alarming frequency here. My dad will be 84 in a few weeks. He had a stroke on the 16th and his bowling buddies packed him in his car and sent him home. My apologies to anyone on US Highway 51 who had to hit the ditch to avoid the guy with the hemorrhagic condition and double vision that night. I called him that night and he said he wasn’t feeling well… hurt his leg bowling, he said. I stopped in to see him the next day and took him to the hospital. He had CAT scans, an MRI. He had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, a bleeding deep in his brain. He was moved from the emergency room to the neurology intensive care floor. The neurology doctors took charge, a surgeon stood by, and after a few days they released him to less guarded care. On Monday he went into an inpatient rehabilitation program. Today I saw him climb two flights of stairs, then turn around and walk back down, unassisted. That’s the good news.

In the bad news column we have a few issues like dysphasia (he pulls some odd words out of the hat to express himself, he has trouble with names and family relationships) and his short term memory is spotty. He’s not reading and writing too well. He’d rather chew gum than brush his teeth. He’s more comfortable crawling into bed for a nap with his shoes on than taking them off and putting them back on.

We’re really hoping that over the next six months he recovers to the point that he’s functioning like a happy, healthy 84 year old. Time will tell. He has a great sense of humor, so I’m predicting a strong recovery. Sort of the opposite of the Podtech thing.

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