The Oppenheimer Report 2/6/12

Just in time for the big economic recovery in the States that will skyrocket President Obama to his second term in office, last week, social networking giant Facebook announced that it will go public in 2012. Reportedly, the initial public offering is $5 Billion, and this is conflobulating to me. We’re back to that amorphous internet value thing, and I thought that bubble burst a while ago. Everybody’s looking for that pot of gold. By some estimates, Facebook is currently valued at $100 Billion, and founder Mark Zuckerberg is now worth about $23 Billion. Not bad compensation for an idea he ripped off from a couple of rich Yale preppies. Some argue that Facebook is a passing fad, doomed to go the way of MySpace when the next big thing hits, but I’m not so sure. Until someone else creates a better, free social network wherein anybody with internet access can “re-connect” with long lost acquaintances, without actually having to interact with them, I think Facebook is the future. Apparently, so do investors. Of all the things I enjoy about FB, the immediacy is intoxicating. It’s even more fun than Google Earth. With one click, I can watch a video of my niece and nephew’s little girl taking her first steps, or click on photos of a high school classmate’s walk on the Great Wall of China. Facebook may have jump started the Arab Spring, and it ties the world together in a format that is so easy to use even boneheads like me can figure out. If I want to read an article that one of my intelligent friends deems worthy of my attention, it’s just a click away. If I want to spam my friends with some of my musical endeavors, no problemo. Between YouTube and Facebook, it’s a brave new world out there in cyberspace, and one where information and disinformation have never been easier to access. Hardly anyone is reading this blog, because 1. I’m not that interesting, 2. who wants to read a whole page of my insipid thoughts anyhow, and 3. The whole world is communicating in abbreviations and acronyms. It’s hard to make BFF when I’m SOL(LOL!). I consult Facebook at least once per day, so yes, I am among the legions of the attention-challenged. The downside is that, much the same as when reality television seeped into our culture like a broken sewer main, I am bombarded by the tsunami of drek. I don’t like being reminded that a video clip of some squirrel waterskiing gets 3 million hits, but the legendary Jeff Beck, playing a classic rock n roll song with the great and talented Johnny Lang receives a paltry 6000 views. That squirrel has not paid his dues, and it ticks me off. Now I hear he’s getting his own reality show next season. But if you can’t beat ’em tweet ’em.

Weird story out of Leroy, N.Y. which, if my ever-eroding memory serves me correctly, is only about an hour east of Buffalo. Fifteen high school girls have been afflicted with some kind of neurological disorder involving, among other things, severe ticks and twitching. Now, an adult woman in the community has also come down with the mysterious illness, prompting the ever-vigilant celebrity whistle-blower Erin Brockovitch to jump into the investigation. Apparently there is some concern that a chemical spill from a train derailment 40 years ago has suddenly caused this. Really? Maybe Erin is barking up the wrong tree with both oars out of the water. Maybe she should change directions and start writing socially responsible children’s mysteries, sort of a didactic Nancy Drew. Erin Brokovitch and the Case of the Twitching Cheerleaders. Another theory is that these mysterious symptoms are evidence of what doctors call a conversion disorder, a strange reaction of the human body to one or more psychological traumas. Whatever the cause, it began about three months ago and it has everyone baffled.

As Superbowls go, I thought last night’s (#XLVI for all you Romans out there) was pretty entertaining. The game was close (21-17 Giants) right up until the end, and it came down to a failed hail Mary pass by Patriot’s QB Tom Brady. This reminded me of another very close Superbowl, back in 1990. Bill Parcell’s Giants beat the Buffalo Bills 20-19 in Superbowl 25 (I mean XXV), and Bill Belichick was the Giants’ defensive coordinator (ironical huh?). That one came down to a missed 47 yard field goal attempt by the now notorious Bills kicker Scott Norwood. I wonder how many faxes I received at the office the next day depicting a cartoon of Norwood, his back to the viewer, peeing wide right of a urinal. While in general I am not particularly interested in American football, and feel that American football players are among the luckiest athletes in the world, almost unanimously undeserving of their elevated status in American culture, I do watch the Superbowl every year. Now that I am an landed ignorant, I can’t even see the great Superbowl commercials they broadcast stateside. The halftime show back in 1990 was New Kids on the Block, and this year it was Madonna. I don’t know what kind of a bug that spiteful old queen Elton John has up his enormous ass; why does he hate Madonna so much? I’m not a fan, but I do respect her entertainment value. BTW, she did not have a wardrobe malfunction: Letterman predicted her teeth would fall out. LOL
       Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED