Professor Michael Keren

Professor Michael Keren, of the University of Calgary, has come out of his academic cocoon just long enough to pronounce that bloggers “are isolated and lonely, living in a virtual reality instead of forming real relationships or helping to change the world.” He continues, “Bloggers think of themselves as rebels against mainstream society, but that rebellion is mostly confined to cyberspace, which makes blogging as melancholic and illusionary as Don Quixote tilting at windmills."

Well I guess if bloggers were only as grounded in reality as some blobby-butt professor in Calgary (of all places), slurping on fancy coffee drinks in the on-campus café, probably called something twee like 'the Loft', and making pronouncements all over the place, things would be all right, right?

Sorry prof, but slouching around university campus’s all day, writing books with the word ‘blogosphere’ (!) in the title and quoting Beatles lyrics does not make you into some sort of expert on bloggers, or the Beatles, or the ‘blogosphere’. I haven’t helped change the world? Well what have you done, smart-guy? As much as I hate to disillusion you, using a hanky instead of wiping your nose on your sleeve does not count as changing the world.

And, for your information, I am neither isolated nor lonely. I admit that it was difficult after my first dog, Sparky, died. Sparky was great. He was a robo-dog built by the Kobiyashi-maru cyber-pet company out of Tokyo, Japan, but he wasn’t just any robo-dog. He had personality and was quite aware of his surrounding and of me, thank-you very much. I think that they should have given some sort of warning about how Sparky shouldn’t have been fully immersed in water, but that is neither here nor there. It was not my fault. No, not my fault and you, mister professor, can go suck a bug.

Anyway… Humouroceros

My favorite glamour shot of Sparky Sparky and the young Humouroceros

(Some computer editing may have happened here)