(Cross-posted at The Daily Dave 2.0)
Frankly, I didn't need MySpace.com to e-mail me on Friday to remind me that my brother's birthday was on Saturday:
When I first met Mike, he came to work at Phase2Media from i33 .. to my surprise, they are still in the news and around!
This is cross-posted at The Daily Dave:
One year ago today we learned that Michael had died.
My parents had a hunch something was wrong. I was the one that got the confirmation. I had to call my mom and dad with the news. It was heartbreaking.
I hated Michael so much for making my mother cry.
I didn't start crying until after I had called my parents. I called Britt, who was in Boston that night, and started bawling before he even answered the phone. He couldn't understand me, but knew exactly what had happened.
While I was speaking to Britt, my father was calling Lee and Michon.
All of the calls after that were about logistics. Britt handled the flights and hotel rooms. I don't remember sleeping that night. I do remember the flight to Chicago the next morning. I wanted to punch everybody who said have a nice day.
I knew I would not be having a nice day.
While today has not been a particularly nice day, it hasn't been that difficult for me, either. I can't explain why. Perhaps the date on the calendar isn't a tangible reminder of losing my brother. Maybe I'll feel differently when Britt and I are in synagogue Friday night, and I hear the rabbi read Michael's name on the Yahrzeit list.
Perhaps one year is just too soon to understand a loss so big.
The following is cross-posted at my personal blog, The Daily Dave:
I recently have discovered LinkedIn.com, the social networking Web site that's designed to be the MySpace for professionals.
Yesterday, I came across my brother Michael's profile on LinkedIn. He is a second-degree contact from me, according to the Web site. He died last year.
It's hard to describe the emotions that run through your brain when you stumble across something like this. My first impulse was to click to invite Michael to join my LinkedIn network, making him a first-degree contact. Then, with a jolt of sadness, I realized that he wasn't around to respond to the request.
When you lose someone, the loss seems so abstract. I'm finding that over time, the reminders become tinier and more tangible. In this case, Michael's death means that he will always remain a second-degree contact on LinkedIn.
It's such an insignificant thing, really.
On LinkedIn, there's a place where people can write recommendations for business partners, suppliers, coworkers and so forth. On Michael's profile page, there's a recommendation from Ben Saitz:
"Mike gets media and online advertising better than almost anyone I've worked with. He's technical, highly engaged, and extremely customer focused. I've been lucky enough to work with him at 2 different companies -- he's a great guy to have on the team!" -- July 13, 2006
-- Ben Saitz, Vice President, Client Services, DoubleClick
managed Michael indirectly at DoubleClick
Michael segregated his friends and his family. He separated his work friends from his school friends. He did this, I suppose, to maintain a sense of balance in a world in which he felt he had perilously little control. I don't know the reason, so perhaps I shouldn't speculate at all.
After Michael died, the people that he had kept apart for so many years all came together to mourn him. Seeing Mike's friends -- some, for the first time in years, and others, for the first time ever -- I'm reminded of how special, talented, smart and caring he was. Reading Ben's recommendation on LinkedIn, I'm reminded of those things all over again.
So, no, I don't get to have a first-degree contact with Michael on some Web site. That's impossible. That doesn't happen now. But maybe I get to build relationships with some of Michael's friends, who are amazing -- people like Ryan Dawson, Ben Saitz and Nicole Pruess. And maybe I get to be fortunate enough to call these people my friends too, and get to understand my brother a little better as well.
i did, for both of us..
the guy satires the social media properties, digg, delicious and reddit - real funny stuff
What follows is some very happy news. It's also depressing news, because it's a reminder of all the milestones Mike is no longer around to share with us.
Ryland James Simanoff was born Monday at 6:25 p.m. He weighed 4 pounds, 7 ounces, and was 17 3/4 inches long. Ryland's parents, Michon and Lee, are ecstatic. So are both sets of grandparents. Britt and I will visit our new nephew this weekend.
If Michael were still alive, he would be Ryland's uncle. He would have been a great uncle. He would even have voluntarily boarded an airplane to visit this little guy. Maybe.
I have mixed thoughts about posting this message to the memorial blog. It feels awkward, as if we're talking behind Michael's back, or changing the subject without telling him. Still, I think I'm doing the right thing. Put another way: If we do offend, it is with our good will.
Welcome to the world, Ryland. When you're ready to learn about Michael, there's an entire community of people ready to tell you what a wonderful person he was.
Larry King, who Mike may or not have liked (he is annoying!), had Paul, Ringo, and the widows Harrison/Lennon and the creator of the Love show on his show - interesting to watch
40 years since sgt. pepper was released - mike would have liked all the fanfare. and i agree with this guy, rubber soul will always be my favorite.
News about the upcoming DoubleClick-Google deal has got me reminiscing about Michael. I have no doubt that Michael would have loved working for Google.
I keep thinking about what it be like to have seen Michael's name on a Google business card. I'd be so proud of him. And so jealous, too.
As I drove to work this AM, Howard Stern had the "Fab Faux" band on his show. Not only was the band outstanding and a great re-appreciation for me, of the Beatles.. it just reminded me of Mike. I used to love to just IM a few words from a Beatles song and see if he knew which song it was.. sort of "name that tune" to AIM.
One thing I'll probably never shake is that whenever I ran into a cool new site with lots of bells and whistles, and often little value ;-) I'd share with Mike. Todays was an automatic one.. a new "ajax web 2.0" home page - http://www.schmedley.com/. Such a great name and the site looks and works in a pretty and slick way. I'd love to IM it to Mike, and he'd probably say "wow, that's cool" and then "what about the 14 other customizable home pages I already have, I wish they'd make a way to port my customizations from netvibes or google home page or pageflakes to this new one, so i didnt to spend all the time redoing it." And he'd be right.
I got a sudden and slightly sad reminder today.. My invitiation to Mike on Friendster is yet to be answered...
This is cross-posted from The Daily Dave:
I have started to catalog my brother's book collection. In addition to compiling a large database on my Mac with Delicious Library, I am also toying around with a new Web site called Shelfari.com.
I have just uploaded about 100 book titles to Shelfari. You can browse the library right here:
This message is cross-posted at The Daily Dave:
Whenever I pick up a new book, or listen to a new album, I always wonder if Michael would approve.
Music was one thing Michael and I had in common, even though our tastes differed. When I was in college, I introduced Michael to the Indigo Girls with a mix tape of live and rare songs. Since then, Michael always returned the favor, exposing me to songs, singers and bands I may never have discovered on my own: XTC, Sufjan Stevens, the Decemberists, Beulah, Wilco, and so on.
The last e-mail message I ever received from Michael was about music.
A few days ago, Ben Saitz were chatting on e-mail and trying to figure out what Michael would have thought of the Beatles' new "Love" CD. Would he see it as a respectful tribute that finds new meanings and connections in the Beatles' classics, or a greed-inspired mash-up of songs that robs the material of its original grace and poetry?
We'll never know. But I'm pretty sure Michael would have sided with the Beatles purists, mainly because (a) that's the stance he typically would have taken and (b) I kind of liked "Love," and Michael and I generally had opposing viewpoints about these kinds of albums.
Let's open this up to discussion. What music have you heard since Michael died that you wish you could have shared with him? Movies, books, TV shows too -- what do you miss discussing with Michael?
NARSAD is the organization we asked people to support after Michael died. I got the following update from them earlier today. It looks like all of our donations are being used well.
The Latest News from NARSAD
(Great Neck, N.Y., Dec. 12, 2006) - The holidays are upon us and NARSAD: The Mental Health Research Association has some end-of-the-year tidings to share with its supporters:And in other news...NARSAD-supported researchers have continued to advance the frontiers of research into memory, neurological degenerative diseases, depression, and autism, all with the goal of improving the lives of people living with mental illness.
- The organization has given a record number of grants this year to scientists throughout the world to improve our understanding of psychiatric illnesses and to develop new treatments for these conditions.
- Some of the world's most innovative investigators in psychiatry were awarded NARSAD's prestigious prizes for career achievement in brain and behavioral research at our recent New York City gala.
- Medscape, a leading medical news website, recently profiled three NARSAD Scientific Council members, Drs. Carpenter, Coyle, and Seeman, for their insights about schizophrenia.
- Summaries of several of NARSAD's scientific symposia, held throughout the counthttp://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifry, are now available to the public on our website.
- The Schizophrenia Research Forum, an online forum for research about schizophrenia partially supported by NARSAD, has celebrated its first birthday!
As you consider your charitable giving this time of year, remember that all these research activities by NARSAD would not be possible without donor support. Acting now will have an even greater impact thanks to a challenge grant from the Essel Foundation, which has pledged to match every contribution to NARSAD dollar for dollar. But to make the match, donations must be received by December 31st.
Click here to make a secure online donation and join us in our fight against severe mental illnesses.
Mike loved the Beatles, and they'll finally be on iTunes. He owned all their stuff, so wouldn't buy anything, but he'd probably be happy :-)
I, sadly, couldn't make the memorial gathering in FLA this past weekend, but I do have a copy of the wonderful slideshow presented there.. I posted it on a web site for download.
Like most friendships that begin over the Internet, my
first meeting with Mike had to happen twice, once online and once in person. The online acquaintance must have occurred gradually during 2002, when Mike and I were both members of various literary forums on the Internet. Mike was a humorous and intelligent contributor and his tastes proved remarkably similar to mine. We both enjoyed the short stories of the neglected American writer fantasy Avram Davidson, the psychic detective novels of Jack Mann, the graphic novels of Alan Moore and the music of Wilco, among other things.
At some point Mike and I realized that the other also lived in New York and we arranged to get together. We agreed to meet at the monthly reading of fantastic fiction that editors Ellen Datlow and Gavin Grant hosted the third Wednesday of each month at the KGB Bar in New York’s East Village. I admit I was a little concerned about meeting Mike, simply because individuals in the flesh don’t always turn out to be quite like their online personas. To my relief, Mike turned out to be as charming, funny and sharp in person as he was online and we quickly became good friends. We attended the monthly KGB readings with some regularity and would meet for dinner from time to time.
Mike and I were at different points in our lives when we first met. I was married, relatively established careerwise, and my wife and I were expecting our first child. Mike was single and at the time just finishing up his master’s degree in library science at NYU. In some sense I felt toward him as an older to a younger brother. As well-read as Mike was, I was still able to point him down some interesting new literary byways, and he returned the favor by re-educating me in the indie popular music scene I had been abandoning for jazz and classical music. His honest enthusiasm for whatever he was enjoying reading or listening to was infectious, and his fundamental gentleness, particularly in a city as consumed with aggressiveness as New York, endearing and refreshing
On one occasion Mike paid a visit to my home. He had been interested in seeing my library, which had acquired somewhat oversized stature in his mind -- and even brought a camera to take pictures of the bookshelves!
After looking over some volumes and meeting my family, we went to a Mexican
restaurant nearby where we drank a pitcher of sangria and Mike let me know that he would soon be moving to Atlanta. I was obviously disappointed that he’d be
leaving the city, but at the same time excited for what seemed like a new
career opportunity for him. I also knew that we would endeavor to keep in touch.
I did not see Mike in person for some time after that, but we continued to correspond and to meet online. At one point, after some of the Internet forums where I had been posting ceased to interest me, I asked Mike’s opinion about setting up a new forum, mostly as a way of keeping in touch with him and various other serious readers I’d grown to appreciate over the years.
Mike was enthusiastic about the idea and promised to participate. The forum began in December of 2004, and although it has always been quite small by Internet standards, Mike checked it at least daily and contributed almost as often, posting over 500 messages under the name “Angry Thoat”, a reference to an Avram Davidson story. He informed us he would be moving to Chicago, told us
once he was settled in (“I have settled into an apartment in the West Loop (good enough!). I'm on the 48th floor of a high rise! Incredible view”), and,
true to form, promptly compiled a Chicago bookstore map. He made fun of my
interest in the soccer World Cup (“Like most Americans (the ones who aren't
apathetic), at this point I have randomly selected another country to follow.
Go Portugal! Wait, is Portugal still in this thing?”). For a thread on
quotes from what we were all reading he jokingly posted an excerpt from the
Oracle Database Client Installation Guide (“Sorry, it’s been one of those
months”, he mock apologized). He appreciated the recent novels of Naomi
Novik, heaped (with me) aspersions on the new edition of the Annotated Sherlock
Holmes, rhapsodized over Jan Morris’s HAV (“perhaps one of my top three
favorite books”) and the stories of Gerald Kersh (“tied with Avram
Davidson for my absolute favorite short story writer of all time”),
recommended recent albums from Centromatic, The Flaming Lips and The National,
and changed his mind (for the better) about the music of Surfjan Stevens.
Mike’s last post was on the night of Saturday, August 12, the weekend he died. He recommended a recent book by the author Louis Bayard and provided a short review:
I am halfway through THE PALE BLUE EYE and finding it as good as MR TIMOTHY. This is a first-rate historical murder mystery narrated by a retired New York City detective, who has retreated upstate to a quiet house on the Hudson, in 1830. There has been a disturbance at the nearby Military Academy at West Point, and, well--when is a good detective ever allowed to retire? He quickly meets a queer first-year student named Edgar Allan Poe, who is so unintentionally hilarious and consistently drawn that the reader has no problem accepting him, as the narrator does, as an assistant to the detective for this case. The book sparkles with wit and humor as it does with action and mystery.
It has been rare to find a writer who can tackle a historical thriller with an
ear for the prose and the dialog of the time but the narrative sensbilities of
a contemporary potboiler. I don't know how anyone can be disappointed in books
like these. I hope there are many more to come.
I last saw Mike late last year when he visited from Chicago on business. We went to a restaurant in Tribeca and then to a bar for drinks. We talked about our lives and his new job in Chicago, but as always with our conversations we ended up circling back to the things that had brought us together, the books and music that we loved. The time passed effortlessly.
Mike’s literary interests were not strictly confined to being a member of online communities. He volunteered time to Jeff Vandermeer’s small press Ministry of Whimsy, in particular editing the book A NEW UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF INFAMY by the Welsh writer Rhys Hughes. He also contributed interviews with writers to the website Fantastic Metropolis which was run by his good friend Luis Rodrigues, formal book reviews to other sites and occasionally even wrote fiction.
Mike could be very funny. At one point Fantastic Metropolis ran a feature asking various writers and editors questions about the physicality of books. Mike was one of the subjects. In response to the question “Do you have any memory connected to books that you would like to share?” Mike answered: “When I was a kid, my dog Chelsea used to chew on the corners of my books (humans in my family do not generally bite books). She would do this for hours, until she was caught and shooed—and immediately forgiven. You had to see her eyes. I believe she enjoyed them tremendously.”
A few days ago I was browsing in a bookstore and chanced upon a somewhat rare edition of Edward Hoch’s stories featuring psychic detective Simon Ark. My immediate first reaction was to think “Mike will love to hear about this”, followed a second later by a pang of grief. I will miss him very much.
Gabriel M
Yahoo: Free Coffee For Default Homepages - Mike loved Dunkin Donuts coffee and this is a fun & silly web promo he would have liked.. and used and ran across the street with coupon in hand!
I can't help but think of Mike on this day because I was with him on September 11th. We walked from Midtown to Brooklyn, via the Queensboro Bridge. It was a pretty horrendous day, but it was nice to be with Mike. Hot, exhausted, stressed, and freaked out, we stopped at the Subway Inn for a quick break during the long trek. It was here that we learned,from watching the news on the tv in the bar, the details of what had actually happened.
http://nymag.com/listings/bar/subway_inn/index.html
(Mike jumps for joy)
(Budweiser's really cool mailbox)After a "meeting of the minds," the dates for Mike's memorial service have officially been set in stone for the weekend of October 13th (Mike's birthday weekend). We are in the planning stages at this point, but Nicole and I, with help from Mike's brother Dave, will have the agenda together soon.
At this point we've determined that the memorial will be on Saturday, October 14th in Tampa (place to be determined). Dave confirmed his parents will be attending, so for those of us that weren't able at attend Mike's service, this would be a great opportunity to pay our respects. For those who will be flying in Friday, October 13th, we would like to meet at a local pub in honor of Mike's birthday.
Planning this service still seems strange, since it still doesn't seem real that Mike is gone. Bare with us, and please feel free to share any thoughts or ideas you may have. Mike had a lot of friends, and we want to make sure everyone has a part.
To contact me, please email me at: rdawson@weichert.com or on my cell @ 973-768-7468
Thanks,
RYAN
This is cross-posted at my personal blog, The Daily Dave:
As Ben has already pointed out, DoubleClick has donated $2,500 in Michael's memory to National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, or NARSAD for short.
Thank you, DoubleClick. I can't begin to express how much the gesture means to me and my family.
It was almost exactly one year ago that Michael moved to Chicago to take his job with DoubleClick. I was in Chicago at the same time for that year's NLGJA conference. The first night I was in town, I blew off the NLGJA evening meet-and-greets and Michael and I ate dinner at the original Pizzeria Uno at Ohio Street and Wabash Avenue, just a few steps away from the Magnificent Mile. The next day, Britt came to Chicago and Michael signed a lease on his new apartment. That night, we celebrated Michael's new job and home with a big steak dinner at Lawry's The Prime Rib on Ontario Street.
Here's a picture of our waitress making a big production out of the salad. This is what they do at Lawry's -- the spin the salad bowl so the dressing is distributed evenly. It looks kind of cool, actually:
I'm very proud that DoubleClick, Mike's employer, has sent Mike's parents a $2,500 donation in Mike's name for NARSAD. Don, Mike's dad, just called me and they greatly appreciated it..
I was on vacation this week, and just returned yesterday. On the car ride home I was thinking about all the adventures Mike and I had together. One in particular always made me chuckle.
Several years back I drove into the city and picked Mike up from work in my Jeep Wrangler. The weather was beautiful, so of course the top was down. Two single guys in a Jeep Wrangler in New York City...what was needed next was a rock'en song on the radio to impress the ladies. After scanning the radio for the perfect song, Mike finally found one. We turned Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" so loud that my speakers were literally rattling. It was one of the funniest moments in my life...sitting at an intersection in the middle of Manhattan singing at the top of our lungs. Mike sang the verse "Near, far, wherever you are I believe that the heart does go on" with such passion...I was laughing so hard I nearly hit several taxi cabs.
Since that day Mike and I would sing that song on each others voicemail. I wish I had saved them...they always put a smile on my face.
I hope the memorial for Michael at Spuyten Duyvil is still going strong. I wish I could be there too, sharing stories about my brother and toasting his memory.
When the event winds down, I'd be grateful if the folks who attended could write a few words about the memorial and share them on the blog.
Thanks.
This is cross-posted at my personal blog, The Daily Dave.
One of Ben's earlier posts reminds me of a text message I once got from Michael.
When Michael was planning his first trip to Detroit for work, Britt and I had a handful of upgrade coupons on United Airlines that were about to expire. As Michael hated the thought of stepping anywhere near an airplane -- let along onto one -- we thought it would be a nice touch to upgrade Michael to first class.
A few hours after Michael arrived in Detroit, I got a text message on my cell phone from him. I expected it to say something along the lines of "thanks for upgrade," or "first class was nice," or even, "got to detroit -- no problems." Instead, I flipped open the phone and saw three words: "detroit ass city."
I laughed so hard I nearly cried. Since then, I've never been able to think about Detroit without a chuckle. (Just think how funny it is for me whenever I see Jeffrey, that schmuck on "Project Runway," with the word "Detroit" tattooed around his neck.)
When I saw Ben's IM from Michael about Detroit, I yanked open my phone to see if I still had my "detroit ass city" message. It wasn't there. I wish I had saved it.
UPDATED: It turns out I did save the text message! It was just stashed away somewhere else on my cell phone.
Although a bigger, more organized, memorial is in the works for the fall, some of Mike's friends will be gathering at Spuyten Duyvil, a bar in Brooklyn, this Sunday at 5:00 to remember Mike.
Thanks to Dave Simanoff, Mike's brother, we have a wonderful group of pictures on Flickr of Mike, and his friends are already contributing.. This is the link, but email me (ben, hit shift F2, saitz dot com) and I can send you an invite.
Here's an admittedly very poor picture I took of Mike with my cell phone on July 29, 2005, when he was living in Atlanta. Typical of Mike, he's trying to dodge the camera. This picture was taken at Enda's house (Enda and Kyle are in the background - they became friends with Mike when he moved to Atlanta and we all hung out together most Friday and Saturday nights). We were playing board games, as we did much of the time. Mike's favorite game was Too Many Cooks, and he introduced us to Apples to Apples.
I met Mike in either Home Ec or Health class in 7th grade at Forest Glen Middle School. Although we didn't attend 10-12th grades of high school together (Mike went to Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School), we hung out a lot...enough that I refer to Mike as my friend from high school and kept forgetting at our 10th year high school reunion why he wasn't there. It's sad that I'll be thinking about why he's not there from now on...
Anyway, in high school and beyond, we maintained a "quote book" with memorable, and sometimes not-so-memorable, quotes from the group we hung out with (including Ryan Dawson, aka the glue that held us together). Although not all of these quotes are that great, and some are inside jokes (some of which I can't remember anymore), and some might be quotes Mike borrowed from elsewhere, here are all the quotes I could find that were attributed to Mike in our quote book:
This is a poem Mike wrote for the literary 'zine The Morpo Review in 1994. (I found it via Google.) The email given for him is at Florida Atlantic U., so it must have been before he transferred to NYU.
Disclaimer by Michael A. Simanoff
published in Volume 1, Issue 4 on September 15th, 1994
Warning:
This story has no moral.
It has very little literary value.
It tells a strand of a story,
barely,
and if you tug very hard you might find a point.
You will not find this story in a textbook one day.
Nor will it ever be the subject of scholarly debate.
This story has no context.
The background is a piece of paper-
maybe even a computer screen.
The only literary devices used are language and form,
but you are advised not to ask how.
In fact, you ought not to read this.
Just lean back and look at the pretty letters.
Maybe even have a drink.
Turn on the TV.
Expect very little
and you won't be disappointed.
I love this picture of Mike. This was taken in 2003 at our friend Jean Marie's annual wine party. Mike drank beer. In this picture is my girlfriend Melinda and our friend Brian. Mike and Melinda loved each other. Melinda and I always joked with Mike that we were going to buy a house with a guest house on the property for Mike. I only just spoke to him about this two weeks ago, the last time I spoke to him. I loved the fact that Melinda and Mike got along so well...sometimes I felt like the third wheel. We used to joke and call him our adopted son.
We have a rewards & recognition program at work, when Mike achieved "bronze" status, I wrote this poem (sorry if some are inside jokes)
a start-up was founded 7 years ago
i was the ninth employee there
it lasted about five years or so
but it's where mike and i were first paired
he was like the 16th hire
and a real good one at that
helping with our research efforts
in the next office from mine he sat
we had lots of fun and laughs back then
phase2media was the name of the gig
of course the giggles came crashing down
when we went bankrupt really big
but mike had jettisoned before that day
off to grad school was his path
a masters in library info sciences
would be what he wanted to bask
but we kept in touch over the years
he ended up in the peach state
we needed a TAM for GM
i know mike would be really great
weather.com was calling him
looking to bring him on
i told him how much they were lame
and we were much more fun
so smart was he - lucky were we
in chicago he's been a real hero
starcom cant say enough good things
about how he got them from impression number zero
perseus and dfa
mike has become a real master
a cool new tool and working with bigler
he's got us kick atlas' rear end with a sand blaster
Mike read more than anyone I know. He turned me on the literary 'zine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, as well as other gems from Small Beer Press. We got a kick out of the fact that NYPL, where we both worked, had catalogued the publisher as 'Small Bear' (it's since been corrected in the catalogue). When we worked at NYPL I often checked his patron record to see what he was reading. He always had a million books on hold, all of them interesting. I would then check them out myself, but I only read a fraction of what Mike read. He was also very fond of the science fiction reading series at the KGB bar. I miss you, Mike.
I feel lucky that I have all these logged and enjoy reading them.. even if they were the mundane.. we both loved LOST and one day, this was his news for me:
simanoffM (9:36:09 AM): i noticed they're moving alias to after lost now. that's another show i like.
simanoffM (9:36:26 AM): i call that the "mike simanoff programming block"
but he didnt always like lost, as evidenced by these IMs:
simanoffM (12:23:47 PM): i thought i was watching PaxTV at the end
-and-
simanoffM (12:25:28 PM): they better get into some action for the next ep
simanoffM (12:25:38 PM): or i am going to start a blog just to complain about the show
also, Mike was THE key guy on a product called "Perseus" - that we developed custom for GM.. in the early days, it was a bit of chaos, but Mike really carried it on his back to become a real success story.. his musing on that was:
simanoffM (4:07:41 PM): i have a new name for perseus
simanoffM (4:07:44 PM): "hot fix"
Mike was always interested in new Internet phenomena, like social networking. This was the Testimonial I left for him on Friendster:
Mike is an alien genius whose powerfulAnd here's what he said about me:
mind swarmed the universe before
settling into the consciousness of an
innocent Earthman. As leader of a band
of freewheeling intergalactic pirates,
he uses his powers to bring about a
world where humans and mutants live in
harmony.
Let's just say that of 8 millionHere are links to Mike's Friendster and Orkut profiles. (I think you'll be able to view them even if you don't have an account.) Social networking sites have little captions on other peoples' profiles that tell you how you are linked. So when I view Mike's profile it says:
people in this city, Laura's one of
maybe 5 who is cool and interesting
enough for me. I'll leave the wittier
and hopefully more embarrassing
testimonials to her other friends.
How you're connected:Mike is your friend.
