I'm embarrassed to say that I'm at the coffeeshop with my laptop, surrounded by enough other laptops to rival the Central Intelligence Agency. On that note, can you imagine the power we could wield if we just coordinated our own networks of intelligence? Like the CIA, we could keep records of who knows whom, where people spend their time, what they spend their money on, what kinds of music and clothes they like, and on and on. But, the hitch is, we'd be watching them - the politicians, corporate leaders, Donald Rumsfeld. When it came time to kick the bums out, we could surrepticiously leak to the press that Rummy and Cheney meet every Thursday at the Watergate Hotel, dress in women's clothes, and engage in illicit acts of carnal desire, always against the driving beat of Purple Haze. Who says studying social networks is boring? To demonstrate the breadth of my attention and interests, I also think about softball. Because we're a team full of sociologists, we call ourselves the Red Socs ("soc" is short for sociology). It's cute, but it gives the impression that we can't spell. So it's the third game of the season and here I am at shortstop:

That's the position that good players are supposed to play, but I'm there instead. This next shot gives you a sense of what is going on in my head while I'm batting. It is not - repeat, not - what actually happened. As my dear father has often commented, I'm a pinko more than a red, hence the distinctive uniform. Today the Red Socs lost by a comfortable margin - something like 15-1. We were all thrilled that we faired so much better than last week.

This entry was posted by Jeff, on Sunday, February 12, 2006. You can leave your response.