One of my biggest pet peeves used to be internet smiley faces, or, as I have always called them, emoticons. Now I am addicted.

Thing is, I have always found these things to be a rather gauche way of expressing oneself, especially if they don't have a nose. Yet I have noticed that I've been dropping the winking face around the internet like it was the lawn outside my building and I was the dog that lives downstairs.

To my credit, I am usually overwhelmed with anxiety when it comes time to use the wink face. My worry is that, as a person who says mostly sarcastic things, I will kill the joke and thus lose my edge. On the other hand, I'm simultaneously worried it won't be obvious I'm joking, especially since it is well-known that I am always 100% serious.

Have you ever noticed the amount of clothes you need to wear is basically proportional to the distance you have to travel?

For example, if you're stepping one leg out the front door to grab the newspaper off the stoop, you can get away with just boxers. But if you're going to walk to the end of the driveway to check the mail, you'll need to put on a bathrobe. And if you cross the street to go to your neighbor's house to knock on their door, you'll probably need to put on pants, socks and shoes, etc. Meanwhile, if you are going to be walking down the street, you might need a jacket. If you are going to be climbing a mountain at the end of the street, you'd need a coat with big furry hood like Han Solo on Hoth. Etc, etc.

The way we process our own stories is interesting. Who we see as the heroes and the villains. What we see ourselves as fighting over. How we see our relationship to the world. Is it a story of bounty or famine? And what kind of "the end" do we have in mind? Those sort of things all seem to make such dramatic differences at both the personal and collective levels.

I saw a comment on another video that said something like, "I wish all women everywhere were replaced with Liz clones."

Ever since they came out with Scion, one of my favorite brands and the first car make aimed exclusively at young people, I was pretty sure there was something interesting going on with the demographic significance of young people. I even considered this to be somewhat political, since your demographic group doesn't really have any cultural influence unless people are marketing products toward it.

Well, the trend continues: G4, the cable channel aimed at 18–34 males (and another one of my favorite brands), has just dropped a hot new research paper called "Hunting with Lightsabers" that profiles this group in some detail. (I wish I had a copy of the whole thing to share with you but the best I have is this AdAge article about it.)

As the article points out, not only does this report examine 18–34 males as a whole but it also divides them up into distinct "lifestyle categories" — which, as anyone who has a passing interest in demographics will tell you, is the fun part.

From the article:

Each subset comes with its own name and unique characteristics. There's Mr. Mainstream, which represents 22% of the demo, and tends to be the easiest for advertisers to reach with his appreciation for all things media and pop culture. There's also Captain Career (18%) who is driven and likes to try new things; Dr. Hipster (16%), who is both liberal and notoriously scrutinizing with his tastes; Colonel Geek (13%), who is frugal except when it comes to technology; and Dial-Up Guy (13%), who's tech-averse, conservative and more often than not religious and patriotic.

Lastly, there's the Tech Avenger (19% of the demo), who is focused more on gaming and less on going out, and just happens to comprise the bulk of G4's target audience.