...Was His Name O

Not surprisingly, I get a lot of spam in my email. To the point that there is a serious signal to noise issue but that is a story for another day. Typically I just delete it but I do keep track of what people are sending me just so I know what market segment people think that I am in. Saw one that made me stop and think for a really long time. The subject line read “Play Bingo Just For The Fun Of It.”

Question 1: Am I now at the age where playing bingo becomes a serious option? Did I have a Rip Van Winkle night over the weekend? I mean, it is entirely possible that the rest of the world advanced thirty years and Kansas City didn’t. It sure as hell looks like 1976 around here to me. But am I really that old?

Question 2: Is “Play Bingo For the Fun Of It” the best tagline one could come up with for an email of this sort? I was thinking more along of the lines of “Play Bingo For The Heart Pounding Action”, “Play Bingo For The Strategic Challenge” or “Play Bingo Because Slots Require Too Much Physical Effort.” Or even, “You’re Already Dead Inside, Might As Well Start Playing Bingo.” I mean, there has to be some truth in advertising.

Question 3: This is what the internet was invented for, right? When they set up Arpanet and built one of the nodes in Urbana a few blocks from my dorm room it was all for the purpose of playing bingo over the internet. My God, how boring must that be. I understand that for most (actually all) people bingo is just an excuse to have social interaction. So what do you get out of it by playing behind a computer? Is there some weird counting strategy to maximize profits? I’m at a loss here.

Question 4: Does my forgetting the name of the lead singer for The Flaming Lips automatically qualify me for entry into the World Series of Bingo? Yes, it does worry me that I can’t remember that (though I did know who fronted Pavement as well as that not only did Bob Mould front Husker Du but that he is also a graduate of Macalester College) but I think that I have a reason for it. I simply don’t have as many late night conversations where this type of information comes up anymore. It’s not something that people discuss in the office corridors whereas back in school I could count on a discussion on music or pop culture or history every day. I don’t think that I’ve forgotten much, I just haven’t had much need to reach back to those portions of the database and now the files are zipped and encrypted and it takes a little time to decode them.

(Closing How I Met Your Mother Update: The good news is that it looks like my life is turning around. Or at least my life as represented in a sitcom has taken a very dramatic and positive turn. I will neither confirm nor deny how closely tonight’s events resembled my own life. Other than it didn’t take place at a wedding. But yeah, I’ve been there. Just one of those stories that I’ll finally tell one of these decades…)