Reader JT thinks we’re making fun of senior citizens:

Now sonny I am getting complaints from the elders like myself who I “hipped” to your site a while back, saying that you are “dissing” us…. So can you lay off the hate just a while now until we all pass, or at least type in high frequency fonts so we can’t hear it.

THIS IS NOT A JOKE! Urlshorteningservicefortwitter.com is a fully functional URL shortening service. If you don’t believe me, click here. My webmaster made it using “PHP” code or something, I don’t understand how exactly, but it works!

Believe me, “Old people don’t understand the internet” is the lamest kind of humor, a full 3 steps below “White people do stuff like n and black people do those same things like n-prime (where n = “this” and n-prime = “that”).

We’re not trying to make you laugh, or chuckle, or chortle. We’re trying to provide you with a URL shortening service for twitter that works … that makes intuitive sense … whose URL isn’t trying to be all intimidating and esoteric like other such service (cough, cough bit.ly … cough, cough is.gd)…

If you think this whole thing is a big joke, how do you explain that we already have 120 followers on twitter??? THINK ABOUT IT. Then shorten some URLs!!!

“Let’s get short!”

Gig tonight at UCB!

Gig Saturday at Open Space!

Don’t forget.

People have asked if I’m doing any URL-shortening jokes. Alas, no. I’m doing lottery-related jokes.

Reader JF writes:

This is the cover of an audiobook called “Server Down”, but I think it could be put to better use illustrating the dangers of using anything but urlshorteningservicefortwitter.com when sharing links with a senior citizen:

“Hey, Grandma, did you ever get the recipe for razzleberry pie I tweeted at you?”
“No, dear, no I didn’t. I guess… the server was down…”

Of course, the server wasn’t down, but she interpreted the bizarre jumble of letters and numbers and dots and whatnot provided by a conventional shortening service as an error, because it was incoherent.

Exactly. You can’t tell me this doesn’t look like the result of an exploded server:

http://bit.ly/irMFm

“Say what? A bunch of wet, greasy squirrels are nesting inside the computer server and now it’s spitting out random-looking sequences of characters?”

On the other hand, check this out:

http://urlshorteningservicefortwitter.com/x0qzh

“Ah, an internet link! I simply must click on it!”

Game. Set. Match.

Let’s get short!

It’s swine flu season, and JR asks an important question:

I’m taking a take home epidemiology exam, and question 9 asks “discuss how Twitter reduces the potential for a pandemic.”

Is there some way your new service could help with this?

Happy to oblige, JR. In the event of a pandemic, apply twitter directly to your respiratory system. Make sure all your twitter links are created with urlshorteningservicefortwitter.com, or else your lungs will panic when they see bit.ly and tr.im and is.gd links tumbling down your trachea like exploded spelling bees. Keep calm, drink plenty of red wine. The end.

Your grade on your home epidemiology exam is now: 100% A+. You are officially a doctor!

They’re messing around with some food … the one lady is saying something about ingredients … one of the guys is wearing a hat and talking to the camera …

I got carried away with “live-blog fever” last night. I apologize. From a reader:

whoa - I think yr supposed to say ’spoiler alert’ before you get that detailed in yr live blogging …

You’re right and I hope I didn’t spoil last night’s episode (or was it a rerun? Couldn’t tell, there was too much food everywhere) for anyone.

Guess who’s back in the wine store? Yes, it’s true, I’m here.

Reds and whites, come and get ‘em. I’ll sell any wine in the store, that’s my promise to you. I’ve been working on my customer-service skills … I even saved an in-flight magazine from Delta (yes, I flew on a plane last week, I’m that rich) that had an article about different wine regions of the world. Did you know they grow wine in Australia? Crazy times.

Anyway, good morning to one and all! “It’s time for wine.”

Urlshorteningervicefortwitter.com is on the hunt, and the bodies are piling up. Reader JKK alerts us to the demise of another URL shortening service:

I think you just crushed one of your url shortening service competitors. Cli.gs is shutting down its service.

But is there really any question as to why they couldn’t make the cut? WTF is a “cli.gs”? As if that doesn’t make anyone but the most elite software architects spin in their seats. I don’t know what an RSS feed is yet I’m also supposed what a cli.gs is? …

Keep up the fight.

One down, hundreds to go! Bit.ly, you better start sleeping with one eye open …

LET’S GET SHORT.

Come and get that wine … three back-to-back sales … my fingers are burning up the cash register buttons … “Bottle of Chardonnay? You got it. Take this one. BUY IT.” “Your wish is my command, Mr. Wine-Store Helper.” And bingo-bango, another sale for the history books!

Just carded my first customer … the rush was incredible … just think, I might have prevented a CRIME FROM HAPPENING.

Fortunately for the wheels of justice, which, ever-turning, bend the flaming chariot of history towards Valhalla, the customer was old enough to buy wine. And so guess what I did? LOL, that’s right, I sold the ‘em some wine!

“Virtue is its own reward … but wine doesn’t hurt either.” (New motto for the police? I will call and find out.)

Hi everyone … not to blow your minds, but I’m back at the wine shop!

Yes, it seems the owners won an award and must go cook food for an exclusive party to celebrate their wine-and-cooking-related expertise, and they have entrusted me with the store. And why not? After all, I am a great salesman: I treat each customer like they are my own flesh and bood; I know the main difference between red and white wine; I can press the right computer buttons to make the cash drawer open.

So come on down and let’s enjoy some wine-related financial transactions!!!

One of the shop owners knows about my love of twitter and my love of wine … he just forwarded me a hot rumor … twitter is coming out with their own wine … DEVELOPING …

Blog reader (and younger brother) PR asks a prickly question:

How do you feel about your employers at the wine store using tinyurl for their Twitter links and not urlshorteningservice…?

Yes, it’s true … my wine-store-owner friends aren’t using my amazing URL shortening service, even though the idea for it came to me while I WAS DRINKING WINE.

Looks like I’ll have to stage a URL-shortening-service intervention. These can be painful … but necessary.

(By the way, it’s going buck-wild at the shop right now. Thursday nights are off the chain! GET THAT WINE, PEOPLE!)

I’m down in Chapel Hill for a V.I.B. (Very Important Birthday) … anyway, look for me at the club with a bottle of bub tomorrow night … Polvo at the Cat’s Cradle* … make it rain on ‘em … I’ll be shortening URLs for FREE all night!

(*Decided to suspend my boycott of non-Eddie-Watkins Polvo for 48 hours.)

Super-deep Chapel Hill-indie-rock trivia: Anybody know if Polvo is playing “Teen Dream” on this tour? That was always my jam.

Super-double-deep trivia: Any truth to the rumors that K-Ci and JoJo of Jodeci are joining Polvo tomorrow night for a “Cry For You/Thermal Treasure” medley? North Carolina supergroup, could this be happening???

This article made me TOL (Think Out Loud). As much I love “Kids,” I think I agree with this writer’s beskeeviment re: MGMT:

I completely understand the desire for escapism these days, but there’s something about the very essence of MGMT that irritates me to no end…. Most tunes I tend to play are devoid of the kind of narcissistic consumerism (more so as in to consume above any concept of capitalism) that MGMT propagates in their music. The fact that this band is somehow representative of an alternative to mainstream rock music is as ludicrous as the existence of AIG employee bonuses and the potential $23 billion in bonuses for folks at Goldman Sachs.

Readers are pushing back HARD against the article I linked to about “Is MGMT like the Goldman Sachs of music?”

Let’s address reader JC’s concerns:

David Rees, I don’t write to blogs… until now because that quirky article about mgmt you linked to is just so…   

I can’t say I have a horse in this football game.  The “Kids” song was fine, but I have no idea where mgmt come from or why they have made this Leor man so mad.  But his reasons for being mad are kind of crazy.  As far as I can tell, those reasons are:

1.) Musicians who are private school educated and upper middle class are bad.  So David Bowie is bad.

Correct. David Bowie sucks. Who listens to him? “China Girl,” are you serious? With the ching-chong-ching melody? Oh wait, sorry, “Ziggy Stardust” is great … yeah right … who wants to hear songs about a transsexual spaceman? That makes no kind of sense … NEXT–

2.) Being a spoiled neo-hippie surfing in Malibu is bad.  Does that implicate Brian Wilson?  Or is it OK that he’s an OG hippie?  Why the hostility to coastal living?

Correct! Brian Wilson (singer of the Beach Boys) is HORRIBLE. I don’t care that his melodies are clever inversions of Bach minuets, or whatever musical trick he pulled 1,000 times to impress geeks. The Beach Boys suck. “No, you don’t understand how innovative they were. They used a theremin!” Please, a theremin? The dumbest musical instrument ever invented? An instrument so stupid, you don’t even have to touch it to make noise? And the noise it makes sounds like a woman who’s not a good singer. Who cares? I know they used a theremin in the theme to Star Trek … news flash: everything about that show sucked.

3.) Alternative rock is just like mainstream rock, but marketed to a different demographic.  Did we just figure that out?  Is this a music column?

There’s nothing to make fun of in refuting this point, so I’ll ignore it. NEXT–

4.) You can substitute “MGMT” for ”Goldman Sachs” in a scary paragraph.  You can kind of do that with “high-fructose corn syrup” or “oxycontin” or “oxygen” too.

Point to JC; this made me laugh. NEXT–

5.) Post-modernity and not playing instruments are bad things.  So we shouldn’t listen to DJ Spooky or Girl Talk.

Reader JC, are you only now realizing that you shouldn’t listen to DJ Spooky and Girl Talk? Welcome to Grown-Up World, enjoy your stay. NEXT–

As far as I can tell, this all adds up to mean that good music comes from public school educated, politically conscious musicians from non-coastal areas who play their own instruments.  So I think The Roots are probably OK, though I’m not exactly sure where they went to school.

The Roots are not OK; they are the worst rap band of all time and I’m so glad they’re on the Jimmy Fallon show because it means everything on Earth is finally getting organized according to suckiness.

I’m totally down with this guy not liking mgmt because he thinks they suck.  Does he need to awkwardly force his dislike into a greater social commentary of our time?  He could have drawn a picture of Calvin peeing on them, and everybody would be happier.

Advantage JC. “Calvin peeing on them,” LOL. His points are well taken. The MGMT article is not a model of airtight argumentation, but it resonated with me (ooh, maybe I’m a theremin!).

Something about that group comes across as a little too skeevy, a little too “faux-primitive-raver-hippie-rich-kids,” a little too Dash Snow. (Dash Snow was a famous cocaine addict and ‘artist’ who was adored by underemployed young people living in curated squalor in New York City. Oh and by the way, he totally died when he overdosed on drugs. So yay for that.)

And that’s it for today’s installment of “I Am Secretly 80 Years Old!” Until next time, stay off my lawn.

I’m tempted to start blogging about politics. There’s so much going on in politics these days; wouldn’t it be great to have a web site that discussed it all — your one-stop shop for all political talk?

I could talk about:

1. Health
2. Health Care Debate
3. Political Processes That Are Going On In Washington
4. Warfare And Fighting
5. Cars And Trucks

Hmm … I might have to do this …

Sloppy, major-key beats about economic anxiety … that’s hip-hop I can believe in my friends.

“7:00 AM … sheesh!”

JesseEgan (1 month ago)
this is my joint, cam’ron came with some real, powerful shit on this one.

Mcstikman (1 month ago)
LOL I wish (my salary) was that much, after a whole year of hard work I got 32cents………32cents and she was like I’m giving you this much because I like you. I was like you must be kidding but lord knows I need it these bills never end

gwa56 (2 weeks ago)
How the hell is it possible to get 32cents a year? You need to change jobs or you need to tell that lady to start paying you more.

Mcstikman (2 weeks ago)
The 32cents was not my salary for the whole year if that’s what you’re thinking, it was my “christmas bonus” XD. 32cents increase on my hourly rate

gwa56 (2 weeks ago)
oh LMAO sorry

jaystallest91 (1 week ago)
LMFAO!I thought you meant 32 cents was your yearly salary, I was thinking you worked in a counterfeit nike sweat shop or something lol. I feel your pain though, thats almost an insult…they could of atleast increased it by 50 cents. =)

Mcstikman (1 week ago)
Nope not a Nike sweat shop lol. I work for AMR (American Airlines/American Eagle).

Comment thread hall of fame?

I think this will be a fun night:

Todd Barry, Eugene Mirman, Jonathan Ames, Starlee Kine, Rick Moody, Care Bears on Fire, and URLSHORTENINGSERVICEFORTWITTER.COM CEO DAVID REES.

November 17, 2009
7:00 PM
The Highline Ballroom
431 W 16th St
New York, NY 10011
between 9th and 10th Ave
(212) 414-5994

Good morning and blessing to everyone out there in “reading my blog”-land.

I’m in the wine shop all day, selling some of the finest wines you’ll ever taste!

The wine of the week is a MERLOT!!! That’s right:

Teatown Cellars Merlot Napa Valley 2005

Regularly: $15.99
This week only: $14.39 per bottle - 10% off save $1.60
This week only case price: $163.10, $13.59 per bottle - 15% off save $28.78
Limited quantities available; discount not combined with other offers

Let’s make this happen! Let’s put you in some new wine.

An open letter to all my readers:

DEAR READERS:

And to whom it may concern of all of you:

For all who love wine … for all who drink from El Vino’s goblet … for all who dance with the grapes under a Merlot moonlight …

Buy your wine by noon toady for a special offer:

One bottle bought = One bottle sold!!!

Two of my loyal blog readers have joined me at the shop today.

AG and MH are living the life with me … they see what I see … they hear what I hear … and most important: THEY SELL WHAT I SELL.

We have a three-way bet going about how much wine we’ll see today. It’s broken down into different categories:

- Total # of bottles sold
- Total $ sold
- Red vs. white breakdown (Prosecco wildcard, only I called it!)
- SUBTOTALS:
– 10:00 - noon (# bottles)*
– noon - 3:00 (# bottles)
– 3:00 - 5:00 (# bottles)
– 5:00 - 7:00 (# bottles)

GAME ON. Buy some wine and be a part of betting history!

*This has already been blown out of the water, thanks to some early customers!

I don’t even know why AG is still hanging out at the store. He low-balled his total bottle # bet, and now he’s getting totally crushed. In fact, I think we’ve already sold more bottles than his daily total bet-prediction, and it’s only 1:00 PM!

At one point this morning when bottles were flying off shelves faster than any of us “bet-heads” could have predicted, AG said I could “burn everything (he) owns” if he lost the wine-store-bottle-bet. Ladies and gentlemen, get your lighters ready!!!

I sold six bottles of wine to someone who was planning a party! That’s gonna be a fun party, I just know it. They bought four bottles of a nice solid red table wine that everyone loves. It’s called “Our Daily Red” and it’s organic. It doesn’t have the greatest label in the world, but one thing I’ve learned working at the wine shop is that you can’t always judge a bottle by its label (although you usually can).

More updates soon … the betting is hot and heavy … my assistants have gone out to get me some lunch and I’ve already sold two bottles in their absence … what will happen next … only Bacchus (god of wine and partying) knows …

MH is CRUSHING in every category … AG and DR (me) obviously don’t know anything about wine … there’s a new King of Wine, and his name is MH …

A man just came in and bought 2 bottles of white wine … that means even MH’s RTWRP (red-to-white ratio prediction) is gaining ground … I thought we’d sell maybe 2 bottles of white TOTAL today … (because of the famous saying, “When it’s cold outside, people want red wine inside / and not white wine / because who would ever drink white wine unless it was / 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit outside?”)

BREAKING … news alert … AG just admitted that his initial TOTAL BOTTLE # was 23, but then he changed it to 11. “Way to go, Mr. Genius.” He’s getting his bottle-predicting-butt KICKED by all my wonderful customers!

I’m not saying we’re on track to selling 1,000 bottles of wine today, but I AM saying that we are selling some wine today.

Reader MC just lobbed this over the firewall and into the ol’ inbox:

Holy fucking shit dude, today’s Wine Store Monday has the throttle wide open and is burning rubber in all four gears (five if you count reverse), mashing the gas pedal like it’s grape-stomping day down at the vineyard. It’s official: Wine Store Monday is racing for slips.

IT MAY BE A JOBLESS RECOVERY, BUT IT’S SURE NOT A WINELESS RECOVERY.

You got that right! And by the way, since my last blog post? I SOLD SOME WINE. I had a customer rush in and buy a bottle of white wine(?!?) and then rush right back out and get on with her day … “All business, no time for small talk, let’s make this wine-transaction smooth like Sade.” Done and done!

Four hours left, people … let’s get that wine … let’s blow the doors off this joint …

Reader MR has some questions about wine. I have some answers about wine. Let’s get to it!

Dear David,
could you please help your readers out with some wine-problems? For those of us who did not go to master sommelier school, it can be challenging to know which wines to pair with which things, for example. Some recent conundrums in my own life have caused me no end of social embarrassment and emotional despair, to whit:

- what wine goes with burritos?

Red wine from Mexico. NEXT!

- what wine says “I am classy but not pretentious but not too girly but I know how to party but not too much” to your guests?

Are you kidding? Could the answer be “Merlot” any harder??? MERLOT MERLOT MERLOT. Next!

- can you have guests over just for wine (i.e. no dinner)?

Umm … only if you want everyone to love you and think you’re the greatest genius of all time! Next!

- can you serve red and white wine together (in the same glass)?

Yes, this can be done. It’s called “Sex on the Beach.”

- if one of your guests asks “what kind of wine is this,” what should you say?

You should say, “It’s the wine you’re drinking, and isn’t it lovely?”

- is it true that red wine causes nightmares?

Only if you’ve been raised by a coven of maniacs who convince you it’s literally the blood of a crucified man-god. (KIDDING!)

Thanks very much in advance for your help. I always look forward to “Wine Store Mondays” because I have a lot of questions about wine and I haven’t been able to get them answered in any other venue.

My pleasure! One of my favorite things about blogging is the ability to answer any and all questions that anyone asks me about anything.

Hold on to your hats … we might put on another Beacon comedy show … Hudson valley, get ready for laughs … check this site for more details … check it 10 times per hour for details … more information coming soon …