(2.78-minute read)
Get your IRK on, people!
And no, this is not a deeply serious plea, but I will clarify anyway: I don’t mean bombastic, cowardly and bullying bleats that do nothing except divide people. (Buy a bigger truck. Get bigger or more self-righteous hair. Shout louder. Use more invective. AR15 the messenger. Show your Inner Dick is bigger and dickier. More implants. More vitriol. Um, Fox News. None of that junk. Irkery is smarter than that, and has a better sense of humour.)
We need IRK. When we are irked, we hang on to some sense of propriety; we know that what irks us might not actually be All That Serious In Heads Other Than Ours, and that the next person in line might just get twirked¹ by what irks us.
¹ Not a real word, but you know what I mean. (Right? No? Well then: amused, modestly titillated, sparkled up just a little…)
I got more than a little irked by basketball player Kevin Durant’s Independence Day DUREXIT™ from Oklahoma City, so if you’re not afraid of basketball references – and hey, my bride read the whole durned thing! – you might want to nip over to the It’s All About Sports! section of this humble electronic mutter. (SELF-DEFENSIVE YEAH-BUT: I know that an athlete switching teams is no more than a tidal wave in a two-litre pail, but I was irked and consternated: whither loyalty? why does everybody want the EASY way? (DUH!!) why would I or a saner dude or SO MANY PEOPLE care so deeply about a job relocation by a stranger?) So as always, irked as you might be by Another Howdy Ramble About Sports As If They Mattered, remember that there’s always more to basketball than just basketball! (End of plug for yesterday’s post, which I really liked writing, which is storming the outer fringes of the Galactic Comms, which you haven’t read yet and what’s up with that.)
“I certainly get irked.” My comment section irks me. It’s not used very much, for one fairly major Thing, which means I’m messing up in several somehows. (Posting droughts might have something to do with that, though I’d rather blame YOU guys.) (PRE-EMPTIVE EXTERNAL YEAH-BUT: Kinger, Bucktavish, Free Mikey, SherriYaz, McSmenner: not talking to the specifically youse of the YOU guys, you loyal commentary-izing humans, you!) I’m irked all the way to bemusement by the fact that, still, the majority of my submitted comments resemble the one below. It’s a mild piss-off that makes me laugh, and I do like every sort of chuckle. Even the grim ones. (Sometimes.) But I have a plague of Non-Human Friendly Correspondents, and even though they seem to like me, I wonder about their intentions.
So, I introduce you to Robocraft Hack. SpamDude digs me, but is not above getting IRKed. I love his name. It makes me think of Asimov. A friend just told me that the scientist and spec-fiction writer Isaac Asimov, may his spirit rest, may his magnificent sideburns ever shine, has just had his iconic Foundation trilogy published by Everyman’s Library. Which is amazing. A great tribute to the man, the genre, and this particular work. I remember Hari Seldon, its scientist/prophet/social engineer main character, and Foundation’s gotta be 35 years back in my reading retroscope. Great stuff, really. And when I think of how good Asimov was, then I realize that ‘Robocraft Hack’ is far too ugly and crap to be a character name in his best fiction. Because hey: Hari Seldon. Now that’s a cool name. Makes me want to have just one more son…
Anyhow.
Back to the Dominion of Irk. I don’t quite get spam commentary, though I get a lot of it, and plus I have to admit it tickles me. (Here was another series of tickles. And for goodness’ sake, don’t miss Spambot Z666-Bjx9 — that guy LOVES me!)
So yeah: do people actually respond to these things and end up buying products, or embracing dangerous techno-anarchist plots? Who invented Robocraft Hack, and WHY? And how does he get into MY innocent, narrowly read, and magnificently heart-in-most-of-the-right-places Web-log?
Still, you can’t deny it, so don’t even TRY: Mr. Hack does have a way with words, and who doesn’t need a little inscrutable flattery now and again? This was his mash note to me; I only blushed a little.
“Undeniably believe that that you stated. Your favorite reason appeared to be on the web the easiest factor to have in mind of. I say to you, I certainly get irked even as other people consider concerns that they plainly do not realize about. You controlled to hit the nail upon the highest and also defined out the entire thing without having side-effects , other folks could take a signal.
Will likely be again to get more. Thanks.”
My pleasure, Mr. Hack! Really, I’m humbled. I always try to “hit the nail upon the highest” “without having side-effects”. You’ll always be welcome here.² Heck, if you weren’t a robot, you could probably subscribe to my blog by a simple click over there on the upper right without any trouble at all and this is how humans begin to assert their irkitude against the soulless march of the machines and this is how a revolution gets started so do it now.
² Unless I get super irked.