Spreading news in the modern era (or, it's impossible to keep a secret)...

It's funny: universal connectivity and the Internet both make life easier and more difficult at the same time.

Example A: Sonja's and my engagement.

We got engaged on a Friday afternoon. It was a great - and personal - event. While we both wanted to tell the world and shout about it from the proverbial rooftops, we had to be careful about it.

Yes, sadly, the fact that I gave my girlfriend (now fiancee) a ring, became a news story that had to be spun.

We couldn't just change the status of our relationship using Facebook or post a MySpace bulletin. Though it's now the easiest way for us to reach everyone in our extended network of friends and relatives, it's also super-impersonal.

However, using the old-school method of calling up people or putting an announcement into the newspaper wouldn't work, either. Who's got the minutes to spare on their cell plan to call dozens of people? And does anyone under the age of 70 actually read the engagement page anymore (most papers don't even put it into their print edition anymore, unless you pay for it).

We knew that we would have to, eventually, share the news of Facebook. But before we did that, we had to carefully control the news and "leak" it out to the right people. If we had hired a mouthpiece and a press secretary, it couldn't have been more orchestrated.

Sonja and I started, of course, by calling our families with the news. Both sets of parents knew that this past Friday was THE DAY I'd propose, so they weren't too surprised to hear the news. We then called our siblings and started the process of clicking through our respective cell phones and making sure our closest friends heard the news first. For her, it meant her best girlfriends and a few from college got the news. On my part, I called my senior-year housies from college and a couple other close friends over the course of the weekend.

But that was it. To be honest, it's sort of a big pain to call and rehash the story time after time (anyone's who's had a kid or gotten engaged knows this). We knew that an email would be the best method of telling everyone. When it's a big piece of news, like the engagement, you want to have everyone tell their side. So it took a while to compose the email together and then put together our lists and send it out.

Hence, the web 2.0 silence for 3 days about the big news - we didn't want to just announce anything to the entire world before we told the people that we wanted to. It was kind of funny, not updating my Twitter, hinting at news on Facebook until we wrote every word, made every call and made sure the timing was right. It was the equivalent to an outlet breaking a news story at 3pm - just in time for the evening news to crash a piece.

So, now you all know. That's what's important. The news is out there and now Sonja and I can figure out what the heck it is you're supposed to do next after you're engaged.

To everyone that we didn't call or missed out on the email - it was an oversight and I'm sorry. I could barely think straight while I was on one knee, proposing to the woman I love. Do you really think I can keep my address book organized? I'm still on cloud 9, pinching myself and making sure it's real.

Thanks for all the love in return from y'all - it means a ton!

Higher Education Blows

Let’s add up the tab of my pursuit of “higher education,” shall we?

Tuition:
Paid for by loans, has got me well over halfway to six figures in debt. In return, I get a degree that qualifies me to, well, do this – blog. Or I could work at a coffee shop and snobbily reference incestuous academic journals while I pour foam onto lattes for people in suits. Awesomeness.

Lost wages:
I didn’t have the greatest job in the world when I moved out of New York City and re-entered academia. But it wasn’t the worst, either. I got to do a lot of really cool things (in return, of course, for selling my mortal soul). The thing was, my soul then was apparently worth more than it is now – perhaps because it was less used? Looking at my friends who were on the roughly the same level I was and where they are now (rolling on piles of money, surrounded by many naked admirers while sipping champagne in high-rise apartments), I wonder at times, if that could have been me. Not the nude guy in the corner. The one with all the cash.

Direction:
I had started a career path that people have killed for. Literally. I saw someone get stabbed at a NBC Page interview. It wasn’t pretty. Then again, the girl that did it was, so she got the job. Now, I’m coming out of 2 1/2 years of sales experience in what might be a dying industry. But I could tell you the corresponding cities for over 300 airport codes, so I’m a wicked good trivia partner.

Hip status:
If you tell people you live in NYC, you’re cool. If you tell people you’re squatting in an office building that’s 15 feet from train tracks, you’re not. Rent savings mean nothing.

Nerd potential:
Back when I had a “real job,” I didn’t have any time for web 2.0. I was on Facebook, but never checked it. MySpace was a thing of the future. There was no blogging, there was no Twittering, there was no Google Reader and there was no (gasp) iPhone. Now, well, I have all of those (minus the MySpace as you no doubt recall from my Super Tuesday post.). Wow. I should just start playing Dungeons and Dragons and get it over with. Who’s up for a game in Second Life? I’ll bring my virtual, 28-sided die.

Ugh. I don’t know why I’m whining. Sorry to vent this all on you. I think the reassessment of my life began today when I dropped by my grad school’s bookstore and found out that it’s going to cost me $60 to buy a friggin’ black robe for graduation. I already HAVE a black robe from my first time getting a diploma.

But NO – this is different. A Master’s robe has funny sleeves that look like something Gandalf would wear. That’s why you have to give up your May grocery money, Mike. Wizard sleeves! We in higher education feel you haven’t paid quite enough yet for another piece of paper with your name on it. Go visit another ATM and shell out some more, okay?

Oh, and we’re not framing your diploma, either. That costs extra.

(I’m wearing my old robe anyway.)

Googlegängers (your umlauted word of the day)

I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but this article in last Thursday's Times spurred me to do it.

We've all Google-stalked someone. Don't deny it. You've plugged the name of a friend (or enemy) into a search engine, hit enter and clicked through the first few pages of search returns. It's kind of fun, kind of creepy and a common occurrence in today's wired world.

Have you ever plugged your own name in to see what turns up? If so, you've undoubtedly stumbled upon one or more of your Googlegängers - people with the same name that pop up in a search engine query.

The Times article was about the psychological reasons behind why we feel drawn to folks of our same name. There are Facebook groups out there for people with like names and more than one author has written a book or article about setting out to find others with identical monikers. It's more than a passing fascination with some.

For me, however, it provides more annoyance than camaraderie. Why? Because of my massive ego, of course.

Ha, no I'm kidding. Well sort of... Let's talk about my Googlegängers.

I am proud to at least be featured twice on the front page of Google when you search for "Mike Nagel." One is for my Facebook page and the other is for this blog, which is exciting, since I've only been running this page for nine months or so. I don't think it's too bad, overall: I'm at positions 7 and 8, respectively.

Here's the thing... it doesn't really seem like anyone relevant is above me. The top overall hit is a press release announcing Michael P. Nagel as VP of Sales and Marketing for some company called Incisive Surgery, Inc. Then, in 2nd place, there's another presser for a different Mike Nagel.

Finally, on the third hit, we get a Mike Nagel of some importance. Here's his Flickr site. He's a amateur photographer from Munich, Germany and seems like a nice guy. His shots are pretty cool, too. I guess I'm not too upset about falling behind him. Especially since he's had his page up since '05.

The other miscellaneous entries are for some randoms with ZoomInfo and LinkedIn entries that aren't updated. Bollocks! I should be further up, Google!

I know the main way to increase your Google page rank is to be linked to from a bunch of other sites, so thanks to everyone who's linking to me, I appreciate it. Eventually, I'll be the world's greatest Mike Nagel, at least in the eyes of the almighty Google.

However, here's the most annoying thing about having Googlegängers - registering domain names. I'm looking to start my own website, either tying this blog to it or just setting it up as a professional-looking site that I can use to help further my career. However, both mikenagel.com and michaelnagel.com are taken.

mikenagel.com is occupied by someone who bought the domain name, linked it to a blog and then just left it. How obnoxious! I'd actually use it... If you read this, other Mike Nagel, I want that site.

michaelnagel.com is just disturbing. It's the homepage for a German actor who looks like he's trying to break into Hollywood. Judging by his physique and D-list level of international appearances, he appears destined to occupy a recurring role on a low-level network soap, at best. If that's my alternate online personality, I'm a little frightened.

Oh well, guess I'll have to either change my name or think up a more creative domain name once I start setting up my site. Any suggestions?

How about you guys? Anything fun come up when you google yourself?

It's Super Tuesday, have you stuffed your local ballot box?

"Super Tuesday." Doesn't that just have a ring to it? It gets you going, right? I mean, how can you not just spring out of bed when the alarm goes off, full of joie de vivre and feeling super on Super Tuesday?

I move that we have more of these happy-adjective days... Like a three-day weekend could be called "Bonus Monday" (beats "Columbus Day, right?") or we could periodically have "Cuh-razy Thursday," where everyone gets to be their boss for a day. Tell me you would not get pumped up for that... I'm pumped now and this idea is still all in my head. But, my friends, WE can make it happen. Because WE are Americans and WE have the right to chose what we want to term our days of the week.

Okay, so I am a little hopped up on Patriotism right now, possibly from the fumes of the Sharpies in those tiny voting booths, but mostly from the fact that I voted in the primary today. In spite of everything that's wrong with our political system (for example: this, this or this), when you sit down and really think about it, it's pretty cool that we get to have a say in who makes the rules every couple years. We are the rule makers for those rule makers and, if we don't like it, we will layeth the smacketh down on them with our ballots.

Since I live in Massachusetts, I voted today, which was exciting. Actually, this race is making me wish I hadn't given up standard cable, since it's shaping up to be incredibly close (yet again) and I actually want to watch Wolf Blitzer's giant head and rugged beard in front of giant red-and-blue tote boards for hours tonight. Oh well, I'll read about it in the paper tomorrow.

I did find that, after I got back from the polls and exercising my right to choose, I couldn't stop. I had to keep declaring my choices. I put on a new pair of pants. I pulled two versions of lunch out of the fridge and then decided which one I wanted to eat. I chose to work on my thesis instead of writing an article.

But those decisions seemed small and inconsequential in light of voting for a new President, so I had to come up with something bigger to satisfying my urge to vote. I had a fever for more hanging chads, baby.

So, I started voting off musical acts from my iPod island. iGuapo, as I call him, is a big boy - 60 gigs of music and video playing magic - but he was pretty close to being full, so I needed to clean him up. You should have seen me in my voting frenzy, scrolling through iTunes, highlighting and deleting tracks with almost reckless abandon. With so many candidates gotten rid of as irrelevant, you would've thought it was the Green Party convention (bah-zing!).

So long Antony and the Johnsons! Goodbye CoCo Rosie! Peace out, Static-X. Stone Temple Pilots, don't let the door hit you on the way out...

Whew, that felt good. Now iGuapo isn't so bloated.

But while organizing my music collection was fun, I knew I had to take an even bigger stand and align myself, for all time, with one side of the biggest battle of our age.

Yes, I am talking about the historic Facebook vs. MySpace showdown.

I've written about this before, but the day had come to put my money where my mouth was. I had researched the parties, spent a lot of quality time with the candidates, read news stories, argued with friends and caucused until I was spent. It was time to take up the American mantle and stand up for my beliefs.

I want you all to know that I went into the polls of the world wide web and made my choice.... MySpace, you are dead to me. Facebook forever!

C'mon now... who's with me!

What is Mike up to these days?

As you can tell, I am one classy dude. I don't know what gives it away more: the plastic cup of booze, the stolen scarf that doesn't match the jacket or the plastic beads that I had to drop trou for...

But, from time to time, I plan to let you guys know what I'm in to lately, what life choices I have ahead of me. This way, you will be able to correspondingly rearrange your cultural, fashion and social lives to better mirror the example I have set.

Or, more than likely, you'll just ignore me and my ranting. Which is perfectly acceptable and probably better for your overall health and state of mind.

---What Mike is Listening to---
My boy, Maynard James Keenan (the voice of both Tool and A Perfect Circle) has yet another musical project of mayhem that he's unleashed on the world. Puscifer is a step in a completely new direction for Maynard. While APC can sometimes be called - I mean this with no disrespect - Tool-lite, Puscifer is an entirely different type of project all together.

The musical inspiration draws heavily from Western African drum beats and, oddly enough, Moby's softer side. But only if Moby decided to start worshiping Satan, dropping acid and manipulating his mixer with his tongue. Gone are the bellowing, in-your-face vocals with detailed, cryptic interpretation. Instead, they're replaced with layered, spoken-word tracks that talk about sex, booties, genitalia, drugs, sexual slang and ol' fashioned gettin' it on. It's a weird mix, but then, MJK never was the kind of guy you'd want to bring home to your mom. Assuming you wanted to bring a 5-1/2 foot bald guy home for the the holidays.

Even weirder? It works... while Tool fans won't have to spend hours on message boards deciphering song meanings (hint: Maynard likes sex. With women. A LOT.), there are some pretty catchy hooks going on. I'm not expecting a tour or huge album sales - frankly, I could do without either - but this is a cool, niche record to own.

---What Mike is Thinking---
MySpace vs. Facebook - the final showdown.

Okay, so there won't be any showdown. But for those of y'all on MySpace, you'll have noticed that I don't visit the site any more and haven't updated my profile in months. Part of that has to do with the fact that my employer has chosen to block MySpace, so I can't log-on when I'm at work and I have very little desire to do so when I'm not working. Incidentally, porn sites are not blocked...

I probably should just delete my MySpace profile, now that I've become a more regular Facebook user (the latter is not blocked at work, easier to use and about 200x's more spam-free). But I haven't been able to bring myself to do so. In my head, I equate this to killing a friend. Or a mild acquaintance. Or someone I made out with once and then forgot their name.

There was a time, when I was new to web 2.0 in a band, and the social networking world was my oyster to shuck. And I shucked it good... I got lots and lots of friends, many of whom were also in self-recorded bands or sold jeans and penile enhancers; reconnected with peoples whose names and faces I barely recognized; solidified my emotional well-being by being in many, many top-8 when top-8's meant something; I commented; I learned html; I rocked MySpace's world.

But now, MySpace has lost my interest. It was a fad. I've moved on to this blog here and Facebook. They fulfill my social needs (Yes, editing my "status" via my iPhone and writing a public diary fulfill all the cultural interaction desires that 40,000 years of civilization built up). MySpace is excess. It's fat and it needs trimming.

I just haven't gotten around to it. Yet...

The guillotine has been raised. We're all just waiting for the blade to drop.

---What Mike is Wearing---

Well, I'm not wearing one yet. But I am debating about buying a hat. I have a mostly-shaved head right now. And it's starting to get cold here in Boston.

I've realized that having 1/8 of an inch of hair is much different than having 1-1/2 inches. In that, it's really freakin' colder on the old pate these days. A hat would be nice to keep my noggin warm.

But I haven't decided yet if they're too nerdy. I don't mind nerdy, but I do mind too-nerdy when it comes to fashion. Nerdy can be chic, too-nerdy means you're a loser. Mike is a winner. Or he thinks he is. So, if you have any hat suggestions, please let him know.

---What Mike's Plans Are---
Correspondingly, I'm thinking about a new coif to go with the (soon to come) new year. Sonja, my wonderful girlfriend, really likes my hair now. I believe the words she's used to describe it are: "sexy," "handsome" and "rowr."

Whereas, for a previous, more emo haircut with bangs and spikes, the description went something like this: "You're going to cut that, right?"

Anyways, I want to try something new, but because I start to look like a giant puffball when I grow out my hair, I want to wait to have a purpose before I do so.

Hence, I'm taking suggestions - should I go with a professional-looking, business man cut with a part? Should I spike it, as I have in the past? Should I keep it the same? Should I do the Slater gerrie-curl perm? I'm open to suggestions...