Don't write down anything you wouldn't say in public.

You have a way of making everything you say seem unreal.

Are you aware that the people who care are mostly stainless steel?

- Michael Nesmith "Writing Wrongs"

I don't get it. Of course, closing in on 52 years old makes me somewhat of a non-factor in the grand scheme of money and marketing, but still...

I just finished reading an article saying that Miley Cyrus was done with Twitter. I know - find a hobby, right? She said that the social networking site was robbing her of her privacy. Duh. What did she think it was for? My guess is that she initially saw it as a marketing tool but later found it to be a tool in general.

"Everything that I type and everything that I do, all the lame gossip sites take it and they make it news," she continued. "I want my private life private... I'm living for me."

Good idea. I'm caught up in this odd juxtaposition of what people want to know and what I want to tell them. Some people have no such conflict and post their personal life on the Internet - forgetting the power of something we call Google.

Trust me - as much as I put on this little space, there are scads more that I don't put here, because I understand the power of the Internet and what I believe to be personal and what I believe to be social.

In a personal interactive environment I will open the book, but not here. If you want to know, just ask - but I'm not writing it down.

I think there's a general misunderstanding about the technology that becomes apparent when the technology bites back. When some YouTube video implicates someone or a photo appears on a web site we're all over it and find blame with the technology, when the real blame is with the people who forgot how powerful the technology is.

I'm sure the first automobile drivers had a period of adjustment, as did the first marijuana users. Hey, this is powerful stuff and we'd better figure it out or else we'll be running people over and acting stupid in public. As much as we have adapted to this Internet deal, the idea is still less than a generation old and the people who are getting screwed by it (figuratively) are still working out the kinks.

Be careful out there.