"Oh Vineacity vine, if we lived in
Canada I would make you my bride."
- Cash 11/22/2006

Okay, I admit it. I like some votes, like anyone else, and I like comments because people tend to respond to something funny with even funnier stuff and that's always going to be a good time.

But I love this Vineacity thing.

First things first, someone is going to gripe because I didn't properly ghetto-ize myself into whatever group they think I should ghetto-ize myself into. I am okay with that. It's the diversity of the site and the strengths of the personalities that make some feel like everyone else should stop posting to Newsvine so they can post their much more important stuff about colored rocks and whatever. Groups are in beta and with input from everyone they will work out a good system and it will be fine.

But the world needs some praise for this Vineacity thing more than it needs a cure for cancer so I am going to talk about it. Since this isn't "satire" and the vast majority of negative personalities think everything they don't like is satire, I probably will get complaints about how this is tagged also. I don't care. Calvin will let me know if it is an issue and Newsvine can keep the $ .0005 I will earn from this article.

I want to celebrate with all of you because I got my fifth Vineacity vine. Maybe it was today. I had gotten an email from Hobson excoriating me for not rallying the masses to keep him on Newsvine after his fake departure ( we'll come back to that ) and he mentioned I had a new sproutlet but I didn't notice. Then I got an email from rwarner telling me I had a new sproutlet but she completely forgot to include that I was an outrageously sexy scientist and I have reminded her about it a few times so that failure to communicate disracted me and I didn't notice the vine again.

But I noticed it this afternoon and I was happy. For about 5 minutes. It's the curse of the Vineacity junkie. You see, I have found I am still chasing that demon. I never acquired a taste for alcohol, never did drugs, heck I don't even take aspirin. My only real vices are a preference for blondes and an unnatural coffee maker fixation. But this Vineacity thing is a monkey on my back because as soon as I got five I wanted six.

So I started looking for the people who had six.

That's some impressive company. I can't move to Seattle and put on a charity event. I can't run for Congress. Well, I can, but I hate to lose so that will get expensive. Plus, my Congressman is a pretty good guy.

What have I done that compares to that?

* I haven't blown up an earnest long-time veteran whose self-importance drives a lot of people crazy in a long time. I think that's pretty good.

* I gave lots of guys input on how to pick up a geek girl. And most geek girls aren't even blonde so I think that was quite generous of me. I created the Tramp Calibration Meter. Ditto.

* I wrote a whole poem to keep Adam Hobson from fake leaving Newsvine but I got only two ticks on it so maybe he posted to a group and no one saw it. Here it is:

Hobson, Adam, Guru Of Math
Found controversy, incurred some wrath,
Sulking a little, inspired by Yar,
He made bold decisions, but went way too far.

So now he's recanting, he may want to stay
But he's not sure about drama and the lack of big pay
So what will entice him, we can only guess
I think Stolte-Sawa, in a little black dress.

And he ended up staying because of it and I think we are all better off for it. I think that was pretty giving of me. Then again, maybe it was Claus Jacobsen's cartoon that did it.
Stolte-Sawa totally reneged on the little black dress I volunteered her for so
that couldn't have been it.

Clearly I haven't done enough but I'll keep trying. I need to get this monkey off my back. My fear is that once I get it, some new secret level of Newsvine will open up and there will be six more vines I have to get. It could be like the "Bruce Lee's Super Kung Fu" video game and never end. These Newsvine guys have that kind of sense of humor.