How We See Ourselves

Conan: Part 2, in a way. I bought this at the same Conan O'Brien show as yesterday's tee.

I was curious as to why an Irish-Catholic family like O'Brien's would name their son Conan (with the obvious pop-culture connotation - see shirt image) so I looked it up and it turns out the name is Gaelic for "little wolf hound" and Breton for "high, mighty". So there, I've learned something today and you might've too. My "job" here is done. On to the introspective stuff...

Fact: Self-image is a truly messed up aspect of human psychology. Culture, family, media and life experience all feed into it. And it is a visceral judgement, difficult to override with the most cogent of logical arguments. To top it all off, the brain is wired to focus on the negative, meaning that human nature is a glass-half-empty sort of party-pooper. We criticize far more readily than we give meaningful praise... and that applies as much to ourselves as to others.

So today, comment on this post with what you like BEST about yourself. And pick something from the category that you're most likely to criticize. I'll start. For me, the category would be physical attributes and:

I LOVE MY COLLARBONES, ESPECIALLY THAT SPOT WHERE THEY MEET ABOVE THE STERNUM

Your turn. Don't leave me hanging here, folks.

Picking Sides and Sidedoors

Back in 2010, I was on Spring Break in Hawaii with a couple of girlfriends when Conan O'Brien announced his Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour on his Twitter-feed. Specifically, I was in a line at an airport towing my luggage when the announcement was made and I immediately tweeted my frustration at being nowhere that I could feasibly buy a ticket from. To my rescue swoop my Newfoundland friends, Brian and Lori (THIS is why technology is awesome), who speedily bought me an e- ticket for a Vancouver show (the sold out #conezone one) which they forwarded to me through email (again, technology = awesome) and which is why I am now able to sport the Team Coco branding.

It is beyond fitting that technology provided a loophole for me to acquire a ticket for this show in particular as the whole tour was a giant loophole through which Conan evaded the illegality of him being funny in the public arena. In a nutshell, when he split with NBC in early 2010, he was not allowed to perform on broadcast television until September 2010. Live performances and any subsequent photos, recordings, or streamed videos resulting from said performances were not covered by the contract however and thus, the tour was born, fed on a steady diet of social media/networking until it grew to the mammoth proportions of a Self-Pleasuring Panda.

err... yeah, not exactly sure where I can go from that link so that's all I got for today but I may decide to wear the other Conan shirt tomorrow...