smacky and bucky

(Today's post title courtesy of Carol King)

Yep, we had an earthquake. A 5.9 earthquake. The biggest recorded in Virginia since 1897! How about that? Our building shook hard twice, with a few seconds in between each. With all the destruction next door (documented here a few times), I figured the construction guys had created a sinkhole or hit a gas line. Either way, my office is in the part of the building that is held on the Hollywood video side by pillars and has a driveway running under it, so I immediately had images of my office collapsing in on itself. I got the heck out with everyone else.

Twitter was, of course, amazing the first few minutes. People I follow reported feeling it in North Carolina, New York City, and even Toronto. Then (also of course) once it was established what it was and that everything was okay, the web was flooded by jaded, cynical a-holes saying east coasters are pussies and California gets this all the time, blah blah blah. Because you can't just experience something and think "Wow, the biggest earthquake here in 115 years, amazing!" No, you have to be the first to be a douche and let everyone know how cool you are.

There is still something special about experiencing something for yourself, and while the internet has been amazing for finding people with shared experiences (just look how many cool folks are in my blogroll!) I am realizing that it's a double-edged sword: that same internet can take something unique and make the experience seem less special (to the point you're sick of hearing about it).

I suppose people may have felt the same way about 24-hour news channels when they exploded. Information overload. Except now it's the internet and everyone is a reporter (or, more accurately, a pundit expressing a skewed view).

I'm expressing an opinion about it too, as I write this. I'm aware of that. But the fact is this: We had a 5.9 earthquake that was felt by every sister my wife has (with the sole exception being the one in Oregon). There are hundreds of miles between some of these sisters, but they all experienced the same event.

Another cool fact: People in NYC said they were reading tweets about the earthquake before they felt it themselves. Can you imagine that? "Hmm, earthquake in Virginia?" (shake, shake, shake). "Whoa!" Imagine the wave traveling through the crust of the Earth, traveling north (and south, east, and west) like ripples from a pebble dropped into a pond, except the ripples are waves of energy traveling through rock. Hopefully today a lot of good science teachers are altering their lesson plans to discuss how earthquakes work!

And, because I'm a complicated hypocrite, here's another good thing about the internet, even as I complain about it: