Technically Incorrect

You will, no doubt, be plagued this holiday season by real-time conversations from real-time annoyances who claim to be members of your family. You will, therefore, be tempted to indulge in some excessive real-time drinking that might, just might, affect your sense of, well, the real time, the real place, even the real country you are inhabiting.

However, you will, I hope, be delighted that some very enterprising people have considered your plight and decided to offer you the latest hangover cures in real time. All you need to do is to have your smartest phone about your person at all real times and refer to the updates at Twitter.com/hangover_cure.

Twitter can save you, sir.

(Credit: CC Craig M Dennis/Flickr)

There, you will find contributions from, no doubt, hardened drinkers, hardened family therapists or, who knows, maybe hardened altruistic specimens who would like you to hurt less, party more, and not let your children see you looking like the inside of a bull's nostril after a stampede.

The Twitter page, sponsored by video-on-demand provider Blinkbox Entertainment, (yes, it's releasing "The Hangover," get it?), will offer you such gems as: "Try whipping up a Carrot Comfort (200g carrots, 1 apple, 1cm fresh root ginger & ice) & let us know."

All right, some of the suggestions might walk the thin line between holistic and horrific. But who could really fault the dedication and spirit of Christmas engendered by a suggestion such as: "Try the Honey Bun: Half a ripe banana, 1 teaspoon clear honey, 2 teaspoons natural yogurt & water; then tweet us the results!"

I feel confident that the Hangover Cure Twitter page will be a repository for scientific discovery that has not been seen since, oh, the Facebook Beacon program.

I once sent a letter to Santa Claus. He never replied. The bruises, like an ill-timed tattoo commemorating a one-night stand, have never really gone away.

However, AT&T offered me a little hope. The company has a service that allows you to text Santa with all of your wishes. All you have to do is text "SANTA" to 1224 if you are an AT&T subscriber.

"Bah, humbug," my innards whispered. "Santa doesn't care about you. He won't write back."

However, some strange hope inside me stirred and I sent a text. Within seconds, he replied: "Ho Ho Ho! Thanks for your txt! Please reply to this message and send me your wish list. I will be sure 2 get back 2 you once the elves and I finish our dance class."

He texted me. He can text you too.

(Credit: CC AurelienS/Flickr)

I was temporarily paralyzed by the concept of a large man learning to quickstep with several animals. This was far, far beyond the slightly uncomfortable sight of Steve Wozniak on "Dancing with the Stars."

However, Santa helpfully explained: "Gotta slim down 4 those narrow chimneys, you know!"

Emboldened by my success in making contact with the world's most powerful man, I immediately texted Santa my wish list. I asked him for better 3G coverage from AT&T.

So as not to blow my cover as a sweet, innocent 4-year-old, I also asked him for a Range Rover for my girlfriend and world peace.

Would he reply? Or would some clever little algorithm suggest that asking for better 3G coverage from AT&T might be off the map?

I was wrong to worry. AT&T's Santa is fully engaged in blanketing America with 3G perfection. For he wiped his post-quickstep sweat with a large red towel and texted me: "You have an excellent wish list this year!"

He added: "We make toys and goodies all through the year so luckily we have lots of items already in stock. Keep being nice!"

I am nice. Truly, I am. My CNET handlers have yanked on my lead no more than once a week in 2009. I am therefore delighted to inform all AT&T customers that Santa is on their side and all will soon be fixed. You read the quotes.

If you don't believe me, text "SANTA" to 1224 yourself.

I have often wondered if being a divorce lawyer makes you feel better about humanity or worse. Perhaps it merely keeps you in intimate contact with all the pitfalls of relationships on a daily, even hourly, basis.

Still, whose heart could possibly lose so much as a throb on hearing that almost one in five divorces in the UK are fueled by Facebook?

No, it's not that Facebook's employees are so irresistible that anyone who comes into contact with them, even in the UK, immediately leaves their spouse. Rather, it seems that the constant lack of trust in marriages causes much trawling around spouses' Facebook pages until one party decides the party's over.

It has already been established by one study that Facebook turns lovers a painful shade of green. However, the Telegraph quotes a law firm declaring that almost one in five divorce petitions make Facebook the scene of the crime.

The managing director of Divorce-Online told the Telegraph: "I had heard from my staff that there were a lot of people saying they had found out things about their partners on Facebook and I decided to see how prevalent it was. I was really surprised to see 20 percent of all the petitions containing references to Facebook."

Facebook is the home of love, surely.

(Credit: CC Sabrina Campagna/Flickr)

Some of the biggest culprits, according to the Telegraph, are flirty e-mails and messages found on Facebook, which are "increasingly being cited as evidence of unreasonable behavior."

And it was only in February that Emma Brady discovered her husband was divorcing her when he updated his Facebook status to: "Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady."

Are people who leave themselves so exposed on Facebook merely careless? Or does the liberating new medium of social networking allow them to deliberately tell their spouses that they have had enough without having the courage to look them in the eyes?

Perhaps, though, Facebook might use this phenomenon to advertise its own power. The site should create a special group: the Facebook Disconnects group. It would bring together all those whose marriages that ended because of wall posts and the like, thereby showing how Facebook relationships are more powerful than any out there in the dumb ole' analog, touchy-feely world.

That way, advertisers might finally realize that it's better to put all of their money into digital relationships on Facebook rather than into those quaintly ancient TV spots.

The more Verizon and AT&T trade unseasonal greetings over their respective 3G networks, the more collateral damage seems to be inflicted on the iPhone. Yes, Verizon has itself made jokes about the iPhone being a "misfit toy". However, on Saturday, Seth Meyers of "Saturday Night Live" dedicated 16 seconds of his Weekend Update to a joke about, yes, truly, the iPhone.

Here is the precise text: "It was reported this week that Google would soon launch its own cell phone as a challenge to the iPhone. Also a challenge to the iPhone? Making phone calls." Cue much laughter.

Before Apple devotees could regain their breath, the 16-second clip soared around the Web as if it were new evidence of global warming. More than 140,000 people viewed it on YouTube before NBC Universal mentioned that it, um, owned the rights to the clip.

I have therefore embedded the whole of Saturday night's live extravaganza, which I obtained from NBC's own site. The 16-second iPhone bombshell hits just after the 37-minute mark.

I know many will be distressed that Meyers makes no mention of AT&T. Save for some folks at AT&T, where they are still allegedly mulling what to do about the company's sponsorship of alleged serial sexter, Tiger Woods.

It's an odd tradition. Well, it is Britain, where they have a talent for clutching traditions like Posh Spice clutches many things with a D&G logo.

The particular tradition that fascinates at this time of year consists of really caring about which song is the best seller at Christmas.

Once upon a time, some of the greatest music ever composed was Britain's Christmas No. 1. Yes, Slade's "Merry Christmas Everybody," Mud's "Lonely This Christmas," and the slightly less melodic "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)" by Pink Floyd.

In recent times, Simon Cowell, a man with more tentacles than T-shirts, has timed one of his reality talent shows to coincide with the Christmas period.

No sooner is the winner announced than he or she has a song that is then downloaded beyond distraction straight to the top of something that is still quaintly called the Singles Chart. (Recent examples include the stunning Leon Jackson and Alexandra Burke.)

This year, Londoners Jon and Tracy Morter decided that something must be done. So they created a Facebook group, Rage Against the Machine for Christmas No. 1.

Sentiment in the snowy English shires was clearly strong. Because around 1 million people declared their belief in the cause. And Sunday it was announced to huge acclaim that the Facebookers had got their way. The Rage Against the Machine song, so CNN tells us, "Killing in the Name," is the No. 1 Christmas single.

It is not easy to defeat the intentions of Cowell. He is the man who dominates "American Idol" rather beautifully and the man who brought Susan Boyle to the world's attention through yet another pulsating show called "Britain's Got Talent." He is also the man who created "The X-Factor," another talent show designed to create instant fodder for Christmas. (Oh, of course it's coming to the U.S., did you have to ask?)

The Morters claimed on the Facebook group's page that the campaign was not remotely personal. Some might think this not entirely true, as the Guardian tells us that when they launched the group they said: "Fed up of Simon Cowell's latest karaoke act being Christmas No. 1? Me too."

Cowell, for his part, told a press conference that the Facebook campaign was "stupid" and "cynical."

You might be wondering why the Morters chose Rage Against the Machine. Well, Jon Morter told NME.com: "It's been taken on by thousands in the group as a defiance to Simon Cowell's 'music machine'. Some certainly do see it as a direct response to him personally."

So one machine has defeated another in the place where they always tell us the Industrial Revolution began. It's a touching Christmas story, isn't it?

As we all try to settle on our own definition of the word "enough," the enterprising work harder to stretch our definition.

Over the last days and weeks, I have been swamped with readers, friends, and some very strange people indeed sending me details of the latest attempts to make money out of Tiger Woods' fall from his graceful perch atop society.

So, in order to assist you with your final gift selections for the holiday season, I have created this post as a catalog of society's ingenuity.

In pride of place--or, as some might think, in place of pride--I have embedded the stunning new ad for BidHere.com. It features one of Tiger's alleged heart-stealers, Jamie Jungers.

Not content with rumors circulating that Jungers is in possession of naked pictures of the famous golfer, the delightfully blond-haired lady has performed in a quite breathtaking ad for online shopping.

Jungers explains that she can get brand-name products like Nikons and iPods at greatly reduced prices rather than go outside and "deal with the madness." Perhaps your Christmas madness is different from hers, but the way she deftly delivers each line of her script with passion and gusto will surely propel you to BidHere.com.

However, this is not the only attempt to commercialize a golfer's demise. Surely you, too, have considered gifting something from TigerCondoms.com.

The astute marketers from the people behind this venture, PracticeSafePolicy.com, issued a thoughtful press release: "With the holiday season in full swing, the clever and savvy jokers at Practice Safe Policy decided it is time for the people of this great nation to forget about minor concerns like the war, the recession, or health care, and instead focus on the truly important issue of the day: Tiger Woods's alleged transgressions."

Quite.

However, if you think that perhaps a premium Tiger Woods URL might be the finest thing with which to stuff a stocking, then might you have $1 million to make an eBay bid for TIGER WOODS SECRET LIFE.com.

If this seems like a little too much, perhaps a wander along to GoDaddy.com might bring you a finer bargain. If I read GoDaddy correctly, you can get NewTigerWoods.com for a mere $10.69 a year. AngelTigerWoods.com seems to be going for the same price.

But wait. You could choose to go to ArtToShirt.com, where you will find some fine examples of humor upon cloth. For example, a T-shirt adorned with the picture of a woman chasing a golfer and the words: "In the Rough...Again...and Again...and Again." It's a mere $12.85.

Amazon seems to have lost a little faith in a Tiger Woods figurine showing him pointing a finger. It has been reduced from $14.99 to $5.99. His fist pumping figurine has also been reduced from $14.99, but only to $8.95.

If you still feel uninspired, perhaps you might go back to eBay and drool at the Tame The Tiger Woods Bobblehead Doll.

For a mere $29.95, you can get a uniquely designed bobblehead with some astonishing features: A golf club wrapped around the Tiger's head; a bent fire hydrant ("Fire Hydrant Bobbles too!"); a base that reads "Tame the Tiger"; a bent steering wheel next to the Tiger; and, goodness, the top of base that will resemble cracked asphalt.

Oh, gosh, I have just read the small print. The Tame the Tiger Bobblehead will be not be ready to ship until April 15. Some things can just make you feel sad, can't they?

(Updated at 1:56 p.m. PST, after I put down my own bottle of Lapin Kulta.)

If you've ever spent a long night drinking with Finns, you may have noted that after the 10th beer, they can become jolly, effusive, and positively inventive. Well, please hark the words of Martti Roth, an alleged employee of Intel Finland, who thought of something rather special while under the influence of alcohol.

I am not libeling him, truly. Because Roth says he really did come up with the notion, while at a bar, that he and his Intel friends should create the world's biggest Intel chime ever by firing themselves out of cannons.

On the special Intel Cannonbells site, Roth declared: "I thought about the biggest, most exciting way we could create those five notes. And the longer I stayed in the bar, the more sense it made."

Roth says he is a field applications engineer. And his family has a history with cannons. No, not in some 19th century war, but, well, it sounds like a tragic story.

"In 1906, my great grandfather tried to fire himself from a cannon over the widest part of the river Vantaa in Helsinki," Roth said on the site.

I cannot imagine why he might have made this interesting choice. In answer to the question "did he make it?" Roth replied: "Some of him did. Funny really, but on the day [of the Intel Cannonbells launch], I really felt as though he was looking down on me and guiding me through the air towards that big, metal pipe. It was very emotional."

I cannot possibly suggest that Roth did this interview when still under the influence of the finest Lapin Kulta (supposedly Finland's finest beer). Or that, as some (including the site's disclaimer writers) might suggest, he is merely an actor.

Oh, all right, here's the full, tucked-away disclaimer: "All copy and videos are part of a marketing campaign for Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow. No Intel employees were harmed in the making of this film. All characters featured in the videos were played by actors specially trained in silly costumes and Finnish accents. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to fire anyone out of a cannon."

Still, I trust that the video will inspire you to aim higher in the coming year to create technological feats that will truly make a noise in the commercial world. Even if it might make you mistrust Finns a little in the immediate future.

Here is what has been reported.

According to Florida Today, a woman tweeted at 5:22 p.m. Monday about the fog over Brevard County in Florida. Some time between 5:22 p.m. and 5:38 p.m., her 2-year-old son fell into a swimming pool and was found floating in it.

911 records reportedly show that his mother called the paramedics at 5:38 p.m. Monday. At 6:12 p.m., she reportedly sent an update to her Twitter page, Military_Mom. It read: "Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool." (The tweet has since been removed.)

Her name is Shellie Ross. She is a regular tweeter and has a blog called Blog4Mom. Not long after she tweeted for her 5,300 followers' prayers, her 2-year-old son, Bryson, was pronounced dead.

At 11:08 p.m. Monday, she reportedly tweeted: "Remember my million dollar baby," along with a picture of her dead son.

(Credit: CC Appfrica/Flickr)

The Huffington Post reported that her tweets caused some people to offer little sympathy.

@jalynsandoval (whose Twitter page has since been removed) reportedly tweeted: "military_mom 's fault for not keeping an eye on her son while he was next to the pool. she was to (sic) busy with twitter i guess. RIP kid."

Shellie Ross, military_mom, reportedly replied to this tweet: "@jalynsandoval you are an ass, I was outside w/him and it took 2 sec for him to slip away, I hope U never feel this pain u ass."

Florida Today reported that Ross' friends describe her as "a fantastic mother who is devoted to her children." Moreover, Brevard County authorities reportedly describe it as an accidental drowning.

A child is dead. A mother sent Twitter updates. And some who don't know her criticized her actions.

This is what has been reported. Can anyone make sense of it? Should anyone make sense of it? Or does the very use of Twitter, given its public nature, make everyone fair game for even passing critics?

The minute you tweet, you sacrifice your privacy for the sake of some greater sense of connection, some greater sense of urgency. A tweet is a report, one that will subsequently be re-reported and re-interpreted.

They may call it social media. But the society it brings together isn't always one of your choosing.

Selling isn't about telling people things. It's actually about making them feel something while you're telling them things.

I mention this because a new series of little Web videos have wafted beneath my browser. They come courtesy of Google. And they are advertising different aspects of the Chrome browser.

Now, I imagine that if I had to listen to Larry Page and Sergey Brin tell me about Chrome it might be enchanting. Well, for a couple of seconds. But it wouldn't be half as enchanting as these little works of art.

Each one centers on a positive aspect of Chrome--stability, speed, or security, for example.

Watching these things makes me think I'd absent-mindedly wandered into some museum of modern art and been seduced by illegitimate, slightly crazy offspring of Salvador Dali and the blokes who made Wallace and Gromit.

Strangely, these ads were actually outsourced to ad agencies, Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty and Glue. And, indeed, the movies seem like they were made with a bit of old bartle and a dollop of glue.

But wouldn't you love to see these things interrupt your NFL game this Sunday, rather than yet another car spot? Oh, come on, Google. You can afford it.