The Oscar grouch.

Oh God, is it Oscar season again? But we just did this twelve months ago! Do we have to do it every year just because it's annual? I can't cope with this right now. Can we put this off until June maybe? June 2034 would be perfect.

I kick and I scream and I hold my breath until I turn blue, but this happens every year. Sort of like a colonoscopy. Although I don't think most doctors actually recommend annual colonoscopies. Just mine, apparently. Something about that makes me nervous. But we're getting off-topic.

Actually, I've been trying to write something about the Oscars all week, but for some reason I haven't been able to. I keep getting bored and stopping in midsentence, often not even bothering to finish the

This is very unlike me. Normally I get very worked up about this subject. I get vocal. I get conspiratorial. After "Crash" won Best Picture in 2005 I experienced about two weeks of missing time, during which I may or may not, in my shocked, addled state, have defaulted to stalking Natalie Portman. That's pretty much just what I do when my life in shambles (might I add, the letters from her attorneys are unnecessarily hurtful).

See, I just can't pull off this look. God knows I've tried.

But this year? Not so much. Maybe it's the lack of conflict. In a bizarre anomaly, I like almost all ten of this year's Best Picture nominees. I'm just not used to being this agreeable. It upsets my digestion.

Two exceptions: "127 Hours", a movie during which I began to speculate about whether that was a title or an estimated runtime, and "Winter's Bone", which is the one I didn't bother to see. You know how you can tell that "Winter's Bone" must be a movie with real artistic integrity? Because nobody with commercial interests of any kind would call a movie "Winter's Bone".

I have nothing in particular to root against, and nothing in particular to champion. "Black Swan" is my favorite, but not to such a degree that I will feel outrage when it loses. The critical argument against it is sound, even if I don't agree with it.

I may criticize the choice of "The King's Speech" as too safe and conventional, or argue that too many viewers and critics misinterpreted "The Social Network" in ways that are just plain embarrassing, but I can't argue that either is undeserving of the recognition.

"True Grit" may in fact be the best movie I saw all year, but I can't say that it was a particularly daring project, nor a huge leap forward for anyone involved, excepting that girl with the pigtails. In short, I'm occupying the middle ground on everything. I feel so bland and...reasonable. This almost never happens to me.

"Look at me. I need you to focus. It's about that time. Come on, swing it! Bringing this to the entire nation, come on, feel the vibration! Feel it, feel it!"

You might ask why I ever care about the awards in the first place. Most people don't, after all. And they are, as a point of fact, a fundamentally flawed institution based on nebulous, subjective criteria, which usually includes equal degrees of snobbery, politics, and favoritism. Why even pay attention? Why get worked up at all?

To which I reply: Why are you interrupting me? I'm in the middle of a spiel here, save your questions for the end. That's what the comment box is for, this box up here, this is my domain and I rule it like a king, a king I say! I'm king of the trees, I'm kind of the birds and I'm king of the bees! King of the air! Ah me, what a throne, what a wonderful chair!

But to answer your rude, intrusive question, I care because people in the movie industry care. For example, did you see "There Will Be Blood"? A lot of people did, and a lot of people liked it (I'm not a member of that second group, but that's a separate spiel). Paul Thomas Anderson has been making movies for about fifteen years now, and "There Will Be Blood" is a pretty typical example of his work: quiet, intense, opaque, and very, very difficult to market.

Anderson's movies are usually not commercial successes, and whatever financial gains they make are modest. Further, they tend to be expensive to make, prohibitively long, and sometimes threaten to draw the dreaded NC-17 rating (i.e., the Kiss of Death). He is not a safe investment.

"I know you said that a truly dedicated method actor would put his arm under a real boulder, but did you guys have to leave me down here alone all night? Hello? Danny? Are you there?"

But for all that, he still manages to find people to put money behind his projects. Because his movies are very good at getting Oscar nominations. And people like having their name attached to an Oscar-nominated film.

They call them "prestige pictures", movies that are meant not to make you money but to make you look like a person of depth and integrity, a patron of complex, thought-provoking art when you're not busy producing "Secret Agent Rooster 3" or "The Overweight Guy Who Does Pratfalls, starring Kevin James!"

Of course, the movies in question don't have to have any actual artistic merit; the recognition alone is enough. But, in spite of their many blunders and blind spots, the folks at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are generally pretty good at recognizing at least a few great movies every year. Very rarely do those movies win anything, but these people aren't utterly clueless. This isn't the Grammys.

So the Oscars are a big part of the reason that guys like Paul Thomas Anderson get to keep making movies. Big movies, with high production values and name actors that play on thousands of screens, rather than stuff shot in his backyard on a Hi8. Not that there's anything wrong with the backyard Hi8 productions. Did I mention that my wonderful colleagues at Viral Media Networks are part of the 48 Hour Film Festival this year?

Anderson hasn't done a movie this year to garner nominations, but the Coens did, and so did Chris Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, David O. Russell, Danny Boyle, and David Fincher (lotta D names? That's a little eerie...).

These are all the same people, like Kathryn Bigelow last years, who make the movies that I used to complain didn't get the recognition they deserved at Oscar time. They were "the MTV generation" of directors (a label which should tell you how up to date most movie critics are on pop culture). Now though they're, well, nominees one through five.

The Dude no longer abides.

Maybe that's one of the reasons I'm less agitated this year. My preferred generation and branof filmmakers are finally the standard. The gates to the Ivory Tower have been thrown open and the pillaging hordes have been invited in for tea. Damn it Academy voters, now how am I supposed to pretend like I'm avant garde? The only thing that made these mainstream films feel like edgy indie projects was that you spurned them!

Wow, I feel really old all of a sudden. Someone find me a machine to rage against. Other than eReaders, that's just exacerbating my problem. Everybody with an eReader, get off my lawn. Seriously, what are you doing out there anyway? The lighting is better inside.

Update Tuesday.

Similarly deficient in "groove."

In 1957, Muddy Waters declared to the world: "Got my Mojo working, but it just don't work on you."

Society was perplexed. His Mojo? What was that? Where did it come from? And why is he telling us about it?

All of a sudden we felt strangely inadequate. We didn't know the first thing about Mojo, but Muddy Waters did. He even had it working! What if ours was non-functional? How would we even check?

But of course, no one could actually ask for more information. To ask would be to betray one's ignorance, and reveal to the world just how far away you were from having your own Mojo working. We couldn't risk approaching the wrong person. If whoever we asked already had their Mojo working, they would surely ridicule us.

Not even knowing what quality we were trying to assess, we were paralyzed by ignorance. The only thing to do was just to fake it for as long as possible and hope that we could figure the whole thing out before anyone else noticed. It's possible that Muddy Waters had the only working Mojo in human history, but ever since that fateful day fifty four years ago we've all been forced to live a lie.

It's time to come out of the closet. Or, erm, some other terminology that makes people less uncomfortable. It's time be honest, with ourselves and with each other.

My name is Adam, and I do not have my Mojo working. I couldn't even tell you what's wrong with it. Maybe the battery is worn down? See, that was just a wild guess, I don't even know what it runs on in the first place. Could it perhaps be solar-powered, will it start working if I leave it in the sun? I can only speculate.

I suppose this means I haven't lived up to the standard set by Muddy Waters. But you know what? He died two days after I was born. How's the Mojo these days Muddy? Got a whole lot less working for you now, don't you? See, I don't have to put up with your crap, because however hard your Mojo was working, it just don't work on me.

Do I feel emancipated? You bet your sweet bippy.

Update Thursday.

Economic roadkill.

Walk into any Borders location today and you will experience a very special blend of awkwardness and discomfort.

An atmosphere of doom and neglect hangs over the premises, and you can't help but feel as though you're intruding on a kind of tragic farce that must going on in the lives of each of the ill-starred employees.

I imagine it's like attending the funeral of a person you didn't know. And it being very obvious that you didn't know them. Because they and everyone they knew were Tasmanian aborigines still living in hunter-gatherer bands in the most isolated regions of their island nation, and you are, well, not. Visibly not.

On the bright side, this "Store Closing!" sign shop sprang up in the location almost immediately!

Whether this experience sounds appealing to you will probably say a lot about you as a person. Myself, I found it downright surreal.

Every other customer at the cafe wanted to console the workers and strike up a conversation about their prospects. It was like a really long, extra depressing version of "Up in the Air", only without George Clooney's cheekbones to help you pull through.

I never really liked Borders all that much, but would often end up there anyway just because they have a lot of locations and were usually open late. Today marks the first and only time that no one asked me if I had a Borders card, which is good, because I would have had trouble suppressing the urge to say "Honestly, does it even matter at this point?", which would almost certainly not be helpful.

Not that Borders is going out of business altogether. They filed the special kind of bankruptcy that means you still get to stay open. But they are closing hundreds of stores, including two seemingly popular locations in San Francisco. So the company is more maimed than dead. I would keep that phrase out of the office memos though.

Certain commentators reactions to this story have been less than sympathetic. Go to any news site and you will find the comments section (also known as "the internet's septic tank") teeming with smug jibes from pompous assholes who put down their copy of "The Fountainhead" and balanced their hi-ball on top of a stack of Forbes back issues long enough to tap out some drivel along the lines of:

"Well, it's a tough market out there, this is what happens when you don't adapt and keep up!"

Right. Why oh why didn't Jenny the barista or Bob in the stockroom innovate harder? This could all have been avoided if only they had prioritized the company's primary action items to account for the fundamental shift in the dynamics of the market over the last three quarters! Bob, dude, what the fuck, where were you on that?

It's certainly true that any company that goes through four CEOs in five years can hardly be called well-managed. And yet, the thousands of people losing their jobs this week had little to do with the big picture executive decisions that engendered their march to the jobless rolls.

That's the way of the world, but I can't help but notice that capitalism has language for those who run their companies into the ground ("loser", generally), but no language for the little people crushed under their toppled mass.

Tragically, the entire staff was carried off by a crowd who interpreted this
sign in the most literal sense.

I mean, the rules tell us that those entrepreneurs who are smart, hard working, and innovative will get ahead, and those who are not will flounder That's a tough system, but it seems fair; there's a sense of justness, of everyone getting what they earn.

But what about those people who are smart, hard working, and innovative, but fail anyway because their bosses are pinheads? What does the system have to say about that? What's even the terminology for that? "Collateral damage," something to that effect? Or just nothing at all?

Usually if you rail against chain stores or conglomerate corporations, people write it off as a bunch of hippie nonsense. But there's a very good reason not to like such world-spanning business institutions: it puts a lot of eggs in one basket.

A bad businessman in charge of a small company is risking only a few jobs, one of them his own, but a bad businessman at the head of an enormous national or international chain has thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of jobs in his hands, and it's entirely possible than an enormous fuck-up on his part may still leave him inexplicably employed.

I guess this means lots of store-liquidation sales in the next few weeks. And boy, if you think going to Borders is uncomfortable now, just wait. Going-out-of-business sales are always one of the most awkward experiences for me. "Hi, I didn't patronize your store when it counted, but I'm happy to show up now to pick the carcass clean!"

Admittedly, I'm not helping matters when I show up dressed like this.

Getting rung up is always an ordeal. It seems inappropriate to make small talk with this person who probably only bothered to show up that morning because the coin landed on heads. They're out of a job, what the fuck do they care what you have to say?

But cold, mechanical transactions without any hint of human interaction only make the occasion seem that much more somber, so it seems like you ought to acknowledge them in some way, right?

Me, I go with the creepy, consoling shoulder pat: one hand, two taps on the left shoulder just after they hand you the bag. It's best if you just completely blindside them with it, I mean get right up in their personal space for three seconds. If you do it correctly, they're so startled by this sudden and inexplicable violation that they won't even be able to react until you're already out the door.

And, as a bonus, the inane small talk of the guy in line behind you will now seem to that cashier like sweet manna from heaven by comparison. See, everybody wins!

Next update Monday.

Madly in Anger With You.

You know we're making amazing strides in creating equality between the sexes. For example, did you know that men can get PMS now?

Seriously, some head shrinker named Jed Diamond has been going around the last few years and saying that as men get older they too go through a hormonal change that can affect their mental and emotional well-being. They call it "Irritable Male Syndrome".

Now isn't just a charming fucking little clinical term? This is like if we called PMS "Crazy Bitch Time". If any doctor ever tells me I have "Irritable Male Syndrome", I'm going to take that as full permission to punch him right in the happy place. I mean, if he was at all paying attention to his own diagnosis, he'd have seen it coming, right?

So how do you know if you're suffering from IMS? Don't despair, there's a handy little quiz that will give you guidance!

Yes, on a scale of one to four, one being "Never" and four being "All the time", you're asked to judge how well a list of adjectives (mostly adjectives anyway. For a PhD holder, Diamond seems a little sketchy on his sentence structure sometimes) applies to you over the period of the last month.

Of course you must realize that I couldn't possibly pass up such an intriguing opportunity to learn about my emotional health. Do I suffer from "Irritable Male Syndrome"? Well, it's tough to say, because honestly, although I wouldn't dream of questioning the efficacy of Diamond's work, I think this quiz needs a little fine-tuning.

There are dozens of terms and phrases that you're asked to judge yourself on, among them:

Angry, Grumpy, Easily Annoyed, Aggressive, Hostile, Mean, Argumentative, Explosive.

Now, an educated guy like Diamond ought to know that those are all synonyms, or so close to synonyms that most people would have trouble differentiating between them in any practical way. I guess if you have a hot temper the test is sort of weighted against you because that counts eight different ways.

And some of these other terms aren't exactly synonyms, but still things that just sort of naturally pair with other ones:

Moody, Discontented, Tense, Touchy, Frustrated, Troubled.

Doesn't it stand to reason that if I'm Angry, Grumpy and Easily Annoyed that I probably couldn't help but be Moody or Tense about it?

And what the fuck, Troubled, did this guy spend hours pouring over dictionaries and thesauruses (thesauri?) trying to find the single most vague and broadly applicable but distinctly negative adjective he could find? Is there ANYone in the world who goes an entire month without feeling Troubled about something? Even Hugh Heffner gets a little edgy when he runs out of Viagra.

Other parts of the quiz would seem to have more to do with the quality of life you enjoy (or don't enjoy) than your emotional state:

Unloved, Unappreciated, Bored, Overworked, Overwhelmed.

Yeah, alright, so those might indicate a psychological problem, but might they also just be indicative of someone who has a shitty life?

And some of this stuff is just plain funny:

Need to Use Drugs or Alcohol. "Honey, I'm not an addict, I just have Irritable Male Syndrome!"

Need to Sleep more or Trouble Sleeping. Wow, so I've got IMS if I sleep too much OR if I sleep too little. What an curiously broad and encompassing clinical condition.

Desire to Eat. Holy shit! I have a desire to eat all the time! Every day in fact! I usually end up eating three times a day, sometimes more! And to think, it's been going on since childhood. I must need real professional help.

Sarcastic. Not to split hairs, but Sarcastic is something I am, not something I feel. And as you've probably noticed, your little quiz isn't clearing up the problem.

Urge to Drink Caffine [sic]. Seriously, that's how it's spelled on the quiz. And this thing has been up for a long time, so they've had plenty of opportunities to fix it. Just a reminder, this guy has a PhD. Although I'm not exactly sure in what...

If you're curious, I scored a whopping 89, indicating that IMS is "definitely present" and that I should seek treatment with Diamond, either in person or through his online program.

But wait, I'm only 27, IMS is supposed to strike when you're middle-aged and your hormone levels are going awry? Ah, well, I guess that means I'm just an asshole then.

And now I've got a psychological exam that proves it. Maybe this wasn't such a bad day after all. I'm feeling a little less Demanding, Withdrawn, and Impatient already.

Donkey Kong is a Communist.

Yes, Donkey Kong is a dirty, rotten commie.

It has become woefully clear to me that the original 1981 Donkey Kong arcade game is, in fact, a Marxist propaganda piece, perpetrated on unsuspecting American markets. Think about the way Donkey Kong is structured, I mean really think about it. Is it not just a stripped-down allegory of Marxist class struggle?

Our hero is Mario, a plumber and apparent first-generation Italian immigrant. His ill-advised mustache and trademark overall and hat combo (which are, suspiciously, colored red...) mark him as the representation of the common, workaday, proletarian everyman.

His nemesis is Donkey Kong, a monstrous ape who symbolizes the oppressive, bourgeois capitalist overclass impeding Mario’s progress up the economic ladder. Donkey Kong begins at the top of the screen in each level, automatically occupying the most advantageous position via some unarticulated privilege, but Mario must struggle to attain that lofty perch.



In the opening cinematic the platforms are evenly spaced, but Donkey Kong immediately slants them into a different configuration so that his barrels can roll down on you. This represents how easily the bourgeois can manipulate the work environment for his own gain.

The barrels themselves represent resources, an infinite supply of capital that Donkey Kong uses to hinder the progress of the little guy. Mario’s only weapon is the hammer, a working man’s tool which can, when the need arises, be converted into a weapon, which of course is why it graces the flag of the Movement.

Anyone who has played the game knows that you have to keep moving. If you stay still, then the fireball will eventually catch up with you. The fire, clearly, represents the burning need of the working man’s necessities; food, shelter, and clothing. To avoid being destroyed by need, Mario must always be moving forward. Only Donkey Kong, the rich elitist, has the luxury of remaining stationary.

Perhaps the captive woman symbolizes the working man’s pursuit of a happy domestic life, or perhaps we’re meant to associate her with Fay Wray from the original “King Kong”, in which case she becomes a symbol for fame and old-fashioned Hollywood glamor that serves as an opiate for the masses. Like all working class peoples, Mario believes that if he just works hard enough and climbs high enough he too can enjoy that happy, wealthy lifestyle.

But it never happens! When you get to the top, the next level starts and you end up right back at the bottom. Play for long enough and the game just resets. No matter how hard Mario works or how high he climbs, he’ll never achieve his goals.

His is a life of endless toil, a literally never-ending struggle against the machinations of a plutocratic primate whom he can never permanently vanquish. All of his progress is just an illusion. Surely there is no more poignant and heartbreaking metaphor for the plight of the working man than this?

By now I’m sure you understand how it all works. I don’t need to explain, for example, that the deadly spring mechanisms in level three represent how the industrial revolution destroyed the artisan class and how increasing reliance on mechanization has devastated modern labor. You have no doubt reached those conclusions on your own.

"Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor."

It’s all so simple once you take the time to put the pieces together. Those slimy pinko bastards have been slipping their ultra leftist revolutionary tripe into our arcades for almost thirty years!

But even the diabolically subversive Donkey Kong game pales in comparison to the terrifying Stalinist overtones of Tetris. Tetris, of course, is a game in which you combine interlocking puzzle pieces together in such a way as to cause stacks of them to vanish. Allow them to pile up too high and the game ends.

In Stalin’s “Marxism and the National and Colonial Question” he talks about the advantageousness of unifying disparate national groups in a common cause. Left to themselves, these various subclasses were easily exploited, much the same way the falling Tetris blocks will, without guidance, pile up and accomplish nothing.

Tetris requires an all-powerful central figure to dictate the position of the blocks and teach them to compliment each other, the way that the Russian Communist party did with the various, scattered peasant populations.

But wait, you say, don’t the blocks disappear when they’re put into the proper arrangements? Indeed they do, Comrade. However, that is for the good of everyone. If we let the blocks stack up too high, they would soon reach the top, and the game would be over for us all.

Sometimes is it necessary to direct them to move into a position that necessitates their own destruction so that the rest can carry on. “You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves,” after all.

That must be why the game is all about moving around blocks. It’s easier to comprehend those kinds of decisions when you think of them in terms of mechanical components instead of people.

Chilling, isn’t it?

All that money should buy Eduardo Saverin a clue.

While everyone this year was busy talking about how "The Social Network" makes Mark Zuckerberg look like the Benito Mussolini of the digital age, relatively little attention was paid to the depiction of his apparently hapless, doomed sidekick, Eduardo Saverin.

If you haven't seen the movie, let me break it down for you; you know in mob movies, when the group of young street toughs are about to become made men but first they have to whack one of their own pals? Well, Saverin was that guy.

But at least one person was paying attention to how the movie made Saverin look; Saverin himself. And about a month later, he had something to say about it.

Now, the movie would have you believe that Zuckerberg was the brains of the outfit and Saverin was just the money, but as it turns out...well, Saverin really was just the money.

***

Plain = Saverin

Bold = Me

Imagine sitting in a movie theater, and when the lights dim and credits roll, you see your life unfold on the screen.

Wow, how would that go?

"I really wish they'd cast someone other than Daniel Radcliffe. And I really wish they'd put a more convincing wig on him. And I really wish I hadn't spent quite so much time playing Road Rash and watching 'Re-Animator', because this montage is going on forever."

As a co-founder of Facebook, I have wondered how Hollywood would depict its creation and development on the big screen. Would it be accurate? Would it showcase our failures, as well as our successes?

Okay, if that's really what you were worried about, then you obviously don't know that much about how movies happen. What you should have been worried about is whether the producer would insist on rewriting your character as a cartoon squirrel who fights crime, farts fire, and is voiced by Jack Black.

What I gleaned from viewing “The Social Network” was bigger and more important than whether the scenes and details included in the script were accurate.

Oh man, is he going to start talking about how this helped him find Jesus? Because that always makes me uncomfortable.

The true takeaway for me was that entrepreneurship and creativity, however complicated, difficult or tortured to execute, are perhaps the most important drivers of business today and the growth of our economy.

Wait, what?

Can we repeat that?

The true takeaway for me was that entrepreneurship and creativity, however complicated, difficult or tortured to execute, are perhaps the most important drivers of business today and the growth of our economy.

Huh. Somehow I expected it would become less stupid the second time. Not sure how. Magic, maybe?

Did Saverin even watch this movie? Saying that "The Social Network" is about the triumph of American entrepreneurship is like saying that "Rocky" is about Apollo Creed's successful title defense.

[ ...]Mark Zuckerberg successfully developed an entirely new world for daily interactions. Today, the Facebook platform brings a social layer to many of the ordinary actions we conduct online everyday.

...fuck, see, I can't make any jokes about Facebook, because I am on Facebook right now. Saverin, you magnificent bastard, you've trapped me in your clever wizard's puzzle!

But, unlike so many things in life, there are no boundaries as to who can be an entrepreneur. You can be a college student. True innovation is blind. As the web increasingly democratizes innovation and costs decrease, anyone can showcase a product. Just look at Facebook or YouTube.

I do, constantly. Sometimes I have dreams where I wake up and find the computer on, and when I try to turn it off these black snaky cables come out and plug into my head and force me to watch, like in that Pearl Jam video. At least, I'm pretty sure it's a dream. Anyway, what were we talking about?

In the digital world, the dependency on a large checkbook to start a business is diminishing.

Wait, I've heard this line somewhere before. It was from this AmeriQuest guy. He was trying to sell me an adjustable rate mortgage...

Instead, what has become increasingly more important is the help from others — the intellectual capital and know-how to succeed.

This was clearly cribbed straight from some freshman business major's last-minute term paper. And, now that its got Saverin's name on it, it will be cribbed directly into every freshman business major's last-minute term paper, like an ouroboros of bullshit.

Entrepreneurship involves mistakes and failures. But ultimately, if you have that intellectual capital and intimate understanding behind your project, you have a chance to succeed.

So, I think it's safe to say at this point that he didn't actually watch the movie. And might not remember his own life.

Whether the movie corresponds to his life I couldn’t say, because apparently he thinks we’re more interested in hearing about “know-how” and “intellectual capital” and other flaccid stock phrases that make me feel like an 18-wheeler was repeatedly running over my foot.

Intellectual capital, and not just monetary capital, will spawn the next great product or idea. Entrepreneurs, especially in the technology sector, will create things tomorrow that we can barely imagine today. They will struggle. They will fight. Many will fail. Others will thrive.

Some will die in hot pursuit in fiery auto crashes, some will die in hot pursuit while shifting through my ashes, some will fall in love with life and drink it from a fountain that was pouring like an avalanche and-

What? Oh, sorry, I got distracted listening to "Pepper" and, well, it's just a good song.

What we must be most vigilant about is maintaining an economic system that continues to encourage entrepreneurship and creativity. If we want our country to truly succeed in the 21st century, we will need the public and private sectors to also think in creative ways to encourage and further facilitate the creation of new companies.

Give me a second, I'm just going to gear up this jackhammer and see how deep I have to dig to find a genuinely unique, substantive idea anywhere in this paragraph.

Wow, straight through and into the table! It was like dropping a bowling ball on a soufflé.

This is not just an American issue, but a global one. As someone who was born in Brazil, grew up in Miami, and educated in Boston, I have seen first-hand that the challenge of creating new businesses is a global opportunity.

Wait a second; Miami, Boston, and...Brazil. Huh. Okay Ed, you want to play a game? It's called: "One of these things is not like the other ones."

Really, does he think that the general population of Brazil are all just giddy about the many business opportunities facing them, does he think that's the general common association with that country? Don't get me wrong, I know there are rich and successful people in Brazil. They're the ones who step over the hordes of poor people packed into the alleys like sardines. Exactly how long were you at Harvard, Mr. Saverin?

Entrepreneurship must be encouraged by everyone around the world. Working towards a common goal of creating new companies should be an aspiration for everyone, no matter what their political stripes or leanings may be, or where they live. Entrepreneurship is not limited to just our borders.

It’s not? Well damn. Can we at least still be the global nexus for egomania?

In the digital world, borders are permeable.

Just ask Julian Assange.

While watching the “Hollywood version” of one’s college life is both humbling and entertaining, I hope that this film inspires countless others to create and take that leap to start a new business.

The same way that "Jaws" inspired countless people to move to idyllic seaside villages and frolic in the waters without care in the world. Or so I imagine.

***

Okay, what the hell happened there? Saverin declined to comment on the film, which, frankly, is the only reason most people know his name, and instead he just delivered some bland, boilerplate corporate non-speak, the kind of uninspired mush that makes it sound like he's hocking Amway or shares in some late 90s dot-com scheme.

One commentator speculated that Ed here wanted to take the high road and neither condemn nor praise the movie or the events it was based on but instead just use the opportunity to establish a public image for himself. And he did. Sadly, the image he chose was that of a cheap salesman with nothing to say.

The sad thing is, I really wanted to know what he had to say. If any of the other backbiting rich kids wrapped up in those lawsuits had made a public statement after the movie, I wouldn't have given a possum's armpit about it, but my ears perked up a little at the mention of Saverin's name. Zuckerberg is a public figure, but Saverin is more of a cipher, and I was genuinely curious about him.

Maybe Saverin has some profound or insightful thoughts about the movie, the book, his life, business, or, well, anything really. If so, I wish he wouldn’t keep them such a secret.