Further evidence of just how damn cool this InterWeb thingie really is: My old high school buddy Keith now lives in New Jersey. Today, he needed to go into The City — which us provincials refer to as “New York” and/or “Manhattan” — on business and he wanted to know where he could go for a good lunch. So what does he do? He shoots off an email to none other than Brian Greenberg, a guy Keith has never met but whom he “knows” from Brian’s comments here on Simple Tricks, and my own links to Brian’s blog. Keith explains his connection to me and his situation and then asks for a couple of recommendations; Brian, good egg that he is, immediately sends back a list of possibilities, and forwards the whole conversation to me for my amusement and/or enlightenment.
I love that this sort of thing is now possible. No, not only possible, but downright routine. There are a lot of things about life in the 21st Century that I really, vehemently don’t like — the apparent apathy of the general public towards US-sanctioned torture, a media obsession with extremely young and poorly behaved people who make far more money than I do, those little condiment packets at all the fast-food places that you can never open without getting the stuff on your hands — but the idea that someone writing a personal blog in Utah can facilitate enough of a social connection between two strangers who live on the East Coast for one of them to ask the other for a restaurant recommendation… well, I do love that.
As I said to Brian when I emailed him back, it’s like the whole country, and to a lesser extent the whole planet, is becoming one big small town, where everybody seems to know a guy. Keith, I hope you enjoyed your lunch. And Brian, thanks again for helping a guy out…
Happy to help out. And the irony is, of the dozen or so recommendations I gave him, he wound up at a place I frequent often, but somehow forgot to put on my list!
As you said via e-mail, all’s well that ends well.
I should also point out that some months ago, someone I know only passingly, who lives in Chicago, told a Philadelphia-based listserv that I’m on that she was going to Salt Lake City for work. I reached out to Jason for suggested extra-curricular activities in the SLC area, which he sent me, and I subsequently sent back to the listserv & the person in question.
Only difference there is she never told me how/if she made use of the info.
Still, we all seem to live in that small town called NewSaltYorkago.
(Man, I watch too many TV commercials…)
Just goes to show how catchy that particular ad campaign is, eh? 😉
Well with my new ATT service, I’m glad to know I can get service in NewSalkYorkago if needs be 😉