Word Soup

The other day I simply deep linked to a Network World story about a guy who lost his girlfriend because he didn't answer her e-mails during a nationwide Blackberry outage. It was just a short blog entry, but for whatever reason it received more attention than weeks worth of more interesting fare. Says the dumped man on his digital constipation:

"We got into a really bad argument earlier in the day," he replies. "She sent me a few e-mails and when I didn't respond right away, she thought I was ignoring her and called it off. I didn't get the e-mail it was over until around 2 a.m. today."

Not knowing what else to say, I suggest that perhaps this situation might be covered by his BlackBerry service-level agreement. His reply: "I'll call RIM and tell them to give me an upgrade on a new girlfriend."

Personally I thought the story was kind of stupid. What kind of relationship do you have if the structural foundation disintegrates because of a two-hour fucking e-mail gap? But as a general rule, the dumber I think a story is, the more popular it will usually be.

This morning I received an e-mail from a producer on the Ellen DeGeneres show, asking if we could help her get in touch with this person for an entire segment they're planning.