I’m going to Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago, Chile soon.

I’d like to know what’s going on in those cities.

Sure, the New York Times will tell you what’s happening, in English. But do you think that’s their top priority? Do you think they spend a lot of time on it?

Newspapers (and their websites) capture a moment in time in a city. Forget the money, the political issues, the charges of bias, the overcovered and the under-reported things. If someone enters your city in a search engine, he or she should be able to find a website that shows everything that’s happening in that city on that day.

Blogs, for the most part, don’t do that.

More than 40 people got together to protest the Arizona Republic’s left-wing bias yesterday.

Yes, the paper that endorsed John McCain for president, Jon Kyl for Senate, guys like Trent Franks and John Shadegg for our House delegation, that’s some serious lefty slant going on there. I’m sure the Republic will respond by endorsing — god, I don’t know who’s left. Dig up Barry Goldwater? Oh wait, he was pro-choice, not acceptable.

In all seriousness, here’s an idea? Start your own damned conservative news service! Between the 40 of you there should be SOMEONE who string a sentence together, and it doesn’t take a brain to run a blog.

Conservatives have been bitching about this for decades while doing nothing. It’s easier than ever to start a new news outlet. Let the market decide if it’s worthy. How totally weird would that be.

Unpopularity isn’t something you can just learn overnight. Sure, you might be lucky enough to be surrounded by mean, evil, pretentious asshats. But if you’re not, try one or more of these surefire, extensibly-tested tips!

1. When someone says something interesting, say something about yourself. Make it long and rambling.

2. Wait for someone to stop talking, then talk about what you want to talk about.

3. Chat people up online, with nothing to say, just so they have to pay attention to you.

4. One word: solipsism! Everyone’s just an actor in your life.

5. Get pissed when people aren’t paying enough attention to you. Take it personally.

6. Whine a lot. It’s everyone else’s responsibility to solve your problems.

7. Nothing matters except your unparalleled greatness.

8. Seek to be worshiped, not loved. You’re going to be FAMOUS!

9. Believe that #8 is going to happen because you’re talented and will be Discovered. Not because of hard, thankless work.

10. Your respect must be earned!

11. Talk shit about people behind their back. (This is a very practical, straightforward way to become unpopular.)

12. Conflate your fairly trivial problems with others’ far more serious problems (see #1).

13. Use the wrong level of intellect for your audience. Eggheaded jargon is good. So is being inappropriately casual.

14. Talk to people like they’re stupid and live under a rock.

15. Talk to people like they live in your little world and understand your geeky in-jokes.

16. Tell boring stories that build up to a pointless punchline.

17. Say wildly inappropriate, insensitive things. They’ll get over it. They’re your friends/family.

18. Weave your political views into all conversation. The more emotional and awkward the topic, the better.

19. Interrupt.

20. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.

21. Accuse anyone who gets pissed at you of being politically correct.

22. Betray confidential information.

23. Be funny/cute/snarky all the time.

24. Bash people less popular than you to impress people more popular than you.

25. Snark about people who have had fewer privileges than you.

26. View people primarily by their ethnic group/gender/religion/sexuality. Bring it up in conversation a lot.

27. Don’t worry about your credibility.

28. Be emotionally needy.

29. Tease people, it’s funny! Even when they’re not in the mood.

30. Dominate the conversation. Everyone loves a strong personality!

31. Realize that the world is a zero-sum game and if a peer/rival gets recognized, you will never be recognized, too. So throw a hissy fit.

32. Lose your shit over little things. Preferably in public.

33. Make racist jokes.

34. Make religious jokes.

35. Make jokes about rape.

36. Be neurotic. Constantly remind people that bad things are just around the corner!

37. Listen to pundits. Parrot them.

38. Don’t give people the benefit of the doubt. They Really Are Trying to Mess With You.

39. The rules don’t apply to you! You’re special.

40. Get way too personal, way too fast.

41. When something sucks, take out an ad in the paper to let the whole world know.

42. Only get together with friends on your terms.

43. Drink too much and say stupid things.

44. Overreact.

45. Stalk.

46. If you’re a bad conversationalist, talk a lot.

47. Cry at the drop of  a hat.

48. Laugh inappropriately.

49. Shoot down your friends’ tastes in things.

50. Blog on your lunch hour instead of going to lunch with friends. (Oops)

And yes, I practically have a dissertation in this, so you can be assured that these are 100% true and guaranteed to work!

Next door to my office was a pizza place that went out of business. How do you screw up pizza on a college campus? I dunno, ask them.

Fortunately, unlike so much of Phoenix, the stripmall pad didn’t stay empty for long. Enter Smashburger. Their logo feels unpretentious so I thought, “Mom and pop burger shop. I’ll have to stop in.”

Then I started seeing friends who work in the media and PR biz post about it on Facebook. Not “Yay, Smashburger is opening, I LOVE that place!”, just “Smashburger is opening.” Gosh, I bet that was totally organic and self-driven.

Then Smashburger got a write-up in the paper. And another paper. And then the Business Journal of Phoenix revealed that they plan to open 30 identical copies in Phoenix.

I walked by, and two TV stations were covering the opening via satellite feed. Someone put makeup on and did their hair to cover college students eating burgers. You’d think that someone found the Virgin Mary on a toasted egg bun.

Wait a minute here. Haven’t we seen this before? Oh yes we have.

I’m not saying that all corporate restaurants are overrated, hype-driven chains that are far more interested in pleasing investors than making good food. Gosh no.

It’s just a little weird that a chain would make it maiden foray into a city on a street with no free public parking via a media blitz that invites the whole Valley over. There’s going to be a lot of unhappy entitled SUV families, methinks.

And really, who can beat Chuckbox?

I have a button. It’s a “You’re a big pariah and nobody likes you” button.

There was in fact a time when I was a big ol’ outcast, and nobody liked me. This was largely attributable my being a loud, obnoxious, opinionated, condescending, uppity oversensitive nasty-pants. (This is the perfect personality, by the way, for a career in computer programming.)

Anyway, fast forward — hallelujah, I learn to make friends. But the shadow of pariahdom follows me into my mid-twenties. I get my annual review, and the feedback from peers is like:

“Stacy is a disorganized trainwreck. Jesus, make a list already.”

“Stacy whines like a teakettle. So the printer is broken. Deal with it.”

And of course, I took it to heart and got totally butt-hurt, because how could anyone say anything about meeeee that’s negative? I’m SMRT! That’s all that counts!

Uh, not really.

Every year, I challenge myself to get better at people skills. I’ve come a long, long way since being a fat 12-year-old who couldn’t make eye contact with people. There was a time when I thought I’d be like that forever.

So at work, we get to pick the peers who review us. We were told to pick colleagues who would make us look fabulous. I chose instead to pick five people who could write astoundingly truthful criticism of me. Even criticism my boss would see.

Think about it — once you know what your obstacles are, you know what to fix. Once you fix your obstacles, boy howdy do the hurdles disappear.

I’ve rebranded my “You’re a big pariah and nobody likes you” button into “My INTJ Quirks”. It’s helpful when you know what your biology dictates. Mine mandates that I will never not be shy. And the review pretty much re-iterated what I’m working on, and that’s great! Because there are no surprises. Whew.

Frankly, I’d much prefer it if humans acted like computer programs. Coding is all call-and-response. I write a query, the processor responds, the end. But humans aren’t like that. You don’t know how many times I’ve had to go back and insert a “Hi, So-and-So” at the beginning of an email and something vaguely human in the body of it. Not natural for me, and I envy people who are easy with other humans.

But that doesn’t mean that everyone else should just deal with it. Being an outcast gave me a pretty extreme perspective on the need for empathy and letting people — even royally obnoxious people — off the hook. I feel pretty bad when someone says that I’m cold and closed-off, but at the same time, I know that they’re right. I can be more human. I can share more. I can consciously try to engage myself more in their lives.

In return, they can learn ASP.NET. Kidding! Ha. But I got a 98 in ASP.NET class. People 101? Still taking the course.