Technology Fail, Now with More Schadenfreude!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010
I hate election season. The ads annoy me. The ads that plain LIE piss me off. The ads that assume I'm a retard INFURIATE me. And since my industry has evolved to the point where robocalls are the most cost effective way to "reach" voters, my phone is ringing CONSTANTLY. I'm a full time home-worker, and I use our home line for business purposes. I really don't need it tied up by the mindless droning of both parties talking about how THEY'RE the cat's pyjama's and their opponents eat babies for breakfast while lighting their cigars with your tax dollars. The entire affair makes me want to crawl under a rock until mid-November.

However, every once in a while, something happens that makes me laugh hysterically, in a politicians are deeply deserving of my schadenfreude kind of way, and yesterday was my day.

As I was returning from my mammogram appointment, I saw a sign from Colorado candidate Ken Buck, who is running for the Senate against Michael Bennet. Buck's sign said, "Ken Buck - The Grass Roots Candidate."

Now, I happen to think they're both pretty crappy choices in terms of duplicitous behavior, but Ken Buck is just WACKY, and apparently has an unnatural interest in my uterus, to boot. So I'm going to hold my nose and vote for Bennet. But even if I wasn't going to vote for Bennet, I'd still find Buck's sign more than a little disingenuous. He's not a grass roots candidate - he's a Tea Party candidate. Which, as we all now know, is financed by oil baron libertarian ka-billiionaires. I guess because nothing says "libertarian" like someone who wants to regulate my uterus.

In any event, I made the following tweet when I got home:
Saw a "Ken Buck - Grass Roots Candidate" sign. Does that mean you need to smoke a bowl before even considering voting for this Fruit Cup?
I was just being a smart ass, of course, as is my wont. So imagine my surprise when I saw the following response in my twhirl application:
kenbucktweets RT @Janiece65: Saw a "Ken Buck - Grass Roots Candidate" sign. Does that mean you need to smoke a bowl before even considering voting for this Fruit Cup?
Um, yeah. It turned out what I thought was Ken Buck's autobot automatically retweets everything that has Buck's name in it, good, bad, or indifferent. So of course I tweeted,
HAHAHA! I tweeted a negative comment about Fruit Cup Ken Buck and his autobot retweeted me. SNORT. #technologyfail
Which the autobot promptly retweeted.

I found this frickin' hilarious. I wondered, what kind of retarded technology manager decided THIS particular strategy was made of teh hawesome? I checked out the KenBuckTweets Twitter account, and the majority of the entries are retweets of negative comments and links. Turns out, the account is maintained by the Denver Post, and has the following bio:
It makes me wonder if ole Ken is aware of this. His opponent apparently hasn't garnered the same attention from the Denver Post, although both candidates have campaign-run twitter accounts, as well.

Let's hear it for the Lame-Stream Media, who gave me at least one good laugh this election season.