"Bill Stoller is now following you on Twitter!"

What's with the exclamation point? I mean, I could see if it was, "Tiger Woods is now following you on Twitter!" But Bill Stoller? Never heard of the guy.

Coaches tell football players not to celebrate like goofs every time they get into the end zone. "Act like you've been there before," is the point they make.

Now that Twitter is a part of our lives—however banal and degrading a part of our lives it may be—what would be wrong with:

"You've got a new Twitter follower: Bill Stoller."

(Stole 'er? I never even met 'er!)

Drinking last night with a veteran journo who now works for the Associated Press in London.

On the usual subject, he expressed the usual hope, to the effect that he I thought public will realize what it's missing and journalism will would mount a return.

"I agree one hundred percent," I replied. "It's just that I don't know if it will take the public two years to realize the consequences of no journalism, or forty."

As part of my continuing frenemy fraternization with corporate reputation guru Leslie Gaines-Ross, I'd like to praise her latest blog post for IDing the new PR buzzword "reset," but question the intellectual integrity behind her main point:

OK, Doc: How, pray tell, does one "reset one's reputation"?

The only way I can think of to suddenly change a reputation is contained in the lament of the Greek villager:

You see all the boats in de harbor? I build all de boats. But do they call me Dmitri the boat-builder? No.
You see all the roads in de town? I build all de roads. But do they call me Dmitri the road-builder? No.
You see all the houses on de hill? I build all de houses. But do they call me Dmitri the house-builder? No.
But you fuck one goat …..