I’m twenty-something & embarrassed to buy myself ice cream. I switch my career focus constantly. I used to wet the bed. Yeah, I’m that kid.

Best of lists are usually a way to pander to lazy readers that don’t want to waste their time with any posts that might be considered sub-par and thus, unworthy of their time. In a way, just having a “Best of” list assumes that some of my posts aren’t as good as the others, but I digress. I’ll assume that you don’t fit into the typical “get to the good stuff” category and that you’re only on this “Best of Jon Ray” landing page to go back and reread some of your favorite posts. So, without further ado, here are some of my favorite posts from 2008 for your reading pleasure organized by category.

Who is Jon Ray?

1. NetParty - Are you nerd enough?
2. On Washing My Hands
3. On Wetting the Bed and Success
4. On Opening Christmas Presents
5. On Riding a Bike

Marketing/PR

1. Does your marketing buzz or bust?
2. 5 ways I used Summermash to get more business
3. 4 things about press releases you should already know
4. How asking for help can make you money and friends
5. Embrace Bad Press. Never ignore it.

Social Media

1. Make Your Social Media Campaign a Success - 10 Surefire Techniques
2. 5 ways to be yourself and boost blog traffic
3. 5 ways to network in the real world and be fabulous
4. Social media changed the way I fall in love
5. The Social Starfish - Understanding Online Conversations

Video Production

1. Create webisodes that people talk about!
2. What does a video/film producer do?
3. 5 secrets to shoot your music video or commercial for cheap
4. Videos I’ve Produced

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In the good old days, all you had to do to figure out who I or anyone else was crushing on was head to the local Five & Dime, buy a diary comparable to the one you wanted to break into (Note to Youngsters: The internet didn’t always exist, so instead of blogging in our Xanga, we actually had to use a pen and paper to vent our sexual angst) and use the enclosed key to open the locked diary of a friend, family member or mortal enemy (in the 80s and 90s, most diaries with locks all had, conveniently for snoops, the SAME key…maybe they still do?).

Oh, the stories you would find and the crushes you would uncover, if those diaries of mine still existed (I burned them all, ritualistically, in an attempt to erase that heartbreaking whore from my memory…it didn’t work, but in an unrelated story, she did grow quite fond of the pastries and is now roughly the size of a barge).

So, with my diaries out of play, there is really only one place (other than the confines of my very own mind) that you will be able to discover my loves that could have been, sweethearts from the past, my secret crushes. That place is my mother’s ephemeris, the holy grail of my inner lust (sounds dirty, doesn’t it? …it’s not).

Without going into too much detail, an ephemeris is a table of values that gives the positions of astronomical objects in the sky at a given time or times. Why is this important? It is a tool to the astrologer for pulling one’s astrological chart, which can be helpful in determining various personality traits about a person (if you’re into that kind of thing…my mom and I are).

I am fascinated by astrology, mostly because it provides an easy way for me to plot revenge against enemies, but also because it affords me the opportunity to get a glimpse into one’s personality. Of course, I take all astrological readings with a grain of salt (meaning, I take them to be 100 percent factual with no room for deviation) and given my obsession with astrological charts, etc, I have always taken the birth dates and times of my crushes to my mother for further review. If I have had a crush on you in the past, guess what, your name is in my mom’s ephemeris.

Does this mean I know all about you before we ever go on Date #1? Have I ever stopped dead in my tracks and not spoken to a girl again based off the way her astrological chart read? Probably. But, don’t bother yourself with the details of it all. What’s important to know is that somewhere, floating around my parent’s house is a worn and weathered book of astrological objects in the sky. Within that book, scribbled in the margins are hundreds of names, all of whom, I’ve carried serious crushes for in the past. But, what’s more telling, is the names that aren’t scribbled in the margins. If we had a fling and you thought I was crushing on you, there’s a chance that I might not have been. Your name in the ephemeris margins is the only documented proof, one way or another, that it was something real.

My mother’s ephemeris holds all the answers. It is a shrine to young love and lust. It must be destroyed.

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Dear Mooch,

You think you are so sly, always lurking in the background, waiting for your opportunity to strike. I pull out a piece of gum, a beer, some beef jerky and you are there, waiting for your hand out. “Can I bum one of those?” You say, “I’ve got some in the car I can give you later.” But, you don’t have any in the car, do you? And if you do, it is the Extra Sugarfree to my Orbit Peppermint. The Miller High Life to my Stella Artois. The Oberto to my homemade beef jerky. You say all the right things– “I really appreciate it. You’re a good friend. I’m glad I have you in my life.” –but fail to provide comparable action to back them up. The clearance rack compact disc you gave me doesn’t make up for the vintage vinyl album you lost. And no, you cannot “borrow” a cigarette from me. You’re running tab needs to catch its breath.

You’re cut off.

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I just had one of those epiphanies often associated with smoking pot, where you have a thought so mind-boggling that it takes your entire being to really comprehend what that thought actually means. Now, I’m not, typically, a pot smoker and I’m not smoking pot, right now. But, I was thinking about my grandparents who were born in the early 1900s (not certain on the year and I can’t ask, right now, because they’re dead…er…in a better place - Hi, guys!). In my grandparents lifetime, they saw some huge advances in technology. Here are some of the things that came to be, or became common place in and around their lifetime:

1. Automobile
2. Airplane
3. Water Supply and Distribution
4. Electronics
5. Radio and Television
6. Agricultural Mechanization
7. Computers
8. Telephone
9. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration
10. Highways
11. Spacecraft
12. Internet
13. Imaging
14. Household Appliances
15. Health Technologies
16. Petroleum and Petrochemical Technologies
17. Laser and Fiber Optics
18. Nuclear Technologies

So, here I am imagining what could possibly be on that list when my grandchildren are typing (projecting brain waves?) this very same post in the year 2108? Here are some things I would like to see:

1. We are no longer dependent upon oil.
2. Driverless cars and highway systems.
3. Airplanes are super fast. Travel is super efficient and for some reason trains are making a comeback. What? Yes, they are the ultimate in luxury for vacation travel.
4. The internet is 3-D and all around us, everything is meta-tagged for classifying data in ways we can’t even fathom. Computers are super small and they are literally everywhere. “The Matrix” becomes a reality (er…virtual reality).
5. We figured it out and poor people aren’t poor anymore!
6. Space cruises. Think about the last cruise ship you were on. Now think about that cruise ship traveling through outer space, stopping at various space ports, etc.
7. Computer animation becomes so realistic that being a celebrity no longer pays very well because anything they can do our computer can do better. (Any kid with a computer can make a studio-quality blockbuster movie.)
8. Artificial Intelligence. Finally we can all afford someone (thing?) to help around the house. Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn on us.
9. Jurassic Park. This better be the new Disney World by the time I croak! And let’s remember not to hire that fat guy from Seinfeld to run the computer operating system. “Hold on to your butts!”

Alright, so at this point, I started looking around the web to see what others were saying and found this video. Now, I mentioned that my mind was boggled just thinking about the possibilities, but this video literally blew my mind and gave me such an adrenaline rush from merely thinking about these things actually happening, that I had to post it. Pause the very last prediction and really think about it. Wow.

Click to watch video.

“Life expectancy is no longer a viable term in relation to intelligent beings.”

Consider my mind exploderized.

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