I often find myself wondering when it was that hookers and cocaine suddenly fell from grace. I mean, what happened here? They were all the rage in the 80’s. You couldn’t turn on a TV without being inundated by a news story or police show depicting at least one, but more often than not, both of these 80’s icons. Right now, as you read this, you’re probably thinking, “Yeah… when the heck did coke and whores drop off the face of the earth?”

Fear not, my loyal reader(s). I have the answer: June 28th, 1989. In a “Leap of Faith,” Miami Vice aired its final episode. Things have never been the same for nose candy and pay-to-play ladies of the night ever since. And don’t even get me started on pet alligators. OK, so technically the final episode of Miami Vice was shown on January 25th, 1990. Ironically titled “Too Much, Too Late,” the episode was never aired on NBC. Instead, it was shown for the first time on the USA Network after the show went into syndication. By then, hookers the world over were getting pink slips and Colombian drug lords were sitting on inventory they could no longer move.

But hos and blow weren’t the only victims of NBC’s decision to axe the Vice. Ray Bans, Ferrari Testarossas, and pastel suits never bounced back. And what the hell happened to Jan Hammer? In 2004, Jan released The Best of Miami Vice, featuring newly-recorded versions of songs that nobody had listened to in fifteen years. Two years later, to avoid being pigeonholed by his connection to the show, he produced the score for Cocaine Cowboys, a documentary about the drug scene in Miami in the 80’s. Yeah. Go Yohn.

But don’t shed a tear for the Czech with a penchant for narcotics-inspired music composition. At least he’s still working. The real victims of the decade were bimbos and Bolivian marching powder. So as Christmas draws near, remember those less fortunate. Hug a hooker. And let every snowflake that falls remind you of the foo-foo dust that was never snorted. Crockett and Tubbs would want it that way.

Today. I don’t even know where to start. This is probably going to be short and moderately incoherent, but I have some crazy that I need to get out. This is, after all, my blog.

I’ve been doing some social media work at an ad agency recently. My sense of self worth has bounced back to a level equal to or higher than it was before I got fired just by being there. I love what I’m doing. Every minute of it. Today, the owner called me in to discuss a permanent job opportunity. I love the work. I love the office. I love the people there. It’s a better fit than I could have ever imagined. My feet didn’t touch the ground for hours.

There was only one person that I wanted to share the news with: Katy. She’s been really busy at work lately and never has time to talk on the phone, so I’ve been trying to limit my daytime communication with her to GMail Chat. Of course, today was the one day that she wasn’t signed on all day. Finally, at about 4:00, she logged in and sent me a message, asking me what happened. I gushed the details to her as quickly as I could in case she got called away to do something else. She seemed… unaffected by the news. Very short responses and no sense of excitement. But I didn’t want to let it get me down. I thought she might be distracted with work. It’s hard to determine one’s sentiment via text alone.

When I got home, there was no mention of my news. No congratulations. No “tell me all about it.” I sensed something bad was coming. And I was right. What I viewed as an awesome opportunity to start working in the industry I so badly want to be a part of, she viewed as the financial opportunity for me to move back out. She’s not happy and doesn’t think she ever will be with me again. Nothing specific. Just… that. Our marriage is apparently over. Again. I wasn’t aware of that.

So tonight is one of the most confusing nights of my life. Every time I get excited about the new opportunity in front of me, the thought of my best friend walking out of my life is like a dagger to my heart. And whenever I start to dwell on losing Katy, a smile creeps across my lips when I remember the new job. If I don’t have some type of illness from this absolute assault on my immune system in the next few days, it’s gonna be a friggin’ miracle.

I couldn’t be happier about my new job. I actually look forward to going to work every day for the first time in my life. I just wish my best friend was going to be there to share it with me. I don’t know what else to say here.

I had a lot of footage from my Flip UltraHD lying around and it seemed a shame not to use it. The audio track is “Clocks & Timepieces” by the Detroit band Search The City. Some of the video is from Jolie O’Dell’s visit to Toledo, the Mashable #Hyatt4Good Tweetup Tour stop in Chicago, #Tattooleetup, and the July #Toleetup. And yes, the title and logo are a play on My So-Called Life. Who’s old enough to remember that show?

As many of you already know, my employer terminated my employment last Thursday. Since I was apparently officially employed until the end of the business week, I’m considering today “Day One” of my bout with unemployment. But make no mistake, I am not a statistic. I am not a victim. I’m a husband, a father, and a social media evangelist. A piece of paper from a former employer can’t change any of those things.

I’m getting ready to drop my son off at preschool, then head down to Bowling Green to Job & Family Services. With any luck, I’ll be able to secure unemployment benefits sometime in the next month or so. I’m not broke yet, but the money will run out in the next couple months. If unemployment kicks in, I can stretch that time out a bit and attempt to parlay this time off into a career in social media.

On the advice of my good friend and mentor Damian Rintelmann, I’m taking the next few weeks to continue networking. It’s my sincere hope that if people get to know me, they’ll see that I can bring something fresh to the table. Tomorrow, I’m leaving for Chicago for two days. In the evening, I’ll be attending Sarah Evans‘ launch party for Sevans Strategy. At that party, I’ll finally get to meet Brett Petersel. Brett has shared advice and connected me with  people on a number of occasions. It’ll be nice to finally have the chance to thank him in person. On Wednesday morning, I have the privilege of meeting with Leah Jones of Natiiv Arts & Media.

I have a busy week ahead of me. You’re welcome to come along for the ride. I’m going to try to document this metamorphosis as best as I can. I’ll be posting videos to Qik, tweeting updates to Twitter, and blogging here fairly often. This is about to get interesting…

Update: How… in the hell… did I forget to thank Ezra Butler?!? The man has been my most vocal supporter and a great friend throughout this whole thing. Sorry, Ez. It will not happen again.

Seriously. People go apeshit for this kind of stuff. The screenshot below is not altered in any way. Mark Pannell is truly friends with Mark Pannell now. Weird, right?

I found this to be moderately amusing. Enough such that I felt that other people might also find it amusing. But to really get the pulse of the people, I decided to survey a small sampling of Facebook’s most influential demographic: high school girls. The young ladies provided poignant and insightful feedback. As I perused their responses, I noticed that they kept coming back to a very moving, common theme:

srsly??? zomgwtf??!? roflmao!!1!11!

Powerful, powerful stuff. Poetry even. Since these future female leaders of the free world were so taken by the fact that I found another Mark Pannell on Facebook and befriended him, I knew that I could not deny the world of this little treasure. You may now resume using all of the points of your IQ.

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been changing the theme on this here blog about as often as I change my underwear. Once a week. I’ve been experimenting with some free themes, trying my hand at designing my own, and exploring the benefits of paid themes. I think I’ve finally settled on one that really appeals to me, but I have a little customizing to do before I unleash it.

What are your thoughts on blog themes? Should they remain the same, rarely ever changing? Is there something to be said for consistency or do you like it when blogs mix things up? What are some of your favorite blogs from a design standpoint? I would really appreciate any feedback you guys can give me. Whether you’re a designer, a developer, or just a casual blog reader, I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments. Thanks!

I wish my name started with a hard consonant. You know the ones I’m talking about: B, D, G, T, V, and Z. They’re a built-in nickname.

The other day, I saw a friend that I’ve known for fifteen years. His name is Damian. I said, “What’s up, D?” That’s never been an officially-sanctioned nickname for him. But he knew I was talking to him.

Nobody has ever walked up to me and said, “What’s up, M?” It sounds ridic. My last name starts with P. There is one guy at work who calls me “Master P.” But this is the same guy that I’ve had a running argument with for two years about who would win in a fight between a badger and a wolverine.

Even P is kind of suspect. It’s not really hard or soft. Kind of ambiguous. It’s like the metrosexual of consonants. P, C, and V are all kind of weaksauce.

If you think about it, all of the terms for a certain region of the female anatomy start with those metrosexual consonants. I’m, of course, referring to the crotchal area. The P one is a synonym for a cat. The letter C kicks things off for one of the more offensive four-letter words in our language. And V… well, that one is a legit anatomical term so I can just come out and say it. Vagina. Vuh-jay-jay.

Our dog’s name is Joey. We used to call him either J-Bird or Joe-Joes. Somehow that became Vuh-jay-jay. Unrelated.

So what do I have left? My middle name? That starts with an R. And R is so soft, it might as well be a fucking vowel. I need a nickname.

A couple friends who are too lazy to fully enunciate all seven of the syllables in seven-son-seventy-five have referred to me as “Sev.” Hence, SocialSev. I’m OK with that.

I don’t know if it’s customary to assign yourself a nickname, but nobody else is doing it. And if you walk up to me and say, “What’s up, M,” I’ll probably punch you right in the nose. Unless you could whup my ass. Which is most of Northwest Ohio.

Stupid metrosexual initials.

I was listening to Crossbreed while I was looking through some of Mike Brice’s pictures from Social Media Breakfast Toledo 3 and somehow the imagery just… fit. I decided to use it as a promo video for SocialSev. Enjoy.

As I was getting ready to go to sleep tonight, I saw the following tweet from @zaneology:

When I followed the link, I was taken to the YouTube video below. Throughout the day, news reports of Michael Jackson’s death flooded my senses. At the risk of sounding callous, I didn’t really care. It was presented as a news story, not the loss of a human life. But as I sat alone in the dark in front of the cool glow of my monitor, this video hit me in a really strange way.

Maybe it’s the imagery of Michael as a little boy. As a father, my perspective on children has changed immensely. They’re magical and precious. And I think that’s what it took to put a human spin on this “breaking news.” Either way, the world lost an amazingly talented young man long before we should have.

Did you know that a group of kangaroos is called a mob? On a completely unrelated note, I spent the majority of Friday in the hospital. I received a prank phone call on Saturday from two social media rock stars that I respect and admire. I thought I was dying again on Monday. And I had my store’s best inventory ever on Saturday, immediately followed by an email confirming that a local network television station would definitely be covering Tattooleetup. How’s that for a wild ride on the WTF rollercoaster?

Let’s start at the beginning. On Thursday night, Katy, Noah and I ordered a Chicken Bacon Ranch from Vito’s Pizza. Nom nom nom! Those things are so good, it’s ridic. Anyhow, after my little man and beautiful wife called it a night at around 10:00, I stayed up and played around on the internets for a couple hours. I climbed in bed at around midnight and fell asleep pretty quickly. At about 2:30, I woke up to the most excruciating pain that I’ve ever felt in my life. My stomach felt like I was digesting broken glass. It was awful! I made the mistake of stumbling out to the couch to curl up in a fetal position. I realized the error in my ways when I called out to Katy, but was too far away for her to hear me. The pain was so intense at that point that I could no longer move long enough to get back to the bedroom. This lasted for close to an hour.

I guess I eventually got so exhausted from grimacing and whining like a little girl that I passed out on the couch. When Katy was leaving for work at 6:30, she woke me up for our morning cigarette, kisses, and hugs. By that point, the pain had decreased substantially and localized itself to the lower right side of my abdomen. She convinced me that I should get in with the doctor. After a brief examination and some painful experimentation, my doctor urged me to head straight to the emergency room. He firmly believed that my appendix was coming out that day. So did I.

My arrival at the hospital was expedited by the fact that my doc had called ahead. I was in a room within five minutes. Within thirty minutes, the staff had drawn blood, taken a urine sample, run me through a CT scan, had me change into a hospital gown, and started an IV. I was going under the knife. No question about it. Except I didn’t. When the blood and urine tests failed to show evidence of appendicitis and the CT scan showed an appendix that was not inflamed, my symptoms became a mystery. Let me clarify that. My symptoms became a mystery to me. The hospital staff, on the other hand, were less concerned. After an afternoon in an uncomfortable bed watching CNN, I was released within ten minutes of their findings.

So I didn’t die, which is always a plus. But they never did determine what caused the symptoms and they still aren’t completely gone. What they did do is get me Saturday off work. Awesome. I woke up on Saturday feeling about the same way I felt Friday, sans the adjustable bed and CNN marathon. Katy and Noah left for a birthday party in Bowling Green at around 11:30, so the house was my quiet domain for the afternoon. It had been a while since I’d posted at SocialSev, so I wanted to knock out a general social media observations post while I had some uninterrupted time. That never happened.

I’m going to go ahead and get sidetracked here for a minute. I know that it breaks up the flow of the story, but it’s also a bit of a back-story to the story. Whatevs. If you don’t like it, go start your own blog. At any rate, I started this blog to separate my personal posts from social media discussions filled with jargon that my mom wouldn’t understand. I also wanted to put a more professional face on that blog as it is part of My Five Year Plan to be working full time in social media. It’s probably not much of a surprise that Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, Techdirt, and TechCrunch consume the majority of my daily reading time. I’m one of those geeks who looks up to the social media “rock stars.” I admire their accomplishments and learn as much from them as I can.

This brings me to my next bullet point. At about 12:15 on Saturday, I popped outside for a quick smoke before starting on my next blog post. When I came back in, my cell phone was making all kinds of racket to alert me to the fact that I had a new voicemail. That voicemail was a prank “shenanigan” call from two people that I admire the most in the social media industry. I’m not going to mention specific names as I’m not sure how they’d feel about being mentioned in this context. But one of them has been lovingly referred to as “funemployed” by Lalawag and the other is a high-ranking guru at one of the four blogs I mentioned above. In an industry where who you know is more important than what you know, it was a weird feeling to have these guys take a moment out of their day to include me in their shenanigans.

Holy jeez, man! This thing is getting a bit lengthy. That’s seven paragiraffes already and I’m only halfway through the week. Let’s put this thing to a vote. Who wants to hear the rest of the story? I assure you this isn’t some hare-brained scheme to put off writing the rest of this post later. Yes it is. Go vote.