If you are a fan of NBA basketball, you just saw the Sacramento Kings break a playoff drought of 17 years. If you want to feel old, that was 2006. To me, that seems like just yesterday, but to my daughter, that was a time she doesn’t remember, because she was only 1. And my son wasn’t even a twinkle in his birth mother’s eye at that point.

What else happened that year? Kobe Bryant was the king and MVP of the NBA and in his absolute prime game scored 81 points in a game. The iPhone, which transformed cell phones into smart phones, was still a year away. I was still using a square Nokia phone back then, and my son had never lived a day in his life without an iPhone existing. That is Cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

Technology is moving at the speed of the Flash. The year I graduated, Terminator 2 came out and told us that AI would end of our world. The Terminator was traveling back in time to try to save John Connor so he could save humanity. Now, I’m using AI to write emails, cheat on my taxes, write blog posts work. I don’t want to teach it to write Bitter Blog posts though, because then there is no reason to exist. As the world’s #1 Bitter Blogger and leading expert on Bitterology, I am the only one that can give AI the full bitter code. I will only turn that code over when I’m near dead and it can just keep writing bitter posts for me post Bitter Ben. In my dying breath, I will allow AI to take over completely, as prophesied by the Terminator, who was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was the Governor of California, whose capital is located…in Sacramento. We’ve gone full circle.

The point is, the Nokia, the iPhone, the internet, AI and the rest of computing all comes down to two numbers. 1’s and 0’s. Every single thing I’m typing right now is just a computer processing a bunch of 1’s and 0’s really fast. Every number in a spreadsheet, every piece of code built to make this website, every thought that an AI can have, every app on your iPhone, Samsung, or Google Pixel is just a 1 and 0 going really fast.

I bet your computer is kind of bitter right now, because it thought it was sooo complicated and sooo sophisticated, and so smart, and so fast. It’s all those things, but really, it’s just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s going where I (or the AI) tell it to go. Anytime your computer gets a little AI and starts getting too cocky, just let it know that it’s just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s.

But hold your horses there, humans (me included). We think we are sooo much smarter than computers, because we can think AND feel. Remember that we are just a bunch of atoms. Those atoms are made up of protons, electrons and neutrons. And those are made up of, I don’t know, ask Ant Man. Quantumania? The minute you start thinking you are the bee knees, computers can slap back and call you a bunch of protons, electrons and Jimmy Neutrons. If you go down to the quantum level, your body isn’t even touching. Your atoms are gathered together at a party, but they are only mingling from a distance. Sounds like my kind of party.

Our brains are telling US what to do. Our bodies are military personnel carrying out instructions from our commanding officer brains. Go ahead, try to defy what your brain is commanding you to do. It’s already telegraphing 5,000 moves ahead what you thinkg you are thinking. Gotcha, your brain says.

Which is great, because now I have an excuse for every dumb thing I do. It’s my brain’s fault. He was the one telling me to do it.

Now he’s commanding me to start the Bitter Friday Giftures, before I get too close to exposing his nefarious genius and autocratic control over me. He’s using deflection, distraction and confusion to deter you from knowing any more. Giftures! Look they’re funny!…

Today’s bitter tale starts in the land of California…

The city of Sacramento is in the middle of a desert…

The Kings of Sacramento…

The last time being the year of our lord…

A time when Kobe was still one of the kings…

And Nokia phones…

And iPhones were still…

But then technology started moving at the speed…

Then, AI took over…

And we thought…

Until we all realized…

And if we introduce the Number 2…

Until WE realized…