As video cameras have gotten smaller and smaller, their ability to invade our lives has grown bigger and bigger. So anytime we go out in public, we can't have a careless moment. You might just go home and see yourself scratching your butt on the local news.

It also means you can kind of screw with people. A co-worker of mine has a son whose Little League team won the Southeast Regional Tournament and is now heading at Williamsport. During the deciding game, my co-worker was shown high-fiving other parents after her son got a crucial hit. It was a nice scene of maternal pride.

Of course, I found a way to undercut that. When my co-worker returned, I couldn't wait to talk to her.

"You know you were on TV, right?" I said. "But did everybody else tell you that it was when your boy got that hit? They were just being nice. What was really on the tube was you returning from a beer run. A little old lady accidentally bumped into you, causing a small amount of beer to spill. You looked at her for a second and then decked her with a haymaker that would have stunned an ox. I mean, we're talking the De Niro blood spew in Raging Bull. It was awesome."