More Proof that the World is Ending

My sister now has a Facebook account. While you may not think that this is strange, let me put it into context. It would sort of be like finding out that your mother has been a CIA agent for the last 25 years, or that your 85 year-old grandmother is a swinger.

A Few Hours in the Life of ZF

6:40 - Woke up, well before I usually do, so that I could get to the passport office by 8:00.

7:00 - Reading email on my laptop during breakfast. Nature's Path has recalled a gluten-free granola-type bar because of salmonella. UPC and expiry dates match. Crap! I have already eaten 5 of the 6 bars :-( Can I sue them?

7:53 - Waited in line at the passport office, with form completed. Stupidly, I let my passport expire, and had to submit a new application. Next time, renewal. I have no confidence in the photo, but it will do for the next 5 years.

8:26 - Back outside, unlocked my bike. Bureaucracy has rarely been so efficient. What a great day: could be 16 degrees later.

9:30 - Checked my mail box to discover two cheques: $130 and $790. I wish they were really for me. Do I look like the Accounts Receivable Department?

9:33 - Checked Twitter. I am Twittering as an experiment. In library-land, Twitter is a big deal, so I decided to see what the fuss is all about. So far, I have mixed feelings. 140 characters might not be enough. Close-talker is now following me :-(

9:35 - Read email. So much garbage, and I don't necessarily mean spam.

9:46 - Remembered to start streaming Radio RFI en français.

9:48 - Absolutely delighted to learn that John Tory has gone down in flames, again. Three strikes and you're out. Stay down, John.

9:49 - Checked Facebook. Cleared my out-of-date status. I am friends with a photographer who lives in Gaza. His photo albums are very disturbing, powerful and profoundly depressing. A few photos depict unspeakable horror: a charred baby with no limbs; people lying in pools of blood. Most of us have never witnessed anything like this in person. How did he avoid getting shot in the process of taking these photos?

9:50 - Ordered a book requested by a faculty member.

10:00 - Updated photoblog and added a photo to Flickr. No death or grievous bodily harm in my photos.

10:15 - Made appointment with my doctor.

10:20 - Opened PowerPoint to revise my part of a joint presentation with a colleague on research methods. We did the first presentation last week. It goes again next week. His part is esoteric, bizarre, a tad self-indulgent. Mine is practical. We seem to be at odds.

10:28 - Feeling hungry already.

Bananas and Sleep and Politics

Is there anything more disappointing than going into your usual grocery store and discovering that all of the bananas are as green as emeralds? It either takes a week for the bastards to ripen, or they do so overnight, because they are genetically-inferior and end up tasting awful.

But, on to more important things. For some inexplicable reason, I slept very badly last night. I woke at 3:00 AM and failed to get back to sleep. I really hate it when that happens, mostly because I am a great sleeper and rarely have any problems.

In other news, an old high school friend showed up on Facebook. Two, actually. That's all well and good. One friend now lives in a large American city. During our exchange of messages, he complained that the democrats were now coming to power and that this would sink the economy. Is he on drugs? I wanted to ask him if he happened to notice that the economy tanked on the Republicans' watch. Of course, talking politics and religion with friends is probably a bad idea.

I am kicking myself for not taking today off. I like taking Fridays off. Why didn't I take Friday off?

Pet Peeve

One thing I hate about my MP3 player is the fact that when you rip a CD, it is alphabetized incorrectly. Neil Young should be under Y not N. It can't be that difficult to reverse the first and last names, can it? It's almost as bad with band names. Some of my CDs from The Smiths end up as "The Smiths" while others are rendered as "Smiths" meaning that they are in two different places. So, one either has to re-tag all of the songs, or live with the less-than-perfect results.

Of course, this is a problem all over the web. I loaded iRead (soon to be WeRead) on Facebook. It permits one to list and review what you are reading or want to read. When your books are sorted by author name, it simply fails to do it properly. Under titles, "The Engineer of Human Souls" is listed under books commencing with T. Did everyone forget what their public school librarian taught them? If the title begins with an article, you drop it when you search for the book.

I find it difficult to operate in such anarchy. The web is a chaotic mess. All new apps or tech ought to be vetted by librarians so that we can avoid things that look like a 7 year old designed them. Maybe librarians ought to run all levels of government. That way, we wouldn't have Sarah Palin trying to ban books that offend her religious views. I am not American, but I can't see why anyone would want a VP who wants to be all fascist against freedom of speech.

Target Me

Forgive me if I appear dumb, but what's the big deal with targeted advertising? If you are a Facebook user, you will have heard the fuss about its targeted advertisement program. If you are a Gmail user, you will have noticed that the advertisements to the right of your email messages are linked to the content of your messages. I can tell you, in all honesty, that I have never once followed an advertising link from any advertisement in Gmail or in Facebook (well, except for that one fraudulent ad on Facebook that I reported to them). It doesn't take too much self-control to ignore ads on the web.

If you want my opinion, I prefer targeted ads. If I could configure the web to only display ads that I like or that advertise products or services that are of interest to me, then that would greatly improve my online experience. Why do I need to see ads for the new Celine Dion CD, since I hate her music passionately? You could place advertisements for Hamburger Helper on every page of the entire Internet and I would never follow the link and certainly not purchase the product.

The same goes for junk mail and TV. I would absolutely love to streamline the flyers that come to my house, so that I could avoid Pharma Plus, Shoppers Drug Mart, Payless Shoes, etc. Give me flyers for Future Shop and Best Buy, please, but none of that other garbage. This would make me happy. And, on TV, I would be happy to be done with all of those ads for Viagra and Depends. Maybe later, but not now.

I suppose those opposed to targeted ads are trying to defend the weak among us who give in to temptation far too easily. And, the privacy advocates are trying to prevent companies from using shopping data to compile profiles of our shopping habits on the basis that this is an invasion of privacy. Sure, I can see that, but I'd rather have my privacy invaded than endure an endless stream of ads for stuff I am not interested in.

Frankly, what I buy is not that interesting, and if Nikon wants to market to me because I own a Nikon camera, that's just fine with me. What we really need is a Do-Not-Call list that is enforceable. I hate it when they call at dinner.

Happy Monday & Stuff

I have no plan for this post. It will be truly extemporaneous. It reminds me of the impromptu speeches we had to deliver in public school. I hated speeches and was quite relieved to be free of them, until grade 10, when our aged, decaying, and cranky teacher made us all deliver speeches. There was a mini rebellion along with a petition. But, it did no good. She even rolled out spelling tests, like we were back in grade 4.

Of course, now when I think of school, I think of Facebook, that addictive crack-cocaine site. I have some advice for the women out there: don't change your names when you get married! It makes it impossible to figure out who you are, especially when you use such crappy profile pictures. How am I supposed to know that Deb X is now Deb Y?

And another thing, I am not so sure about the choices Facebook offers to describe friendships. What does "they hooked up" mean? It sounds sexual, but who can be sure? I wish it would provide a fill-in-the-blank option, like: "They had a one night stand in Poughkeepsie 6.2 years ago;" or, "they met when he ran over her cat with his new Volkswagen."

And now, I am off to do some work. Thanks for listening.

Technorati Tags: facebook, school

Deeper into Facebook: Feathered Hair

Someday, Facebook will be banned from workplaces because it has a crack-like effect. I delve into it at lunch or during a break to see if I can uncover some familiar names or faces. There are the inevitable questions of just what exactly constitutes a friend in cyberspace, especially those you may not have seen in 20 years. Just because you knew someone, are they actually your friend? Strictly speaking, if I only added friends, in the true meaning of the word, I'd have about three friends, not the 28, or so, that I actually have at present on Facebook.

In the reality sucks part of life, I stumbled upon a certain alumni group from my high school, in which someone has posted a number of scanned images from one of my old yearbooks. The fashion disasters are rampant, dudes! I am constantly stunned by how we were all so easily duped into accepting certain fashion ideas, like feathered hair.

I had feathered hair and most of my friends had feathered hair. One could even say that, beyond the group of army cadets, most guys and girls in my school had feathered hair. This was one of those rare times in the history of civilization when men's and women's hairstyles were virtually interchangeable. And, we all know who to blame: it was Farrah Fawcett Majors.

The girls wanted to look like Farrah and the guys obviously felt that the only way to achieve any kind of relationship with her was to copy her hairstyle and try to date girls who were copying her hairstyle. But, feathered hair suited me back then: my hair was lustrous and soft and full and rich and feathery, even mellifluous.

There must have been lots of hallway conversations about hair, like:

George: What kind of hair?

Jerry: You know, long dark hair.

George: Flowing?

Jerry: Flowing?

George: Is it flowing? I like flowing, cascading hair. Thick lustrous hair is
very important to me.

Jerry: 'Thick lustrous hair is very important to me,' is that what you said?

George: Yeah, that's right.

Jerry: Just clarifying.

George: Let me ask you this. If you stick your hand in the hair is it easy to
get it out?

Jerry: Do you want to be able to get it out or do you want to not be able to
get it out?

George: I'd like to be able to get it out.

Jerry: I think you'll get it out.

I had planned an extensive discourse on velour, but that will have to wait for another day. OK, off to a meeting.

Technorati Tags: facebook, hair, high school

Facebook & Enemies

Well, I finally set up a profile on Facebook, using my real name, not my fishy alias. Aside from the fact that there is no one there from my graduating year in high school, I have only one concern, and you might call it an enhancement request.

When someone adds you as a friend, you can either reject or confirm this action. So, if they are not your friend, you reject. If you hate them, you reject. If they have friended you just because you have listed Captain Beefheart in your musical preferences, you can go either way. But, I think it would make far more sense to be able to add a list of enemies. This would be useful for certain colleagues (the close-talking type). I refer to him as a Facebook whore, because he seems to inhabit that space to the detriment of all else. He found my profile mere minutes after I had set it up.

Then there are those high school losers, who wouldn't really qualify as friends, simply because you knew them (so far, no one like that has crossed paths with me). Maybe it would be more appropriate if they were enemies.

And, finally, we have trolls like Bozo the Brit. He must have very low self-esteem, if his idea of amusement is to leave mean comments on my blog about other people.

By the way, I considered adding a profile to Assbook, but I am far too shy for that.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, social networks, friends, enemies