God Bless Chris Rock

This is what I've been telling all my girlfriends for years in terms of developing a certain imperviousness about body image (and if they don't believe me, maybe they'll believe Chris):

"Men do not care. There is no point in the history of the world where men were not sleeping with the women in front of them."

Fuzzy Math

A british study last week made big news when they announced British men claim to have directly slept with nine partners each while women say they have had 6.3 partners (calculator is at www.lloydspharmacy.com/sexdegrees.)

The point the study was making was that thru indirect contact, this meant the average Brit had about 2.8 million sex partners. Not factoring in Mick Jagger, of course.

I couldn't get over the six and nine.

Seriously?

Are these particular Brits surveyed Amish?

Did they GO to college --- cause where I went to school, the only real dating etiquette centered around whether or not to Swallow on the first date.

So I'm not buying the six and nine. I feel certain in 12 years of Catholic school I was probably taught by nuns and priests who could top those averages.

Dyn-O-Mite?

Here is a sample of one of those Facebook Ads I get everyday. Seriously? A guy in a HAT?!

My facebook status merely reports that I am single, and interested in men (as opposed to women). From that, I get this cheeseball?

In the Pank

So how is the pink laptop experiment (of being allowed to have a computer at home again: admittedly, a small one). Well, first, I seem to have maybe torn a rotator cuff. But I got a few repetitive motion injuries with the first blackberry, so it's probably just the 24-hour Torn Rotator Cuff that's going around.

First, I caught up on some of the YouTube I've been missing --- and promptly sent out the video to Looking Glass's fine rendition of "Brandy" to 1342 of my closest friends. And then I sent them the Red Hot Chili Peppers' version of it.

And then I found some porn.

And then I noticed that I can now see all the Facebook ads that weren't coming to the BlackBerry. They're obviously very targeted based on whatever's in your profile, and it makes me think Facebook has some odd ideas about the purchasing power of single women in their 40s. The one ad that is there every single time I log on is: "Meet Black Men" which promises "you can meet thousands of black singles in your area today at blackpeoplemeet."

The second most frequent ad is for "Warm Delights," which is kind of uncanny. I rarely buy processed food, but I have a pantry full of these (in case of emergency). I'm not even really that into chocolate -- but this is one of those rare guilty pleasures that actually looks and tastes EXACTLY like it does in the commercials, and really DOES take about a minute to make. (They now make "minis" to which I say... "amateurs.")

The next ad I get every time I log on is "Obama says get a degree" and that now would be a good time to finish my education. Uh, don't think either my bachelor's or master's alma maters has lost accredititation lately unless Facebook knows something I don't (which wouldn't surprise me).

I ran these Facebook suppositions by a few friends who also happened to be online, and they were being targeted as well. As a thirty-something mama, Facebook apparently thinks friend Bluebelle would like to go on a diet. And scrapbook.

Tasha is 20-something and they want her to improve her credit score and Meet Christian Singles. And go to Japan. Because she gets ads for Air Nippon. (Apparently, Facebook has become self-aware and knows I don't fly. And that I didn't even know what Air Nippon was.)

Facebook likes travel though, and wants pal Jupiter to go on a gay cruise.

Sandy is the same age I am -- married with dogs, but no kids -- she reports, her ads are for "homeless pets. Oh, and Red Sox & Patriots baby clothes. Apparently not clever enough for pet clothes with team logos."

When Dan asked what we WOULD like to see ads for on Facebook (assuming we had to see them), we reached astonishingly quick consensus on "bacon, booze, and Ambien." Three things we all love. Bluebelle added in Alan Rickman movies. I added in Sam Shepard. Not Sam Shepard movies necessarily, just Sam Shepard. "Add to cart. Proceed to checkout."

I'm just mad I wasn't the one who patented bacon vodka. Please. I was writing about Hop Sing bringing me bacon-tinis in the 90s.

I would also like to see an ad that markets the fact that these pink laptops get so hot I suspect they cause sterility. (Plus!)

I then asked everyone what degree of anonymity they preferred -- should this possibly, at some point, end up in print (spirit of full disclosure); I'd hate to inadvertently out someone's gay cruise (!) -- and surprisingly, everyone was fine.

They're all very comfortable with the world knowing what they think about booze and Ambien and Bacon. It wasn't like that when I first started writing for a living over 20 years ago. In ink. With only a legal pad and an abacus. Like an animal. Now everyone blogs and twitters and facebooks.

(I haven't even gotten around to writing about finding my book -- and by my book, I mean the one I wrote, as opposed to one I simply pre-owned -- on the shelf at Half Price Books on Thursday. It was never, ever sold in bookstores; they ASKED for it, which I understand is nice, and flattering, and possibly good business -- but I really only wanted it to go to people I KNEW. So the "half-price" didn't bother me, it was finding it in a STORE that creeped me out.)

So I'm still a dinosaur adjusting to the different world we live in now.

At the end of this discussion, Jupiter added, "feel free to use my name, but if I get to order someone, I wanna order Matt Damon and I don't care if I have to fly to Japan."

I'm still ordering Sam Shepard. And I'd maybe go as far as, oh, Versailles.

But for now, I just have to go join a credit union and find love, if
Facebook has its way.

And the jawbone goes up....

This is my first post on a new laptop.

When I moved from my last house, I refused to let a computer move with me. The old one was handed off to my dad (who promptly converted it to a coaster).

The deal I made with myself was that I was working 24/7 and I needed a little balance. Having a computer in the house (in the bedroom no less) wasn't very conducive to that.

And to jerry-rig my way around both the spirit and the letter of the law, I promptly got a blackberry, and just did all the work I'd typically do on a computer... on a reallllly realllly tiny keyboard. Or, I'd drive to the office at 4 in the morning when something was just too big for the BlackBerry to handle.

And I was forgetting about doing things like writing for fun. For example, I didn't even know this blog had seven pending comments on it from someone named "Digger," who wanted me to visit his site and enlarge my penis.

So the whole computer-free house wasn't a good system. And I really wasn't fooling anybody. So we'll try this. (I think I'm pirating the wi-fi signal from the hot sorority visigoths next door, but I learned how to make it run off the BlackBerry.)

Although I will do real work on it the rest of the evening, I tried to make up for that by first watching a baby dancing to "All the Single Ladies" on Facebook.

Heh. That was pretty funny.