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.

Double Vision

I think when the eye doctor gives you the news about bifocals, he should also give you a complimentary shot of botox -- and I told mine that today.

He seemed a little surprised, and then he told me a great story about how some docs were using off-brand botox and their patients ended up in iron lungs. That was followed by a story about how much botulism it would take in a can of green beans to wipe out the human race.

The lesson I took away was stick with brand-name doctors and brand-name pharmaceuticals. (Why would anybody economize on something like that; they might as well share needles for heaven's sake.)

Mostly I think he was surprised because that was only the second thing I'd said during the entire exam.

The first and only thing I'd said up til then was "I can't read," in response to a question about what had brought me in. At first, he seemed to think I was confessing to illiteracy -- and I sensed a moment of awkwardness, while he pondered the best way around a sensitive subject. Then I just showed him my BlackBerry and the ultra-large 14 point font Lucas and Russell had tricked it out with at the BlackBerry store."SEE," I said. And he did, commenting mildly "well you can't get as much on the screen that way."

The rest of the Exam, I just responded to simple commands like, "Better A? Or B? Better 2? Or...3?"

Spending so much time in the company of my two dads and their legions of oncologists, cardiologists, etc has just taught me one thing and one thing only: the value of shutting up.

For all their differences (one Yankee, one Southern; one's a farmer, the other a lifelong Kodak man), they might as well be the same person when they get in front of a medical professional -- or, as I think they see it: an Audience! For new material! I fully expect the Nurses to remind everyone of the two-drink minimum, and "don't forget to tip your waitresses!"

Having read everything Dr. Oz has said about The Smart Patient, and how many seconds you get to make your case to the doctor about what's wrong with you, I live in fear that these two are going to get themselves killed. I go in armed with arsenals of information, and a very, very few questions -- and I very rarely get a word in. Though my real Dad does at least defer to me on all things medical. If his internist tells him to take an aspirin, he'll call and say "let me just run something by you." He's just such a monologuist -- as is my stepdad -- that he can't help himself.

Knowing I have the same tendencies -- both genetically and environmentally -- I fight it every step of the way.

But the only area where I really succeed is in the doctor's office. I speak when spoken to, and I try to keep my answers specific.

That's how that damn kidney stone went undiagnosed so long (I found out they commonly are in women -- men typically show up at the E.R. In tears and when asked to rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10 they invariably answer 14. I said 7. That was a mistake.)

The urologist asked me to describe the pain and I said, "It's like if you were in prison, and you taped up a blade and swallowed it?...And then the tape came loose? And the blade tried to work its way out, through your bladder?"

He gave me some antibiotics, and sent me home -- as surprised as I was when a little pebble emerged a few dayslater.

He said I wasn't "hurting in the right place" for a kidney stone.

Sorry.

So today, I was more succinct. I think the last thing I said was when he asked if I had any questions. I asked, "am I going blind?" He said, "Not today."

Good enough.

Somewhere Lou Dobbs is Crying

Here is the podcast from Mick Jeffries’ Trivial Thursdays August 20 show.

http://podcast.trivialthursdays.com/

You will hear (among other things) the theme from Shaft AND the theme from Valley of the Dolls (followed by the New York Dolls’ “Pills.”)

You’ll hear Jim Reeves (his birthday) doing “Mexican Joe,” and slightly-related, Steve Earle’s cover of Townes’ “Pancho and Lefty” (Steve Earle plays August 26 at the Opera House).

Somewhere, Lou Dobbs had a little stroke.

You’ll hear a lot about UK Coach Brooks’s birthday ...and tomatoes… and groin pulls.

You’ll hear the Resurrected Bloated Floaters’ “Truck of Reality” and how this column got its name.

There’s Hank Williams. There’s talk of Hank Williams. There’s Veruca Salt’s cover of “My Sharona.” There’s a lot of Les Paul.

And it all fits together seamlessly somehow in the context of Trivial Thursdays.

Thanks for listening!

Rumspringa

Remember the old Samsonite luggage commercials where the gorillas jumped up and down on the suitcases to (I guess) test their durability? It was around the same era they would run over a Timex with a bulldozer to show its ability to keep on ticking.

I would like BlackBerry to hire me to be their Monkey. Maybe now they call it Beta Testing, I'm not sure.

All I know is I have now been through three BlackBerry Pearls in one year, and two BlackBerry Bolds in the last six months.

In all of them, the track ball has stuck. When I upgraded to the Bold, they insisted this design flaw had been remedied. I bought the Bold in April and the ball died in August so I would argue they have some work to do.

Now, in every case (so far) they have warrantied them out, without a moment's hesitation.

But they can't really...atone...for what it costs me to lose communication for days on end. Since it's my JOB.

It didn't help matters when Twitter crashed last week -- and BlackBerry was among the last clients to be restored.

This meant I had to endure yet another series of iPhone interventions.

Eventually, I realized I started to sound like an abuse victim trying to rationalize away the damages. (Everyone around me eventually became an enabler, or a confronter -- suggesting maybe I deserved it.)

Once the replacement arrived, I took it straight to the BlackBerry store (no, I don't work on my own phone anymore than I'd perform brain surgery on myself or color my own hair.)

My usual man Lucas wasn't in, but I got along just fine with Russell. He was very timid with me at first, but he soon came around to my way of "Man vs Technology" style of battle. Around the third try he couldn't get the phone to recognize my UserName, he could be heard half-cajoling, half-berating the device, "You know you want to...you know you want to..." As the little blue bar struggled to confirm across the bottom of the screen.

I am not even making that up. That is what he said.

I still think there are BlackBerry people and iPhone people. I am a word-girl. I gotta have a keyboard at my fingertips. Touch-screens are a little too Philip K. Dick-ish for me. A little too Minority Report. I nearly cried when I had to replace my dial-microwave with a flat front. My worst nightmare is a world where everything goes to touch-screen and I have to tell the car to open the pod bay doors.

That said, I'm not a Luddite.

When I let tech into my life, I just expect it to worj.

I don't want to spend my weekends banging my laundry against a rock down by the river (or as K-Cuz pointed out, we don't have a river, so I'd just be rinsing my delicates down by the sewer culvert...or the new pond in the centre of town).

I never suggested I was cut out to be Amish, and I had no desire to spend my last few evenings churning butter and darning socks.

Their furniture may be esquisite, but there's a reason the Shakers died out.

And there's a reason my pal Brooke was haunted by an image of me curled up in a fetal position, rocking back and forth, singing 'Tis a gift to be simple...' Like a kid in a horror movie.

at the blackberry store

Testing