Tired of hauling around that Blackberry? Can’t afford an iPhone? Like stealing office supplies? Then the Hipster PDA might be the thing for you!
Beauty in Simplicity
30-Jan-07Oops
24-Jan-07I’m not sure how, but I broke my photo gallery. Calm down. I’ll fix it.
Flattery Will Get You Nowhere
24-Jan-07It started innocently enough. Over a year ago, I got a mysterious comment on my website from someone named Mary. “My friend just bought a car for $35234,” Mary proclaimed, “Isn’t that crazy?”
I didn’t know Mary, so her friend’s purchase did not strike me as particularly interesting. Just because I wouldn’t spend that much money on a car (unless it was going to make me feel young again, of course) doesn’t mean Mary’s friend shouldn’t. But wait… who’s Mary again?
I googled Mary’s comment and discovered similar ones all over the Internets. It wasn’t always Mary’s friend—sometimes it was Carla’s, or Bruce’s, or maybe Terry’s—and the car didn’t always cost the same amount. But the gist was always the same: someone’s friend bought a new car for some amount of money, and that was crazy. No email address, no links, no reason at all for sharing.
Weeks later, new comments started trickling in. “Nice site. Very interesting,” one said. Another offered the praise,”Great website with a lot of resources and detailed explanations.” And don’t forget, “Your website has useful information for beginners like me.”
Something was clearly wrong with this. If you’ve actually taken the time to look at this site, you know that it contains absolutely no information that anyone could consider useful—beginner or otherwise. And resources? Not unless you’re compiling a library of idiocy.
Of course, these aren’t just innocuous little compliments left by the occasional visitor. Each comment comes embedded with at least one link—usually pointing to websites hosted on converted oil platforms in international waters so as to sidestep pesky decency laws. Yes, that guy who thought my site had such detailed explanations was really just a computer with a tenuous grasp on the English language and a treasure trove of pan-species erotica. (Imagine the search engine traffic I’ll get from that last sentence.) And all this time I thought someone finally appreciated my “interesting comments.”
Aside from the annoyance of having to go through and delete such comments when they came in, this kind of spam amused me for some time. I wondered about the effectiveness of such thinly veiled advertisements. Are we so desperate for affirmation that we’ll unquestioningly accept any form of e-flattery, however obviously computer-generated it might be? That’s kind of sad. We’ve probably been this sad all along; having an Internet just makes it public.
The spam I get today is more direct. Most messages—and I get A LOT of them—contain link after link after link to gambling and adult websites that include terms whose meanings I lack the courage to infer. I guess flattery wasn’t getting them anywhere. Maybe that means we aren’t so desperate for attention after all. Or maybe “Mary’s” friends stopped buying cars and started hosting porn sites.
Shamu Didn’t Teach Me Shit
18-Jan-07Can anyone explain to me why the New York Times Modern Love column What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage is back on the list of most emailed stories? It wasn’t good the first time around. (Click here to read Slate’s take on it.)
Blog By Numbers
23-Dec-06Hello. I’m alive. I’m sure you’ve been worried sick.
A few days ago, I wrote a somewhat lengthy post about stupid items for sale in the back of the New Yorker, but somehow I lost it. (Lost the post, that is, not “it.” I lost “it” a long time ago.) Rewriting the same crap over was boring, so instead, here’s a quick rundown, by the numbers.
1. I am a sucker for movie cameos. And underdog movies. And schlock. And movies in general.
The thing is that I pretty much just love movies. And I really love going to the movies. That means that, with very few exceptions, I come out of the theater feeling great about whatever I saw. “You know, casting John Goodman as King Ralph was really a great choice,” I might say, “and that was one of Peter O’toole’s best performances in a long time!” Maybe my discerning tastes are temporarily distorted by all that liquid nacho cheese and huge box of Milk Duds, but I’m usually pretty enthusiastic for the first few hours after leaving the theater.
Maybe that’s why I loved Rocky Balboa. Or maybe it was actually kind of good. I thought it would be a good movie to see on Boxing Day (get it?!), but frankly, I just couldn’t wait. At first I thought he might die at the end, since the idea of a guy pushing 60 getting into the ring seems pretty asinine. And let’s face it, even though it featured Survivor’s follow-up to “Eye of the Tiger,” Rocky IV: Russian Roullette wasn’t the best film I’ve seen. But it was more a film about aging and loneliness than it was about kicking ass. And I’m a sucker for sentimental crap like that.
And brief as it was, I loved the Mike Tyson cameo. That man is bat-shit crazy.
2. In spite of item #1, Liberty Stands Still was laughably bad.
Looking to spend two hours of your life in a vortex of entertainment value? I’ve got just the thing. Count the cars, kids on bikes, and dog-walkers that pass by after the police have “cordoned off the whole area.”
3. Denver picked a lousy time to have a blizzard.
I was supposed to fly to Denver on Wednesday morning. That didn’t happen. Something about two feet of snow closed the airport. This prompted a mad dash for the ticket counter by every would-be passenger, including me, to make new reservations. I’m not leaving until tomorrow–a four day delay. Ouch. I just feel bad for the poor saps who are stuck paying for hotels or sleeping on airport floors until they get out.
4. Making graduate school applicants write personal statements is a form of sadism.
As self-absorbed as I am, I don’t like writing papers that expound on all the reasons I’m so fucking great—especially when all that bombast is really just thinly veiled groveling. When I say “the ethnographer is in a unique position, able to observe and recount cultural phenomena, processes, and details that may otherwise be impossible to capture,” what I really mean is “please please please please please please please take me.” I’m glad to be done with it. Now, the waiting begins…
5. Striped sweaters are the new black.
There’s not much to say about this. I love striped sweaters. They’re my new look. I don’t care if I look like a 1960′s prep school kid (as I was told by one of the professors at work). I like them.
6. The season finale of Doctor Who was awesome.
I love this show. I started watching because of vague childhood memories of watching it with my dad. At six years old, I didn’t exactly know what was going on, and invariably fell asleep by the end. All I remembered was something about a sonic screwdriver, and some trashcan-looking things that screamed “exterminate!” over and over. But I’m totally hooked on the new episodes. Don’t make fun.
That pretty much brings you up to date. I’m leaving for Denver tomorrow; maybe I’ll post stupid pictures of friends and family when I return. Or maybe not.
Toodles.