Facebook drama, Act II

By way of follow-up to my post about Drama Queens (of either XX or XY chromosome configuration) on Facebook, here’s something I came across.

Not DQ material, exactly. And not entirely a humble-brag. But this sort of invitation to one’s friends to share some appreciation of how special one is (which specialness one is extremely careful to call out), seems to lie at the core of the whole FB phenomenon:

I mean—the idea of going to a reasonably public forum (public because you’ve lumped all levels of associates, from passing acquaintances to live-in lovers, into the category of “friends”) and, well, just gushing like this is completely cringeworthy.

Isn’t it?

And the fact that such gushing elicits (as it was obviously intended to do) equally cringeworthy encomia just…well, I believe I’ve gone into insulin shock.

Just gag me with a mobile device.

Check it out!

An interesting story in the WSJ about how public libraries are trying to interpret their mission in the 21^st Century.

They’re putting on hog butchering demonstrations (Overland Park, Ks.) and running virtual bowling leagues (Des Plaines, Ill.), among other activities. Along with books (hard copy and electronic) and videos, they’re lending musical instruments and construction tools.

And in addition to improving lectures on local botany and ancient Greek pottery, they’re offering rock concerts and stand-up comedy shows.

I haven’t noticed any of this hoo-ha at any of the six library systems that I use in the Valley they call Silicon. I do know that in the Milpitas branch of the Santa Clara County Library, on the mornings they hold the toddlers’ story time, you have to park at the top of the garage because the lower three levels are packed with SUVs and mini-vans, and you wade through massed squadrons of very upscale strollers parked by the stairs to get to the adult non-fiction section. But that’s pretty traditional.

Although I think some of the stories are told in Mandarin.

I’m not sure how I feel about all this new-fangled approach. I thought the North Seattle branch of the public library had lost the plot when it only had about six aisles of books and devoted the rest of its space to computers, DVDs  and CDs. The system did have books, because I used to request them and have them delivered to NS for pick-up; but they didn’t seem to have as many as the King County system.

So much for their image of being the national vortex of intellectual achievement.

I mean, it was like that old “Laugh-In” joke: “I went to the Beautiful Downtown Burbank Library, but their book was checked out.”

I grew up with and in the Pasadena Public Library. My first paycheck job (you know—an actual paycheck that you had to deposit in your bank, as opposed to being paid in cash for babysitting) was with PPL, shelving books in the Children’s Room of the main branch. I researched papers in the periodical stacks, where I’d get lured away from the stories I was after by magazine advertisements from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. They had a listening room, where you could plug into classical music or jazz or Broadway shows; and they rented out a couple of electric typewriters by the half-hour.

(Hey—that’s how Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451; only he used the UCLA library for that.)

And PPL was in the vanguard of expanding services to its patrons. They were the first library I ever heard of to open on Sunday afternoons. Back in the 70s, they were primary movers in the Metropolitan Cooperative Library Service (MCLS)—where libraries in communities surrounding LA city pooled resources. You could check out materials from any one of the participating libraries through your own system.

Of course, I’m a little fuzzy on how you found the danged things, because they still used those card catalogs to list all their holdings.

But if another library in the system had what you wanted, you could request it and pick it up at your local branch. It opened up a major chunk of the world to you. Amazing.

A few years ago I stopped by PPL’s main branch. It’s a venerable building, as such things go in Southern California. I walked into the main hall and found table after table laptop-ready, with masses of electrical outlets and high-speed Internet access. They had a coffee kiosk in the courtyard off what used to be the Fine Arts room. And it isn't Starbucks!

But with all the new high-tech offerings, I didn’t see the niche where the old winos used to come in when the library opened, park in one of the overstuffed chairs and stay until closing—warm in winter, cool in summer. I wonder where they’ve gone?

Unless they’re at the hog-butchering lectures or logging onto the libraries’ public computers.

Facebook drama

I’m sure you’ve noticed it on Facebook: someone will post something along the lines of, “I’ve totally HAD it. This is THE END!!!!” or “Men/women are all assholes!!!!!” These may or may not be followed by 17 posts from friends asking “What up???”, and maybe (or maybe not) some elaboration from the originator.

Frankly, in my experience these sorts of posts get lost amongst the “Just checked in to [some place I’ve never heard of] for [pizza/cocktails/burgers/bikini wax]”, “Cutest EVAH cat picz” and multiple variants of various Internet hoaxes—the ones that used to be emailed around.

I mean, let’s face it: there’s a boatload of banality on FB.

But it apparently doesn’t go unnoticed, and someone has taken the time to pull together evidence of Drama Queens on Facebook. I am relieved to note that some of the DQs’ friends are on to their tricks. I especially like the one that starts, “I now understand how it feels to not be able to get over someone”.

Okay, they may not have the charm of Dog Shaming, but they are amusing.

In the queue, Part 2

A somewhat different spam appeared in my queue this week:

“Nancy Hopkins” is really in love with her initial capitals, isn't she?

I did find a company called County Line Energy; it purports to be an “Oil and Gas exploration” outfit, in Alberta.

The home page looks like our Nancy created it.

Any road—they’ll have to do without my investment.

Linking into the weird, Pt. 2

I was telling a friend of mine about the two strange LinkedIn invitations I’ve had recently and something occurred to me.

I should start a new LinkedIn group that combines the two areas that these people thought I’d be a “fit” for:

“Working Moms for Security and Counter-Terrorism”

Especially for mothers of two-year-olds.

Linking in to the weird

Speaking of questionable solicitations, as I was yesterday, LinkedIn has got somewhat weirder. I think it’s because if you’re in a group with someone, you can send them messages for free (without buying a premium subscription).

The invitation to a security & counter-terrorism group was kind of strange, because I have no bleeding idea what it is about my LinkedIn profile that would lead anyone to think I have experience or even interest in that field. Except that I mention that my research concentration is in military history—but that is kind of a tenuous connection at best.

However, even stranger than me in a terror community is the invitation I got from some chick wanting me to join a group called Working Moms for Healthy Living:

Now, trust me—there is absolutely nothing in my LinkedIn profile that would lead anyone to connect me with working momdom.

& given the choice between counter-terrorism & working mothers, guess which group I’d pick?

In the queue

Ah, the new year is starting out well for the spammers & phishers. Thank God even lame-ass AOL can detect them & shunt them off into the junk mail folder. (Hey—after AOL assimilated Netscape emails I was stuck with them. It’s not like I volunteered.)

 
 The “Priority Mail Postal Service” is an old pal, more or less—can’t decide whether it wants to be the USPS or FedEx, so going for both:

Interesting that they didn’t bother to steal the actual FedEx logo, which is:

(Note the difference in the font, the colors and the space between Fed & Ex.)

The one from “MailBox Alert”, slugged “New e-mails in your mailbox” was, um, different:

Kind of a change to be addressed as “Gentleman!” (Although—do you suppose they’re tracking all the spam I get for penile enlargement aids?) & nice to know I have 15 more “fresh” messages. Do you suppose they mean fresh as in “recent” or fresh as in “frisky”?

One could also speculate about the offers. But, sadly, I won’t be contacting administrator Natasha.

If it were Boris, now…

If a man answers

Here’s a vertical market that apparently wasn’t featured at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show: mobile phones with a privacy feature enabling the user to keep calls from specified callers out of queues, logs, etc. They’re called “infidelity phones”, and they apparently are well known in Japan.

The technology—which is actually oldish—is the subject of blogs among the use-‘em-&-lose-‘em” set. It’s essentially an earlier version of privacy settings that allow the user to shunt calls from various people—other mistresses, wives,and the like—into a never-never land so that the woman they’re with at the moment isn’t able to scroll through call logs and deduce philandering is in process.

Of course, that doesn’t do anything to hide the evasiveness, lies and general scumminess that forms the basis of men who need such privacy settings. Those are even older technologies that should be easily picked up on by anyone with the most basic bullshit detection systems.

Book covers of the damned, chapter 2

As follow-up to my post on book covers from hell, here’s the story of the pissy little “author” who—in addition to having no visual sense or visible taste at all—doesn’t understand copyright law.

This is the little exchange jump-started the Lousy Book Covers site’s global following, proving that Miss Pissy also doesn’t grasp the viral nature of the Internet. Possibly because Internet is multisyllabic.

Bwaaaah!

Certainly, sir!

I was looking up hotels in Boston because…oh, yeah—I decided to make the daughter of one of the minor characters in my novel work for a while at a Boston hotel.

Then I got to wondering if I could remember the name of the hotel where a Boston native once told me all the high-class hookers worked. It was Copley something—not the Marriott, because I’ve stayed there and, well, I just know that whatever it was that was the name of this hotel that was supposed to be Very Old Boston, it wasn’t where I was staying.

But the short end of this story is that, having trawled around various four- and five-star Boston hotel sites, I hit on that of the Copley Square Hotel. Not that I’m saying it was the one in whose lobby the high-class hookers might or might not have plied their trade, but because it appears to be a high-end hotel where my minor character’s daughter might have spent a couple of years working. (Remember? Back in paragraph one?)

I mean—it’s A Boston Boutique Hotel at its Best, right? Why not?

So I was rooting around the site and came across the amenities page. Where I just stopped dead in my trawling tracks.

It wasn’t just the free Wi-Fi (usually you only get free Internet at the low-end hotels), or the free local/800 calls and postage. Nor was it the complimentary seasonal afternoon beverages (would that be lemonade in the summer or G&T?), or even the overnight shoe shine.

(I do wonder at the “Wine Down Hour”—what does that even mean? And it seems a little on the parsimonious side to have it only for one hour and only at a time before a lot of their presumptive business travelers get out of work.)

No—it’s the “Intuition Specialist services”.

Seriously?

Now, I’m just spitballing here, based on what I get from an Internet search on “intuition specialist”; but I’m finding it hard to feature your average guest at a New England hotel calling down to Reception to book an appointment with an intuitionist. “Listen, I need my auras read ASAP”, or “I have a bad feeling about tomorrow’s business meeting—get me your psychic, please.”

I could see something like that at a hotel in LA, or pretty much anywhere in the Bay Area. But finding it at this establishment just cracked me up.

Although, looking back at it, I note that here’s one of the three photos they use on the amenities page:

No—actually, you don’t need any intuition specialist to know what’s going on there, do you?