Rites of Spring #14 - Facebook suicide run. Good bye. · Friday May 14, 2010 by colin newell
Signed on to Facebook for about 10 days. More out of curiosity than anything else. Twitter has been working out quite well – and not surprisingly.
I mean, Twitter is a very simple thing. You post thoughts and hopefully link to some richer media somewhere.
It works… like you would expect.
But I digress.
I signed up for Facebook knowing full well how dodgy and sketchy Facebook is with peoples personal information. We have always known that Facebook is a data mining center for the folks who pay the execs at Facebook top dollar for every bit of minutia you put on your profile. It’s for sale. You’re for sale. And you can never really delete that information… ever. Never.
I knew that.
I also know that everything you put on Facebook (pictures, content, multimedia) belongs to Facebook forever. Your pictures? Theirs. Your life? Theirs. It is in the user agreement. You have no excuse if you are offended and do not understand this.
I get this.
What I was not ready for was the amount of spam mail that I got that seemed to fit in, puzzle like, and locked fit to every little detail of my personal profile.
What I discovered was: In my “interests” are on Facebook, I have; hiking, skiing, race car driving, helicopter piloting, ballet, etc etc…
And I was soon being buried on my e-mail with shills for hiking, skiing, race car driving and so on. You get the picture.
And I had my “privacy” settings locked down as hard as they could go.
So I should not be surprised that Facebook sells everything on you… and me.
But I was… a little.
But I left. After 10 days. And it’s OK.
Because tens of thousands of people are leaving Facebook daily. Some of these departures are affectionately referred to as suicide pacts – group departure from an online social network that is, oh so obviously… so… yesterday.
The online user base (and the folks at Facebook should pay attention to this) are pretty savvy.
And like old friends who turn out to be con artist scum balls… we eventually clue in.
I did.
And you can too.
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Rites of Spring #9 - The most remarkably stupid thing I have ever seen · Wednesday April 21, 2010 by colin newell
I got my first bicycle when I was about 8 or 9 years old.
And learning how to ride it for the very first time – that moment where you are one with space and time – with no support from a sibling or parent – you are riding a bike – gliding along with complete freedom.
It is one of those truly innocent aha moments in life.
It is, next to the first few steps as a toddler, one of those steps in the cycle of life where you are slowly but surely moving from the nest…
into the real World.
My first bike was a Raleigh – at the time an English made set of wheels – a coaster bike – a little too large for me and ever so gently second hand. But I loved it.
And in one small stroke, one giant leap of faith, my World went from our immediate surroundings to a limitless vista of potentially kilometers of cycling in every direction.
One of the first accessories on my single speed bike were flappers. Ostensibly pieces of paper held in place by clothes pins that made a rat-a-snap sound as they slapped the spokes on the front and rear tires. Pretty amusing stuff for a 9 year old kid and again it represented, in small part, that inevitable step toward the ultimate freedom of having a set of wheels with an internal combustion engine attached.
By the time I was 10 years old, I had realized that these pieces of hard paper were slowing me down.
Fast forward some 4 decades and I found myself reading the London Drug flyer – a local Target style super-store and came across this in-car gadget… a thing that you plug into your cigarette lighter that sends an FM signal to your car stereo…
Your car stereo that you turn right up and roll down the windows… so you car can sound like a muscle car.
Picture above: The SoundRacer V8 Transmitter – Converts your modern, boring vehicle into a heart pounding 60’s muscle car…
Say it with me folks. F*ck me.
So. In effect… it is a noise pollution device… I am imaging that it was designed precisely for men in their 20’s to 50’s who never grew out of the phase that I did when I was 10.
Men that need to make noise with this stupid device
I have to tell you folks. This is simply the most ridiculous things I have seen in a long, long time – and I have seen a lot. Makes you wonder. What the heck is next?
Anyway. Piece of advice for some of you testosterone challenged dweebs in K-cars that need to draw attention to your pathetic selves… by blasting your stereo in my hood…
Grow up.
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Rites of Spring 2010 - Some funny moments with Bob Harris · Sunday March 21, 2010 by colin newell
Buddy and creative partner in L.A. – Bob Harris doing his final comedy performance…
Winter all fun, food and frolic - rabbits on the rampage - UVic · Saturday March 13, 2010 by colin newell
There are two kinds of creatures that live and work at the University of Victoria; invertebrates (that run the place…) and rabbits (in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha…) that have the run of the place.
The most recent body count indicated that there are over 1000 rabbits on campus – and none of them have any intention of graduating.
Because in the world of the rabbit, there are only three states:
Thinking of humping.
Humping.
And smoking a cigarette afterward.
Yes, they poop. A lot.
And dig holes.
And destroy stuff.
But it’s a harmless crime folks – because there is little, if any, intelligent life at UVic… at least from what I have seen in my 20+ years working there.
I am, of course, discounting the hard working staff (Union and professional) and the tens of thousands of hard working students self-improving to make a better World.
I am talking about the decision makers – you know, the Vee-Pee’s and executives that run the joint… whose motto is: “If it ain’t broken… break it!”
Who are generally so wishy-washy about, well, everything that they could not run a 15 cent lemonade stand without running it into the ground worrying about the actuarial implications of running a lemonade stand.
I mean, listen up… On a weekly basis I see young families bring their crawling age toddlers onto campus for the specific purpose of crawling around on feces covered green to play with the rabbits. Hello: Risk of disease. Risk of rabbit bite = 2 days of treatment in the local hospital, blah blah blah.
I give up. Maybe this is just natural selection at work.
Bottom line: The administration at UVic is utterly incapable of coming to a decision on the issue of the rabbit copulation explosion. They can’t do it. They are not built for it.
In the meantime, the rabbits screw and reproduce, dig and crap everywhere placing staff, students and toddlers at risk.
I spoke with a lovely and elderly Scottish lady with a support dog at the Finnerty Express last week… and in her intriguing Edinburgh beam me up Scotty brogue said… “All we need are a dozen Jack Russell terriers… Aye? Problem solved!”
I felt like offering her an executive VP job.
In the meantime, watch your step.
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Winter all food, fun and drink - Ending the twitter fun house... · Friday March 12, 2010 by colin newell
Happy Friday everyone and welcome back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Sorry to have been absent for so long – dealing with that nasty Twitter addiction – and after a brief session in neediness and attention deficit rehab, I am back to make a statement.
Which is.
Stay out of deep emotional ponds… especially if you are not equipped with an suitable mind flotation device.
Because oh so many of those… please follow me and please re-tweet my every thought can drain a man’s ability to function properly in the real World.
Twitter is, for me, like a reform school or a very dysfunctional family…
and, as a social application, it should make us better not worse…
More stable… less unstable.
Better people… less like monkeys… less like the class clown.
More inclusive, engaging and interested in the social condition.
And keep in mind: I am people. And I am a monkey. And a clown.
So… Let’s get back to it shall we?
Eager to get back to the drivel you all have been so fond of.
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