Tuesday, April 08, 2008

sophisticated technology that freaks me out

ugh. I just got off work. blimey. Long night with lots of "I don't even want to BE HERE" moments and even more, "can I tell my co-worker to eff off and still retain my work friendships?" moments. I really don't even want to get into it. Let's just say "ugh" and be done with it. ugh.

What I do want to get into is how Facebook has been freaking me out lately. Seriously. Have you guys ever checked out the ads they have on there? At first it was innocent enough, an ad for a movie coming to DVD that I had stated on my profile I liked. Easy enough. Then it got a little more strange when things I Googled started popping up. Still, I found an explanation. It can see what I Google. Freaky? Yes. Suspect? These days, no. I started seeing "Quit Smoking" ads and found that strange too. But I figured that it was a campaign for all young people.

THEN, my friends, it gets really weird. So I ate at The Cheesecake Factory on Sunday night. This is the first time I believe I have ever typed "Cheesecake factory". Well yesterday, I'm playing a game of poker on Facebook, my new addiction, and there pops up an ad. For what? THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY. Which makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. After being reminded of my gluttonous dinner, I start THINKING about how I need to work out. And no joke, an ad for a personal trainer comes up. Now, what the eff is going on here? Is it reading my mind??? Can it access my financial records?!? I know that these ads are specifically geared towards me because of the previous examples. (They always have something to do with what I've typed/messaged about lately.) But these last ones just knocked me for a second. I hadn't told anyone about my dinner. I had told less people about how I was thinking about getting a personal trainer. Then I start thinking about all the other ads that have popped up and realized that Facebook knows more about me than my own mother!

And it has seemed to paint a portrait of me that freaks me out a bit. All my vices on the glaring surface of my computer. It has hit all my weak spots at one point or another. And I'm a little pissed actually that they haven't brought out any of my fun and exciting qualities! "Awesome kites!" "Sky diving lessons!" "Dog parks!" "Bikes!" "Books!" They have just seemed to harp a bit on my downfalls here and have put me in some category I don't want to be in. (If ads start popping up for Moo-Moos and Hoverrounds I tossing the damn computer out of the window.)

Freaks. me. out.

Oh! I have an even more horrifying thought! What if Facebook can gather enough information to hypothesis your date of death and starts advertising things one might need in order for such an event. Horror movie! Hello! Hand over that paycheck South Africa, (they love those low-budg horror flicks, or so I hear).

Oh! One more Hopper photo for you to snuggle with. This one is from Malibu this past Saturday. She was digging up our feet! Or as my mom likes to think - looking for my lost car key. Yes, lost car key. On the beach. On the far reaches of Los Angeles County. With a cell phone in my locked car. With the knowledge I had been playing in the water. I didn't find the key, (I fear it may be well on it's way to Japan by now), but I've realized the more I tell this story, the more anticlimatic it is. So for entertainments sake, let's just pretend my window wasn't cracked just so and I didn't have a valet key tucked in my console, and instead, Hopper, friend, and I were forced to camp out on the beach until we finally ran into a nice fellow carrying a slim jim who hot wired the car and sent us on our way. Yes, that would have been a better story. Oh! Picture!




Sleep time!

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