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A Little from Column A, A Little from Column B, and We'll Even Throw in Some Column C
We saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona on Monday. It had many of the ingredients of a good Woody Allen film: morally conflicted characters, subtle humor, a living, breathing setting, tastefully appropriate music, and nothing very resolved in the end. I don’t think he’s at the top of his form anymore, but I thought it was his best in awhile and the finest movie I’ve been out to see all summer. If nothing else, it re-inspired in me an urge to visit Barcelona and see Gaudi’s architectural work firsthand. Assuming I’ll ever be able to afford it.
I have a Facebook account, which I alternately view as gosh-golly-gee-neat-o at some times and as aggravating at others. I opened the account quite a long time ago because it appeared to be the best way to stay in touch with a friend of mine living in Korea, but I otherwise more or less ignored it for a good year or so, save for when the occasional person friended me out of the blue. A few months back, the friend requests picked up a tad, and I started realizing I could use it to seek out old friends I’d lost touch with—sort of like Myspace, minus a lot of the bullshit—and it helps in finding people that they tend to use their actual names on Facebook. I’ve had some trepidations about who to friend—both because I’m not always sure the person will remember me and because I’m afraid friending certain folks could be a portal for others who I may be less enthusiastic about reconnecting with (Yes, I know I can ignore their friend requests, but I don’t usually have the heart to ignore people, at least people I know personally. Complete strangers who randomly friend me are often a different story).
At any rate, it’s mostly been a positive thing, since I get to see what some of my college friends are up to these days, and I even found a friend I once carpooled with that I haven’t seen since middle school. I suspect many others I hadn’t expected to hear from again will pop back up in my life this way. Some of the apps are a bit excessive (For the record, I don’t particularly need to be “poked,” “sent a drink”—unless it’s a real one—or “owned” by anyone), but much of this kind of stuff doesn’t bother me much. What I do find obnoxious is having everybody on my friends list know absolutely everything I do while on Facebook. OK, yes, I get it. If I have become friends with somebody else, others on my list can see this person’s name and maybe decide to friend them too. On the other hand, I’m not sure my “writing on someone’s wall” needs to be common knowledge, particularly because the comment is shown by itself out of the context of the greater conversation and often makes little sense by itself. I suppose I am especially bitter about this function because some douchebag spammer got in and managed to write spam on my friends’ walls in my name (Sorry if I’ve evoked the dorky pirate guy with the guitar from the commercial). I want to find ways to set the preferences to a more private level, though I’m not having much luck figuring out how.
Yesterday morning, a cab driver who has sometimes given me rides in the past met me at the BART ticket turnstiles and asked me if I needed a ride. I normally walk upstairs and meet the cabs at the usual taxi stop. Nevertheless, he led me up to the other parking lot at which his own SUV was parked, and I rather bravely got in the passenger side. I suppose I was in too much of a hurry to get to work and figured I recognized the guy, or else I’d been much more fearful of ending up on the side of a milk carton. As if reading my thoughts, he produced a photo of his totaled navy blue sedan with the “taxi” sign on top. He says that while waiting on insurance matters, he has been using the gas guzzler I was in and approaches familiar passengers in the way he asked me. While his old vehicle wasn’t exactly a Prius and probably got middle-range mileage at best, his personal car drinks and belches gas at ozone (not to mention, bank account) depleting levels.
I’ve never envied the work of cabbies. They often work 12, 14, 16 hours a day, whatever it takes to meet their quota. At the end of the day, they typically wait in long lines to cash out at the taxi company, probably often for unforgiving bosses. They’re at the mercy of passengers who may or may not open the back door and run rather than remitting payment. They’re at high risk of armed robbery. And, many of them know limited English and have even more limited work visas. In short, it’s a hard life. On top of all this, for him to have to persuade prospective passengers that he’s an actual taxi driver and not a psychopath and hope they get into his car that probably eats away at most of his profits (OK, he shouldn’t have bought it in the first place, but he at least acknowledges this now) is a hellish existence to behold! I tipped him generously and wished him well.
I have a Facebook account, which I alternately view as gosh-golly-gee-neat-o at some times and as aggravating at others. I opened the account quite a long time ago because it appeared to be the best way to stay in touch with a friend of mine living in Korea, but I otherwise more or less ignored it for a good year or so, save for when the occasional person friended me out of the blue. A few months back, the friend requests picked up a tad, and I started realizing I could use it to seek out old friends I’d lost touch with—sort of like Myspace, minus a lot of the bullshit—and it helps in finding people that they tend to use their actual names on Facebook. I’ve had some trepidations about who to friend—both because I’m not always sure the person will remember me and because I’m afraid friending certain folks could be a portal for others who I may be less enthusiastic about reconnecting with (Yes, I know I can ignore their friend requests, but I don’t usually have the heart to ignore people, at least people I know personally. Complete strangers who randomly friend me are often a different story).
At any rate, it’s mostly been a positive thing, since I get to see what some of my college friends are up to these days, and I even found a friend I once carpooled with that I haven’t seen since middle school. I suspect many others I hadn’t expected to hear from again will pop back up in my life this way. Some of the apps are a bit excessive (For the record, I don’t particularly need to be “poked,” “sent a drink”—unless it’s a real one—or “owned” by anyone), but much of this kind of stuff doesn’t bother me much. What I do find obnoxious is having everybody on my friends list know absolutely everything I do while on Facebook. OK, yes, I get it. If I have become friends with somebody else, others on my list can see this person’s name and maybe decide to friend them too. On the other hand, I’m not sure my “writing on someone’s wall” needs to be common knowledge, particularly because the comment is shown by itself out of the context of the greater conversation and often makes little sense by itself. I suppose I am especially bitter about this function because some douchebag spammer got in and managed to write spam on my friends’ walls in my name (Sorry if I’ve evoked the dorky pirate guy with the guitar from the commercial). I want to find ways to set the preferences to a more private level, though I’m not having much luck figuring out how.
Yesterday morning, a cab driver who has sometimes given me rides in the past met me at the BART ticket turnstiles and asked me if I needed a ride. I normally walk upstairs and meet the cabs at the usual taxi stop. Nevertheless, he led me up to the other parking lot at which his own SUV was parked, and I rather bravely got in the passenger side. I suppose I was in too much of a hurry to get to work and figured I recognized the guy, or else I’d been much more fearful of ending up on the side of a milk carton. As if reading my thoughts, he produced a photo of his totaled navy blue sedan with the “taxi” sign on top. He says that while waiting on insurance matters, he has been using the gas guzzler I was in and approaches familiar passengers in the way he asked me. While his old vehicle wasn’t exactly a Prius and probably got middle-range mileage at best, his personal car drinks and belches gas at ozone (not to mention, bank account) depleting levels.
I’ve never envied the work of cabbies. They often work 12, 14, 16 hours a day, whatever it takes to meet their quota. At the end of the day, they typically wait in long lines to cash out at the taxi company, probably often for unforgiving bosses. They’re at the mercy of passengers who may or may not open the back door and run rather than remitting payment. They’re at high risk of armed robbery. And, many of them know limited English and have even more limited work visas. In short, it’s a hard life. On top of all this, for him to have to persuade prospective passengers that he’s an actual taxi driver and not a psychopath and hope they get into his car that probably eats away at most of his profits (OK, he shouldn’t have bought it in the first place, but he at least acknowledges this now) is a hellish existence to behold! I tipped him generously and wished him well.
Facebook = CIA
I had a co-worker who moonlighted (moonlit?) as a taxi driver. Oooooooh, the stories he told, and none of them pretty.
Facebook seems like the most easily accessible place for intelligence agencies to scour. I don't think I've expressed anything very controversial over there, though it doesn't seem to take much these days.