Nothing is worse than when somebody sends a congratulatory e-mail to the entire company about a personnel announcement. I don’t need to know that you are happy they are “on the team.”

I am proposing a solution through a three strike “reply all” rule (I think it should only be 2 steps, but I will be more forgiving):

1. Polite reminder that this should only be done when copied people need to know the information
2. Written reprimand and 6 months e-mail probation
3. Termination if committed again during the 6 month probationary period

The option to “Reply All” for business e-mails should require a checked confirmation (e.g. “Are you sure you want to send it to all these people?”). This could be added to Microsoft Office, and it would justify a new version # from that individual feature.

Oh! how I wish I were motivated instead of sad.

I can tell there is some subconscious evaluation of my life going on, but I have not become privy to the details or planning yet. Keeping my fingers crossed.

In other news, Mojo sounds like something you would use to lubricate another item. I know that Gojo is a cleaner, and lubrication is not too far removed, but it is an inadvertent connection. Mojo sounds like it would lube something well by itself.

When I am infirm, I would choose Mojo to facilitate motion of the components in my rocket wheelchair.

With the recent release of Sarah Palin’s autobiography, Going Rogue, I have noticed a spike in Sarah Palin search terms:

My favorite term searched for is “sarah palin is repulsive.” This query, by some like-minded individual, made me smile. In the spirit of revealing her true “inner beauty,” I have made an approximation of the appearance of her spirit…

As an aside, when searching for Sarah’s new book, a parody entitled Going Rouge (a coloring and activity book) has a higher ranking Amazon link than the actual book by Palin.

to…

In eight short years.

I should really exercise more and drink less good beer, but that is difficult to do. Poverty is good for your waistline; a life of leisure, affluence and frivolity is not.

I am just bitching in order to write something.

Hotlinked Robot (sorry owner)

Some people may dislike spambots and delete their messages. I, on the other hand, immediately approve of spam messages for several reasons:

1. It looks as if someone is reading and responding to my blog
2. They are often complimentary, feeding into my ego for two seconds or so
3. They remind me I have a blog when I get an e-mail that “someone has responded to my blog”
4. They are generated to be somewhat related to the posting, unlike most blog comments that are comprised of  thinly veiled self-references.

I should probably delete them as they are only creating a distinctive link for Google or any search provider to rank them more highly when someone searches for a lucrative word such as “mesothelioma” that just happened to show up in a posting to which they are now linked. That being said, if spambots didn’t post, who would?

Sarah Palin Cosplay?

I wondered if this was a fantasy action game featuring everyone’s “favorite” ex-Alaskan Governor/Veep Nominee…

If I am remiss in my updating and reading on Facebook, in a few days time, a person I barely know will come up to me and say, “did you see my link?” If my answer happened to be “No,” I would face immediate social ostracization, loss of network status and a potential removal from said person’s “buddy list.” Actually, Facebook reminds me somewhat of a dreadfully boring RPG in which you are constantly trying to gain experience to obtain a new level that does not exist.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by MrTopf

Facebook dislike aside, this is the platform that two-thirds of the world has decided to utilize for the time being, so I will shut the fuck up.

The “killer app” for the Facebook platform that lead to their market dominance was, ironically enough, the ability to allow third-party developers to create applications for their closed platform. Although this sounds like a bum deal for the developer, they obtain something fantastic from the users that decide to use these applications: Information (for the record, the capital “I” denotes the type from which people can make money).

A Facebook app, when allowed, will allow the developer of the app access to your information, your contacts (so it can spam them), your pictures (I hope they aren’t embarrassing) and other content (that is just a little vague…):

In a certain sort of way, these applications are like reverse spam; they are titillatingly entitled marketing pilferers that people seek out in order to hand over their personal information. Facebook users are a damned fine source of accurate and up-to-date personal (read marketing) information.

This is an inexcusable digression from my point… People have been giving out their information for free to the wrong people since the creation of the idea of privacy (it was probably short pants, by the way).

My problem with Facebook apps (other than they steal your information) is that almost all of them are comprised of  inane survey questions that lead to an inaccurate/stupid result that has nothing to do with yourself or the essence of your being.

Hey, I love a good survey. Especially surveys with multiple questions that internally test and verify the results for consistency prior to issuing a determination of a category. Unfortunately, Facebook surveys are comprised of the following three components:

The first component is a question. It is usually about your analogical relationship with some characters/symbols/etc. in the mainstream media . I am expecting the questions to eventually become direct advertising questions: (e.g. An ad during which of your favorite TV programs would most likely motivate you to purchase our lipstick?), but they have the slightest semblance of propriety at this time.

The second component is the quiz. This quiz is usually comprised of two to three leading questions that are obviously leaning toward one of the potential answers. It doesn’t really matter whether or not there are any well thought-out questions as any result will be broad and/or inaccurate.  I created a quiz scenario that is not too far from the truth:

Quiz: Are you more like MacGyver or Rambo?

Question #1: Do you like guns? Answer choices: Yes or No

Question #2: If you were to get in a confrontation with someone, are you more likely to work it out using: Answer Choices: Guns or your Brain

Obviously, if you chose that you like guns and would be more likely to get out of a confrontation using a gun, you would be given the result that you were like Rambo. If you chose that you don’t like guns and would use your brain, then you would be told you are more like MacGyver.

If you chose either that you like guns and would use your head or that you dislike guns but would use one in a confrontation, the world may come to an end. Actually, it is more likely that the application would suffer some horrible error as it enters a recursive binary loop from which it could not escape–the world is unlikely to end due to Facebook, even though many in the media may disagree.

The third component of a Facebook survey is the results. Following the completion of the quiz, a Facebook app knows better than to immediately give you your results. That would be far too easy; you are a captive audience at this point with a deep desire to see if you are like one TV program or another. The app uses this mind-muddying anticipation/excitement to ask with whom you would like to share the application. This “sharing,” of course, means that it wants you to send an invitation to others in order to socially motivate them to use their marketing tool.

I took a screenshot of this, and I crossed-out the names and faces while showing how large and clear the “send to friends” option was in comparison to “continue to result:”

After the ten questions in this particular quiz (actually, the questions weren’t so bad, so I feel sorry to have used this app to make my example; nevertheless, I will venture onward), I found out I was like Heroes. If I was not like Heroes or Gossip Girl, I am sure that the only other choices would have been one of the three flavors of CSI, as there are no other shows on TV except these five.

Here is what it would have said if I had received CSI… “You belong in the original CSI: Just like Sin City, you like life hot and covered with bodily fluids to examine. You enjoy rehashing the same plot over-and-over with tiny changes that separate otherwise indistinguishable episodes from one another. In fact, they need another CSI show (#4) in order to have forensic scientists working day and night to determine the differences between episodes on the other CSI series. This fourth member of the CSI franchise is the series that you belong in. It would be set in Cincinnati with an aging cast of WKRP portraying scientists. You might be the guy that is good with computers or the cranky person in charge of data archiving, we haven’t decided yet.”

I would add that app…

After you get your awesome results, you are then given another opportunity to share it with other people in your “FaceStream” (this is a made-up name, but a better app would call your AJAX-y homepage with other people’s info something cool like the “LifeStream” or “River”). I chose not to do this, or spam other people with a quiz I made about myself in which I would be a willing accessory in obtaining their personal details:

At this point, you have received your awesome results and given away your valuable personal data; therefore, the survey is complete. As I don’t want the app to access my information in the future, I removed it while giving it helpful feedback and the score it deserved:

It probably looked a lot like this (although with fewer cars, and at night):

cc licensed flickr photo shared by ATIS547

This time, the flaming vehicle for which people were searching was a mail truck engulfed in a destructive conflagration on the elevated 880 near Broadway in downtown Oakland. Although the accident occurred in the middle of the night, this still was drug out to fuck up the morning commute (I am glad I telecommuted).

I am hoping that no important mail of mine was lost to the fire (as if any mail is not spam or bills anyways).

I enjoy a nice hike every couple weeks, and I have wondered for a while now when California parks will actually close. According to this sign:

It has already begun!

Personally, I would prefer bumpy roads and fewer drug offenders on the streets to having parks closed! The state’s priorities are fucked up!

Fucking blog. My unrealistic expectations stunt you far more than your insignificance suggests.