Google’s In My Head!

I’m trying to write this without sounding like a paranoid nutbar. I will probably fail. Oh well. I’ve probably sounded like many different varieties of nutbar before, so what’s another kind?

I want you to think. think of when you first remember hearing about the Google search engine. Can you remember? Can you remember someone telling you about google, or talking about googling someone, or maybe you saw it as someone’s startpage? The reason I ask is that I can’t.

One day, it was like the word was planted in my brain. I don’t know where it came from. It was back in 2000 or early 2001. I’m not sure. Steve was hanging out with me in my little residence room. I was sick of all the other search engines like Mamma, Dogpile, Altavista, Yahoo, etc. So, I said to Steve, “I’ve heard of this thing called google. I think it’s supposed to be good! I don’t even know how to spell it! I’m not even sure if it’s google, or what, but the word Google comes to me.” Steve asked me where I’d heard of it, and I honestly couldn’t answer him. So, we typed Google’s address into the address bar, and miracle of miracles, there was a search box! And we loved it! But how did I hear about it? I really don’t know! I didn’t know then, and still don’t. It was like the word just appeared out of the clear blue sky.

I find this especially freaky, since Google is everywhere now. It’s *the* search engine, and because of that, googling has become a verb. How many search engines get that status? I’ve never heard of anyone yahooing or altavistaing someone or something. Maybe I’ve never heard of altavistaing because that is impossible to say. But anyway, no other search engine was ever turned into a verb.

Add to this that Google runs blogger, without which there would be no VC in its current form. It owns Feedburner, which runs our feed. And, of course, it runs our ads! On top of that, it has Google Mail, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Earth, a bunch of other stuff, and a whole wack of dough. How did Google get so big? Is it just because of the sheer awesomeness that is Google, or…is it something more cynister? Have the folks at Google figured out how to mess with our heads and make us think stuff without us even knowing about it?

Na…*shakes head.* What am I talking about? I really do sound like anutbar. But the fact remains. I don’t know how I heard of Google, and I remember all kinds of obscure things. Why is that one missing?

Rogers Rage Update

Well, I got a response from the support Gerbils at Rogers, and wow, it was only semi-formulaic and completely useful!

Amid the standard issue “thank you for using our online customer service” and “We appreciate your feedback” crap, there was a decent response! They are escalating my concerns to the web-team, and they’re going to fill in my info into this contest. Let’s hope “escalating your concerns” isn’t gerbil-speak for placating the customer and then heaving this whole email exchange into the trash. But, I got their attention, and actually got something resembling service! Let’s hope this goes somewhere.

Knowing Where I’m At Isn’t Where It’s At

I’ve seen these commercials advertising this new GPS service offered by certain wireless providers where you and your friends will always know where each other is. All the people on the commercials sound like stoners or zombies. They just keep pushing buttons on their phones going, “I know where you’re at.”

“Oh yeah? Well I know where you’re at.”

Ok, how many of us have a conversation that’s like that?

This service sounds like a recipe for disaster. I’ve heard that you choose who knows where you are and when, but what if someone you add to your ok list turns out to be not ok? What if you block them and they go ballistic because they can’t know you’re exact whereabouts all the time? I can see people who turn into abusers really loving this service.

Or, what if your significant other who is on the same provider is you isn’t down with you knowing where they are all the time, so they don’t sign up? Are you going to get suspicious because they’re hiding something?

Whatever happened to calling your buddy and saying, “Hey dude, whatcha up to?” Can’t we stick to that? Do we need to voluntarily set ourselves up to be tracked like wildlife? Ug! We’re just too plugged in these days.

The Medical Care Was Worse Than The Snakebite!

Let’s think about this. A woman gets bitten in a religious snake-handling ritual. That’s perhaps ironic and worth a sarcastic chuckle, but if you’re a hospital staff member and she shows up for treatment, shouldn’t all chuckling stop and treatment start?

If the staff at the Marymount Medical Centre in London, Kentucky, truly did what the family of Linda Long says they did, i.e. giving her a fan when she asked for oxygen, making derogatory comments about her religion, asking way too many questions about way too many things, not putting in a breathing tube, which caused her to die, then the family should sue their asses off. Come on, people, let’s show some professionalism! Whatever happened to “do no harm?”

Surprise!

Wow. This sounds like a joke. It just can’t be true. But if it is, that’s a sixteenth birthday that poor boy won’t forget.

His mom, for some unknown reason, decided to have a man in a gorilla suit show up to his drama class for his sixteenth birthday. But when she bookd it, she became what the company is calling the victim of a booking error, and so…a stripper came instead.

Oh my. Oh my my my. The stripper not only came, but she had no problem carrying out her, um, er, duties. She looked like a policewoman, only with a short skirt. She asked for the birthday boy to stand up, saying he’d been a naughty boy, not doing his homework. Next, she put on some Britney Spears, put a leash on the boy, and led him around the room on all fours, hitting him sixteen times. Finally, she stripped to bra and panties, put some cream on herself and asked the boy to rub it in. AT this point, the stunned teacher came out of her trance and put an end to the antics, and the boy ran from the room.

The best part of this whole thing was the boy’s mother caught the teacher a few minutes before the, um, miscommunication was about to play out, just said something was about to happen, and asked the teacher to film it with a camera which she provided. So, during this whole escapade, the poor teacher was probably wondering if that was what the mom had intended.

What I can’t figure out is why the stripper wouldn’t go, “hmmm. I think there was some mistake.” when she ended up at a high school drama class. I kno strippers aren’t known for their ethics, but there’s a line somewhere, I’m sure.

Anyway, the school is looking into things, the whole class is in shock and is asked to remain tight-lipped about the whole thing, and the boy is pretty humiliated…and I can’t stop giggling!

Gee, Those Don’t Look Like Stitches!

God. Now, if you have to go under the knife, along with all the usual worries, it seems that operating room fires happen more than one might think!

Apparently this is because of the use of pure oxygen for the patient to breathe, use of alcohol swabs, and cauterizing instruments. Anyway, you’re more likely to get a burn on your neck, face or chest. Joy oh bliss! Another thing to worry about.

There’s not too many things that are scarier than the description of blue flames flashing up from a woman’s abdomen like a flambé.

Wayne, I Wanna Lockjaw Those Contestants!

Fox has come up with this new Gameshow called Don’t Forget the Lyrics. The concept is a fine idea. It’s like karaoke and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire mixed together. The contestant picks a song, and the words appear on the screen, and the contestant sings along. But at some point, the band stops playing, and the contestant has to sing so many words so they can get whatever money they’re going for. They have three back-ups, or things they can do to help them get the next chunk of money. And, just like in Millionaire, at any point, they can choose to walk and keep whatever money they have. The game would be awesome…if the contestants weren’t such freaks!

Seriously, must almost every contestant act like some kind of drama queen/king? Must they sing, or shriek, at pitches suitable for shattering crystal, “I wanna lock in those lyrics!” Must they act like they’re some kind of forgotten superstar? Really, you’re just an average joe who decided to sing karaoke for money. Just say what you have to say, sing the song, maybe get excited when you win some money, but other than that, the over the top bullshit needs to simmer down right now.

An even scarier idea is that the contestants aren’t being like this on their own. Maybe they’re actually being told to act like complete nutbars for some ungodly reason. If so, that producer needs to be fired immediately. Hey, producer dude, I would watch the show more often if there was less of this crap. I just want to see if I can remember lines, see somebody win some money, that’s about it. I don’t need to watch someone slaughter a song while attempting to sound like Whitney Hughston, or risk losing my hearing at every ear-splitting shriek let out by a contestant.

Ug! Why do new good ideas have to be killed almost immediately by someone or something?

Babble Fish

Wow, Babelfish took a dignified set of questions and turned them, well, into Vogon poetry.

A bunch of Israeli journalists were going to go over to Holland and attend a seminar on the Dutch political system. They were asked to send a list of their questions. The leader of the delegation was away on some other assignment, and I guess it’s true about what happens when the cat’s away. One of the mice, the one who knew no English, decided to play, I.E. send the questions. Did he consult someone knowledgeable in the English language? Nope. He consulted something knowledgeable, or so he thought. He went to the automated translation site called Babelfish, threw the text of his questions in there, got the automatic Hebrew-English translation, and fired it off to Holland!

Well…that didn’t go so well. It’s never good when the email starts with “”Helloh bud, Enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your
mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian, and on relational Israel Holland.”

And the unrest started. The poor Foreign Minister of Holland didn’t much like being asked about where his mother slept, and got very, very mad. They want to complain and perhaps cancel the trip. I think that’s a little much. I think the Israelis should apologize, fire non-English-speaking Stupidhead, and get on with their trip. I don’t think it’s fair that the whole team should be punished.

At any rate, I don’t think the Israeli delegation much wants to go, apparently they’re too embarrassed to go on the trip.

This just proves that robo-translaters perform no better than the author of English AS She Is Spoke, and that’s pretty sad, since they don’t have to do nearly as much translating and back-translating as that poor man had to do. All I can say is hopefully not too many of my classmates in French class actually went and used Babelfish to help them with their essays. Otherwise, well…I would have killed to watch the profs marking papers when they got to those ones.

What’s With Me and Gerbils Today?

Oh my god. I just talked to the stupidest person doing telemarketing in the universe. This story makes more sense if I can imitate this numbnut’s voice, but I’ll try to simulate it in writing.

I pick up, and this voice says, “Hello. uh, um, Carin?” Damn me to hell for giving to charities over the phone!

I say yes. He says, “How are you?” I say fine. Then he starts into his script. “I…uh…waa-uh-oh have one question for you. Um…sniff…wa-a-uh-oh…do you want child porn off the…um..net?”

Dude. Can you finish one sentence without sounding like either a stoner or someone with an insanely bad language problem? I say sure. He starts in again. “Um…waa-uh-oh…I’m with the Family Action Colation.”

The what? Colation? So he sits around putting things together for families? He must mean coalition. I let him continue bumbling along.

“Uh..so…these sites are making 3, billion, dollars, a year.” Now imagine that along with 3, billion, dollars, and year, you can hear a slight tapping, as if he’s banging his fist on the table to hammer home his point. He continues to sputter and stammer along. “So, uh..waaaa-uh oh, we wanna approach the internet service providers to take these sites down.” I stop him and ask him that if he has all this information about child porn sites, why doesn’t he want to go to the police and inform their child porn units? That’s what they’re for.

“Well…they’re good..but that’s only if they can figure out who’s behind it and track them to, like, their house or something.”

I ask him what’s more effective? Bringing the site down or getting the person arrested so he can’t hurt another child?

“Yeah..well…it’s not that easy. So…ya know..the government doesn’t wanna mess with these people because they’re making so much money.”

I asked him what on this green earth he was talking about. They’re getting this money illegally, so of course the government would want to mess with them because they’re tax-evading. And, aren’t the police an arm of government?

“Uh…um…waaa-uh-oh…ma’am, I’m just trying to tell you this stuff the best way I can.”

Well, you’re failing.

He then said that they wanted to get money so they could take these service providers to court so they could get the websites taken down. I asked him how they were going to accomplish this. “Um….waaa-uh-oh…with lawyers and stuff,” was the answer I got.

Exactly how stupid are you? Na, I thought you were taking them to Kangaroo court.

I then asked him what kind of court they were taking them to. He couldn’t answer that of course. I said if he really wants to get money from people, he and his fellow marketers should really inform themselves on what exactly their cause is. To that, all he could manage was, “Um…uh…waaa-uh-oh.”

Then, I asked him how in the blue hell they planned to take service providers to court. They can’t exactly be sued over what their clients put up. If they’re ordered to nuke the site by, oh, say, the police, they’ll take it down. But some kind of lawsuit isn’t going to work. “yeah…” he sputtered. “We tried court before, and it didn’t work too good…um…so…waaa-uh-oh..er…we’re trying again. Would you give $25?”

Why would I throw money down a hole like this? It’s not going to “work too good” this time either. Taking ISP’s to court doesn’t work. I told him that I’d look at their site and *if* it convinced me that it was a worthy cause, maybe I’d donate. In the meantime, I suggested that if he has all this information about child porn sites, he might want to get on the horn to the police. He didn’t like that. “um…yeah I don’t know…thanks…bye.” How quickly he wanted me off the phone.

Man, I’ve thought a lot of marketers were drones, but if it was possible to have a really dumb drone, I just met him. I wonder if this was his first, and last, day on the job.

Which Is Lower, The Temperature Or Your IQ?

The Cool Cash lottery game has been pulled from stores in the UK after a number of complaints from angry customers who
failed to grasp how it worked.

The game, unveiled late last month, required players to scratch off a window to reveal a temperature. If that temperature was lower than another figure shown on the ticket, the player would win a cash prize.

However, problems with the winter-themed game cropped up almost immediately when it became apparent that many players were too stupid to grasp even the most basic of mathematical concepts and didn’t understand negative numbers, leading to a rash of calls right from day one from people who couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t won.

“On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8,” said Tina Farrell, a complete fucking nitwit quoted in the Manchester Evening News. “The numbersI uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn’t.”

“I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher – not lower – than -8 but I’m not having it.

“I think Camelot are giving people the wrong impression – the card doesn’t say to look for a colder or warmer temperature, it says to look for a higher or lower number. Six is a lower number than 8. Imagine how many people have been misled.”

Oh believe me, I’m imagining it, and I’m dumbfounded.

“Poor numeracy” or not, I’m sure these people have at least seen or heard a weather forecast at some point. It makes me wonder how many people have called their local radio station to complain that the temperature going from -10 to -15 means that they can put the coats away, not break out the warm ones.

And just picture the confusion in the bank lines.

“I’m sorry Nigel, you’ve bounced another cheque.”

“The hell I have! I’ve got -20 dollars where before I had -10! I’ve got more money now, ya bloody tosser!”

I have horrible math skills, to the point where I have to count off simple addition and subtraction with my fingers. But even I, at my most retarded, had no trouble with the minus sign. Once the first teacher explained to me that 0 was the intersection between positive and negative, I was set. For some reason that was one of the few math-related things that totally got through.

But right now, I seem to be having trouble with another equasion. How is it that these imbeciles + day to day life = survival? That one I don’t think I’ll ever quite figure out.