A Baby Step

Some time ago, I loaded a Firefox extension called TrackMeNot and then forgot about it.

Today, I noticed a series of officious-looking, mystery phrases appearing in the lower right corner of my browser. Excerpt from today's batch:

Transform ation Commission Report
pages from this location
wall street journal
independent record shop specializing
MANAGERIAL BARGAINING POWER
winning kentucky powerball numbers
Interactive Measurement Conversion
MasterCard Worldwide manages
HONORABLE CHIEF JUSTICE
Save Your Time
down arrow keys

So I reviewed what the hell that was all about, and the Internet paranoiac in me was delighted anew.

TMN sends random phrases to search engines from your computer, masking whatever real searches you're doing in a white noise of plausible nonsense. Like falling snow covering your tracks, Google can't follow what I'm looking for from minute to minute.

Of course, Google has unhindered access to everything about my BLOG. But I'll take the baby steps toward reclaiming privacy.

Why I'm Not a Reporter

I've been at my current job site for six months, and only last week I discovered there's a coat hook on the back of my door.

Disillusionment is recognizing the shadow off enlightenment.

Watch out Stomach, Here it Comes

More from the "grow your own" system of wonderful and creepy healthcare:

Finnish patient gets new jaw from own stem cells

Scientists in Finland said they had replaced a 65-year-old patient's upper jaw with a bone transplant cultivated from stem cells isolated from his own fatty tissue and grown inside his abdomen.

Understand, I don't want to live forever. I just don't want it to suck while I'm alive.

Who's Your Patriarchal Figure?

Since a man is measured by his enemies, I like to go around punching respected people in the stomach. I wish I'd gotten a shot at Gandhi. Because, look at me! Big man!

Gut Check

Fiddling with the blog's guts today. Appearance may change suddenly (though not necessarily drastically) in the near future.

Star Power

I am continually amazed by people who can do things that I can't, because Hey, I want to do that!

This applies to just about every human endeavor, but today's specific application is spatial perception. I'm not notoriously bad at it, but I'm not good either.

I found this thing today about how Betsy Ross talked the founding fathers into a 5-pointed star on the flag instead of a 6-pointer like Geo. Washington wanted.

They said, "Five points is too hard."

She was like, "No it isn't." And she folded up a piece of paper and with one cut made a perfect star.

And they were like, "Witch! Don't kill us with your strange geometry magics!"

===

For some people, this stuff is just obvious. Pythagoras started a religion based on it. Me, I have to learn it.

I used to think that there were things I couldn't do. Some things were just unavailable to me. Now I know that's bogus. It's just that some things are too much work.

At the point in life where I'm supposed to begin seeing doors close, to begin realizing that I'll never be an astronaut, I'm excited about what lies ahead. Here's the key, here's my trick. I'm sharing my trick with you that I only just learned in the last couple/three years. I'm putting it in tiny type to preserve the secret:

You have to try hard.

As a smart, talented child, I never had to try very hard. I just aimed my brain at something, and adults fawned. When I became an adult, the accolades stopped, and I was confused. But now I've figured it out again. You have to work at things.

I probably won't care enough to get good at spatial perception? But I can learn from Betsy Ross's know-how, and get better. Middle age is going to kick ass for me.

Funny

Please do hurry and read this excellent article by Steve Martin in February's Smithsonian magazine, Being Funny.

What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh.

To test my idea, I went onstage and began: "I'd like to open up with sort of a 'funny comedy bit.' This has really been a big one for me...it's the one that put me where I am today. I'm sure most of you will recognize the title when I mention it; it's the "Nose on Microphone" routine [pause for imagined applause]. And it's always funny, no matter how many times you see it."

I leaned in and placed my nose on the mike for a few long seconds. Then I stopped and took several bows, saying, "Thank you very much." "That's it?" they thought. Yes, that was it. The laugh came not then, but only after they realized I had already moved on to the next bit.

As a child, I always wanted Steve Martin to be funny, but I didn't laugh much, and it puzzled me in a back-of-the-brain way that I never verbalized. Now I know why. He was doing it on purpose.

Comedy is subversive. It can't not be. But subverting the methodology for understanding subversion is the kind of thing that can get you run out of town. Steve Martin's greatest trick might have been remaining viable while he was screwing with people's head all those years.

I don't necessarily want to screw with people (not necessarily). However, this is the kind of independent, anarchic thinking that I strive for. I rarely achieve it on my own; I usually have to be shown. Today, I've been shown.

Social Networth

Heretofore, I have been not much of a joiner of online things. My fear is that once information about me is out in the world, it will never go away and can be manipulated and used against me in a vague, ominous future involving large monitors and stern monochrome faces.

But the techno-hermit life cramps my style. And that's becoming the only alternative to having a whole lot of information available about you on the 'Net. Further, I think it's more valuable to be open than closed in this Web we call 2.0. So I'm in.

I'm still avoiding major players (MySpace, Livejournal, Facebook), on the theory that scammers will target the largest networks for annoying, impersonal attacks. But there's plenty of other companies that would like to use my registered existence as an opportunity to sell ads.

Here's my list. If you're on one of these and want to be my pal, let's get in touch. If you're not a member and need an invite or something, leave me a comment.

Gleemax
GoodReads
LinkedIn
Nextcat
Orkut

Eventually, I'll migrate the more popular ones over to the sidebar.

SugarHoused

I try to avoid posting links to current events when my only comment is "Yeah!" or "Nuh-uh!" I owe it to all of us to have something more substantial to say.

But I'm basically in the "Yeah!" camp on this story about our new mayor revoking the SugarHouse casino license.

The mayor reiterated that he is not a fan of the site for the SugarHouse or the Foxwoods casinos. In the case of SugarHouse, he said, concerns about traffic, parking, congestion and more were "brushed to the side" by the Street administration in a process that he characterized as improper. "It was an abuse of a discretion," Nutter said.

Mayor Nutter has not only 135 square miles of genuine problems to manage, but the mile-high, and perhaps unreasonable, hopes of tens of thousands of Philadelphians that he can be the fulcrum for change in this city. He might not achieve everything we hope for him to.

But if he accomplishes little else, I will remember this moment fondly: when Mayor Nutter neatly and plainly overturned the decision of the prior corrupt administration, frustrating a backroom deal that benefits rich and thoughtless people at the expense of those who live in their wake turbulence.

He didn't do it on moral grounds; he did it on professionalism grounds. How novel. How refreshing. Yeah.