The Man is Watching

So, I was just reading this other blog when I noticed a banner ad above the text offering low car insurance prices, in the town I'm in RIGHT NOW. And that's okay. I mean, I understand that ads can read my IP address and fill in the appropriate city. But then, right there in the ad, there WAS A PICTURE OF A MINI!

Now, I don't know if the MINI was chosen because it was a cool car, or if someone is targeting me . . . the idea with internet marketing (and probably all marketing) is that someday soon, we'll all only see ads that are exactly targeted to us, based on browsing history and searches and IP addresses. And in theory, that is kind of okay with me. I mean, privacy is pretty much gone when you get on the internet; I have no illusions.

But to actually see a targeted ad (if that's what it was) . . . well, my first reaction was HOW DO THEY KNOW THAT? Quite frankly, it freaked me out a little. I don't want everyone to know who I am, where I work, and what I drive. Years of stories about the End Times and the Mark of the Beast probably have something to do with my paranoia. But really, this can't be GOOD, can it?

Over Again

Thankgiving is over for another year. We had our usual dinner, jokes, old funny stories, family drama, and healthy heapings of gossip. Or not-so-healthy, as the case may be.

We did not do karaoke, and I was hardly inspired to take pictures, except at the football game we went to on Sunday night. I assume that other countries have their own versions of tailgating, but tailgating in a dark, cold parking lot on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, grilling and drinking Bud Light, is quintessentially American. And we did that. And then we watched the Eagles play surprisingly well against the Patriots. The Eagles fans at the game were especially obnoxious; we treated to choruses of "Fly, Eagles, Fly" over and over again.

Here are a couple of pictures I DID take.

View from the cheap seats

Dark Cold Blur

On Pause

I'm outta here, and since there's no blog contest this year, I probably won't post until I'm back from my Thanksgiving holiday on Olde Cape Cod (next week).

Catch ya on the flip side.

A History of my Life as Told with Cars

I sold my old car yesterday, or at least I almost. I still have the title, plus several thousand in cash. They have the car with expired plates. So, good deal for me. We will be meeting to do the title transfer after I return from Thanksgiving.

So, end of another car era. My car-owning eras coincide roughly with parts of my life. My first car was an '87 Dodge Shadow, blue, which was really a piece of crap. It got me around, I guess, and no big deal if I ran it into something (which I did on a few occasions; usually parked cars). I did leave me sitting alone on the interstate, no cell phone (this was in the late 90s); fortunately I was within easy walking distance of an exit. At 87,000 miles it was about finished, and during Christmas Breaks in college I would drive it with fear and trembling--one time the brakes cut out, another time we lost all real power on the way home from the beach, so we had to roll through all stop signs and pray we didn't hit any lights red, because the car wouldn't take off from a dead stop. Every year was a question: what will happen to the Shadow this Christmas?

My college car was a '90 Ford Bronco in silver. A big 4WD beast of a thing for those snowy western NY winters. I drove my friends around; we put seven girls in it for a cold ride to New England (cold for those in the way-back, at least). I took it grocery shopping, and on long drives to church. We even drove it to Florida for Spring Break. I liked it okay, and I really liked having a car, but small things were always going wrong--windows stuck down, tires going flat and not being able to find replacements in Podunk, NY--little glitches that made things difficult.

After college, when I moved here and didn't need the Bronco anymore, my dad sold it for me and I got the old '95 Honda. This became essentially the car of my 20s, and I really loved how reliable it was. The Honda took me all over--Lancaster, up to New England, to Ontario, down to North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. It's been up to Pittsburgh, to Baltimore, to Philly. It's taken me to thousands of work days at three different jobs, to many weddings, to a few funerals. I've sat in it nervously before dates and job interviews; I've had hundreds of conversations with myself, been angry, and wept, too.

And now it's gone, and I'm 29, with a new car that will take me well into my 30s. We'll just have to see what happens.

Show me something

On Fridays at work, some of us in the office have created the Friday video contest, in which we submit videos from around the internet and vote on the best. There is always a theme of some kind, last week it was "grooviest music video from the 70s or 80s." The criteria for judging isn't always clear, either, but that's okay because the winner gets nothing except a) pride in winning and b) the assignment to run next week's contest.

Last week I should've won, because I submitted this hilarious Hall and Oates video that was by far the weirdest thing in the contest. Surreal, fer shure. Watch it . . . it's crazy at the end. You can't look away.

And I keep telling people to choose animals as the theme, because if they do, I've got this:

Beautiful Mess

I read this comment on a message board today; books were being discussed:

I always refer to "the fat, lonely secretary-archetype". You know, early 30's, her whole life is her near-bottom rung job that she power trips with. Pretends to convince herself she is happy being totally alone in her two bedroom flat on the outskirts of downtown; loves her cat. They also read absolute garbage literature. The whole legion of them making up a large part of that female readership demographic that gluts Borders with all that shick-lit.

This made me laugh, and also cringe. Because I can so picture this person, and I occasionally worry that I'm becoming her. I go to the gym. I like my job. (But sometimes there are power trips). I have a two-bedroom (granted, its a house), I WOULD have a cat, were I not allergic. I'll soon be in my early 30s. And The Devil Wears Prada is downstairs on my living room sofa--plus I just read a LaVyrle Spencer book that was absolute dreck. In fact, I've been craving ridiculous chick lit lately.

But . . . I don't pretend to convince myself I'm happy. And sometimes I really am.

Enough

This morning I was dragged from blissful warm sleep to dozy wakefulness by the smell of burning. Specifically the smell that arises when you turn my furnace on.

"Well," my 6 AM-muddled brain thought, "that must be the neighbor's furnace, because I haven't yet turned my heat on. I'm smelling that through the wall."

Thus comforted, I closed my eyes again and tried to go back to sleep.

The smell only worsened though, and it was too strong to be coming through the wall, and as I lay there I wondered if it were possible that my heat had TURNED ITSELF ON. Had my house gotten so cold that the furnace had decided to rebel and start without me?

My furnace is never really OFF, it's just a matter of pushing the thermostat down as far as it will go in the spring. Once I turn off the heat, the house never gets cold enough to trigger it again.

Until this morning. When it got down somewhere in the low 50s, and my house had had enough.

It's still amazing to me how warm I can be in my bed compared to the temperature in the rest of the house. Granted, I'm wearing many clothes, and I'm buried under a down comforter and a quilt. But this morning, until I had to get up, I was perfectly comfortable in my cocoon. Trouble is, it's just so hard to leave.

Read Me!

I've decided I am a word glutton. Devouring words, everywhere I go. No time to savor, no time to waste. Fill me up, throw it away, on to the next.

So blogs have been a great revelation to me. New and interesting content, in little bite size chunks--like bonbons--and there's usually something new for me every day. I don't discriminate; it's true there are some blogs I like more than others--but it's the difference between really awesome chocolate and Hershey's. Just give me more words to read! ME LIKE WORDS!

I link to some blogs in my sidebar, but those don't include all of the blogs I read. So, in addition to those ones in the sidebar, here's a list of the blogs I check every day. (This list doesn't include friends and relations. I check those every day, too).

--Blurbomat (Dooce's husband. Short and sweet, posts about life and Apple/computers/design and takes photos)

--Byrneunit (Cynicism and riotousness from Brian and Erin Byrne. TV reviews, fun links. Also pics of their very cute son).

--Dad Gone Mad (Hyperbole and thoughts on life and fatherhood from a creative ad guy in LA)

--Dooce (THE female/mommy blogger extraordinaire. Her monthly letters to her daughter are my favorite)

--Finslippy (She's just funny. I like her particular turns of phrase and general wackiness)

--Here Be Hippogriffs (Julia)* (Why aren't you reading this? Because it's awesome. After 12 pregnancies, 11 miscarriages and one son, she's now pregnant with twins--and she can write like nobody's business)

--Mimi Smartypants* (I love her writing, too. Stories about life, books, work, and her adorable superhero daughter, Nora).

--Que Sera, Sera (More thoughts on life from a Brooklyn writer. My goal: to one day get to Cringe. Not to read there, just to be there).

--Pretty Crabby (I like her--and I just get it).

--Sweet Juniper!* (Again! Read this blog! Stay-at-home Detroit dad posts stories from his past, musings on his present, and his wife chimes in, too. Their daughter is Juniper, and she's pretty amazing--but only 3, so she doesn't write).

--This Fish Needs a Bicycle (Interesting life stories from a not-married, not-mommy blogger. I'm not sure I'd like This Fish in real life, but I like to keep up on her blog. Right now she's traveling through Europe, and I'm wicked jealous).

Sasquatches Unite!

Tonight I was about to go bowling with two friends from work when the desk guy asked us what size shoes we wear.

"Ten," I said.

"Me too," said work girl #1.

Me too," said work girl #2.

And we all looked at each other. And laughed.

I have been a size 10 since I was about 12, and I'm used to having big feet. Never being able to borrow shoes, always worrying about what I will do if I go creek-stomping or on some other shoe-ruining adventure. I'm no 7.5.

So to have two other girls share my shoe size. . . well, it means a lot. Sort of. I'd also had about 10 Jack & cokes at the time, so I might not have been totally clear on what was happening.

Other things that may have happened tonight:
me bowling two strikes
me talking the ear off of several people (since when do I talk?)
me singing Hit Me Baby One More Time at karaoke

I'm home now, and safely tucked up in my bed. It's 62 degrees in my bedroom, but I'm holding out on turning on the heat, and I know I'll make it past November 5 . . . since that's Monday. But I MUST remember to turn the clocks back tomorrow!