email for pics

An email I received today:

“Subject: bad day

on Tuesday, I went to zoo to clean Aspen’s cage and got bit by fire ants,
then David and I headed to Tuscaloosa.  On the way we had a flat tire in
Prattville which took a while to fix as had trouble getting lug nuts loose.
Then David left his wallet at the tire place so had to go back and get it.
Then before got out of Autauga County(Prattville is in this county) I got a
speeding ticket.  Got David moved in to his apartment and came home.
Electricity was going on and off and dad told me I needed to go to bed then
electricity went out for 7 hours.  figured all the bad luck was finished but
on Wed. went to zoo and dietician wasn’t there so I had to fix all the diets
for education.  Glad those two days are over.  love, mom

grandma is still laughing about the speeding ticket.”

Well. Guess this is everything… resolved I suppose. CW has returned to whence they came up in research which… well means I get to be me and them from now until a replacement arrives. In about two months. (more…)

“Did you, um, go to school in Alabama?”

This is not a question I hear every day. In fact, no one’s ever asked me that before, without already knowing where I’m from. Certainly not a stranger on the street. Especially not an extra. An extra for a Discovery Channel Shark Week TV commercial walking around Caltech in knee high white boots and a Bight University t-shirt (and Paul not here to appreciate the pun). When the dyed blonde had said “Hi,” looking in my direction a moment before, I had assumed she was talking to someone behind me. With that question, however, I abruptly realized she was in fact talking to me. I didn’t recognize her, but I’m notoriously awful at placing people outside of their relevant spheres, and even within, still pretty bad. I look at her bewildered expression and reply, “Yes, actually – I did. I’m Michelle.” To which she replies, “OH MY GOD! It’s Charity!” followed by a totally classic sorority girl chick flick reunion scene. Before being herded off by the director’s assisstant’s assistant, she handed me her card, and congratulated me on getting out of Alabama.

I love the fact that it’s a small world. I love how even though I didn’t know her all that well, I haven’t seen her in eight years, and I know absolutely nothing about what she’s doing and how she got here, for those 2 minutes of hugging, we were the best of friends. I love how random it is that someone from my high school swim team in Mobile, Alabama, is now pursuing a Hollywood acting career. More power to you, Charity. And if anyone needs an actress, let me know, and I’ll put you in touch.

So. It’s been a while but I’m faced with a conundrum in that the relationship between me and a coworker has turned wretched and I’m not sure what to do. I realised things were bad when I was putting in extra hours before and after I ought to be there to make sure my ass was covered when things they said caught up with both of us. (more…)

Ariele and I went to Panda Express for a quick lunch today. [In the interest of full disclosure, Ariele actually brought a smoothie from Jamba Juice into Panda Express to sit with me while I ate lunch.] At the end of the meal, Ariele asked if she could open my fortune cookie for me, which of course I said was fine. She read back the fortune, which went something like

You have a deep interest in all things artistic.

Wow. That’s fairly bold. And wrong. I have a “deep interest” in some things, but very few, if any, of those things are “artistic”. But even so, all things artistic? It was a far cry from “Your future prospects are bright”, or some such nonsense.

What you see before you germinated from two pivotal (read “life altering”) conversations jjk, gregv and I had. The first was a discussion on the idiosyncrasies in the way in which people interface with technology. The crux of the discussion can be distilled to a single question.

If a person is capable of posting a “for sale” sign on a site such as craigslist, a feat which requires familiarity with and knowledge about many things internet, why is not this person also capable of posting pictures of the item in question?

Any one who has spent more than ten minutes browsing such classifieds sites will instantly recognize the phrase “email for pics”. It is a source of resentment and frustration for many: “Just show it to me!” For the seasoned, however, the phrase goes unseen: filtered into “look elsewhere” like cockroaches in a restaurant.

A person posting such an “email for pics” listing can be stereotyped in several, not mutually incompatible ways.

The person is lazy. There are many free photo sharing sites on the market. On most of them, an account is fantastically easy to set up and use (such as Flickr, my personal favorite). The person can’t be bothered.

The person relishes in the small amount of power he or she feels. A potential customer is forced into making some contact with the seller in order to even determine if the product is worth spending any time considering: the customer must spend time to see if time is worth being spent. The seller enjoys both the dramatic irony and the inconvenience.

The person is naive thinking he or she is part of some greater community. The contact required in buying the item (or in even finding out if the item is worth buying – see previous point), makes this person feel as though some real connection has been formed between buyer and seller. Through such shared experiences, the seller believes he or she has entered into a fulfilling community of like minded people (see next point).

The person is, in some way, savvy. “Email for pics” is a piece of modern day jargon. The phrase simply would not have made sense ten years ago (“Email what? What sort of ‘pics’? What is a ‘pic’? …email?”), but today it is instantly identifiable to so called “netizens” “everywhere”. The person may be a poser, but even affectation requires a twisted form of wisdom.

The second pivotal conversation went something along the lines of, “That’s a good name for a website.”

To that end, in that vein, toward such a purpose, beside ourselves, through the woods and behind enemy lines, this site was created. None of us knows what this site is for, exactly. Initially, at least, themes of “laziness”, “jargon”, and “community” may or may not be prevalent. Likely, we all have our own, potentially conflicting ideas. All the better.

Registration is open to all our friends, and indeed encouraged. That is, if you’re a like-minded, savvy netizen such as ourselves looking for a rich community in which to share ideas having failed to find such a forum to date due to the monumental amount of effort it requires to initiate contact with people.

No, but really. Sign up and post.