I always knew the internet was a lot of things, but I NEVER thought anyone would use it with malicious intent. Well, my expectations have been shattered by a website that brings to light how easy it is for someone to stalk you / see when you aren’t home and then steal the things you love.

</sarcasm>

I feel like if you didn’t realize that constantly, publicly, announcing your location was grounds for being robbed raped and pillaged (arrr!) then you are and idiot.  I understand there are probably arguments out there against this being an issue, but what it all comes down to is making yourself an easy target.  You can say “well people can break in whenever they want” or “if they really want to steal from me they will be able to just see when I leave.”   This is true unless you are a CEO, famous athlete, JHM, etc and thus more of a target than a normal person.  Outside of fitting into that criteria, why should a person bother to care that other people know their name, address, when they are home, or other things?

Well.. if I am looking for a place to steal shit from, and there are two houses on a block, one with a sign on it that says “no one is home!” and one that has nothing posted.. which one will I go to?  Yeah, exactly.  A bit of an exaggerated point, but if you narrow your twitter feed, looking for people in a specific region that aren’t home, then use their twitter account to find their facebook, linked in, google account or anywhere else their address is posted.. you now have an open invite and can probably figure out exactly how much time you have to peruse their belongings based on where they are “checked in.”  Or, the best status message, “in Hawaii for a week!” shows them they have an entire week to scope the place out and pick the best time to walk in to steal your shit.

Everyone should furthermore appreciate this stupidity in light of how just a few short years ago everyone was worried about posting their LAST NAME online somewhere.. let alone addresses or phone numbers.  Amazing how we went from being tentative to state our last name on a profile or IM account, for fear they could look us up in a phone book.  <- remember those? I do, because they still freaking come to my house. But I digress, that is an argument for another day.

So we’ve moved from that mentality briskly into announcing every piece of contact information about ourselves and on top of that where we are at all times!  Besides being robbed, if a dude (you might not even know them, maybe they found your pic online and liked what they saw) wants to stalk you, find you at a bar or whatever, you are paving the road for them.  Nicely done.

I must be taking crazy pills here but I can’t be the only one who realizes how stupid this is right?!  People gobble shit shit up as soon as the newest ’social networking app’ is released.  Immediately adopting allows them to be on the forefront of whatever, and cooler cause they can say ‘oh I’ve been using it for months, its awesome you should check it out.’  Other reasons I can think of for using these apps in this manner include but are not limited to, bragging about what they are doing (I include myself amongst people guilty of this) and ‘everyone else doing it.’

I know there are probably more arguments against my point of view, so let me have it, I’m interested.  (And “getting points” or “being a mayor” on foursquare does not count.)

I almost never post anything because, frankly, I don’t think I have anything worth saying to the world that often.  I do however use it to read what other people (athletes, teams, ski resorts, etc) have to say, occasionally ask a question or do what most people do with it; post something inane because I feel like it.  That is why my last post was 82 days ago.  Do people really think that others care what you had for breakfast? Unless maybe you are Shaq or something, but even then, really?

If you don’t already know the video with that name, do yourself a huge favor, and Google that shit.  Anyway, I, like many others, saw it a long time ago and had no idea there were more, until Rob brought it to my attention.  And now I to yours.

Who wouldn’t be upset if a country’s massive economic devastation and enormous loss of life messed up their spring break plans? LOL!

Finally getting around to posting on this borderline defunct website I used (and kind of still do) run.  I couldn’t bear to hear Gina tell me she hated me for around one second every day, that adds up to half a minute each month, so here it is.  Despite it being the sickness filled day following a weekend of late night drinking and early mornings to go ski outside in the cold, I am persevering to get this post up.  This one comes via Andy this morning, it will pretty much blow your mind.  The killer 80’s sound track coupled with the angriest bear I’ve ever seen should be enough to get everyone pumped up for some.. hockey?  Wait what is this video for?  I thought it was to get all of us humans to stand up and fight the rising power of the polar bears.  Anyway, not really sure what polar bears destroying the earth via fighter jets dropping bombs into volcanoes has to do with hockey, but I don’t really follow hockey so what do I know.

AOL, er I mean, Aol. (<–note: that is not the end of my sentence.. that is their actual company name spelling now) released their newly updated bucket of fail logo today.  For whatever reason they decided that punctuation in the company name along with lower case letters will bail out the ship.

From Gizmodo: “Does your new bland logo—the one to which you switched today, with the annoying punctuation—come with a floppy disk? No? Whatever. I’m still not interested.”

My sentiments exactly.

From XKCD, via Katie:

TV headed the same way as newspapers soon? Wait newspapers are still around? Whatever. Anyway, this quote comes from Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group. Her daughter is off to college and says she doesn’t need a TV for her room, due to sites like Hulu and other streaming options:

“You’re going to have a television if I have to nail it to your wall.”

Doesn’t sound desperate at all. Hooray for dinosaurs!

A very helpful article for any cat owners out there, brought to you by Katie.

“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to becoming a mature adult cat.”

“Shelter cats from bad backgrounds are prone to self-destructive behavior.”

Owning a cat is one of the worst things you can do to yourself. Here are some practical tips on how to go about it.

Awesome.



Thanks to Wonn for the nerdy link to the succeed blog.