Facebook – PopWars

January 31, 2013August 16, 2019

World Go ‘Round

Paul, Larry, Kenny, Steve, Bill, Dave Bloomington 1969

My father is planning an open house for the Super Bowl. I don’t even know who’s playing and by that I mean the half time show. I could give a hoot about the game. Last great halftime show for us was Prince’s amazing performance in the Florida rain. Prince is always making a comeback and I love his new song with the double bass drums.

Facebook is great but almost everything about it bothers me. Do I really want to reconnect with my old friends in this photo? Do I want to know their birthdays? I don’t participate much the FB scheme but I accept friends when I go there and I’m always suspicious about who FB puts in my stream. Why are they there and not others? FB keeps track of every click of course, mine and my so called friends, and they build my page around those stats. They’re dying to get more content on their pages so they can sell ads and it is only a matter of time before photo albums will be interlaced with ads. I’d rather not think about their business model all the time.

Duane Sherwood recently rescued some thirty year old footage and posted some clips on the barely maintained Personal Effects FB page. He not only designed the production, he ran the show and then edited the video footage. He’s preparing a proper YouTube release this weekend.

Marginalia

Moose at Vergennes Laundry, a bakery in Vermont

My parents took us down to Nick’s for dinner last night and the conversation eventually turned to the old days. My father, who grew up on Burlington Avenue over on the west side said there were two bakeries near his house on Brooks Avenue and another around the corner on Thurston. My mom talked about the ones near her place on Rosewood Terrace and lamented how now all we have is Wegmans where everything tastes the same. I was thinking about the Vergennes Laundry, a bakery in Vermont with an artfully presented small selection of incredible breads and pastries, so good it is almost worth driving to for a loaf.

This article in this morning’s paper has researchers concluding “The more ‘friends’ people have on Facebook the more likely they are to be stressed out and anxious”, according to a new study and “the negative effects of using the site outweighed the benefits it offers in terms of staying in touch with friends and family.” I like how they put ‘friends’ in small quotes. I have no idea who most of my ‘friends’ are and if I used Facebook as more than just a lark I would probably get stressed out too.

The other tech story I found interesting was about how blogs are getting less popular as everyone moves to fb.

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February 19, 2010August 23, 2019

Stones Vs The Beatles

Nuuj emailed me something through Facebook. It was kind of a rant about a mutual acquaintance. I ran into him at Mex’s ten year bash and I apologized for not replying. I went into my own rant about fb. I don’t like how people email you through fb and then you have to respond through fb since it doesn’t show his email address. Facebook has that in the giant database they’re building. I joined fb when a client asked about the business generating possibilities of the network. That should have been a warning. I told him “I’ll get back to you” and I signed up.

I didn’t build my portfolio but one was being built for me. I have never put a photo up there yet I had over fifty photos in my profile. I just “untagged” most of them. People “friend” me so I have lots of friends but it is a little disturbing to not know who your friends are. And I get invited to all sorts of stuff.

I like fb alright though. Stan the man put an old photo I took of Vic from Vic & Irv’s up there because I was tagged I was cc’d in on a round of comments from Vic and Irv’s fans. Duane Sherwood emailed us today to say his sister had sent him a link to Vic’s obit.

My brothers and I used to ride our bikes down to the lake when we were in grade school. We’d take a few rides at Sea Breeze, run through the funny house and sit at the counter at Vic and Irv’s. In high school we drive down there with our dates for late night snacks. I’ve been going down there on my birthday for years. I used to love watching the teenage help. I loved how sloppy they were, the music they played behind the grill, the “I could care less” serving style. The workers seem older than they did in the past when you’d think they would be looking younger to me now. It’s probably today’s economy. Some people like “Don and Bob’s” better (or “Don’s Original” as it is called now). I always looked at it like a Stones vs. Beatles kind of thing and I knew exactly where I came down. That may have been a young Keith out back peeling the potatoes but it sure wasn’t Paul McCartney.

The D&C article on Vic called it the “end of an era.” Hardly. I’ll bet a lot of people are down there right now paying him their respects. I only eat beef on special occasions so it will be a while before I get down there. I went through my photos of the palce today and found this one of the bathrooms, which you can only get to by leaving the restaurant and going around back where the rats scamper around.

I guess I going to have to cross post this to Facebook.

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