I am proud to think that I did my part for the Facebook group "Can this onion ring get more fans than Stephen Harper?" which, as of this writing, has 33,580 fans to PM Harper's 29,943. This is some kind of win... for... something. Plus I do love onion rings, like, legitimately.

MY BOSS BOUGHT COOKIES!

Snarky Facebook status I haven't used yet because I don't want to make anyone cry

"Jocelyn took the 'What Annoying Facebook Quiz are You?' Quiz and the answer is: The One All 240 Of Your Friends Don't Want to Read About!"

Facebook

I think it's safe to say that if a foot pad could really suck toxins from your body (see Figure 1.1) while you sleep, that would really be amazing. Incredible, even. Incredible in the sense of "unbelievable." And by unbelievable I mean ridiculous. But the question remains: why would Facebook's supposedly clever targeted ads think I would be interested in these products? I mean, it specifically says in my profile that I have no unwanted hair.

Heh.

Also: I heart pirate Facebook. "Hawkin'"!

Where are the facebooks of yesteryear?

lost without facebook.
even a haiku won't help.
nothing is working.

Same bat-channel

Facebook turns its users into endorsers [NY Times]. I'm not sure if this new Facebook advertising scheme is going to be completely evil or, uh, less than completely evil. It launches tonight, so we'll see what happens, one way or the other. I am so, so opposed to the pervasiveness of advertising, and yet I always get almost-won-over by these arguments about it: "We're just telling you about things you will really want to know! It's not advertising if you can use the information!" Well, yes, it is. And yet.

Speaking of things that are less than completely evil, this week I discovered Better World Books, which sells new and used books. You know what I love even more than normal bookstores? Bookstores with carbon-neutral shipping that donate some of their money to literacy non-profits. That's profits for non-profits--I haven't given up on capitalism completely, yet.

Saving the world is tiring. On Thursday, I am going to serve dinner to homeless people at the Mustard Seed Street Church. This is something I don't do very often, and last night I remembered why: because carrying 6 kg each of frozen mixed veggies and perogies, a giant box of Oreo cookies, and a 5-kg toupie ham (plus, to be fair, some groceries for myself) home on the LRT is exhausting and sore-making. I woke up at 6 am, took some Tylenol and turned on my heating pad, and went back to sleep. Then I woke up again at 7:25 and realized I still had to go to work, even if I WAS still tired and in pain. There's nothing worse than waking up, feeling like you want to die, and realizing that no one else cares.

I'm having a crazy day at work. My supervisor is ill, so I seem to be basically running the whole province of Alberta. Fortunately, I am doing a pretty good job, so it's unlikely you'll notice any service disruptions.

THE FUTURE.

My online banking system now shows scans of cheques I've written that have been cashed. Cool, eh? This means that all the times I've written "for sexual services rendered" in the memo line are now digital evidence, which could persist indefinitely. And that is a good feeling.

Also, I went to the fabric store last night and spent $50 on fabric (all of it from the bargain bin, like everything I buy), new sewing scissors, and thread. I have four projects to make, and I'm EXCITED. I also bought some orange wide-wale corduroy, which has no set destiny, but which I will make into SOMETHING--how can I not? Rule #1: You can always make something out of wide-wale orange corduroy. Rule #2: And it will be awesome.

I still haven't heard back about having a job, although I have another interview on Friday, which is also my last day here. If I don't have a job lined up by then, I guess I'm on awesome, unpaid vacation! My balcony, here I come!

My dad and I had this funny conversation about Classmates, and how they've been utterly upstaged by Facebook--especially since they keep trying to convince me that I should pay more to find out more information about people I used to go to school with. Sorry, Classmates, but that race has been won. I think the thing to do now would be to bow out gracefully.

Recent Facebook status updates I have considered, but ultimately rejected because my co-workers are my Facebook friends

i. Jocelyn is all out of clean underwear
ii. Jocelyn is hypnotized by her own cleavage
iii. Jocelyn is tired of her gorram job

The shark-games people play

This Shark-runners game (From Discovery Channel, in honour of Shark Week) is kind of fun. You get to captain a research vessel conducting shark research. It takes place in real-time and the movements of the sharks are based on the movements of real sharks--tagged with tracking equipment. I do enjoy captaining things.

Facebook is updating their servers, or something, and I can't access the site. It's weird how these things become such a habit that not being able to check them is really disorienting--even though I KNOW there is nothing important happening on Facebook. Especially since no one else can log in either.

The final paycheque of the month is a depressing prospect--I pay my bills and have $90 left over to last me until the next one. No Etsy for me. This is contributing to today's sense of weltschmertz. My class isn't helping either--I dread Mondays and Wednesdays, and sort-of dread Tuesdays, as they have too much in common with Mondays and Wednesdays.

Also proponents of the Guns for Brains program.

The Zombie Food Pyramid.
From The Futility Closet: an optical illusion.

Another one of those weekends which seemed barely weekendy, at all. I woke up this morning feeling oddly disoriented and hungry from having tossed and turned all night. (Note: Why the cliche "tossed and turned"? It's not a particularly good description of bad sleeping, although it does have alliteration. I should say I rolled and woke up, intermittently.) I hate those nights were time seems interminable, incomprehensible, and you wake up feeling like you've lived an extra year during the night.

I did get to see the Transformers movie, so I guess not the whole weekend was lost. The movie was kind of good, by the way. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. There is something inherently hilarious about trucks and cars that turn into giant, fighting robots--especially since the robots seem to contain a huge amount of metal, more than would fit in the cars and trucks. It's a mystery of mass, and filmmaking. Perhaps this is only funny because Transformers were not a part of my childhood, so I am a latecomer to their innate meanings and metaphors. Also, why do the Decepticons get to transform into much tougher, more useful vehicles than the Autobots, like tanks and fighter planes? That hardly seems fair. [James and I had a discussion about the idea of "transforming," and whether the Transformers' natural state is actually robot or vehicle. We decided that since, on their home planet, they presumably remain in robot form, they must be said to transform into vehicles, even though this may seem counter-intuitive within our human paradigm.]

I am taking a summer term class that starts tonight, the last of my degree. I am still working full-time, although "working" is not always the most accurate description of what I do while at work. I think the next six weeks are going to be exhausting, Internet. This morning, writ large. I may later wax philosophical about the last class of my graduate degree, but I already wrote a paragraph about Transformers that contained the phrase "counter-intuitive within our human paradigm," so I think I'm all pretentioused up for today.

Sometimes I get the feeling Facebook is surreptitiously using me for market research.

I tried to make a title for this post, but Blogger won't let me. So I shall informally name it, Untitled No. 2: A Sonata in B-.

makin' love to his tonic and gin

so here is a dumb facebook meme I just had to share. In google, type your name, then "likes to," in quotes. So for me, it's "Jocelyn likes to." Then post the top whatever hits. So for me it would be...

Jocelyn likes to draw. She can draw circles and squiggly lines and some angular figures.
Jocelyn likes to help set the table and to put the silverware away.
Jocelyn likes to be competitive
Jocelyn likes to clear daunting obstacles professionally and in her downtime
Jocelyn likes to study pure mathematics and theology
Jocelyn likes to eat almost anything but has been on a macrobiotic diet since she was 3
Jocelyn likes to read, shop, and just hang out with friends.
Jocelyn likes to spend free time golfing and reading as well as watching hockey and Seinfeld reruns.
Jocelyn likes to make the mashed potatoes
Jocelyn likes to plan her holidays
Jocelyn likes to use the two hand approach to find the MEDIAN

Such a strange assortment. Some of these are true. I can draw squiggly lines and some angular figures. I do enjoy mashing potatoes and putting silverware away. And I do like to be competitive, perhaps more than is good for me. But I hate Seinfeld, hockey, diets, and pure math. I have little or no interest in clearing obstacles of any kind, be they metaphorical or literal. And I have no idea what the last one means, but it sounds vaguely dirty, in which case it is probably true.

The conferences I was working on are over. We have a debriefing (tee hee) tomorrow, and then... who knows? I ride on into the friscillating dusklight. I already find myself forgetting the frustrating parts (and the fifteen hour days) and reminiscing fondly about the conference, a dangerous enterprise that may lead to more future conferences. This is one of memory's great tricks.

dangerous developments, and blog performance anxiety

1. So, I think Facebook is leading directly to the fragmentation of my grasp of my own sense of self-worth. For non-Facebook users, on Facebook you have a little one-sentence status thing you can use "to keep your friends updated on your status." Examples would be, "Joey Facebook is at the library," or, "Stephanie SocialNetworking is networking, because she knows that is what you have to do to get a job." These sentences have to start with "your name is," which can lead to some strange grammatical constructions. (Some people just ignore the "is," but I think that's cheating.) As if writing long blog entries about my sense of well-being wasn't bad enough, I now feel this constant compulsion to describe my situations (emotional and otherwise) in pithy, one-sentence third-person phrases. Recent selections (only some of them actually posted to Facebook) include:

• Jocelyn is tired of the theme song from Medium.
• Jocelyn is drunk and annotating.
• Jocelyn is anxious
• [quickly followed by...] Jocelyn is relieved
• Jocelyn is awash in nostalgia and uneasiness
• Jocelyn is having trouble thinking of things to blog about
• Jocelyn is not making constructive emotional choices
• Jocelyn is not making constructive nutritional choices
• Jocelyn is mourning ends of things
• Jocelyn is spending too much time doing nothing and not enough time doing something
• Jocelyn is taking some small comfort in daily acts of meaning and negotiation
• Jocelyn is looking for crested merchandidse
• Jocelyn is smoke and rice paper
• Jocelyn is running out of money
• Jocelyn is updating her ziplist
• Jocelyn is being OCD about music (Snow Patrol- Set the fire to the third bar; Hawksley Workman- Love will tear us apart; The Decemberists- We both go down together. Over and over again. For days.)
• [and my personal favourite] Jocelyn is lost.

The thing is, this micro-focus does not help me at all. I think it may actually make things worse.

2. Things you can buy for $1, part infinity:



See "poor nutritional choices," above.

Q: Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
A: Facebook.

Facebook: A Three-Act Play.

I. Facebook... so much potential.

II. Facebook: Pathetic?

[I think I like this just because it is a reference to Enrique Iglesias. Would you dance?/If I asked you to dance...]

III. Facebook: Evil?

Dear Internet,

I am so tired, internet. I feel like I have been running around for days. My feet hurt, internet. Do you want to come over tonight and rub my feet while I watch Veronica Mars? And maybe do my dishes?

I am on facebook now. It's pretty bizarre. I mean, the point of this site seems to be that we all go to school together, except we don't make friends with each other, because school is too big and scary. Right? I mean, the U of A has over 30,000 students, how am I supposed to make friends with any of them? I see these people once, and then they disappear forever. (Except this one woman who works in the library and who scowls at me everyday... but that is another matter, for another entry.) But the internet is a much friendlier place, with only several MILLION people on it. So we can all "poke" each other, and then poke back, and then be friends. And write little messages to each other. And continue to not talk to each other at school.