Social Networking Rant

Since most of us (in our generation) have had an online prescence for the past 10 years, we have managed to leave a trail of breadcrumbs on the internet, which search engines conveniently pick up and associate back to us. I often wonder about lack of privacy and personal space in this day and age. To borrow from Omid Kordestani's commencement speech at San Jose State University, "If you know a girls name, you can google her up to find out what she's been doing in her life, look her up on orkut or facebook or myspace to see what she looks like, to find out her preferences and what her friends have been saying about her. You can then check her out on linkedin to find out what she has been upto on a career front and when you finally hook up on the first date you pretty much have nothing left to ask! ". It probably is good in a way to know what you are getting into, ( on the flip side, isn't it a much more romantic endeavor to get to know a person of the opposite sex, in person?) . Social Networking sites force us to stay relevant in life, since we are under the online spotlight all the time. I personally feel, it is good and bad in a way because there is a a lot of self similarity in the way human emotions work. We have our occasional larval phases insterspersed between our Social butterfly intervals. Social Networking sites help us stay relevant during our larval phases. At a whole different level, this is a dream for marketing folks, because based on my social profile, my age and other demographics and my likes and dislikes they can target advertisements to me. Well the bottom line, its a whole new online ecosystem and it does implore us to protect our privacy and preferences. So much for blogging :)

Dude, Where's my Conscience..

I was shopping at this typically californian grocery store whose name rhymes with John Doe, when I heard this irritating muffled noise, cross between a yelp and the sound of fingernails screeching on a blackboard. Then I felt someting nibbling at my jeans round the ankles, i looked down and was shocked to see a huge skinny freakin albino rat with long ears and big hazel eyes!! I was outraged, that a store which i revere enough to buy my groceries from would allow rodents to scoot around and would send its customers out with torn pants!! I was just about to shake that thing off and stomp on it, when out of the blue, a humongous UFO in the guise of a woman descended in front of me, spread out its arms and scooped up this critter and put it its purse! On closer observation, it was a woman... the rich, uber types who probably would spend the most productive hours of her day, ruminating about Tai Chi as opposed to Chai Tea with her other bossom buddies. Her better half (or whatever what left of her other half) was standing next to her giving me a sheepish smile. The smile looked like he'd been force fed Wonton Soup with 20 sour lemons squeezed into it. Well anyways the lady apologized to me and scolded her critter (which apparently was a dog, because it barked an acknowledgement) and i could now see its huge circular eyes ,pointy goblin ears and a long pinnochio'ish wet nose and a rodent like tail sticking out of the lady's ornate purse. Then i had an epiphany, it was a chihuahua, (not all Chihuahuas are lucky enough to hang out in Paris Hilton's purse). Hmm so much for dogs that look like rats, i almost wanted to ask the lady if she got the right animals mated, but then i noticed her hubby had an eerie resemblance to the Chihuahua himself, so i decided to keep my thoughts to myself.