MySpace: The Final Frontier
Apr. 22nd, 2006 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatEvery once in a while, I hear something about how MySpace is a "controversial" website, or how it's dangerous for kids, or whatever. Like, one person mentioned that it was bad because you could pretend to be someone you're not. Yes, and you could also do that back on the very first Internet bulletin boards, before the advent of the World Wide Web. So what's so special about MySpace? I'm guessing it's a case where most of the people complaining are the sorts who don't quite know what the Internet is, but they know it's bad. "Ooh, that MiceSpace is evil! The man on the TV says it's going to steal my grandkids!"
I have to admit that I don't totally see the appeal of MySpace. I mean, I have an account, and I log on there occasionally, but there doesn't seem to be anything there that can't be done better on numerous other parts of the Internet. From what I've heard from other people, apparently the thing to do is to look up old classmates, and then send them a message saying, "Hey, remember me?" and/or laugh at how pathetic they are now (although I doubt anyone could possibly have turned out more pathetic than I did). I'll admit that that sounds somewhat enjoyable, but my search attempts in that respect have turned out largely fruitless.
And in case you're wondering what's been going on in my pathetic life, I worked until 1:30 last night (or "this morning," if you prefer, but I really can't see calling it "morning" when it's still dark outside), and then started working another job at 10:00. And there's was an hour drive involved both times, which means I'm running on very little sleep. Oh, well. I'm sure I'll make up for it eventually.
After work today, I stopped by the King of Prussia Mall. I was hoping to use my Borders coupon to buy one of the Discworld books that I don't already own and couldn't find at the library. Once I got there, I realized I'd left my coupon in the car. But that was okay, because they didn't have anything I wanted anyway. All I ended up getting at the mall was dinner at Chick-fil-A, where I somehow managed to confuse the employees. Actually, I don't blame them TOO much for being confused. What I wanted was two sandwiches, large fries, and large lemonade. Since three of those items are available in a combo meal, I ordered the combo plus one other sandwich. You can't get lemonade with a regularly priced combo, but I think it's still cheaper to get it that way than separately. And I've occasionally had clerks ask whether I wanted both the fries AND the drink in the large size, so I've started specifying. The clerk today apparently didn't realize that I wanted the second sandwich, or that I wanted a large lemonade instead of a small. Since she messed it up, though, I ended up getting the whole thing for less than it was supposed to cost, so I'm not complaining. Not about that particular thing, anyway. I DO wish I could just say, "These are the items I want. Now make them as cheap as possible." But I suppose part of the reason why they have complicated rules for combo meals is that they WANT some people to get confused and end up paying more than they're supposed to. I'm sure another part of it is to convince people to buy fries they don't really need, which is what I did today. Those waffle fries ARE good, though.
It was raining really hard today, making it a pain to drive. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if there weren't other cars on the road. But then, that's always true, isn't it? People have been saying that we needed rain, so I guess it's good we got it, but I wish we'd gotten it when I didn't have to drive a considerable distance. And speaking of needing rain, I remember when I was a kid, and my parents would tell me every year that there was a drought. I remember wondering whether a drought wasn't a relative thing, meaning that, if it happened every year, it couldn't very well be considered a "drought" after a while. It's not like it was a big deal anyway, since what they always told people to avoid in a drought situation was watering the lawn, which we never did anyway.
I remember the rain patterns in two particular years (both later in my life than the period I was just describing) particularly well. In 1998, I took summer classes at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and I remember it raining every single day. But it never rained ALL day, and the sky never seemed to be totally overcast (as it was today). There always appeared to be blue patches. I think that might be due more to the location of Indiana than anything else. They get a lot of precipitation. I remember being told that there would be snow on the ground there throughout the winter, which never turned out to be true while I went there. It DID snow, and ANY snow is usually too much for my taste, but I don't remember it being there for months on end.
In the summer of 1999, I didn't go to summer school, and I remember there being no rain at all for a long time. It must have been upwards of a month. The one time it DID rain was when I was with my brother, my dad, and his now-wife at the Mann Music Center. For some reason, I remember that was the same day as a free They Might Be Giants concert in New York. I had them send me a ticket for it, even though I know there was no chance of my going. Not just because I was already going to the concert at the Mann, but because I wouldn't have even considered travelling to New York on my own.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bethje actually went to that show, but that was before I knew her.
Hmm, I originally intended this post to be primarily about MySpace (hence the title), but it ended up being more about Chick-fil-A and the weather. I'm still keeping the title, though, because I don't want to have to think one up that pertains to one of those other subjects.
I have to admit that I don't totally see the appeal of MySpace. I mean, I have an account, and I log on there occasionally, but there doesn't seem to be anything there that can't be done better on numerous other parts of the Internet. From what I've heard from other people, apparently the thing to do is to look up old classmates, and then send them a message saying, "Hey, remember me?" and/or laugh at how pathetic they are now (although I doubt anyone could possibly have turned out more pathetic than I did). I'll admit that that sounds somewhat enjoyable, but my search attempts in that respect have turned out largely fruitless.
And in case you're wondering what's been going on in my pathetic life, I worked until 1:30 last night (or "this morning," if you prefer, but I really can't see calling it "morning" when it's still dark outside), and then started working another job at 10:00. And there's was an hour drive involved both times, which means I'm running on very little sleep. Oh, well. I'm sure I'll make up for it eventually.
After work today, I stopped by the King of Prussia Mall. I was hoping to use my Borders coupon to buy one of the Discworld books that I don't already own and couldn't find at the library. Once I got there, I realized I'd left my coupon in the car. But that was okay, because they didn't have anything I wanted anyway. All I ended up getting at the mall was dinner at Chick-fil-A, where I somehow managed to confuse the employees. Actually, I don't blame them TOO much for being confused. What I wanted was two sandwiches, large fries, and large lemonade. Since three of those items are available in a combo meal, I ordered the combo plus one other sandwich. You can't get lemonade with a regularly priced combo, but I think it's still cheaper to get it that way than separately. And I've occasionally had clerks ask whether I wanted both the fries AND the drink in the large size, so I've started specifying. The clerk today apparently didn't realize that I wanted the second sandwich, or that I wanted a large lemonade instead of a small. Since she messed it up, though, I ended up getting the whole thing for less than it was supposed to cost, so I'm not complaining. Not about that particular thing, anyway. I DO wish I could just say, "These are the items I want. Now make them as cheap as possible." But I suppose part of the reason why they have complicated rules for combo meals is that they WANT some people to get confused and end up paying more than they're supposed to. I'm sure another part of it is to convince people to buy fries they don't really need, which is what I did today. Those waffle fries ARE good, though.
It was raining really hard today, making it a pain to drive. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if there weren't other cars on the road. But then, that's always true, isn't it? People have been saying that we needed rain, so I guess it's good we got it, but I wish we'd gotten it when I didn't have to drive a considerable distance. And speaking of needing rain, I remember when I was a kid, and my parents would tell me every year that there was a drought. I remember wondering whether a drought wasn't a relative thing, meaning that, if it happened every year, it couldn't very well be considered a "drought" after a while. It's not like it was a big deal anyway, since what they always told people to avoid in a drought situation was watering the lawn, which we never did anyway.
I remember the rain patterns in two particular years (both later in my life than the period I was just describing) particularly well. In 1998, I took summer classes at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and I remember it raining every single day. But it never rained ALL day, and the sky never seemed to be totally overcast (as it was today). There always appeared to be blue patches. I think that might be due more to the location of Indiana than anything else. They get a lot of precipitation. I remember being told that there would be snow on the ground there throughout the winter, which never turned out to be true while I went there. It DID snow, and ANY snow is usually too much for my taste, but I don't remember it being there for months on end.
In the summer of 1999, I didn't go to summer school, and I remember there being no rain at all for a long time. It must have been upwards of a month. The one time it DID rain was when I was with my brother, my dad, and his now-wife at the Mann Music Center. For some reason, I remember that was the same day as a free They Might Be Giants concert in New York. I had them send me a ticket for it, even though I know there was no chance of my going. Not just because I was already going to the concert at the Mann, but because I wouldn't have even considered travelling to New York on my own.
bethje actually went to that show, but that was before I knew her.Hmm, I originally intended this post to be primarily about MySpace (hence the title), but it ended up being more about Chick-fil-A and the weather. I'm still keeping the title, though, because I don't want to have to think one up that pertains to one of those other subjects.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-04-23 06:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-23 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-23 06:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-23 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 03:16 pm (UTC)That's why I'm doing my persuasive speech for my public speaking class on how myspace should be 18+. When a parent finds the kids profile all hell is going to break loose in the house, and then the kid is going to start hiding things from the parents.
I know I hid things after mom found some of my sutff when I was 12.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-23 07:04 am (UTC)>>but my search attempts in that respect have turned out largely fruitless.<<
i was just looking at fellow year grads from other local schools to see if anyone else i knew popped up, and i was really disappointed with other schools results. they typically have about 3 or 4 pages of people. we have 8. :) it's much more funn-er when there's more people, i guess.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-23 07:16 pm (UTC)("MySpace fever"? Wow, that sounds REALLY dorky, doesn't it? {g})
no subject
Date: 2006-04-23 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 01:06 am (UTC)Were I a pedophile, I would totally camp there. There are enough lascivous photos of jailbait there to keep some creepy old man in jackoff material for the rest of his life.
Don't these girls have any idea the kinda messed up people there are in the world? That would love to see you posed half nekked, chat you up, hack you limb from limb and store the pieces in a freezer on their blind granny's backporch? Jesus.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 02:43 pm (UTC)While I've been serving on grand jury, a couple of cases have come through where a pedophile was using the internet to "hook up" with underage girls. (That doesn't include the child porn cases.) Parents need to parent their kids.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 06:20 pm (UTC)Anyhow, I just heard a news story coming in to work this morning about Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, TX. It seems that there were complaints of network slowdown, and after investigating, they realized that 40% of all campus traffic was going to MySpace.com. So, they've officially blocked the domain from all campus routers.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 06:49 pm (UTC)Mind you, I know nothing about bandwidth and the like, so I have no idea whether the thing about lots of people going to the same site slowing down the network makes any sense. Isn't it possible that, without MySpace, they'll just all go to some other site?
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 07:17 pm (UTC)The news stories seemed to say that a lot of the traffic was coming from the library, so I think that's primarily where they blocked access. I'm sure people will find someway around it if they want to or go somewhere else, or just use their own computers, but I understand wanting to cut down the traffic a bit. If your network is running slow and you can cut out almost half of the traffic, then there will be much more throughput for every other application.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 12:09 am (UTC)Yeah, MySpace=Jailbait. If I had a kid, the internet would be totally off-limits except for schoolwork stuff.
It's not like it was a big deal anyway
Fortunately, it doesn't seem like the threat of drought ever comes to impending doom. Yet, it's like that Joni Mitchell song "Big Yellow Taxi", which really applies to life in general. Potable water is really quite a luxury. I often wonder what's going to happen in desert areas like Arizona and Nevada and California, which are dependent upon the Colorado River, if unchecked development continues. Even in Colorado, water usage has to be gauged and justified, as was evident in the recent debate over a water park development in Avon. It seems like there is concern as to whether water should be spared for recreation.
Of course, I'm a rainaholic so I guess water usage and rain are hot-button topics for me.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 06:26 pm (UTC)Eh, I really think that would be going too far. I'm inclined to believe that the number of kids who invite pedophiles over to their houses is a very small portion of the kids who use the Internet. It's like any sensationalized news story. You only hear the bad stuff, so people think it's ALL bad. The other thing is that it always bothers me when people are like, "Yeah, I don't let my kid watch TV/play video games/whatever." It's one thing if your household doesn't HAVE a TV or a computer, but presenting them as things that only mommies and daddies can use just seems cruel to me. With some parents, I think it's more of a control issue than a safety one. And there's a lot of non-dangerous stuff on the Internet that I think kids would enjoy. How to keep them away from the dangerous parts is definitely a tricky issue, but, with a lot of kids, explicitly forbidding them just makes them more eager to see what it's all about. But then, I don't have kids, and don't plan to do so, so I can hardly pretend to be an expert on parenting.