Duck Shoes & Google Ad Sense Calls Me a Sex Offender

Why?

I photographed these shoes in an elevator. At first I just thought, ‘wow heinous footwear,’ then I noticed there’s actually a separate section for your toe! Again, why? So you can look like a duck? Not only does this hurt people’s eyes, there’s NO WAY it can be comfortable. Where do you even find shoes like this? Adding to the enigma, up top, the women modeling this fashion accident was actually young and stylish.

!?!?!?!!?!?

On a separate note, do you ever wonder what your Google Ad Sense says about you? Like that episode of Sex and the City where Miranda’s TiVo goes haywire and starts recording programs it thinks she’ll like, and it’s quite telling about her weirdo personality. Google Ad Sense is a reflection of your writing and therefore a reflection on you.

For a long time, I had an Ambien ad up there, which I found thoroughly appropriate because I love Ambien and of course would encourage people to irresponsibly sleep their life / problems away (hey, better than coming out to the club and picking fights). I also had a spa ad up there for a long time. Also cool, I like grooming and hygiene just as much as the next New York women. I also get ‘It’s Just Lunch’ ads, which is appropriate because I’ll probably have resorted to their dating service by ‘09. When I wrote about Brazil, I got ads about Brazilian mail order brides (figures). Most disturbing now however, is that after writing a dating/relationship post I considered wild and romantic, I got ads about sex offenders, violence and ‘protecting our children.’

What kind of reflection is that on my relationships?

Caught in the 'Net

As a product of my environment, a poster child of today’s “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs” society, and an undeniable slave to trend of all genres, I spend most of my waking hours connected to, thinking about, and using the internet. One of the most revolutionary developments of my adolescent life was, undoubtedly, wi-fi. No longer were we confined to sitting in front of a computer in a specific and probably parentally monitored location. With Wi-Fi, we could take our heavy and awkward larger-than-normal-desktops-are-today laptops anywhere in the house that we wanted, and chat on IM for hours. Unobserved behind our locked bedroom doors until way past what curfew would have been if we had actually left the house.

So, how have all of these experiences, activities, and technological advancements affected my 20s? I am obsessed, dependent on, and constantly connected to the internet. Thanks, Al Gore, for life as I know it.

When I have a question where do I go – a family friend who happens to be an expert in that field, a book? No, absolutely not. It doesn’t even cross my mind that I could utilize resources like that. I go to what I have come to consider a sort of virtual friend – the site I fondly refer to as Wiki. Wiki, and now her sister sites of wic-tionary, wikibooks, wikiversity, wikinews, wikispecies, wikiquote, wikisource, and meta-wiki pretty much cover the spread of useful and non-useful information. Now, I wont pretend to have any idea what the majority of wiki’s sisters can do for me, or how they really differ or contribute anything to the original protégé website of wikipedia, but they do exist, which reassures me that I will never be at a loss for facts, correct or not. The way I see it, even if I don’t get the right answer from wiki, I may still have gained new cocktail conversation starters. It's a win-win.

As a resource, the nerdnet is invaluable, no question; just as valuable, in fact, as it is as an entertainment venue. I can spend hours bouncing from site to site. My homepage NYtimes.com provides hours of entertainment in and of itself! Should I venture past the maze of the New York Times, I happen to particularly enjoy thesuperficial.com, the Washington Post’s Crossword puzzles Monday-Thursday (other days are a little too challenging and the failure of not completing the puzzle is a day ruin-er every time), my email, facebook, asmallworld, various virtual shopping venues, google searching, and, of course, youtube.

Out of all of those sites, I would like to devote a little bit of extra time and laudation to youtube. As far as the usefulness and entertainment value of the web, google-image, I think, was on to something. Something that youtube took and ran with. The idea of being able to search not only for movies, homemade videos, some TV shows, music videos, and even historical events like the Queen of England's holiday address this year, all in one site….it’s a generation Y’s wet dream.

As a child of the ‘80’s, I take for granted that video killed the radio star. Music videos hold a very special go-to place in my search for motivation during workouts, as well as for entertainment during my work day. My most recent conquest of entertainment is the following:



I was actually searching for one of my personal favorites, Mickey Avalon, and from his song, Jane Fonda, I found this little gem. Obviously, the name of the “artist”, Princess Superstar, attracted me to click and anxiously await the loading of the video. I have to admit that the lyrics were just perplexing, yet catchy/irritating enough to make me watch it again. The Princess’s costumes and her sick-nasty dance moves left me with a feeling of overwhelming confusion mixed, I have to admit, with a little enthusiasm (my typical reaction to any form of overstimulation – in this case, for having seen something so ridiculous); as well as a little contempt for Princess Superstar who 1. has such a cool name, and 2. actually has some kind of contract.

Is it art? Certainly, not. Is it even good? All signs point to no, and yet I watched it, not twice, but three times. Maybe I was searching for some sort of explanation or intrinsic theme. I found none. I did, however, find her on wikipedia.

Again, rather indicative, I think, of my generation's culture.