Dan Conley

I’d like to get outraged over the Facebook debacle, but I just can’t. It’s bad, yes, but… so? How is it not to be expected? Will people suddenly leave the site in droves? I did finally ditch my Myspace account a year or two back, but at this point Facebook seems almost like a necessary convenience, since everyone you know will be posting their pictures, videos and life updates there (my mom signed up after Neil was born because she was sick of missing the photos Elizabeth was uploading).

I’ve had this conversation with unnamed female friend X who’s named regularly elsewhere on my blog before, but Geekdad (a perfect site for me if there ever were one) says it best:

The lesson here is that you should only put data on the internet that you are comfortable with being shared, viewed or sold by people that are not you. In this era of social media and sharing, there have been so many cases of just blatant ignorance. What do you think will happen if you put inappropriate pictures on Facebook when your boss is on your friend list? Nothing? This isn’t the era of anonymous postings in forums and BBS chat rooms anymore.

It’s… interesting being on the friend’s list of my younger cousin, who will put up… interesting bits of news about herself (her sister at least used to have her AIM name private but gave out her phone number, at least to friends).

There was a quote that got tweeted (still a remarkably silly word) around this morning, which I saw from @kgs who retweeted @starkness and I think originated from @benhuh (Provenance, motherfucker. Do you know it??): “Facebook has become like AOL; it’s like training wheels for the internet. It’s a safe place, except for your privacy.” (edited for capitalization and not needing <140 characters).

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It’s been called off. In addition to, evidently, nobody thinking a person with degrees in history and library science could be a decent web programmer (I can, really!) I realized that the flexibility my current job provides far outweighs the gap between my current and deserved salaries.

But if you insist on trying to give me money, I’m certainly willing to talk to you.

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I had a lovely conversation with a friend today; let’s call her B because she’s looking for a job and apparently doesn’t want anyone to know anything about her. She warned me about some scary information-aggregating sites and how much of my information was out there. ‘Doubt it,’ I said in my best Carl the bartender voice. I know what I willingly give up, and I’m okay with it.

‘I’m listening to your Pandora station right now.’ Yep, I like Stiff Little Fingers. ‘Your Amazon wishlist!’ If you want to buy me Man Walks Into a Pub, I’m certainly not going to stop you — and I made sure that it didn’t publish my address before I made it public. ‘danconley.net!’ Oh damn, you found my super secret website with my name in the url.

I’ve covered this a bit before, which is why this is volume two. Then I was perfectly happy at CIRRIE, but now I’ve decided that I need to look for a new job not because I’m unhappy but because I would really like to be able to be the sole income while my wife stays home with our son when he’s born. I’m looking for web development jobs, so I assume it will be standard practice to Google applicants, and while my doppelgangers are currently DAs in Boston and apparently football coaches and the like (I wonder if Boston got the sheriff from Pennsylvania; he seems to have disappeared) it appears that the lawyer or real estate agent who used to own me.com has let his registration lapse and so I am King of Google.

So has anything changed? Am I now furiously protecting every scrap of information about me? No. The thing about me is that I am a person, and I have interests. I’m not going to give you every detail of my personal life — my Facebook profile has every privacy setting on ‘nuh uh’ — but I’m not going to pretend that I am a blank canvas, not interested in anything you might not be or might find offensive. Not only would I not want a job that would require that, but they shouldn’t want me either. It’s not just that I have published lists of my interests — homebrewing beer, video games, writing, Coheed & Cambria — it’s that I also have unintentional snippets of myself out there, particularly Twitter. Currently, glancing over my recent Tweets (a stupid word, but it’s the standard) you can see that I hate frames in html, that I’m excited for The Decemberists concert I’m going to tonight and that I think being offered to ‘meet new moms’ on a pregnancy site sounds kind of weird if you’re a guy. That’s by no means a complete picture, but I’d say those are all fair snippets of who I am.

As I put it to B, there’s nothing you can find that I wouldn’t tell a person at a party. You’re not going to get long political tirades from me (though it’s easy to see I’m left-leaning) and if there are any drunken photos of me you aren’t going to see them, but I’ll probably sneak in a reference to Dr. Horrible or something geeky (last night at a friend’s I pointed out that we already have the technology for a replicator, as long as it only serves you ‘Earl Grey. Hot.’).

Oh, and TNG was better than TOS but if you disagree we can still be friends.

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I find it nearly impossible to talk at a normal volume on the phone, at least if others are around. While most people seem to take the absence of another person physically and translate it into a need to shout, as though more decibels will ensure that their message gets through the phone lines safely, I feel more self conscious. There’s nowhere there to talk to; what am I doing carrying on a conversation with myself for?

More than that, I think, it’s that I don’t think it’s anybody business what the hell I’m talking about. This generally goes for all conversations, but at least when I’m face to face with a person they get the whole picture. Maybe. it’s hard to describe, but the end result is that you should never call me on the phone, ever, especially if you’re my wife and insist on using speakerphone in the car even though that further obscures what I’m saying.

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(This is another five minute writing exercise, though I modified it a bit to meet my whims)

The olive polo shirt I’m wearing is a thatched weave, almost. Were I to know more about sewing and fabrics then I could be more specific, but instead I will have to allow it to suffice in that it is certainly not smooth. Down the front of it the texture remains the same but darkens, as three — no, sorry, four — dots of varying sizes mar the fabric. These are from wearings past, which inexplicably outwitted the washing machine. The collar buttons up, all the way today even though I’ve been told that it looks better open just because it felt too free, almost like not wearing a shirt at all. Now I can feel the comforting closeness of it, the mystery texture, around my neck.

Today’s pants are corduroys, which I admit to giving a lazy attempt at spelling before right clicking and allowing OS X to correct for me. There is a famous story about corduroys, though I cannot remember now exactly what it is, and so each time I wear them I am reminded vaguely of my childhood. Alternating ravines and mountains, perfectly straight, run down the legs, creating a whooshing sound — though not as obvious of one as I had been led to believe — which makes me call them, if only to myself, my Ninja Pants.

Black socks (they never get dirty; the longer you wear them, the blacker they get: another childhood reference for some reason) wrap around my ankles, digging in. I’ve said in the past that the greatest joy that comes from wearing socks pulled up your legs is the feeling when you take them off. Thinking about them now has driven the itchiness into a frenzy of sorts: I long to lift up my pant leg and scratch, bringing blessed relief. These are the second kind of black socks I have (three total, including the fancier, thinner, oddly patterned ones), and have much thinner, sleeker ribbing. They seem to be legitimate dress attire instead of tube socks that happened to fall into a vat of dye. Which sock I wear on any given day is random, of course, though I do take care not to combine the varieties except in cases of extreme sartorial distress.

My shoes, also black, are smooth, and would be shiny were they not scuffed with dust placed there by the opposite foot resting on top in a tic I can’t quite explain (do I feel compelled to turn my lower body into a diamond shape?) Around the laces the smoothness of the material bunches up, drawn together in grooves by overly tightened laces. Perhaps this means I buy my shoes too large for my feet. The laces hang, haphazardly, to one side or another, double knotted in a ritual dating back to my grammar school days to ensure they wouldn’t come untied (as all my shoes did, which is why I was always grateful for a new pair that was velcro). It honestly had not occurred to me, nearly 25 years old, until this moment that I can probably safely tie them only once.

The bottom of the shoes is different from my previous pairs, despite the outward appearance of being identical (dress shoes and my wife appear to be the only facets of my life I am disinterested in changing repeatedly). Rather than multiple groups of four circles connected in a square, almost clover-like, these are a myriad of diamonds with perpendicular lines in the middle forming crosses. They litter the bottom of the shoes, in theory providing traction but in practice giving just enough room in between each other to pick up small bits of paper and rocks that may be unwittingly tread upon. They cover the entire bottom, with the exception of the arch, where it narrows for no reason that I can see besides giving the illusion of thinness, mirroring my foot stretching slightly into the air. What sort of person looks at the bottom of their shoe enough to make such aesthetic changes necessary?

This took far longer than five minutes. I hope that’s not against the rules.

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A personality test of sorts:

How do you eat your food? Assuming you have multiple foods in a meal — say, a burrito, rice and beans — do you eat all of one before moving on to the next, or eat them all equally?

I’ve never been a Sequential Eater. My philosophy is that I want to enjoy everything for as long as possible, so I’ll take a few bites of one before moving on to the other. At this point, it’s automatic: look at the results of a fish fry when I was 75% done:

I had never given this habit a name, until I realized that my coworker/friend Brie did the same thing. She had dubbed it Sandwich Pickle Chips, since that’s her standard lunch (Brie’s philosophy of A Good Lunch could be a post in itself). Now, though, the battle lines have been drawn. Our foes have been named, and they are many. Which side are you on? Are you one of us, or one of them?

I suppose no one really gives it much thought, but then most people wouldn’t notice they had six peanut M&Ms left, two of each color, and then eat them in an even amount. (please note that I have never considered myself to have OCD; I just like symmetry).

They were Brie’s M&Ms, by the way.

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There may not be any hoverboards, but I am typing this out on my shiny — if fingerprint riddled — iPhone.

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(I had originally intended this to immediately follow The Last Piece of Pie, but then we kinda drove to DC and have been being social and whatnot.)

I had said on Twitter that I need to write more. I really enjoy it (I do so love the sound of my own voice), and it’s very easy to say ‘I’ll do that tomorrow.’ So it stood when I read Felicia Day’s blog (side note: Elizabeth and I are fairly obsessed with Dr Horrible now, and have gotten very much into The Guild as well), where she gave advice on how she started writing. One of the links was for five minute writing exercises: I can do five minutes! …at least occasionally.

I’ll hopefully be doing more in the future, but picking and choosing what seems interesting, I think. Hey, I cheat, what can I say? Also I won’t, at least at first, be able to do them daily, so it should even out.

I don’t really expect anyone to read or enjoy them: there’s another blog I read occasionally that posts snippets of fiction and I always skip over them, so no hard feelings if you don’t want to read my stupid crap. Now that anyone reads this besides Dave and tiny anyway.

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Recently, I got ‘tagged’ in a ‘note’ on Facebook, whatever the hell that means. I only found out about it because Facebook emailed me to that effect, and the tagger was an honest-to-god person who I have seen at some point in the past six months, not a high school acquaintance who I probably said a total of 75 words to throughout the course of four years but who still made me feel enough of a mix of guilt and nostalgia to add them when they friended me.

The note was ’25 Things You May Not Know About Me.’ I was one of 25 tagged friends (thanks, Jill: I thought I was special) who now are supposed to compile their own lists and tag 25 more people. Apparently it’s only a pyramid scheme if money is involved. But I haven’t done one of these in a while, and I am remarkably self involved, so here we go. Feel no compulsion to make your own list, unless of course you want to.

1. I used to be nigh-obsessed with this type of meme in high school. I’d fill out as many as people sent, even if all the recipients already knew my status on Coke v. Pepsi.

2. It’s Pepsi, by the way, not that I drink much pop anymore.

3. It is pronounced pop, you know. I’ll call anyone who says otherwise a Communist or race traitor or whatever other inflammatory non-sequitur insult I can think of at the time.

4. Re: #1 When my wife was just the girl I had started dating, and I didn’t know all of the rules like ‘only hard fruit, not softened and ripened,’ I needed a gift for her. Not knowing what kind of jewelry she liked, I forwarded her one of those surveys and added ‘Gold or silver?’ I’m still probably too proud of that maneuver.

5. I think the number five is more even than two, four, six or eight.

6. That’s unrelated to the Law of Fives, but I’m a believer in that too. Exactly how much is belief and how much is tongue-in-cheek is a mystery to everyone, including me.

7. Without the game Halo I wouldn’t have my job now, though the explanation is more than I’d care to type now.

8. There is a depressing fact involving a man from Glasgow and the number three, but I’m not going to tell you what it is.

9. I love snow more than anyone else I know. They think I’m crazy and I return the favor.

10. When we got a big snowfall this past Christmas, the fact that I’m 24 and a reputable citizen and all that went out the window as I seriously considered jumping off my roof like I did when I was 16.

11. Re: #5 I still remember the day that Gary Hoffmann (with two fucking n’s) handed me a copy of Illuminatus! that he had found at a used book store.

12. I like school, learning things and being forced to learn things. I had a bachelors by the time I was 22, a masters by 23 and am seriously considering going back in the fall for another. Whenever anyone tells me what course they’re taking, unless it’s law, medical or accounting based I generally wish I were taking it too.

13. I always wished I had skipped a grade, just because it would have proven how smart I was. Despite this, nearly all my friends growing up were a year younger.

14. On that note, I’d say I’ve made three friends since high school.

15. I was firmly in my 20s before I had seen a Sylvester Stallone movie. Now, of course, I’ve seen plenty.

16. I just coughed loudly. I don’t really think that’s interesting, but there you go.

17. I spent a few months using British spelling and grammar because I was convinced that, upon graduation, I’d be moving overseas, or at least to Canada. I’ve given up on that, but still use single quotes because I think they look nicer.

18. I’d listen to a person with an English accent read me the phone book.

19. The farthest east I’ve been is Aberdeen, but the farthest west I’ve been is… Chicago.

20. I know that 60652 is a zip code for Chicago, thanks to Scruff McGruff.

21. I don’t consider something to be lost until I’ve searched everywhere I think it might be. If I haven’t looked upstairs, and I may have taken it there at some point, it’s not lost. I just don’t know where it is.

22. I liked Wesley Crusher and don’t see why everyone hates him. But it’s been a while since I’ve seen TNG, so maybe I was missing something.

23. The Next Generation, by the way, is the best Star Trek series.

24. For some reason, I just realized that I’ve always mentally associated Jonathan Frakes with Frank Reich. I don’t know why that is. Number two, I guess.

25. In first grade I remember giving numbers personalities. Two was a young boy, three was a young girl, four was a teenage boy, five was a young man in love with six the young woman. Seven was slightly older than five and competed for six’s affection. He was a jerk. I also visualized math problems that way, ie to get to 12 seven and five had to work together to climb over a wall.

Well that was an interesting bit of introspection.

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I have weird dreams. Ask me sometime about my recursive nightmare or ‘invisible pee from five feet up’ ones from my childhood, or the infamous ‘riding naked with gangster John Kerry’ of 2004.

My brain seemed to want to end the year on a ‘the hell?’ note, so I had quite a few odd ones last night:

• I was using some version of Windows, and the Show Desktop button was different. It was a circle of some sort. The stuff that sticks with you the next morning, huh?
• As Elizabeth was leaving for work (after she had actually left) I saw a spider behind our bedroom door. It was about the size of my palm and was bright orange and yellow. Spiders freak me the hell out, by the way.
• There was some sort of update to Google Analytics that let you publish a video of your stats, for some reason. But when I looked at it, it was actually a first person view of a cat from behind me, stalking and then jumping at me. I briefly wondered how Google got a camera behind me (especially when my desktop has no webcam at all) but then was too busy thinking it was awesome to care.
• I think related to the above, there was something about Dave and I running away from a cat.

Happy new year, internets.

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