Sometimes I make single serving friends on the subway. Especially when I don't want to. Here are some fun friend conversations that I had today!
Part I: Getting on the S to Grand Central
I sit down. Man comes in and turns around to directly where I sit.
MAN WITH BAD TEETH: Is this seat taken?
ME: Looks around at empty car. Uh, no, no one is sitting there.
MAN WITH BAD TEETH: Sitting directly next to me in an empty car. Model huh?
ME: What?
MAN WITH BAD TEETH: You're a model, huh?
ME: No.
Man doesn't reply. Spends a few awkward silent seconds before getting up from his seat and proceeding to the next car. I guess he doesn't like single serving friends who aren't models.
Part II: Getting off the S to Grand Central
Older Man sitting across from me gestures 'ladies first' to go out the door. The platform is on the other side of the train, so the Older Man gestures the same towards the other door. As I walk out the door, the Older Man follows me at my side.
RUSSIAN MAN: You speak Russian?
ME: Ueh, no. I don't speak any Russian.
RUSSIAN MAN: You Russian?
ME: Nope! Not Russian either.
RUSSIAN MAN: Looks confused. You get that all the time I bet. Uh, you Ukranian? Bulgarian?...
ME: I'm actually Chinese and Swedish.
RUSSIAN MAN: Oh. You look like my friend from Russia. She has, similar eyes as you. She looks like you. But she is not Chinese. You look like you could be from Russia.
ME: Oh, thats interesting. Parting ways. Well, take care!
RUSSIAN MAN: Best wishes to you! Oh, I wish you could work for us. Do you have a job?
ME: Yes, I have a job. I'm sorry
RUSSIAN MAN: I see, well good luck!
Note to self: Sometimes I may look like I speak Russian.
video games meet jackass.
these kids imitate select games in real life and film the reactions.
wow wow wee waa!
thursday
• saw actor abe vigoda
• ate pizza with a collective of grown-up gamers
friday
• ran in the rain (a lot)
• met nitro g from the show Who Wants To Be A Superhero?
• stayed in for the night and watched Return of the Jedi
saturday
• stayed in brooklyn for the day (instead of going home and doing work...)
• went to the hardware store and took paint sample papers
• slept in
• ate a huge polish breakfast
• played resident evil iv with the entire house
In other 'What it do' news, I've become too comfortable in Brooklyn and decided to stay for the first half of the weekend (instead of returning to campus to do work, heh.) The past two days have been miserable in terms of weather, but today it was absolutely beautiful. There were certain moments on my adventures in which it seemed as though I was in San Francisco. SF in the Brooklyn house? Weird science, I know.
I have fun stories to tell about the past few days however I do not have my camera cable here and they will have to be postponed until tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!
Abe Vigoda. Awesome sauce.
This is a very long post. For more direct information on what the title suggests, scroll down to where the photo is...
For those of us who are well imbedded into the online community that is the Facebook, we have been well aware of some of the major changes that they've made. Recently the Facebook introduced the live feed interface which caused an immediate uproar in the community, causing many users to react forcefully by creating reactionary groups and feedback messages demanding to change the Facebook back to its original form
For those of you who are not familiar with the controversial update, Facebook changed the home page so that you could see anything any of your friends were doing, whether they recently made friends with someone, added some more photos, broke up with their significant other, or even removed an item from their profile. While this information overload seemed jarring and in a way frightening to know that all of our movements on Facebook could be monitored and displayed in such a fashion, I think many people overlooked the fact that the managers of Facebook had access to all of this information and surveillance before it was publically displayed. Because of all angry dispute between users, Facebook added the option to prevent your actions from being publicly displayed to your friends and networks, returning the general sense of privacy to the Facebook community and settling its users' fury for the time being.
Changes are rapidly occuring at Facebook, most likely because of the competitive atmosphere that is the Web 2.0 environment. Before the 'live feed' introduction, Facebook allowed persons with work e-mails to have an account within their work network, something that was never publically announced to Facebook users as was in the case of the Highschool network expansion. Now there is talk of Facebook's next step, opening its community to anyone within a certain area. This means that anybody willl be able to sign up for Facebook, regardless of whether they have an academic e-mail address or a work e-mail address. Clearly this is a movement towards meeting the same open access standards as the unfortunately popular MySpace, however this will open the dynamic of Facebook to trolls and persons we've never seen before. It will be easier for persons to assume false identities, and the ideal of a closed community in which you could ground your connections between real life affiliates will drastically change.
Now to the title of this post. After having lunch with a friend and discussing these changes, he noted to me that underneath the privacy preferences is the following option:
This option is located at the very bottom of the privacy preference page, underneath the 'Privacy Settings for Everyone'. The checked checkbox, while seeming readily harmless, allows the following according to the Facebook's terms of service:
Examples of Facebook Site Information. The Facebook Site Information may include, without limitation, the following information, to the extent visible on the Facebook Site: your name, your profile picture, your gender, your birthday, your hometown location (city/state/country), your current location (city/state/country), your political view, your activities, your interests, your musical preferences, television shows in which you are interested, movies in which you are interested, books in which you are interested, your favorite quotes, the text of your "About Me" section, your relationship status, your dating interests, your relationship interests, an encrypted user ID associated with your significant other's Facebook Site profile, your summer plans, your Facebook user network affiliations, your education history, your work history, your course information, copies of photos in your Facebook Site photo albums, metadata associated with your Facebook Site photo albums (e.g., time of upload, album name, comments on your photos, etc.), the total number of messages sent and/or received by you, the total number of unread messages in your Facebook in-box, the total number of "pokes" you have sent and/or received, the total number of wall posts on Wall ™, a list of encrypted user IDs mapped to your Facebook friends, your social timeline, and events associated with your Facebook profile.
Perhaps I was naiive before or perhaps Facebook has changed their terms of service over the course of three years, but I was under the general impression that my information on facebook was private and not distributed. Facebook has always been an ideal online community in my mind because of the privacy options and standards, and because of the ability to create a comfortable online supplement to my real life encounters. The upsetting factor is this box is checked under the default, meaning all those who don't take the time to look into the terms in services (which I'm sure is the majority of users) will give free access to all of the above material.
I promptly unchecked my box, and seriously considered leaving Facebook. I think it is unfortunate that they find the need to change and alter the facebook environment, but I suppose thats the way things are these days. Regardless, they should be more open about their policies and changes instead of displaying half of the story. I feel in a way, I've been partially betrayed by Facebook and am interested in seeing what other changes they have in store that will deter me from being part of their community.
Starting Thursday was the beginning of my weekly trip up to New York City for my internship. While I'm up to my neck in work and really should be spending more time at school home studying my butt off, I have a feeling that traveling to the city will allow me a nice escape
I stayed with my boyfriend in his new place in Brooklyn. The apartment started as a large room with concrete floors and only recently did they build walls. There isn't much of anything in it, but its going to be a great place when its all finished. Plus, the roof has an incredible view.
Other than going to my internships and having many exciting adventures (which I will get to at some other point in time), the bf and I tried to go to Kid Robot's Vinyl toy show introducing their new line called Fat Cap. I'm a hard core fan of Kid Robot (it was where I first started to obsessively purchase Vinyl toys) and really wanted to see what a show was like. Unfortunately after waiting in line for 15 minutes, we discovered that since there was an open bar only those above the age of 21 could attend, counting myself out. I was sad, but they have many shows, so hopefully (in exactly 2 months time!) i'll return for another one and get my vinyl toy fill.
The city, however, is plain wonderful. More adventures to come...
In addition, Bansky totally ninja-ed Paris.
I wish I had more energy to write about the Bansky's brilliance and my admiration for his work but I am swamped with Marshall Mcluhan and exhausted.
(p.s. I'm not doing very well on this media fast. But, I think I'll have a good enough argument for class so I'm not too concerned)
(p.p.s.s. Suri is real. Or someone is really good at making babies in photoshop.)
I attended my very first course of the semester this morning which has already launched my semester into an interesting twist. The course is 'Mass Media and Society', a cross-over class under both the Media Studies department (which is one of my majors) and the Sociology department. Our very first assigment (along with the reading of Mcluhan and Zengotita) is to have a week long 'Mass Media fast' in which we are encouraged to strictly avoid all forms of Mass Media for an entire week, recording our successes, faults, and responses in a week long journal. The only acceptable condition in which we can engage with 'mass mediated' vehicles is if we need them for academic or job-related purposes. If we are under the condition where we 'cheat', then we need to be honset about it and record it.
I could start this assignment by making a smart-ass argument that as a
Media Studies major I am under academic necessity to expose myself to
all aspects of Media on a daily basis and that the same effect of the
assignment could be achieved by recording every single mass mediated
action. Then again, I am in need to develop that argument further
before I decide to entirely blow off the assignment (which could come
off as unfavorable in the eyes of my professor). Regardless, this
post is my first cheat of the 'fast' so there may be a temporary lull
in my vox activity for the next week or so. My second cheat will
come later when I will play We Love Katamari and watch a documentary
with the boyfriend (who is only visiting for another few days) later on
this evening. Furthermore, tomorrow I am attending an orientation
for my internship this semester that, under the line of business it is
associated, woudl qualify my very standing in the building as exposing
myself to mass media. That action I can at least relate to job
and/or academic necessity.
I am, however, more interested in determining the limits and bounds of
what can be defined as 'mass media' for this assignmett at this point
as opposed to the actual fast of media. We will see what happens
later on in the week.
What is your favorite children's movie?
