Lessons Learned

Here's what I've learned so far from my job dealing with inappropriate content on the social networking website:

1) Inevitably, when men older than 30 are flagged for inappropriate behavior, it's because they're spamming. And specifically, because they're telling all the sweet young things on the site how hot they are, and asking if they'd like to be friends. (Although about half the time, what they're asking is much, much worse than that.)

2) Just like you can guarantee that the people you'll see at a nude beach are the ones you'd least like to see naked, you can also guarantee that the men who feel the need to post pictures of their penises have the least to be showing off. (Not that I condone anyone posting pictures of their penis. Or any other body parts that are regularly covered with clothing, for that matter.)

3) You really can do amazing things with Photoshop these days. In the past two days, I've seen fairly convincing "naked" shots of Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Aniston, and Angelina Jolie.

4) There are more naked pictures of Carmen Electra and Pamela Anderson than there are stars in the sky.

5) Disney's "High School Musical" is quite possible THE most annoying TV movie ever made. (And considering it's up against every TV movie that's ever been shown on Lifetime, I'd say that's quite an accomplishment.)

6) There are more people out there upset about a video of two hipster boys making out to emo music than there are people upset about the naked photos of Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. (I personally choose to be upset by the emo music--not the making out. I can't stand all these whiny hipsters crying about their feelings.)

7) I really need to think about a different job. This one makes me cranky.

If Children Really Are Our Future, Then We're Completely F***ed

Yes, I know. It's a pessimistic title. But in the last two weeks, my faith in humanity (especially that portion of humanity that is younger than me) has been severely eroded.

You see, I just recently started yet another random part time job, to complement the work with the bitchy blond girls (who now seem more dumb and annoying than actually bitchy) and the occasional temp gig I pick up. My new part-time job is working for a social networking website, kind of like MySpace but not. I'm not going to name names.

My job is two-fold. First, I remove images and videos that are inappropriate (i.e., pornographic, or containing nudity, excessive violence, or foul language). Secondly, I respond to users who want to know why they've been flagged for inappropriate behavior. So basically, I look up all the things they've been flagged for and summarize for them why they were flagged.

I've only been doing this for two weeks, and I am already completely appalled and horrified. These kids (because I'm sure the average age of the site can't be more than 15 or 16) are so mean to each other. They gang up on each other. They say horrible, nasty things to each other. I've never seen so much swearing, and sexually explicit (and often violent) language, and racial slurs, and straight out hate speech.

And then there's the spelling and grammar. If the above weren't appalling enough, then I'm also faced with the fact that apparently, no one under the age of 20 knows how to spell, or how to use a comma or a period, or voice a thought that is even remotely coherent. And here I had hoped that the education system wasn't as defunct as I feared. . . .

When I was in school, we studied political philosophy. I don't remember much about it, honestly, but I remember having to read Thomas Hobbes. I always thought that Thomas Hobbes seemed like such a gloomy pessimist--the premise of his book The Leviathan is, after all, that men are inherently brutish and bent on destroying one another. That seemed kind of bleak when I was 20 years old.

But now, after only 2 weeks of managing inappropriate user content, I think Thomas Hobbes nailed it on the head. If the kids on this website are any indication, then the life of man (and woman) is indeed "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Violent Tendencies, Manifesting as Dreams

I had a dream last night about getting into a full-on bitch fight with one of the blond girls from my office. There was slapping and hair-pulling (and she was doing a lot of crying) and then I got her into a headlock. Oh, and we were in an airport and Lindsay Lohan (pre-needing rehab LiLo, with red hair and a little bit of meat on her bones) was there too.

I'm pretty clear on what this all means. The blond girl in the dream is the queen bitch blond girl from my office. All of the rest of them I have decided are really nothing more than benignly annoying but mostly nice, but this one is trouble. She gives me this fakey-fake smile while simultaneously shooting daggers with her eyes, and she always has some sort of passive-agressively snotty comment for me. Who knows what I ever did that's got her panties all up in a twist, but it ever came down to an actual fight, I would definitely win. And it wouldn't be because I was pulling her hair.

Angel Island

Because it would be completely criminal not to take advantage of the kind of weather we're having here in the Bay Area, I convinced my friend Helen that we were both in need of a little day trip to my favorite (not so touristy) tourist spot in the whole area: Angel Island.

The island has had quite a history, serving as the "Ellis Island of the West" for incoming Chinese immigrants in the early 1900's, holding people while immigration officials determined whether they had a legitimate right to enter the country. Later it was used as a processing center of German and Japanese prisoners of war during World War II.

Besides being historically interesting, the island is also just plain gorgeous! If you hike to the top of the island's Mt. Livermore on a clear day (as we did), you have an amazing 360 degree view of the Bay Area. While at the top, Helen and I took the time to enjoy a fantastic picnic lunch, complete with a bottle of red wine. We felt a little sheepish about boozing it up in the middle of a hike until the guys sitting next to us busted out their own bottle of wine. And a bottle tequila which they had already mixed with Margarita mix. And 4 boxes of girl Scout cookies. No water, and no real food of any kind, but they were definitely ready to drink. At least Helen and I managed to cover all of the food groups and brought water!

Enduring Love for the Bay Area, or Why Global Warming's Not So Bad

I know I shouldn't say that. Global warming is terrible, but let's just discuss for a moment, the following:

1) It is March 9th.
2) If I look out my window, I can see (and smell) cherry blossom trees, daffodils and tulips in bloom.
3) The temperature for the next 7 days will be 67, 72, 75, 72, 76, 78 and 75. With no rain. (And for anyone who suffered through the two straight months of rain last year, you know why I think this is awesome.)

I can't tell you how happy I am not to be stuck in ice storms or blizzards or in places where the windchill might still drop the temperature below zero. I can't tell you how happy I am that I live in a place that is already in the middle of spring. When it's June and it's unusually hot and we haven't gotten enough water and everything's setting on fire, I will be sad. But for right now, all I want to do (and all I plan to do) is spend as much time outside in it as is humanly possible. Seriously. I might start camping out on my balcony.

Holy Crap

Last night, something not that unusual for the Bay Area happened: we had an earthquake. We live on a fault line, so that's really not that unexpected. Apparently, there are earthquakes practically every day; it's just rare (every few months or so) that one is big enough that you actually feel it.

So here's why last night's earthquake freaks me out:

A) It's the second one I've felt in a little more than a week.

B) It was pretty big.

Now, it wasn't huge. No one was injured, and there was no major property damage reported. But it lasted longer than any earthquake I've felt yet--a good 15 seconds, while most just last a second or two--and it was strong enough that it actually knocked a picture off my wall.

I know earthquakes aren't like hurricanes or blizzards. It's not like you can see them coming. It's not like there are signs that one is approaching. I know that more frequent small earthquakes does not necessarily mean that a big one is coming. But it still gave me pause. Because a big one is coming, eventually. We all know that. And I just hope to hell I'm either not here, or ready, when it does.

I had a friend who was the earthquake safety manager (or some such title--I don't quite remember) for her floor at work. She had a big checklist of necessary supplies that she had to make sure they had in case the big one hit. One of the supplies was giant-sized industrial strength garbage bags. When I asked her what those were for, she told me they were for wrapping up dead bodies so they wouldn't rot in the open and contaminate the air. Shit. I'm not even kidding about that.

Hey Carrie, want to send me that list of earthquake supplies? Might be time to stock up. And I can't tell you how much I'm kicking myself for never watching the earthquake safety video that was a permanent part of my first apartment in Oakland--it was the only video in the whole apartment and had been for years. And not a single one of us watched the damn thing.

What's dorkier?

In an effort to own my inner dork, I offer this story:

From 8th grade through 12th grade, I annually attended the Colorado Mathematical Olympiad. Math geeks from all over the state showed up to sit in a room for 4 hours and attempt to answer 6 ridiculously hard math problems. They were so hard that if you managed to get even one right, or you showed your work and they thought you were on the right track to an answer, it was possible that you could swing an honorable mention in the awards ceremony.

I admit that going to the Math Olympiad is dorky. But how's this for dorkier? In all the years I attended, I never even came close to being able to answer any of the questions. I would play at answering them, but really, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So my senior year, after brief attempts to work out answers to the questions, I decided instead to while away the rest of the test time constructing poems about how hard the math problems were, and why.

Happily, this labor of artistic love was recognized and rewarded by the Olympiad judges when they awarded me the 1997 prize for best literary achievement on the math test.

And just to show how little these die-hard math geeks value artistic vision and inspiration, while the winners of the math test received really nice graphing calculators and scholarships, I won a cheapo pen and a notepad of paper. No wonder the expression is starving artists, not starving mathematicians.

A Public Service Announcement

I hope I'm not the only one who didn't already know this, but apparently starting this year, Daylight Savings Time is going to be about a month longer. It seems that two years ago, Congress passed a law (a measure? a decree? a something.) that says we'll be springing ahead on the second Sunday of March and springing back the first Sunday in November, instead of springing in April and falling in October.

I am very excited about this, as it means it'll be getting lighter sooner and staying light longer. I don't understand why Congress didn't do this years ago, and as long as we're on it, I don't understand why we ever go off Daylight savings at all. What is the point of ever being in a period of time that should rightfully be called Daylight wastings?

But this springing forward thing is not all fun and games and light and joy, I'll have you know. According to the IT people at my new job's headquarters, this could be the Y2K problem of 2007--except, you know, that maybe this time it won't just be a bunch of hype about computers exploding because they can't deal with rolling over from 99 to 00. The IT people are worried, and I would say rightfully so, because computer programs are set to spring and fall automatically in April and October, not March and November!

They are especially fearful of the havoc that will be wrought by the Calendar function in Microsoft Outlook. There is apparently a distinct possibility that if people aren't careful, for those three weeks everyone in America could be showing up for all of their previously scheduled appointments and conference calls an hour late. Or early. Or something. This could destroy our economy. It is not to be taken lightly. You must be prepared. Make sure to double check the time of your appointments. Or better yet, start writing them down. On paper. With a pen. It's crazy, but it just might save us all.

Weirdest. Valentine's Day. Ever.

Have no fear kids. Despite the rough start my Valentine's Day got off to (damn blond girls and their damn flower-sending boyfriends), as always, it turned out to be a great day.

So what exactly did I get up to that made my Valentine's Day so great?

I went to a MASS PILLOWFIGHT.

Yeah, you read that right. Josh and his friends Jessica, Dina and Emily and I went to a mass pillowfight in downtown San Francisco last night, with at least 500 other people. As I drank coffee and waited for my friends in the hour leading up to the fight, I watched as hipsters bearing pillows streamed into the Financial District--and investment bankers wearing suits eyed them with fear and moved quickly away.

And rightfully so, because at 6:00 on the nose, the take-no-prisoners pillowfighting began in earnest. Everywhere you looked, people were swinging pillows. Some wore costumes. Some wore helmets. Some wore their pajamas. One guy with Braveheart-style facepaint let out a large growl everytime he tried to hit me with his pillow.

Cheers of delight went out as one-by-one, pillows exploded and released their feathers into the night air, for it was surely the closest San Francisco will ever get to anything that looks like a blizzard.

The fight went on for more than hour. We, however, did not last that long. After 30 minutes of whacking people with pillows, we were tired, dizzy and in need of food. So you know what's almost as awesome as having a pillow fight in public? Leaving the pillow fight and trying to look like a group of respectable adults while covered in feathers and toting pillows around under your arms. I've gotta say: it kind of undermines any attempts you make to be perceived as mature.

So we trudged through the Financial District to Chinatown, in search of Chinese food from the brightest, most fluorescent and tacky-looking restaurant we could find. Once there, we ordered salt and pepper squid (yum) and something called "bean sprouts with salty fish." Now, you know you've ordered well when they waitress feels the need to say "Are you sure? Do you even know what salty fish is?" Apparently she didn't think the white kids could take it, but after a moment of uncertainty, we went ahead with the salty fish, and lived to tell the tale. (It was actually very good. And, not so surprisngly, rather salty.)

We rounded out the night with gelato (from a store that had at least 15 different flavors of chocolate gelato. That's my kind of store). Overall, it was a pretty good night. In fact, the only thing I can think of that would have made it better would have been a mass nap before the pillow fight. We were, after all, already carrying pillows.

Oh, and one last thing. My parents know I love Valentine's Day, and they support my love for the holiday. My parents have also always been known for the wierd and random things they like to send me in the mail. (Does anyone else remember the dancing Snoopy doll wearing the sorcerer's outfit?) These two things came together perfectly this year, when the UPS man delivered an enormous box to me from my parents. I opened it to find that they had sent me a 3 and a half foot long stuffed dog, with "I love you this much!" embroidered on his side.

If the only Valentine you're gonna get is going to be from your parents, then at least it should be a really good one. Good work, mom and dad!

The pictures of the pillowfight are courtesy of Scott Beale/Laughing Squid.

Also, here's a link to the little blurb in the Chronicle about the pillowfight.

That's Disgusting

What was the first thing I read on MSNBC this morning?

This article about how a pregnancy counseling center asked students to share a piece of chewed gum to demonstrate how STDs are spread.

Dude--don't they know that they might have just given an entire sex-ed class mono?

My Valentine's Day Post

Normally, I love Valentine's Day. But I'm just generally kind of grumpy this week and not yet in the mood to love Valentine's Day (26 years of being single and without a Valentine other than your parents will eventually wear you down), so you'll have to forgive my lack of enthusiasm about a holiday so steadfastly focused (whether it needs to be or not) on romantic love. It's early still, though, so I'm hoping I'll warm up to it.

Here's what I've got: my friend Sophie sent me the link to a blog called Post Secret, which has a bunch of postcards people have sent in about Valentine's Day. Some of them are funny. Some of them are sad. Most of them I could totally relate to, so I'm sharing it with you.

New Job

Today was my first day at my new, long-term temp gig. (It's keeping me relatively gainfully employed until the end of May.) I'm not going to name names, but I'm helping a large health-oriented non-profit plan a big fundraising event. Here are a few observations about my new place of employment.

1) Because this is a health-oriented organization, there is a chart on one wall where people are supposed to keep track of how much exercise they get. Does the person who fills their line of the chart first get a prize? I haven't discovered yet. If they do, and they allow temps to play, I'm gonna kick some serious butt.

2) Again, because this is a health-oriented organization, there are signs up everywhere about healthy snack choices you can make, ways to beat fatigue without turning to caffeine, and positive ways to deal with stress. I find this a little odd. Whose job was it, I wonder, to find these signs and post them? Do they switch them up, or have these same signs been up for years?

3) In an effort to promote health and wellness amongst the staff, someone keeps a supply of healthy snacks on hand, like fresh fruit and air-popped popcorn. This may be the only office job I ever have where I don't end up worrying that I'll gain weight from all the candy, donuts and birthday cake. A dollar says that when these people have breakfast meetings, someone brings in whole-grain cereal and low-fat milk, not muffins and croissants.

4) Of the staff of 15 people or so, ALL of them are women. I know that there is a disproportionately high number of women who end up in the non-profit field, but I still find this a bit strange. Not a single guy? In any position?

5) Of the women on staff, about half are older women who are clearly married (or partnered up) with kids. And then the other half are all hot, skinny, blond girls. And then one angry-looking hipster girl with an asymetrical haircut and hot pink "highlights." I can't help but wonder how she feels about working in an office of Barbie dolls, because I personally find it a bit disconcerting. They all seem nice but a little too peppy for me. (I wonder if they did Team in Training?) And I can't tell any of them apart. Oh, and they're bringing up all sorts of feelings of inadequacy in me. I suspect that working around a million skinny hot blond chicks will do that to you.

So that's Day 1. Will I unravel the mysteries of the office? Who has a secret stash of M & Ms? What's the prize for getting the most exercise, and how many people on staff are lying about it? And most importantly, where are they hiding all the men and normal-looking brunettes and red-heads?

So Cute

I normally don't post blogs about things I think are cute. But my mom just sent me this picture of our puppies, and they're way, way too adorable not to want to show off.


This is Casey, Sammy and Rudy (who's turning 17 in April--I can't imagine what kind of party will top last year!)

For men: some guidelines for being a good lead

I have been taking tango classes fairly regulary for several months now. And from those several months' experience, I have a few observations:

Gentlemen: I understand that having to lead kind of sucks. Ultimately, you are responsible for whether or not we look like crap on the dance floor, and I am really just following along. I can see that there's some pressure in constantly having to figure out what we're going to do next.

But here's the thing. If I were to compare the thousands of years of oppression and second-class citizen status that women have suffered to you having to decide what we're doing on the dance floor, it's obvious who got the worse end of the deal.

So suck it up and learn how to lead already. Take a cue from our president and be a "decider." Your hand is strategically located on my back so you can push me around a little bit, and let me know what it is you want me to do. Because I'm not a mind reader. I don't just magically know what step you want to do next, and I'm really tired of apologizing for the times I don't do what you're doing because I had absolutely no idea what it was you were going to do.

Also, remember that you're the one who's supposed to be steering. Generally, I'm the one going backwards, and I can't see what we may or may not be about to run into. So it's your job to keep us both from running into anything--please don't just plow ahead into that other couple because they happen to be where you were planning on leading me. Just lead me somewhere else instead.

And while I am sure you find it fun to sway back and forth and then spin me around, doing that isn't teaching either of us a damn thing about floorcraft or the actual tango steps. I got my fill of swaying and spinning at my prom. Now, I am actually trying to learn something and I would appreciate if you could at least attempt some tango steps, even if they're very basic ones.

One last thing. I know that I am tall. And I realize that often means I'm taller than you, and we're dancing in a fairly close embrace. That still does not make it acceptable for you to stare at my chest while we dance. If you do it again, I will slap you.

Now, with those guidelines, I know we'll have a lovely time dancing the tango.

To Do List

My to do list for the weekend:

Teach a white guy how to salsa. Check.

Play tourguide to my friend Sejal who very spontaneously showed up in town. Check.

Enjoy the unseasonably warm and dry and sunshine-y weather. Check.

Get ignored by Seamus O'Malley, the taciturn bartender at Johnny Foleys. Check. (Yeah. I totally made up that name for him.)

Make my obligatory Irish friend of the week. Check.

Kick ass on the GRE's. Check and Double Check.

All around, I'd say it was a very productive weekend.

I always knew clowns were scary. . .

I'm taking the GRE on Saturday, and I've been very methodically working my way through one of those GRE prep books so that I don't mess it up completely. Near the end of the book, they have a list of the 300 words that most often end up on the GRE, along with definitions and a sentence using the word, so you have the context. Here is my personal favorite:

ENGENDER: To Produce, cause, or bring about

His fear and hatred of clowns was ENGENDERED when he witnessed the death of his father at the hands of a clown.


WHAT? What the hell kind of circus has this GRE sentence-writer been going to?

Blogging as procrastination

I know, I know. It's been too long. When even my parents start complaining about having to look at the same craigslist blog post for almost a month, I know it's time to stop being lazy and start blogging. And it helps that I have tons of other things that I should be doing. So of course I'd rather blog.

And it's not like I haven't had things to blog about. There's been lots to blog about: funny, strange people I've met, crazy unfoldings in my life path, major life decisions, etc.

So with no further ado, some highlights of the last month:

1) My friends Darren and Miranda took me to the Alley, got me super drunk and managed to get me to sing, by myself, in public. Twice. Anyone who knows me well can tell you that at the top of the list of things I am terrified to do is sing in public by myself. So the fact that I did it twice is an indication of just how drunk I was. And you know how they say that the anticipation of the scary thing is worse than the actual thing? It's a load of crap. The singing was scary, and not just for the people who had to listen. That will not be happening ever again.

2) Met a guy in a bar named Sean (from now on, he'll be referenced as Crazy Sean). Crazy Sean knows every bartender and every bar regular in every dive bar in Oakland, he has nothing but beer and cat food in his kitchen (literally. Not even condiments), and he thinks it'll be fun for us to go hang-gliding and then get grills from the Gold Teeth Master on Broadway in downtown Oakland. I'm looking forward to it.

3) I've decided that I'm done with the progressive non-profit/activist world (at least as a profession), because frankly, I've never really enjoyed it and I think I got into it for the wrong reasons. Some people take jobs they hate because they feel they have to make money. I think I've been taking jobs I hate because of white guilt and a misguided notion that I could and should save the world. The outcome is the same though--being stuck and miserable in a job I don't enjoy, unable and unwilling to envision a future that I could be happy with. And that's really no good--life is too short not to enjoy it.

4) So now that I've sunk 5 years into progressive activist work, what do I see myself doing? Um, not entirely sure yet. But it will involve pursuing something I love--writing, movies, travel--or some combination thereof. Maybe I'll make movies. Maybe I'll write about other people's movies. Maybe I'll take videos of other people traveling. I don't know. But I'm already excited about it. And that's something I haven't been able to say about work in a very long time.

5) Started doing temp work this past week. Wow. Being a receptionist is BO-RING. But heck, it pays the bills while I figure out what's next, so it'll do.

6) Met an Irishman named Peter at a football-watching party last weekend. He was visiting SF for a few days before continuing his world travels. As I was not yet working, I convinced him to let me show him my perfect SF day: the Exploratorium (this has been on my agenda with every guy I've dated and friend I've made in the last two years, and finally it got fulfilled!), the Golden Gate Bridge, Baker Beach at sunset, the Mission for burritos, a movie and a bar. Perfect. And I think Peter had a good time too. :-)

7) I've seen something like 7 movies in the theatre in the last 3 weeks. (It's Oscar time and I've got to get caught up!) Most of them have been fantastic, but also extremely violent. Seriously, I wish I'd been keeping a body count. What have I seen, you ask?
--Pan's Labyrinth
--Letters from Iwo Jima
--Children of Men
--The Last King of Scotland
--Volver
--The Good Shepherd
--Little Children

While I could rave about almost all of them (with the exception of The Good Shepherd, which I just wasn't in to), I'm giving a big thumbs up to Volver and Pan's Labyrinth. See them. They were amazing: resonant and beautifully made.

Et c'est tout, je crois. That's all I've got for the month of January. Sorry for the long delay, and I'll try to be better in the future.

Seen on "Best of. . . Craigslist"

This is why I love the Bay Area, Love BART, love craigslist and have a blog about awkward and funny things:

BART 24th-W. Oakland. You threw up on my dog. - w4m
Date: 2006-11-26, 4:35PM PST

I was hiding my new mutt puppy (Sam) in a very large bag. You got on at 24th/Mission reeking of stale booze. You sat next to me. You suddenly grabbed the bag containing Sam and vomited into it. Kudos on not dirtying the train, but I just spent the last hour desanitizing my dog with doggy shampoo. Thanks for the best BART ride of my life.

Search words

I have a site meter on my blog, which lets me keep track of how many people are looking at my blog. It also tracks all sorts of other information, like where the people who looked at my blog are, whether they use a Mac or a PC, and who their Internet Service Provider is. But one of the best things the site meter keeps track of is how people found my blog--whether they just typed in the address or if they found it through some sort of search, and if so, what words they used for the search.

This has been very educational. The blogs I wrote about IPod Dater and Mobile Alibi have apparently brought in quite a few blog readers who searched for those terms. But there have been some more unusual search terms that have somehow brought people to my blog:

"Claire in the Big City"

"Covered in Tumbleweeds"

And, my personal favorite search so far: "I hate hanging out with middle aged people"

I have no recollection of trashing middle aged people in my blog, so I'm a little puzzled how exactly searching for that would lead you to me, but there it is. I hope this middle-aged person hater enjoyed my blog, or at the very least, is now writing a blog of his or her own called "I Hate Hanging Out With People Who Are Either Middle Aged Or Embrace the Awkward." That would be pretty sweet.

Tumblin' Along With the Tumblin' Tumbleweed

As bad as the blizzard that hit Colorado on Wednesday was, the worst--or at least strangest--aspect of the storm was in Pueblo, CO, where people's homes and cars were completely covered by tumbleweeds. Some folks were literally trapped inside their homes because of the massive accumulation of tumbleweeds outside their doors.

Now don't get me wrong. In Pueblo, people were also struggling with snow and ice, but there were also the flying tumbleweeds to contend with. Apparently, when the blizzard's wind picked up, it was launching tumbleweeds all over the place and they were blocking roads, accumulating against fences and cars and buildings and gnereally making a big pain in the ass for the good people of Pueblo.

Fortunately, now that it has stopped snowing, the tumbleweed problem is fairly easy to handle. According to the news, people are just setting them on fire and watching them burn.

And just because I know this sounds odd enough that I have to think you might not believe me, I found some pictures to prove it: