Classmates.com and advice to my younger self

Okay, I'm tired of getting spams with headers like "Looking for penpal?" that read:

Hello! I am tired this afternoon. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you. Email me at xxxx only, because I am writing not from my personal email. I will reply with my pics

The one above came from someone named Frederic, but of course the names vary. If aliens could read my junk mailbox, they'd surely assume that humans were all nice tired girls who feel insecure about their penis sizes and are obsessed with pharmaceutical products and stock reports. And who are desperately trying to reconnect with their old school chums...



Recognize either of the pics at the top? They're both frequently seen in Classmates.com ads. I've always especially wondered about the girl on the right who seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I realize now that's probably why the photo was chosen...a LOT of girls back then had that look, I think. I definitely had those glasses. :-) According to The Seattle Times, both are former Classmates.com employees. The colour pics show what these two look like now.

I've been getting notices from Classmates.com letting me know that someone has signed my guestbook and that I should sign up for a (paid) membership right away to find out who it was. The site lets you post a free profile but no links, so I've posted a "photo" that just contains a notice pointing people to my personal homepage if they want to find out about me.

I've never been tempted to get a paid membership to Classmates.com because I figure that anyone from my school days who really wants to find me can just Google my name. And if they don't know how to use Google, then we probably don't have enough in common to make it worth getting back in touch.

Plus I was never big on the whole school chum reunion idea. When I first joined Facebook, I browsed the message boards of my old grade school and high school out of curiosity. Not only was I horrified by all the bad writing (typos and grammatical errors) but also by all the posts along the lines of "hey remember that *#$& party be hind Mr. Swansons car when we all puked our brains out wasnt that FUN ah good times."



I was as nerdy back in grade school as I am now. I wasn't part of the popular crowd; I was shy, quiet, known as a "browner" (nickname back then for studious types). My closest friend was Cathy Rutland. Over the past ten years or so, I've started getting e-mails from old classmates who used to be in the "cool kid" crowd. Some of them want to reconnect, get together with me, catch up on good times...and I find myself less than enthusiastic.

My attitude: if we have as little in common now as we did back in our grade school days, why should we be getting together? I've never been into the whole "remember the good ol' days" re-living of the past except in very small doses, and never as a basis of a friendship. I kept in touch with my closest grade school chum: Cathy and I still hang out; she lives in Calgary now, but we still visit with each other. I'm going to visit her next month, in fact, and very much look forward to it.

I should point out that I do think that Classmates.com can be a useful service to those who had close ties back in school, lost them for whatever reason, and want to reconnect. I'm also grateful to the service for helping me get back in touch with my favourite teacher, David Smallwood.

However, I'm not about to get a paid membership anytime soon. For those who are members of Classmates.com, be warned that it's apparently a hassle to quit your membership.

Speaking of reminiscing, about six years ago I was part of online collaborative writing group called "On Display" in which the assignment was to write a letter to your younger self. It was a more difficult assignment than I expected. On the one hand, you want your younger self to avoid making certain mistakes that you made, and to prepare her/him for future heartbreak. On the other hand, there are some things we can only learn through trial and error, and there is really nothing one can say that will make heartbreak easier (and may possibly add dread about future possibilities to the mix).

I also opted to stick with point form rather than wordier text, mainly because I know that my younger self would pay more attention to advice that way. :-)

After some thought, I finally ended up with the following letter (slightly edited):

LETTER TO MY YOUNGER SELF Dear Debbie, Stop worrying so much about what other people think. When you bury your first diary in the backyard, make sure you draw a map so you can dig it up later if you want it back. You will never be happy in a corporate environment. Big breasts are over-rated. All those agonizing hours of piano practising will be worth it. Take more chances. Don't give up hope. Being a geeky nerd will be "in" one day. Think more deeply about consequences. Choose your friends wisely. It's better to have a few good friendships than many acquaintances. Work on your friendships. Don't let yourself get stressed out about little things. Focus on the bigger picture. Confide only in those you trust. You look fine. Pay more attention in Geography class. Always be honest with yourself, even if it hurts. When things seem overwhelmingly bad, concentrate on getting through one day at a time. You -will- get through it, even though it may not seem like it. Don't be such a goody two-shoes. Sometimes it's ok to break the rules. Don't obsess on the past. Confrontation isn't always bad. It's better than living with regret. You -will- eventually meet boys you like and who like you. Get to know Mom better. It's okay to be different. Consider all the above to be a list of suggestions, not a blueprint. Whatever choices you end up making, you'll eventually find your way here anyway. Good luck. :-) Debbie

A SURVEY: what advice would YOU give to your younger self? Feel free to post in your own blog instead of comments if your advice is long-winded like mine, but please do post a link so I can find it.

Links O' The Day:

Type in the Toronto subway: The latest signage in the Toronto subway uses fake Helvetica, ugh. (Thanks to Parki for the link)

A friend of mine is teaching English in China right now and she's been posting pics in Flickr. I am especially enjoying some of her unusual food pics, like Baozi Hedgehogs and Rice Glutton Critters.



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Sandwiches and pillow fights

I have a review of Jake's Sandwiches up at blogTO. Jake's is one of my favourite sandwich shops in Toronto; check out the review for a description.

I love eating sandwiches, but hate making them. Jeff enjoys doing both, so that works out well for me. :-)

SANDWICH SURVEY:

What are your favorite sandwiches? Any tips on making a good sandwich?

My favourites include:

Jeff's Egg Sandwiches

Parki's Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Sandwiches


I don't tend to be a sandwich snob as long as it's made with fresh ingredients. What I can't stand: the compressed, cardboard-like sandwich imitations you often find in coffee shops and corner grocery stores. Double ugh.

I'd have egg salad sandwiches more often if it wasn't so much hassle to make.

What about the rest of you?

LOVED reading your responses to my font/typeface geek survey. Holy toledo, I had no idea there were so many other typeface geeks out there! :-D I found the feedback so fascinating that I'm going to have to write up some of your responses in an upcoming Blathering.

Had a good practice with Allison and Jodi last night, starting with our usual rousing pillow fight. For more pics, please see Allison's Livejournal report. We have a house concert coming up in Rochester on Saturday, September 22nd, and are also looking forward to hanging out with our Rochester area friends.



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Are you a font/typeface geek?

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. If you're jumping into the story partway, you probably want to start at the beginning of the Last Original Plot thread. As for where the thread is going, never fear: I'm a huge J.K. Rowling fan.

I'm going to be moving the domain from Offpanel to my own server next month. Reason for the move: the guys at Offpanel are great but also very busy; they both work at Yahoo (or at least they did two years ago when I signed up with them) and I think the project got put on the back burner for the most part.

My decision to move my comic spurred me to finally finish revamping My Life In A Nutshell so I can start updating it again. I've updated to a newer Wordpress and ComicPress theme, and now need to tweak the templates as well as re-categorize all the entries so that the comic images appear. The current header and background color at the current site are just placeholders until I decide on the final design.

I also want to find a new typeface for the header and for the body text, probably from Blambot or Comic Book Fonts.



Since doing the comic above, by the way, I realize that I should have used the word "typefaces" than "fonts." So many people these days use the word "fonts" instead of "computer fonts," however, that I figure people will still get the idea though purists may still curse me.

And this brings me to a new survey:

Are you a font/typeface geek? (e.g. Do you notice typefaces? Can you sometimes name them?)

What computer fonts/typefaces do you like? And if you do any writing in MS-Word, what typeface do you use in your text documents? I use Courier New for writing novels and articles.

Do any typefaces bring up good/bad memories? When I see Chicago, for example, I am fondly reminded of my Macs long past.

What computer fonts/typefaces do you hate? I don't have as strong typeface likes/dislikes as my friends Justin and John, but I do think some typefaces can become overused. I can't remember the name of the typeface used in the Serenity ship logo in the movie, for example, but I admit to cringing when I saw it because it's one of those typefaces that I used to admire when it first came out but has since (in my admittedly geeky opinion) been way over-used since. I think I even used it in one of the old incarnations of Inkspot. I didn't let it interfere with my enjoyment of the movie, however.

:-)

So what about the rest of you?





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Getting out of debt: Indebtnet.com

So I discovered that one of my friends, Annie Walker, recently launched a blog about how to avoid and get out of debt. I love Annie's writing, and have always admired her independence and optimistic life outlook.

Anyway, her blog is called The In-Debt Net: Fighting Your Way Out Of Debt. The blog is actually part of a larger site which is still under construction; the finished site will also have forums and other services.

Do check out Annie's In-Debt Net blog. Posts include:

Money From Blogging

Making Money From Your Hobbies (or "Why I Adore Busking")

Online Money-Making: 'Opportunites' Or Scams?

PHOTOS O' THE DAY

Erin has some pics up from the week I visited with her and Rand. Here are a few that I especially like:

- Erin and me

- A photo that Rand took of me that he called "Debbie In Motion" :-D

- Adam convinced me to try some dried plums with him. And here's what we thought of them.



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Facebook: graffiti comparison and a survey

Above: some samples of "graffiti" that I've been posting on various friends' Facebook Graffiti walls.

There are now (at least) two add-on Facebook applications called Graffiti. The first Graffiti I tried was written by Mark Kantor, Tim Suzman and Ted Suzman. I had some trouble using it but when I posted a question in the forum, I got no reply at first. It seems that the app still has drawing problems for some Mac users with OS X.

Meanwhile, a newer Graffiti became available, this one written by Alex Onsager and Joachim De Lombaert. I liked it a bit better because you could draw directly on a Facebook profile instead of having to open a different window, plus Alex was extremely responsive when I posted a support question. The Graffiti team even has a blog.

I also prefer the latter because the developers are constantly adding improving and releasing updates, in response to user feedback. I like the new interface, which gives you an option for a bigger canvas, allows you to save an unfinished drawing, and also gives the option of posting the same drawing more than once. Plus if you click on "replay", you can see the whole picture being re-drawn!



It's been fun, doodling on various friends' Facebook walls. If you're on my Facebook friends' list and want me to add some graffiti: if you post on my graffiti wall, I promise to post some on yours (but I can't promise exactly when). Even if you think can't draw or have to make do with a mouse instead of an Artpad. Any attempt will be appreciated.

But PLEASE don't whine if I don't draw on your wall. I do this for fun, eh? :-)

If you're using the older Graffiti (URL will read http://apps.facebook.com/graffitiwall/ rather than http://apps.facebook.com/graffiti/), I can't guarantee a pic because my Wacom Artpad/Mac still has issues with that app sometimes. Here's what the newer app looks like:



You can find its main page here.

Facebook is targeting 60 million users by the end of 2007. Holy cow.

One thing I've found interesting about Facebook so far: of all the social networking platforms I've checked out, this is the first one that seems to be appealing to pretty much every one of my social circles (work, filk, family, old school buddies, etc.)

I think it helps that Facebook permits users to have a wide range of privacy options, rather than the limited binary "private/public" option of most other social networking communities. It also allows you to control how much interaction you have with other people.

Jeff, for example, is not really into social networking but joined Facebook because he's able to limit his public presence as well as interaction; he can be more of an observer than an active participant. He doesn't have any interactive components on his profile page (e.g. message board, polls, etc.), but can post on other people's pages if and when he likes. I've also had more work-related interactions (paid assignments, even) through Facebook than any other social community -- including LinkedIn, which I quit ages ago).

Facebook isn't for everyone, I know, but so far I'm quite enjoying it. People seem to be using it differently; for some, it's purely for fun, and for a small circle of personal friends.

Others use it more for work networking or promotion, and opt for the "add as many 'friends' as possible even if I have no idea who they are" strategy. I'm sort of in the middle, leaning a tad more toward 'fun' and limiting the amount of time I spend on Facebook. I can see how it could be a real time vampire, so have purposely declined numerous invitations to fun apps like Scrabble and other games.

SURVEY: Are you on Facebook? If you are, how are you finding the experience so far?

LINK O' THE DAY

Speaking of time vampires...

Bloxorz: The aim of this game is to get a block to fall into a square hole. There's much more than that, of course. The realistic sound of the block moving around greatly enhances the experience, at least for me.




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