Technology has afforded me so many ways of spying on things, its so fun. For example, I have a sitemeter on this site. Not like I'm thinking 'ooh!! so many hits!'. Actually, Melissa turned me onto it first because she always knew what bizarre things people had searched for in Google to come up with her blog. So I can see that someone found my blog by searching for 'fried cheese' or 'girls wearing flip-flops'. Or that they came to my blog by way of one of my friends blogs. Or whatever. I can also see geographically where people are (roughly). Its fun trying to figure out who reads the blog.
The music sharing feature of iTunes provides me with similar levels of enjoyment. I like to look through peoples music libraries and see what they like - not that I know who they are, as you get to name your library whatever you want. Mine is of course named 'meandertail'. Usually I scoff at their music, because I am a music snob and very judgemental of people's taste in music (and yet, you all like me. I'm not really that bad, am I!). My favorite computer guy has told me before that he thinks I have good taste in music (after browsing my library, which btw is a sure way to make me want to be your friend) but I've never been able to see what his is, because he didn't share his library. This week he set his up to share, so I've been looking through it. I emailed him to say that I could forgive the show tunes (after all, I have both Jesus Christ Superstar and Guys and Dolls in my library), but did he really want everyone to know that he had bought a Rick Astley CD? Hee. I'm funny. Frankly, even more alarming is the fact that he also has something like 'Bea Arthur Sings Broadway Hits' or something like that. I'm totally not kidding. Alphabetically the next artist is the Beastie Boys. These are not two things you expect to see in the same place.
In addition to spying on what other people like, I can also spy on what people are listening to of mine with a fun widget. Someone listens to my stuff regularly but only to the Dave Matthews and the Sublime. Thats it. I have SO much better music than that. Come on. Live a little, people!
We do a little less hi-tech spying at work. There's this guy - lets call him Sweaterboy (because thats what we call him) - that we watch eagerly every day at lunch. He got that name because he wears the same blue sweater about 4/5 days of the week. This is only a small fraction of his appeal, however. Even more exciting is the fact that every day he comes down to the cafeteria, gets two containers of soup and two bottles of water, and either sits alone and eats them or packs them all into a plastic grocery bag that he brings with him. Some days he gets as many as FOUR containers of soup. Now, thats a lot of soup. The guy certainly does not have a hydration problem. We're starting to notice new things about him too. Like, sometimes he primps a little bit before he walks into the cafeteria. Also, yesterday he totally got three soups and a SMALL SALAD. I think he must have decided that he needed a little roughage in his diet. It was so unlike him, with the odd number of soups and the added excitement of salad!
The fact that we're so interested in Sweaterboy led someone at the table to ask whether we ever wondered whether we were someone elses Sweaterboy. Was there someone who was totally intrigued with us? I don't know. But its an interesting thing to think about.
8 comments:
About sweaterboy...had almost that exact conversation with someone the other day. How there are some people that just seem to have something a little bit different and sometimes even a little bit, um, extra and do they know it? Do they sense it? Do people tell them? Do they cultivate it? Or is that just part of the package?
If I remember correctly this was in reference to some friends who are in their 60's and just completed a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail and regularly travel to Bhutan, India, etc. to do Doctors Without Borders work.
Maybe sweaterboy likes the cafeteria lady? Who consequently has shifted over to the salad area?
Just a hypothesis, mind you.
Oh and btw, I still get people to my blog that are searching for "candid braless". Pyschos, I tell ya.
How do you do that site meter thing? I want to see if people find my blog by searching for "candid braless".
who YOU do strange things?? no way.
Speaking of spying on people...
I see you've come to my blog, Lisa, but I think you need to hit refresh. :) Because, yes, I have updated it. Updated it multiple times! Haha.
Inquiring minds want to know: what kind of odd things does Karl do in a pub???
Well, I'm sure you've been to a pub with Karl, anonymous (if that is your real name!). So I'm sure you can imagine. Bahahha.
ok to be fair, that wasn't Karl who said they do weird stuff at pubs. But I'm sure he does too. Like smuggling his own beer in - thats kind of strange... even if the CSHL beer is a rip-off. However, as I was a poor graduate student, I wasn't going to complain too much.
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