On facebook ad-targeting...

Rachel Beckman's hilariously kvetchy article about finding personally offensive ads on facebook in this morning's Washington Post, Facebook Ads Target You Where It Hurts, was very much on point:

My Facebook page called me fat.

Maybe it's my age, my sex or the fact that it knew I was engaged, but the site decided I was a gal who needed to drop a few pounds. And it wasn't shy about its tactics.

This was not a close friend taking me aside, telling me in gentle tones that she'd noticed I'd put on some weight and was there anything going on in my personal life that I needed to talk about?

Oh, no. Every time I logged in to my home page, Facebook's ads screamed at me with all the subtlety of a drill sergeant: "MUFFIN TOP."

...Beckman goes on for about another page and a half or so, while maintaining her funny throughout, so be sure to read the rest of it. The article even includes a screen-grab of the ridiculous "MUFFIN TOP" ad in question (which is thankfully no longer shown to facebook users, btw.)

But seriously, though: why does facebook continue to insist on sending these ads my way?!?!?!




What part of "very liberal," "book-reading," "beard-grower" didn't they understand?!?!

I already never shave again!

New And Improved!

Howdy folks, just wanted to chime in real quick with a list of things new and improved 'round this way:

• One, obviously, is my beard. Now, even though I might be tooting my own horn, I still don't want to count any unhatched chickens yet, but--I shit you not--I got a short email reply last week from Chris Cooley's blog regarding his beard contest, and I quote:

  This is fantastic growth. We are still giving away some tickets. I will let you know but you are definitely int the running. Thanks

• The right sidebar (it's a little farther this way------> )
  has a few new improvements as well:
  
  
• In the "I didn't even know you could do that until just now" department of A Lonely Ghost, I have finally added post-labels to all my old posts. Now stuff I write here is searchable by category or topic, a few of which I'll translate here:
  
  
• Youtube = net video from sites that aren't necessarily youtube.com, but often are. Saturday mix series = any music mix I post, which sometimes happens on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays too. FSE = any song I deem to be a "favorite song ever" of mine, usually accompanied by its lyrics, but not always. PPP = Points, Lines & Polygons and the rest is self-explanatory.
  
  
• Wanted to give a few shout outs to some of the newest members of the ALG blogroll, the first of which is Appetite For Equal Rights, a blog for the modern feminist. As a human being who doesn't believe people deserve to be treated better or worse than others based on factors outside of their control, like whether or not they have an X chromosome or a Y chromosome, I found a lot to like on this website. Further, as someone who enjoys bashing Rush Limbaugh's assholery whenever possible, which is often, their post on his reaction to the Edwards scandal a couple days ago was particularly enraging. Right on...
  
  
• Keep It On The B-Side is, yes, you guessed it, a music blog. It's run by a fellow South Lakes High grad and current resident of the city of angels, Ethan Z. He's writes insightful stuff and you can tell he's got a real, deep love for music. Especially liked his take on Okkervil River's last album, and not simply because I adore the band myself.
  
  
• The Stone's Colossal Dream is a blog I found randomly while searching for Robley Wilson's "I Wish In The City Of Your Heart" so I could re-post it about a month back. So obviously, the lady--her name's Tania Rochelle--likes poetry, so I kept going back. Tania's interested in a wide variety of topics, turns out, so that's a bonus too. Couple weeks ago she had a running couple of fascinating posts about the nature and origins of the yellow ribbon symbol and what else, besides war of course, it means or has meant in our American lexicon of symbols.

Check out the links, lemme know what ya thinks.

My "Before"

So I took this picture of myself on Thursday, but only just now got around to pulling it off the ol' iPhone and posting it here (& e-mailing it to Chris Cooley.) As I understand it, the criteria for the contest states that the "greatest transformation" in hairyness from before to after will win the prize. So I completely Mach 5'ed my entire head/face. Made sense at the time.



From the email I sent to Cooley:

Hey I know it's been a few days since the contest began, but I only just now got around to getting this picture off my iPhone's camera to send in. I honestly did take the picture on Thursday afternoon though, right after I first read about the contest and went to Mach 5 my entire face AND head.

Anyway I'll be talking to you folks soon, on August 6th. I'm obviously gonna win. I am a prodigious grower of hair.

Couple things before bed...

1: I just made a new muxtape--which apparently means I had to delete the old one from last week...ugh, thanks muxtape, the 12 song limit was getting lonely on the lame shelf--for Rene. It's super cheesy but that's cool. I think.

01. Devendra Banhart - I Feel Just Like A Child
02. Okkervil River - Black
03. Rocky Votolato - White Daisy Passing
04. Psapp - Tricycle
05. The Avett Brothers - Left On Laura, Left On Lisa
06. Lefty Frizzell - I Want To Be With You Always
07. Gruff Rhys - Candylion
08. Akron/Family - Don't Be Afraid, You're Already Dead
09. Buffalo Springfield - Kind Woman
10. Mazzy Star - Fade Into You
11. Now It's Overhead - Nothing In Our Way
12. The Dodos - Lily

2: I plan on winning Chris Cooley's beard-growing competition.