you give love a bad name

Mark Heywood had a nice little voice clip on CBC Radio's World Report this morning. He's the head of the AIDS Law Project at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, and he's ticked that celebrities like Bill Clinton and the Gates couple are center-stage at Toronto's AIDS Conference vs. people actually touched by the disease.

He said, with celebrity voices dominating the proceedings, the "atmosphere is almost too Bon-Jovi-- or something - whatever you call it."

And he was so close to coining the term 'bon-jovial'.

Bon-jovial

He really should have trusted those instincts and went with it, seriously, that's gold.

i'm afraid of americans

Still on the subject of oligopoly fuck-ups -- AOL's most recent retard move saw it's subscribers' search records released publicly on the web. (Other memorable AOL retardedness includes the proposed $0.0025 tax per e-mail, dirty underhanded customer retention tactics revealed, and bending over and taking it up the ass from the US Dept. of Justice etc..)

AOL realized they made a bad judgement call pretty quickly and pulled the records, but not before they were splunk'd.

So what we've got is this massive search-able database - the queries of over 600,000 people in the US - their actual user names are replaced by unique numbers. Of course the 'numbers=people' idea was to protect individual privacy. But AOL was shortsighted, the reality is that anyone could (and did) follow a few clues to identify a specific user.

Newspapers got wise real fast to this fact and The New York Times actually fingered user no. 4417749, Thelma Arnold from Lilburn GA, for surfing online solutions to her dog's bladder problems, and searching for single seniors and landscapers in her home town.

Thelma Arnold and her diapered dog Photo by Erik S. Lesser via The New York Times

When the Times came knocking, Arnold threw around words like 'shocked', 'disillusioned'. No surprise there. She has every right to be pissed.

In the past five days, I'll admit to googling 'rapini', 'Whistler Blackcomb', 'Toronto Festivals', 'best poutine in TO', 'Elliot Brood' and 'Spamalot' just to name a few... pretty benign shit, but I'm still not sure I'd be OK if the Toronto Star showed up on my doorstep because I'd searched 'new bar in Parkdale', 'Riley's articles' and (embarrassingly) 'Victoria Secret thongs on sale'.

What are we really talking about anyway? Most everyone these days has a ridiculously public myspace account, and blogs are not really mired in anonymity no matter how hard bloggers try to stay incognito. People seem to want to be seen on the web. A little sleuth work and you could probably discern my height, age, weight, locale, cell number, pet's name and even what I had for breakfast this morning.

Stop staring.

I think the AOL searches are truly fascinating examples of the American psyche.

Take user no. 9837296, a probable Christian Mom who searches:

• poems about sexual purity
  
• encouraging words for christian teenagers
  
• poems about life as a christian teenager
  
• poems about girlhood
  
• encouraging poems for girls
  
• poems to encourage teens
  
• teen creeds
  
• christian love poems
  
• bible verses about purity
  
• inspirational writing about waiting for sex
  
• christian poetry about abstinence
  
• where can i find a christian poem inspirational writing to encourage a teenager to wait until marriage for sex

Or typical mid-western user no. 21424896, who may or may not be broke, have a weight problem and/or be a drug addict:

• one size fits all gold grillz
  
• cheap gold tooth grills
  
• how do i file an appeal in columbus mississippi
  
• how do i appeal a drug charge in columbus mississippi
  
• what is crystal meth
  
• how to buy cocaine
  
• how to buy marijuana
  
• how to make a bomb
  
• how to become anorexic
  
• drums of ice cream
  
• what is the price for ice cream per barrels
  
• how can i open an ice cream shop
  
• i want to open an ice cream shop
  
• liquid diets
  
• hydroxycut
  
• how can i lose 40 lbs in one week
  

Or the very sad, slightly disturbing case of user no. 9321135 - an incontinent, paranoid, asexual, obese, still-a-virgin senior who's afraid of gynecologists:

• painful vaginal exams
  
• speculum sizes
  
• gynecologic exams on obese women
  
• menopause sex
  
• asexual seniors
  
• obese oncology patient discrimination
  
• virginity and the elderly woman
  
• virgin senior citizens
  
• sexual starvation and middle age women
  
• what is love
  
• dolls talk to me
  
• do dolls talk to people
  

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried, and actually, it gets much worse - take my word for it, or look her up yourself. She also searched 'AOL safety and security center', ironically. Maybe those dolls told her, maybe they're clairvoyant.

scary doll photo by estherase

back in spades

Hewlitt Packard sucks. Hear that? You SUCK, HP.

I had to get that off my chest. OK, breathing now. They do suck, reason being, they fixed my Compaq laptop's hardware problem but formatted the hard drive for seemingly no reason in the process, killing every old hanger-on file I kept around out of nostalgia or what have you. Spare me the lectures please, I know I should have backed them up. What's done is done. I guess all those old B+ Oedipal essays from long-forgotten writing courses would never again have seen the bright side of a sheet of paper anyway.

And the good news trumps the bad news: I have the computer back, a new job downtown, a lead in an indie film and I'm pitching stories to a new women's magazine.

Cheer now.

Toronto's been hot and humid in a rotten way. The 'dog' days. This past week was the first break we've gotten from the heat.

I scuttled sideways through the crowd on the Danforth today, sucking octopus marrow off a skewer - the last of the summer festivals (A Taste [of Greece] on the Danforth, Caribana, Fringe, Beer, and coming soon: the intl Film Fest...) are bearing down on me; every weekend is a reminder of what I haven't done and what's left [not] to do.

To be perfectly honest, summer fun has seemed a little contrite sitting on the top of the priority list in light of all the bad sad news pouring in from around the world (not that I have anything to do with it, or much right to get my panties in a twist, but it just feels imminently more important than my crap).

Hey, throw it out there: The Middle East, Darfur, terror plots, typhoons, nuclear crises, missile launches, AIDS...

Oh yeah, AIDS! Time to listen up. AIDS pandemics across the globe (especially in Africa) are largely under-represented in Western media (what's more scary? AIDS in Africa, or liquids on a plane?). The 16th International AIDS Conference is upon us here in TO, along with worldwide media, celebrity, important cure-minded planners and hope for the 36-odd million dying without.

It's really nice to know that old reliable non-dithering Steven Harper is taking the time to tour northern Nunavut to reassert Canada's sovereignty over that patch of ice he's been posing for photographers with near Ellesmere instead of attending.

(OK, side note: can we get some functioning oppositional government to start decrying Steven Harper a little louder here? When shit's going down, Canadian sovereignty is a fucking non-issue. What are we going to do, fight for it? Jesus, put the Peacekeepers on notice and get the plastic forks ready. Anyway, I don't like him, his policies or his neo-conservatist 'I don't get the gays' bullshit. Thanks.)

The PM is skipping the event, but 'I'm-rich-biatch' Bill Gates and his wife are here - in all seriousness, they're a powerful positive duo and they're already urging women to take back power and set the rules; condoms, abstinence or de nada - "A woman should never need her partner's permission to save her life." Righto, fuckers.

Here's a scary fact: there are about 58,000 ordinary folks in Canada infected with HIV-AIDS, and guess what? just over 25% of them DON'T KNOW IT.

I can put my arm back on, you can't. Play safe.

I start rehearsal for this movie tomorrow and my new job too. It's a Monday double whammie.

Back to regular thoughtful posting and semi-irregular political criticism.

Keep your ear on the AIDS Conference, CBC.ca is safe, lubricated and ribbed for your pleasure, and I recommend Elise's blog for slightly more angry/informed/actually-out-there-rallying opinions about the Middle East conflict.

pic by Stuart Nimmo/Canadian Press via cbc.ca

dear toronto,

Just because you can get them on the corner for like, $2 bucks, doesn't mean you should.



Please stop wearing these. They are stupid and you look ugly.