Comments on Identity

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By now, most of you have probably seen the horrific spectacle of a weblog post about a celebrity gathering comments from clueless web users who inexplicably believe they have found said celebrity’s contact form, or at least some online go-between. I’ve received, to a much smaller extent, comments for Kris Aquino and Bro Eddie, causing me to wonder whether people in general even read webpages before submitting feedback. (I imagine that if this entry about Miriam Defensor Santiago were still open, it might also gather a few nuts, seeing how it nears the top of a Google search.)

Most amusing by far was the contact form email I received from an irate AOL subscriber wishing to cancel her service, who found this entry. It makes you wonder: this person knew enough to do a web search, find a contact form link, and submit it. Wouldn’t she have known enough to look at a URL and read an entry to figure out that I am not, in fact, AOL?

Another thing, I believe the web is a bit poorer for the loss of fan mail sent to Chris O’Donnell intended for the actor. Bring back the mail, Chris!

Update: Well, all it needed was a little hunting: Chris O’Donnell’s fan mail! And how could I forget the Sassy Lawyer’s Kris/Ruffa thread? Plus, check out Keith Devens’ Jessica Lynch post. (At least we’ve had nothing so bad as, “Dear Die Hard, you rock!”)

Periodic Annoyance

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The annoying habit of writers ending questions with periods rather than question marks is fairly infectious, and much to my dismay, I have become a victim of it, more than once, especially in instant messaging sessions. Has anyone else fallen prey to this syndrome.

Rearranging

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I’ll be AFK for the rest of the Memorial Day Weekend as I rearrange my furniture and attempt to add a few checkmarks to my To Do list. Time and weather permitting, I should be able to squeeze in some skating, hiking, and pasyalan around the many Memorial Day and WWII events happening on the National Mall.

In the meantime, you can look at these photos of cats. Aw!

Oh, and I’m selling my printer.

Cicada

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CicadaOne of the infamous Brood X Cicadas flew into the office yesterday, crashed into a wall, and settled to the floor behind my desk. These babies are strong; when I tried to pick him up by the wings, he clamped a leg onto the carpet and another onto the nearest CAT-5 cable, and would not let go no matter how I tugged (gently, of course). Unwilling to tear off his wings in the struggle, I instead eased a napkin under him, gently carried him to the window, and let him out. He perched on the ledge for a bit, before deciding to fly off rather than try and get back into the office.

Gorgeous creatures, these cicadas, with those delicate gold wing filaments and glossy membranes and bright red eyes. But be careful, they are EVIL and DEADLY!

(See also Cicada Watch.)

Exercise in Cynicism

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As expected, Philippine elections last May 10th were an exercise in cynicism, with dubious incumbent GMA pulling the lead over movie star and Erap puppet FPJ, to the noisy, rancorous music of election fraud accusations. It’s greater evil versus lesser evil, and I’ll leave it up to you to decide who is which. Either way: Doom!

(Sorry for being such a pessimist. I told you it was an exercise in cynicism.)

Amidst the accusations of cheating, Philstar has an excellent editorial about Nene Pimentel getting it right: “File the Charges” (Google cached in case Philstar screws up archiving as usual). Contrast Pimentel, going through proper legal channels to combat fraud, to the opposition’s attempts to invoke Edsa-2-esque rationale by calling for riots and disturbance.

But I have no patience for learning the details of Exit Polls, Quick Counts, and Congressional Canvassing. I’ll leave that to the political junkies, and read their output. Meanwhile, the Filipino politics-entertainment crossover continues, with such congressional farces as this: “SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP!”

Washingtonniene

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Update: My mistake, it’s spelled “Washingtonienne.” But this misspelled title gets tons of hits, so it’s all good.

Most recent scandal rocking the government’s not-so-hallowed halls is that of Jessica Cutler, better known as “Washingtonniene”, a low level Hill staffer (um, ex-staffer) who posted accounts of her many, varied, and profitable sexual exploits to a public weblog (archived somewhere, but I’m not linking it). From what I hear on the Hill, sexually overactive interns and staffers are nothing new; apparently Ms. Cutler was cited for using office equipment to post her sordid wittiness to Blogger. Getting fired did wonders for her notoriety: an interview and a night on the town with DC-gossip blogger Wonkette, plus reports of book deals, Playboy offers, and of course the requisite fifteen minutes of media-induced fame.

More on those fifteen minutes. (Caveat: UPI writer.)

I’m not normally one to agree with Michelle Malkin, but she’s spot on with this one: “This vulgar little episode reflects a larger, disturbing media trend toward normalizing and glamorizing sexual promiscuity among young working women. It harms those trying to succeed on their merits in the professional arena. And it also harms our own daughters, who will be forced to fight harder to protect their dignity and credibility in a “Girls Gone Wild” culture.” Also note the sentence on Spaghetti-O’s. (Caveat: Michelle Malkin)

(Update: Excellent SkankBack from Wonkette. I love it. Love it.)

Poor Mike DeWine (Senator, R-Ohio). Until this scandal broke, I had never heard of him, and neither, I imagine, had many other Americans. Now, (or at least for the next fifteen minutes) his name in the media is inevitably connected to “Washingtonniene’s boss.” A dubious distinction, to be certain.

The scandal, the media frenzy, the pictures, the proud candor; you don’t even need to invoke Sodom and Gomorrah for this one. The sad part is that I’m disappointed that I’m not shocked because I’m so jaded.

And for those of you still bugging my referrals with google searches for Washingtonniene pictures: here, here, here, here, and here, okay? (Caveat: non-wholesome links on the last one.) Happy? Huh? Huh?

UPDATE, 09/01/2004: Those of you searching for nude Playboy photos of Ms. Cutler out on the web, please go here.

“Default Banner”

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On this NYT story about Blogger (link via shellen), I saw a very large purple animated banner to the right, with some kind of weird, pixelated, black shape swirling in the middle of it. Odd advertisement, right? It looked HTML-resized, so I tried going to the img src URL. Heh.