Freaks and Geeks

There are two things running througn my head this morning:

1. I can't remember #1, right now (we'll get back to it)(maybe), and
2. My love/ hate relationship with technology is swinging to the hate.

Let me explain.

In younger days, when I was in the thick of the scientific community, I was just like every other lab nerd - I oohed and ahhed over every new gizmo and doodad that cropped up. (and if it came with a free lunch and demo from the sales rep - so much the better. We'll take two).

But even then I knew.

I understood that with every amazing feature in the 'plus' column on the spec sheet, there would be a down side. A side not really talked about, a side that could potentially be used for dire purposes rather than the beneficial.

Because, technology - by and large - is a double-edged sword.

I think that, lately, the thing that is messing everyone up (OK, messing ME up, specifically) is the Internet.

True, it can be a glorious thing. It can make connections possible where they could never have possibly existed before. Case in point - the extraordinary group of women I met through our interconnected sites, and ultimately met up with in real life at last summer's Virginia BlogFest.
And all the other readers I've blended (blog +friend = blend) with since I started. Like Babs. And Cormac. Vegetable Assassin. And the 'Initials': BA, FF, NATUI. Even newer ones, like Ti . It has been nothing but pleasure getting to know them.

If luck is the intersection when timing and opportunity meet, then I would have to say that all these blogospheric collisions were very opportunistic, indeed.

But then there's the downside.

My case in point here? MySpace. Ack.

I joined this group for one purpose - to send a note of appreciation directly to someone's e-mail. That's it. (Of course, it would have been lovely if it was acknowledged, but really - who am I kidding? It should be enough that it was jettisoned out into the ether for its original intention)(Note the 'should be' here; I am completely irked by bad manners)(And you, bad-mannered one? You know who you are).

Needless to say, I should have got in, got it done, and got out.

But I didn't. I stayed. Lazy? Probably. Delusional? Absolutely.

What I ended up with is a slew of creepy oddballs, sending me declarations of love and passion and claiming that I was their soul mate, charting our future together like some possessed tarot card reader.

It didn't really matter that I had said, in as many ways possible, that I was married. I was HAPPILY married. I had been HAPPILY MARRIED for a LONG TIME. At one point, I was thinking of changing my name to I AM F*CKING MARRIED. After a short reflection on that, I realized that the only thing that would be noticed and flagged was the F*CKING, and I would end up with more men looking for a woman who bold enough to claim herself an adultress. Gah.

People are idiots.

I spent more time than I should have being polite. The first few 'friends' were the lucky ones. I answered back that I was in no way interested in pursuing ANYTHING, and wished them well on their pursuit of happiness.

The next batch got a message that crapped all over them for not reading anything, but merely looking at a picture and believing that destiny had waved its magic wand.

I even went so far as to change my profile picture to this:

Things did start to slow down - but not by much. I guess there are a lot of lonely men out there, looking for love with horse-faced dowagers. Maybe it' the challenge of getting through all those layers. I don't know.

They were ridiculous.

The whole exercise was ridiculous.

And oh, yeah - now I remember my Item 1 from the top of the post:

I'm ridiculous.

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Tune in next Monday for the beginning of a Baroness mini-series: My City Mondays. It will be a little glimpse into the who, what, where and possible why (but more likely why not?) of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

That happen to be - oh yeah - in my city.