Life as a Mix Tape

Thursday, April 3, 2008

But I get the milk for free

My high school reunion is coming up next summer. And since I moved recently, I wanted to make sure I was not on a "missing" list in case any information had come out. So I went to my school's web page and clicked on the handy Alumni tab, only to be greeted with this message:

Visitors to the alumni section: Due to chronic abuse, we have discontinued the guestbook feature of our website. While most people were respectful and used the guestbook for its intended purpose, several individuals saw the guestbook feature not as a way to reconnect with former classmates, but to post immature, inappropriate and objectionable material. We encourage you to use sites like Classmates.com, MySpace.com and Facebook.com to connect with your fellow SV alumni.

Now, I am going to bet that the people in my class were not responsible for the kind of tomfoolery that would force the school to take down a section of their site dedicated to supposed responsible adults. I can't see anyone in my class actually caring enough to take the time. I could be wrong, but I would lay money on generations X, Y and/or Z as the douche bags that make the rest of us look like we can't be mature. Thanks.

I have a myspace page already, and I've been hesitant about getting a Facebook one simply because I don't have the energy to keep up with it all, and worry about making it fancy or interesting. That's what this page is for. How'm I doing??

There is nothing on myspace that would resemble a group for the class of 1989, so I went to classmates.com. There are a lot of my classmates there. So I filled out the free profile thing, and even went so far as to pick a picture different than my myspace one. Variety and spice you know. I looked around at some of my former classmates' pages. Chuckled at how cool they think they (still?) are. (As a side note here, I own the fact that I was an apple-polishing geek in high school. You could probably tell that by my continuing love of George Michael, but I just thought I'd acknowledge it.)

You get to tell a little story about yourself and what you've been up to since high school. And then you get to take a little quiz. Kind of like those Internet quizzes we do, but it's all Q&A. There is no room to expand or make your own comments. They ask what your favorite outdoor activity is, and there is no box for "none of the above," or "why in the world would I camp when there are perfectly good hotels," or "why should I fish when you can buy it at the store." So my creativity was a bit stifled. As an added bonus on your profile, under Interests, it randomly chooses some of your answers to the Q&A. So there are times when my interests are cats, disco and reading. Could I possibly be more fascinating?

Now comes the kicker. In this day and age of myspace and facebook and all the other social pages there are, Classmates.com actually wants you to pay money to email/contact anyone with a profile. Huh? Pay money to talk to people that if I actually wanted to talk to them I probably would be doing that all on my own anyway? Seriously? I chuckled at that. And they are so wise, too. They won't "let" you put your myspace page or blog or email address in your story, to tip people off as to where they can reach you for free. You can get around that though, so they aren't THAT smart. Do people actually pay to be on classmates, when myspace et al are free? Because I certainly will not be. I mean, why buy the cow...

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

My boy, George

I feel I should explain my back-to-back George Michael tribute. As some of you know, I love me some 80s music. And I love going to concerts. Growing up, I didn't get to see my favorite bands, because they all went to legitimate venues in Syracuse and NYC. We residents of Bingo-town got to choose from Ratt, Poison, Great White, Motley Crue. It was hair band central. Oh, and Cinderella, because the drummer is from there (my mom was his math teacher). AND, being that my mom was a teacher, or because she was over protective or was just a great big buzz kill (sorry Jan, but...), I didn't get to see my favorite bands in their heyday. I saw no Madonna. I saw no Duran Duran or Prince. And I didn't see Wham!. I did get to see Night Ranger and Starship, but only after Jan did her research to see if Night Ranger was a "drug" band. Funny how her research didn't lead her to the conclusion that Starship used to be Jefferson Starship, which used to be Jefferson Airplane and that song wasn't really about Alice in Wonderland.

But I digress.

I was lucky enough to move to a big city that welcomed all kinds of bands, especially those of the retro variety (I even got to see Night Ranger a couple more times). I got to see Madonna finally (TWICE), and my friend Paige and I were present for the true and complete five-member reunion tour of Duran Duran. I hung my Duran Duran poster up behind my desk at work for a week before the show (Yeah, I still have it). It was at the Tabernacle, which is tiny, and filled to capacity with screaming 30-something women. My ears rang for days and I loved every second of it! And then we saw his Royal Purpleness. In a word, it was incredible. Every hair on my whole body was standing up. For a short, skinny little man, he is a sexy mother fucker. It's all in the attitude.

And now, my 80s circle will be complete, because George Michael is touring this summer! And I bought my tickets to the show! I am going to see George Michael! Laugh if you want, but I was not the only one who squealed like a teenager when the tour was announced (Paige. Amy. Maybe Chris.). Now if only I still had THAT poster... (JAN!)