Friday, June 20, 2003
Searching Google for "Friendster is evil" gives 4 hits: 2 on hereitype.com, one on mofokdphi's xanga site, and one on phonopsia.co.uk. Two people I know have invited me to join Friendster. I am wary not because I don't want to share an affiliation with the friends who invited me. Just doing a little listening before participating is standard operating procedure for me with any new electronic community. To me, from what I've heard, Friendster seems to foster a culture in which participation—and popularity—is fueled by the fear that you will be judged by the quantity—and looks—of your friends overwhelmingly more than by their many other qualities. Sex sells, and this "who knows who" service is no different, I think. Some people are already mocking it. I found ASCII art of what I believe to be a man's genitals. Above the art are these words: "THE NUMBER OF FRIENDS I HAVE IN MY FRIENDSTER PROFILE IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO MY VALUATION OF MY OWN SELF-WORTH." The art also looks like some kind of Star Trek ship, but that wouldn't make any sense. It's probably a man's genitals. Did some reading about information theory. Ordered 2 copies of Tufte's Cognitive Style of PowerPoint—one for the office, one for home. Shopped Stonestown with Patrick for more comfortable dress shoes, but didn't find anything I liked exactly. Nordstrom had a pair I liked, but they were $250 (!). There was another pair I liked by Kenneth Cole New York, but they didn't have my size and I was hoping to have them for tomorrow. We shopped at the other stores, but came up empty. Instead, we found a dress shirt I liked at Nordstrom's and had a tailor alter it. I used the gift certificate that the School of Pharmacy Class of 2003 gave me plus $40 more out of my own pocket. We also bought gourmet underwear at Macy's (on sale only because they forgot to take the sale sign down—it ended before today). Late dinner at home with Patrick: deep-fried pork and shrimp wontons, shrimp chips. It was at this meal that I came up with an idea for a new kind of restaurant. It would be similar to Korean and Japanese barbecues where you cook at the table but instead of a griddle you have a deep fryer set in to the table, somehow made safe from potential hot oil disasters. And instead of it being centered around one ethnicity's cuisine, it's a collection—a celebration!—of all the deep-fried foods of the world. We'd maybe call it "United Fried Foods of the World" and the tagline would be: "Come fry United!" If it's deep-fried, you'd have it! Fried chicken, chicken fried steak, french fries, onion rings, twinkies, wontons, egg rolls, shrimp claws, shrimp chips, Hong Kong noodles, tempura, tofu, mozzarella sticks, fish sticks, beignets, doughnuts, fritters! Oh, the possibilities!