Grammar'ing With Google - Season 1 Episode 1 "Say It Ain't Sew"

Today on FB someone recommended the book "A Garlic Testament" by Stanley Crawford. Apparently he's going out to New Mexico this fall to "sew garlic with Stan". A few comments down he posted a correction - he meant he'd be sowing garlic with Stan this autumn.

Now in the meantime I'd wondering about the use of s-e-w and I did a Google search for sewing garlic, which returned 3,360,000 results. A search for sowing garlic only returned 547,000.

"That's a popular misspelling" the future sower of garlic responded when I posted my findings on FB.

Sew and Sow are homophones, words that sound the same but differ in spelling and meaning. A homophone shouldn't be confused with a homonym. A homonym is a word with the same spelling and pronounciation but can have many different meanings (like the word set for example).

For non-native English speakers (such as myself) homophones, homonyms, and homographs can be a little tricky and lots of ESL (English as a Second Language) materials are devoted to helping people learning English to get it right. Monsieur Redacteur who is a Professeur d'Anglais has this helpful advice: "Don't think about it."

Apparently 3 million plus people don't.

Image courtesy of Pound Exclaim.

And that's all for Grammar'ing with Google for today folks. Until next time.

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Catfish - The Social Network Meets The Night Listener

A few nights ago I watched the documentary Catfish.  I found the name of it on a blog somewhere about little movies that got lost in the "blockbuster" shuffle in 2010. I thought it was a documentary about some guy making friends with an eight year old girl over Facebook. I wish I could remember which blog I saw the description on now because I'd love to ask which movie they were actually talking about.

Just imagine I'm bracing myself for some sicko documentary about some documentary film directors proving that Facebook doesn't protect children from online predators - but something's off. First off the film is populated by hipsters. There's Nev (Nev Schulman) who is the "main" character in this documentary. He's a photographer...he's receiving packages of art work from an 8 year old girl in Michigan. The artwork is impressive. There's something flat about the colour, but it's charming because you know the picture has been painted by an 8 year old.

Then the tone of the movie chanages a little. Nev develops a little crush on the eight year old Abby's nineteen year old sister, Megan. I can understand why. The girl is beautiful and apparently is good at everything. Or is she?

I don't want to ruin the documentary for those who haven't seen it, and you really, really should. It's been a long time since I've been so engrossed by a documentary.

Here's the trailer in case you want it.

--- There Be Spoilers Below!!! ---

If you don't want it all ruined for you I would not read on. One of the great things about this movie is that while watching it I had someone sitting next to me I could turn to and say "WTF" to and who is slightly more innocent (and perhaps less of a cynic) than I am who refused to believe that the bad part was coming. Me, I was on to the whole thing the minute I head Meagan's voice.

I knew Nev was headed for disaster and that is what makes this film so touching. It really kind of is a love story. A sick, twisted, fucked up one where poor Nev gets his heart broken. Meanwhile nothing is as it seems. Angela turns out to be a sad woman, Nev feels a fool, and the real genius of the whole show is the guy who is too stupid to figure out his wife's online lover is sitting on his porch filming him.

Now since seeing the film I've let the Internet get to me, so let me just say either Nev Schulman is the best actor ever or Catfish is a real documentary. It doesn't matter really. I was pretty entertained and interested in the characters and that's good enough for me either way.

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The Newest Museum in the World - The Museum of Me

If you have a Facebook account you must visit Intel's "Museum of Me" - which may just be the most brilliant Internet/web marketing/PR ideas EVER. I mean how many Facebook users are there in the world who every day click on the various little Facebook quizzes or games? Who wouldn't want to see their Facebook come to life?

Step One you authorise the Intel site to access your Facebook page. While it does that proceed to Step Two, which is to see what kind of privacy issue Facebook has snuck into this. Adjust accordingly. Personally I removed the ability for Intel to post to my FB page or access my News Feed.

Update: After having performed Step Two, I couldn't get Intel to upload the catalog of my museum to FB. So I ended up having to go back, remove the app entirely, and then remake my museum through the Intel website. So no going around this privacy invasion unless you don't care about posting your museum. If you want the privacy issue sorted, just remove the Intel app entirely.

So it gathers data (which includes the data of your friends too, interestingly enough). Then it begins.

I love the "Share yourself on Facebook". Not only is it appropriate to its medium, but it's also New-Age enough to prepare your brain for the music to come. The video starts - here is the quick tour through the gallery of your (Facebook) life.

I was quite pleased to see that an album cover of Gil Scott-Heron, the legendary beat poet in The Museum of Me. You can read a great article about him, his work, and his massive contribution to music, poetry, and the Civil Rights Movement here.

When it's over Intel offers to post your Museum and a catalogue of some of the images to your FB page. I wanted an image from the catalogue, so I went through with it.

Here are some images from the catalogue.

There's been less than 1,000,000 galleries created so far, but it is well worth a look. There is something about "visualising" your social networking life. Mine apparently involves posting pictures of food.

Visualise yourself.

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The Rumble in the Social Networking Jungle

In the midst of the controversey surrounding Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's admission that they hired PR consultants to smear Google in a whisper campaign that included forcing newspapers like USA Today to write nasty op-ed pieces, Google must be doubly upset by the problems they experienced this week with their blogging platform Blogger if only because we can assume Mark Zuckerberg is enjoying their woes.

But let's get to the more juicy stuff. For example, how scared is Zuckerberg and his FB minions of Google's social networking platform Social Circle? Having already won the race from his dorm room I would assume Zuckerberg, who has often said he doesn't care about what he's worth (and I mean this in a literal and figurative way), wouldn't care about losing millions in revenues to Google. But obviously he does. What I don't get really is why FB would fess up to being shady so easily.

The reality is with people accessing webpages more and more often through social networking sites like Facebook, it's Google who should be scared. Their recent efforts to scan books and offer them online was met with lawsuits. Their Google art project received very tepid applause. Like golf claps tepid. As one of my friends so artfully put it, "it's pretty fucking useless". But then again this friend in particular has the means to stomp about the globe visiting museums and art in person. In the current economy not that many people can afford the luxury. And these are just recent muck ups. Google failed to buy Friendster or to launch their own social networking platform even though their original social networking platform launched one whole month before "The Facebook".

I simply don't believe that Facebook is the underdog in this situation, although there are those (yes I mean you senior writer for Wired) who disagree with me and believe in the end that with all their fingers in their many, many pies that Google is the Goliath and that Zuckerberg is going to need a much bigger and better slingshot if Facebook is going to keep their share of the market.

But Facebook does have one advantage and that is that their users don't seem to care for the most part what stunts they pull because they're not going to stop using Facebook. And why would we? Even I as a somewhat disgruntled user spend most of my day on Facebook communicating with my friends and not just my friend who is Papua New Guinea or my friends in Argentina. I communicate with my friends who happen to live just an hour away on Facebook. It's pathetic really but Facebook has become the Soma of the our brave new world.

Just take a look at this image that visualises Facebook connections around the world...

Sure I still use Google's Gmail to check my email and Google is my preferred search engine (I honestly don't think Google should be worrying about Bing at all, it's a horrible search engine), I log on for 20-30 minutes a day on Gmail. Today I've already been on Facebook for a solid 12 hours. With that kind of competition, no wonder Google is trying so hard to give us, the user, what we don't even know we want.

But there is hope for Google, who may just be the real underdog here. While I spend 12 hours a day on Facebook I have never once clicked on any of their ads. With the last violation of my privacy I make it a weekly mission to make sure none of my private information is being shared. It makes me wonder how many Facebook users are like me and don't click on ads either. It's hard to imagine that it doesn't affect Facebook's bottom line if not now some day in the distant future and that might just be where and how Google will win this rumble in the social networking jungle. I mean Foreman was pretty fantastic and all, but Ali still won in the end didn't he?



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Apparently, The Grapes of Wrath Could Have Been Longer...

I like so many other addicts, abuse a drug called Facebook because it makes me feel better about myself. I don't have the worst of the many Facebook habits - I don't use FB for eye crack. I am not a Friends junkie. No, my addiction is to the great white dust covered Virtual Bookshelf.

Yes, it makes me feel better to save all the books I've read and to write scathing critiques on Kundera or the recent failure of Murakami and every now and then I get to come across a book I've long forgotten, like the Scarlet Letter. How is that for old school?

But my favorite moment today was clicking past Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and coming across the GOW Cliff's Notes, which is a study guide and seeing the following review:

"interesting story but I felt it could have been a bit longer"

I don't think this was tongue-in-cheek sadly.

Though I nearly wet myself showing the poor reader's review the appropriate amount of comedic appreciation.

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F-ck. Why Can't I Write?

ToIn my world, a universe where things that shouldn't happen do, I'm actually doing okay as far as this "Being a Writer" thing is concerned.

I have an agent.

I have a modicum of talent.

I have stories to tell.

But instead of writing, forcing myself to write, and getting it out there on the page I have been:

Playing online Scrabble. My high score is now 482 points with a bingo on the first word for PEGLIKE.

Listening to Tom Jones' "Mama Told Me Not To Come" and trying to pretend it's not a song of incestuous perversion. Cause that ain't a way to have fun.

Doing my makeup like I was a member of ABBA in the 70's.

Eating a lot of toast with crunchy Skippy peanut butter.

Drinking massive quantities of Coca Light.

Updating my Facebook hourly. Madame ama is doing jack shit. Madame Ama is listening to the radio. Madame Ama is updating her Facebook status update.

Painting her toenails and watching Sweet Sixteen, which leads to me saying things like "wow, really? That's so bitching".

Ending this blog post to play more Scrabble and then maybe, write.

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