3836 Facebook knows EVERYBODY!

Friday, April 4, 2014

So, I google some name, and I get a list of hits, and some distance down the list there will be an entry for a Facebook profile for that name.  But then when I click on it, more than half the time there's no person by that name on Facebook.  It looks a lot like somebody just fills in the name in a skeleton "hit".  Piss me off.

This evening I was reading about some animal caught in Texas that the local yokels have decided is a chupacabra, but other more reasonable people think is a hairless raccoon.  Which got me wondering, is there something called a hairless raccoon?  I mean like a breed, not just a sick bald 'coon?

So I googled "hairless raccoon", hoping for something like a wikipedia entry, and got this:

Hairless Raccoon

https://www.facebook.com/public/Hairless-Raccoon‎

View the profiles of people named Hairless Raccoon on Facebook. Join Facebook to connect with Hairless Raccoon and others you may know. Facebook gives ...

Believe it or not, she is on Facebook, lives in Kentucky (why am I not surprised), and if you scroll down a bit you'll find a photo (actually, three).

Sigh.
.

3414 Lost & Found & Lost

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Howard A. Brown, letter to US News & World Reports, 12/27/99, paraphrased:
It's easier to make a smart gun than a smart person.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just had a strange experience with coincidence.

I had briefly dated a guy 25 years ago, shortly before moving from Washington to New York. His birthday was the same day as mine, but he was a year or two older. Met him in Washington Mensa. Strong squared face, dark eyes, dark hair hanging over his forehead, bronze skin. Smoothly but well muscled. Half Cherokee, originally from North Carolina. Deep voice with a hint of southern soft. Pretty damn gorgeous.

The first time he invited me to his apartment, he said he'd cook me dinner, and then we could sit in front of the fire and sip wine.

Well, I had been to his apartment for a Mensa party or two. I said, "Fire? But you don't have a fireplace." He answered, "There's a corner of the dining room I'm not using."

Well, he uses an unusual shortened form of his first name, and I had forgotten his last name. It's also a little unusual, you don't hear it often. This morning I came across the last name in a book I'm reading and of course I immediately thought of him. He's the type who would be on Facebook, so I went looking for him.

I found seven men by that name. The first one on the list had a photo that looked about the right age, AND the right nickname and last name, AND his profile said he was retired from working for Montgomery County (that's the county we'd lived in, just north of DC!), AND it said he spoke English AND Cherokee! Hey! What're the chances? Name, age, location, and Cherokee? Gotta be him, right?

I looked more carefully at the photo, and thought, yeah, we've all aged, but time has not treated him well. Doesn't look like the mid-thirties him at all. Pretty sad, really. Life must have treated him badly the past few decades. I actually felt sorry for him.

Then I read a little further, and the "Montgomery County" he had worked for is in Ohio! Ohio? Not Maryland?

It's not him!

Wow. That's weird.

(Probably not a brother, not with the same first name. And if they are related somehow, it's still weird about the counties.)
.