Meet Brandon

I am not entirely sure you're all aware of this, but I am a very amusing person.

I know this because as I've started hunting through my "drafts" folder on gmail, where (as I recently mentioned) I keep rough drafts of blog entries, I have found some fascinating things.

I would detail them for you, but I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise. Es. Surprises.

But I will include here one of the drafts that just never got very far. I don't really know where I was planning on using this quiz, or why I came up with it, or when I was going to expand on it, or what I would do with it once administered, but I am certain it had something to do with my visiting MySpace.

I am absolutely terrified of MySpace, have I mentioned? I DO NOT understand it and feel like a completely out-of-touch parent because of it.

Like when I tried to explain The Internet to my mom, back in 1993.

During my Christmas break of my freshman year of college, I went out and bought a modem for my parents' home computer (because I had just discovered the wonders of the internet myself).

I soon noticed that any time I was away from the computer, my mom would sneak into the computer room and turn off the modem, because she didn't want to rack up any extra charges on the phone bill.

"But Mom," I would say. "Simply having the modem turned on is not the same as having it connected to anything. The modem works like the phone. You don't go around unplugging the phone and turning it off just because no one's talking on it."

She would nod her head and agree with me and the next time I'd go to use the computer the modem would be off and I'd have to reboot it.

So fast forward 13 years.

"But MySpace works just like Friendster," they say to me, trying to get me to understand that MySpace isn't inherently evil or hard to understand. But the truth is, I totally didn't like or get Friendster, either. So there they are, trying to tell me the modem is just like the phone and I am my mom, nodding and then returning to my safe world of IM and blogs.

Wait, what was I talking about?

Oh, right.

So here are the first three questions from a quiz I was writing for no known reason:

1. The best Christmas movie ever made was:
A) A Christmas Story
B) That clay-mation Rudolph one
C) A Diva's Christmas Carol, the made-for VH1 special starring Vanessa Williams as Ebony Scrooge
D) This is a trick question. There is no way to distinguish the best from among It's A Wonderful Life, A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Die Hard. Probably Die Hard, but I'm abstaining.


2. Which is the most gross?
A) finding toenail clippings that aren't yours


3. I am on MySpace to:
A) spy on people I never liked in the first place
B) appear more popular online than I am in person
C) insult every law of usability and web design EVER CREATED
D) insult every law of usability and web design ever created AND THEN ADD MUSIC

I still think this is funny, but also still have no idea why I wrote it or why I would bother coming up with more questions for it. Oh, well.

I bring all of this up, you know, because I went to MySpace this morning. A friend of mine had left me a comment, and I realized I hadn't been there in ages and so I dropped in, to do what I usually do when there. (Read: as little as possible.)

I added friends. I read comments. I checked to see how many birthdays of people I don't really know had passed. And then I read messages. One "message" from Caroline reminded me that Crazy Aunt Purl calls it "the MySpace."

And then I thought, Hey, I'm here. I should actually try and do something that qualifies as actually using MySpace. I should add Crazy Aunt Purl to my friends!

And then I wondered how.

I first went to the "Find" page and looked her up by her full name. I thought this was a pretty straight-forward thing to do. Easy, and logical.

I got back 21 hits. None of them were her. None of them were even close, actually.

(I DO NOT GET THE MYSPACE.)

But I decided to try one more approach before I left running and screaming from the site as I usually do, because I understand that the modem/phone thing and I'm only 31 and this should not be so damn bewildering, right?

So I used the "search" function, and searched for "Crazy Aunt Purl." A-ha! I thought. I bet THAT will work.

And I got one hit. One. And for a moment, I was happy.

But this guy?



Um, I'm sure this here Brandon may be many wonderful things, but a somewhat crazy, female blond knitter from the south?

He is not.

Sigh.

Tune in again next month when I try and upload video to YouTube.