The Popinator

Have you seen the Popinator? Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=b1cz8IasV4w

A few days ago my friend Mary posted this on Facebook. I was, well, kind of underwhelmed about this exciting new invention. Our conversation about it follows:

Me: ONE piece at a time? No way! I have to stuff a whole handful in! The guys who invented this have waaaay too much time on their hands!

Mary: Yeah, but if you’re typing, you won’t get your fingers all greasy. Save the handful for the movie theater.

Me: I could never catch them…they’d probably end up in my ear or up my nose!

Mary: Hahaha! That’s what I was thinking, too! It’d be nice to have at the desk, but that’s the only place.

Me: I couldn’t possibly type and concentrate if I had to be yelling “pop” every two seconds!

Mary: Sure you could! And, wait a min…earlier today you posted something about cooking lunch and something else…you are indeed a multi-tasker. “Pop!”

Me: True, but I still can’t see myself typing, yelling “pop” and trying to pick popcorn kernels out of my nose and ears all at the same time!

Mary: LOL!LOL! No…b/c you’ll be catching those popping kernels with your teeth!

Me: I think that would take a certain amount of practice…like YEARS!

Mary: It looked pretty effortless in the video.

Me: Amy Duncan Yes, I noticed that! Ha! I’ve tried catching peanuts in my mouth before, and I never caught even one!

Mary: Practice makes perfect!

Me: Yes, and I really think I should set aside all my work and unimportant stuff like that so I can learn how to grab popcorn kernels in the air with my teeth! Sounds like a plan to me!

 

So….will you be ordering your very own Popinator soon?

OK, enough silliness for today… 

Little Facebook miracles

Every time I hear someone say something negative about Facebook, I have to control myself not to bristle. I’ve been a “Facebooker” for quite a few years and the vast majority of my experiences there have been more than just positive — they’ve been enlightening, moving, touching, encouraging, happy, fun, funny, joyful, helpful, and inspiring. Am I just lucky? I don’t think so.

Just last week my Facebook friend Michelle, who lives in Paris, posted that she had a lovely baby grand piano in her former home in New Jersey that she needed to give away — quickly. She had a deadline of just a few days. I jokingly asked her if she could fax the piano to Brazil, but since she thought that might not be practical, I posted to a couple of other friends who live in New Jersey and New York about Michelle’s piano and asked them to spread the word.

Before long, I got a message from my friend Jerry, a guitarist-singer-entertainer-author, saying that he lived very close to the town where the piano was and that he’d love to have it. I’d forgotten that Jerry lived in New Jersey, so I was really happy about this. He said he was dying to learn to play the piano and also that he needed a baby grand piano for his upcoming video shoot. How perfect!

I got back to Michelle right away, even though it was the middle of the night in Paris. I kept my fingers crossed for both of them until the next day, when I got the good news from Jerry that everything had worked out and the piano was his!

I thought, wow, without Facebook would something like this have worked out so seamlessly, so effortlessly? Maybe, but I tend to think Facebook made it even easier.

Another time, I received a payment for a contest I’d won. Unfortunately the only way they could pay me was by a check issued in the USA, which I couldn’t cash in Brazil. I do have a bank account in the USA, but I needed someone to mail the check to and have them deposit it in my bank account. Right away I thought of Facebook. I put up a message asking if anyone could help me. Within an hour or less I got a message from Lorena, a Brazilian Facebook friend living in Connecticut, who said she’d be happy to do it. So I had the check sent to her address and she deposited it in my bank account. Just like that. No hesitation. I was more touched by this than she’ll ever know, and especially by the fact that she was so happy to do it and said it was just a natural thing to do.

I have also received gifts from two Facebook friends. One was a beautiful Italian charm bracelet with charms very carefully chosen to match my personality and interests, from my California friend Paula, whom I’d actually first met online before Facebook, and the other a lovely silver ball necklace from sweet Patricia from Chicago — the ball is actually a little chime that makes a delicate, ethereal sound when you shake it.

These are just a few examples. Other friends have generously offered to send me “care packages” of food items from the USA that can’t be found here in Brazil, for instance. And of course it works both ways. Whenever I see a friend with a need on Facebook, I do what I can to meet it, if possible, and I’m always touched by how quickly people respond when someone posts that a love one has passed on or that they are in some kind of trouble.

I have never met any of these people in person. They are all “virtual” friends. So for those who say that online friendships aren’t “real life” I have to ask: what’s “real?” To me, the virtual “handshakes” extended on Facebook are just as real as the physical variety, and equally satisfying. Have you had any serendipitous experiences on Facebook or other social networks?

High-heeled shoes!

It might just be my impression, but it seems to me there’s a lot of “shoe talk” happening on Facebook lately. People posting videos about shoes, pictures of shoes, making comments about shoes, and so on.

Some of the talk is about shoes vs. no shoes (i.e. some of us love going barefoot), some about flip-flops (aren’t they going to sell Havaianas in the Brazilian shop at Macy’s?), but most of all, there seems to be a plethora of photos of high-heeled shoes. Very high-heeled shoes.

I like looking at pictures of high-heeled shoes the same way I like looking at the fashions in runway shows. To me they’re an art form, lovely to contemplate, certainly never to wear. At least that’s the way I feel these days.

I got my first pair of high-heeled shoes when I was just starting high school. I was going to be singing in a show with an all-girl trio and I wanted to look grown up. I’d gotten past the lipstick and nylons thing with my mother, and now I was pushing for the shoes. She finally gave in and bought me a pair of wide-heeled, rather dumpy patent leather spectators. I thought they were divine. And they weren’t even hard to walk in.

Later on, in college, I had a very tall boyfriend. I’m very short, so I decided to get some spike heels. I bought a pair of shoes with 4-inch heels and bravely tried to walk around in them. I managed to put up with the blisters, the lordosis curve and tripping and losing my balance in the street for about a month and then I put them away in the closet — forever.

From that day to this I’ve had very few pairs of high-heeled shoes. And it’s been so long that I don’t remember any of them. These days I’m a sneaker/flip-flop/sandal girl, that is when I’m not barefoot.

I think the super duper high high high heel craze came back when “Sex in the City” was popular. I used to watch in amazement as Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte blithely tripped through the streets of Manhattan in their stilettos with nary a stumble. I have to admit, though, that I felt a certain sinister satisfaction when Carrie tripped and fell flat on her face on the runway when she was invited to participate in a fashion show — in ridiculously high heels.

These days people have really turned high-heeled shoes into an art form. They resemble everything from revolvers to birthday cakes and are decorated with fur, skulls, studs, fringe and mirrors. They should be in a gallery, not on someone’s feet, or at least not on mine.

With that said, I have to confess I have a certain admiration for you ladies (and gents!) who manage to march around on super stilettos as if it were the easiest thing in the world. More power to ya!

I heart Facebook, part 5 – the hoax

Some time ago, while perusing my Facebook page, I was extremely surprised to receive a friend request from João Gilberto. For those of you who may not know, JG is probably Brazil’s most famous musician, a national and international treasure, often referred to as the creator of bossa nova, and associated with famous songs like “The Girl From Ipanema” and “Quiet Nights.”

Why would JG friend me? Why would he friend anybody? Why would he even be on Facebook? His well-known reputation is that of an inveterate, now octogenarian recluse who rarely goes out and spends his days playing his guitar…in his pajamas.  

Out of curiosity, I accepted the “friendship” and as soon as I got on his wall I saw several messages saying that it was a fake profile and others that it was really the master himself. I was skeptical, so I cancelled.

A few days later I got another request from the same João Gilberto. Hmmm. I accepted, and thought well maybe it really is him…who knows? I’d heard that he liked to talk for hours on the phone with his friends, so maybe this was his new way of making contact without having to leave his apartment. I was curious. Really, really curious.

And so it began. Next thing I knew, JG had thousands of friends, including some famous people from the music world, and every time he showed up, a bunch of us would gather around the great Brazilian master to hear his pearls of wisdom, listen to the wonderful music he posted, and look at the fun pictures he put up.

After awhile, some of us got to know each other and started friending each other. Good relationships were developed, all because of João Gilberto, so we thought.

I had read several books about him, and it seemed to me that the Facebook João must be the real thing, because his personality and character seemed to match, almost uncannily, the person I had read about. I put any lingering doubts away, and just enjoyed myself on the long, long “conversations” we had every few evenings with our favorite musician.

But then things started getting weird. JG seemed to have abrupt personality changes, as if we were someone else. He started accusing people of being “fakes.” We all started to wonder. This went on, back and forth for quite some time. But through it all, I was learning more about bossa nova and Brazilian music than I had ever known before, so I didn’t give it much thought. I was having too much fun.

Then one day it all came crashing down, after more than a year of exchanging ideas, opinions, jokes, arguments, etc., with JG and all my new friends. João Gilberto’s son, who lives in the USA, got wind of his father’s supposed Facebook profile and exposed it as a lie and a fraud. He even managed to ferret out the perp…a handsome young plastic surgeon living in Brazil. But even after this exposure and the closing down of the profile, this guy tried to start it up again…!!??

My first thought after all this happened was why would anyone take so much precious time out of his life to mastermind such a thing? I still can’t answer that question. The only one who can is the perp himself. One thing is clear though: he knows a lot about João Gilberto, either that or he had someone else helping him who knows a lot about João Gilberto.

But the fact is that even though some of us felt emotionally cheated, angry, and chagrined that we had fallen for this scam, hook, line and sinker, we were really happy and grateful that we’d met a whole bunch of interesting, intelligent friends as a result of it, and these friendships continue to grow on Facebook. We’ll never hang out with João Gilberto, but at least we have each other!

I heart Facebook, part 4

I have learned more since I’ve been on Facebook than I think I did the whole time I went to school…seriously! People post the most interesting things. They keep me up on vital news items about what’s going on in the world, they post loads of videos that range from enlightening to entertaining to hilarious, and they shower me with beautiful pictures of nature and cute pictures of baby animals that I otherwise might never see.

And the best is, of course, that I can pick and choose. I can take people off my news feed (if what they’re posting doesn’t interest me) or “take turns” by alternating people in my news feed, which works really well if you have loads of friends so you won’t have to spend hours every day reading all their posts…who has time for that? And you can also pop in from time to time and check out the timelines of those folks who have a tendency to post waaaaaaay too much stuff, like 50 photos/videos a day.

I probably learned the most and made some of my best friends from a situation on Facebook that turned out to be a total hoax…but I’ll leave that for next time!

I heart Facebook, part 3

I just love, love, love the fact that you or one of your Facebook friends can just disappear in the middle of a back-and-forth thread and no one gets offended.

In fact, you can disappear for an hour or two and then come back and pick up the conversation where you left off, and nobody thinks it’s weird. Well, nobody among my FB friends, anyway.

You have the freedom to ignore what you want to ignore, engage with what you want to engage with, without anyone asking you to explain yourself. And even if they do, you’re not obliged to answer. Maybe you were offline, maybe you were having dinner, whatever! Hard to get away with this in the “real” world!

Do you get offended or worry when your friends disappear from Facebook for awhile or don’t respond to your posts?

I heart Facebook, part 2

Picking up from yesterday…

The other thing I love about Facebook is that it allows me the opportunity to act the way I try to act in “real” life, but sometimes fail, that is: THINK before I SPEAK (or in this case, WRITE).

You see someone’s post, for example, and it pushes your buttons for one reason or another. If the person were standing right in front of you, you might be more inclined to react quickly and maybe say something you wish you hadn’t. But on Facebook, even though you certainly have the option to be impulsive and say something carelessly, there’s that wonderful “I don’t have to answer this right now” element. You can think it over, ponder what you really want to say, and then say it when you’ve cooled down. Or, you might opt not to respond at all.

How do you handle it when someone pushes your buttons on Facebook?

I heart Facebook, part 1

Here’s the main reason I love Facebook:

When we’re on Facebook, we’re mostly dealing with the mental realm. True, we see photos of people and things, but what connects us to our Facebook friends, especially the ones whom we’ve never personally met, are our common interests, our ways of thinking, the individual qualities we express and our way of expressing them. We connect through ideas rather than physical impressions.

In “real” life, sometimes a person’s physical appearance, gestures and proximity can unduly influence us. Not always, of course, but this is a lot less likely to happen on Facebook, where physical appearance takes second place to what we are sharing on a mental level.

Do you agree?