Vin Diesel is Still Alive & Other Internet Contemplations

Posted: May 27th, 2013 | Filed under: Community, Culture, Personalities, Ruminations | No Comments »

At lunch the other day, my pal Don was talking about a TV interview he’d seen the night before in which Vin Diesel was schilling for the latest cinematic rendition of “Fast and Furious.” Number 6, it is.

“Wait a second,” I interjected, “Vin Diesel is dead.”

He and our other lunch mate Mike looked at me incredulously.

Normally, in such situations, having read and stored such insignificant information, and being totally confidant with the extent of my wisdom, I would have self righteously pounced on what I would be sure is Don’s mistaken memory of the evening before.

This time, realizing that I’d read only one nugget about Diesel’s demise months ago, then not heard another thing, and aware that he was starring yet again in this cars uber alles franchise that just opened at a cineplex near you, I was a little less insistent of the correctitude of my thoughts.

“I swear I read somewhere on the internet awhile back that he was dead.

“Mike, get out that new iPhone of yours and look it up. Vin Diesel’s death.”

A couple of swipes and a keystroke or three later, he looked up with a smile and said, “You mean the Vin Diesel Internet Death Hoax?”

Which just goes to show that this postings of mine aren’t the only things you read online about which you should have a healthy skepticism.

* * * * *

We love to complain about public service utilities, right?

L G & E. The Water Company. Ma Bell. MSD (Though in its case, until recently coming under the aegis of the Water Company, most all of those complaints were well deserved.)

And, of course, Insight. Which is now really Time-Warner. Which means that all I’m about to write might change in the future under the new cable/ internet providers.

I’ve consistently been an apologist for Insight. The company has provided me incredible service through the years. (Though, I must admit, until a year or so ago, a lot of that might have been because I had an employee there of some stature, who took care of me as if we’d been friends since kindergarten. But she no longer is employed there.)

Anyway, there was a power surge in my neighborhood this morning. One of those quick blips, where everything blinks. It obviously fried some fuse on a pole nearby. No cable. No internet.

I called the company, got a live person soon enough. But not one, despite my hunch, who would check to see if they had any outages in my ‘hood. So she, in short order set me up an appointment for somebody to come out. On Wednesday between 8:00 and 10:00.

(I know, at this juncture, you’re saying to yourself, “What’s so damn responsive about that?” That is, if you’re not saying, “Who cares?”)

Then she asked if I’d like to talk with an internet tech? Which I did, because they tend to be more intelligent, empirical and intuitive.

When I spoke with this person — Whose name might have been Bridget, but I’m not sure of that — I advised her of the situation. She checked pro forma and confirmed my modem was offline. Then said, “Let me see if there’s an outage in your neighborhood?”

Which, less than a minute later, she confirmed there was, and said repair personnel had been dispatched. Or would be shortly.

I was fully expecting a day without internet connection, nor a chance to view the latest episode of “Duck Dynasty” or “Toddlers & Tiaras.”

Two hours later, Insight called to advise my service was back up and running. Which I confirmed a few minutes later when I returned home.

Obviously, this isn’t a great story. More than likely a scenario about which you could give a shit.

But it does confirm yet again, at least to me, that, for the most part, the public services we get around here are reasonably responsive.

* * * * *

If there’s an entity we like to complain about more than Insight or MSD, it’s Facebook.

Everytime that Zuckerberg fella tweaks his toy, especially when folks believe their phantom privacy is being invaded, there’s an outcry.

There will be a spate of postings, obviously cut and pasted, “Please go to your security settings. Under the column on the far left, scroll down to where it says, ‘Allow Donald Trump access to all Friends’ information’ and uncheck the box.”

Those postings make me smile. I have long accepted that whatever information there is to be known about me is a mouse click away from some Slovenian hacker. Whether it’s on FB, or somewhere else.

That anyone would think for a moment that Facebook allows even a scintilla of privacy is absurd. We sign up. Whether we’ve read the fine print or not, here’s the deal. They can essentially use anything we post anyway they want. To think otherwise is naivete of the highest order.

Facebook is nothing more or less than a compilation of data which the company is going to use to line its and advertisers’ pockets. Period. Despite the depressed nature of the stock since its public offering, all that I’m reading indicates that the Harvard kid who was the bane of those Winklevoss twins remains ahead of the curve. FB stockholders shall be flush in the future. (Caveat: I know nothing about stocks and said statement is not indicative of future performance. Or whatever my attorney might advise me to write.)

(By the by, am I the only one wondering what went down at Derby after the parties were over between the Winkelvoss brothers and Louisville’s fave Derby Darlins, the Barnstable twins? I saw enough photos of that foursome together, and would say from the look in those ladies’ eyes, they had more than mint juleps on the terrace on their minds.)

 

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