Welcome to the teenage years, Google. So far you’re doing great with that whole whatever attitude. But don’t think we won’t all know what you’re up to during those hour-long showers!

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Screw that.

As far as the social networking thing on Facebook? I love it. Except when I don’t. Having to tweak my privacy settings on what’s starting to feel like a daily basis is irritating. My status updates belong to ME, and it shouldn’t be up to Facebook to decide with whom I’ll be sharing them.

And don’t get me started on the whole Facebook attitude that simply because I “like” a product or page means I want to get their updates in my news feed forever and ever, amen. I shouldn’t have to opt out of those; I should be able to “like” something and THEN have the choice whether I want to keep reading about it every day.

That, by the way, is how I initially wound up with a group of Facebook ‘friends’ that included people who update their statuses constantly, as if Facebook was Twitter, so I know where they’re eating, what they’re wearing, what hand they just used to wipe with, etc. Who cares?

Sure, I can hide all of that… but it’s far easier to simply tune it all out by pretty much ignoring any interactions not happening on my own wall.

Which is why, a mere four hours into it, I am adoring Google+. No, there aren’t any games (so far).

What’s there, however, is exactly what I want in a social network: an easy way to set my privacy levels, and an intuitive means to separate my social circles so I can selectively share information before I drunkenly automatically hit “Share”.

I like that. Or, should I say, I +1 it?

Regardless, if you’re on Google+ feel free to find me. I am, as always, Venomous Kate. (In fact, you can find me here: http://gplus.to/venomouskate)

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I was 14 when my mother bestowed the maternal curse on me. At the time, I’d sworn off having children. The very thought of wiping snotty noses and even ickier bottoms was gnarly, dude. Like, ohmigod, I was SO going to be a Bolshoi ballerina, despite never having taken a ballet class. (They’d recognize my natural talent, I was certain.) Or maybe a TV foreign reporter covering exotic locales for the 5 o’clock news which would be early enough that I’d still have time to sit in wood-paneled bars chain-smoking Galoises and sipping absinthe cocktails. (The notion of time zones eluded me.) Or even… wait for it… the first female President of the United States.

Yes, I was going to live a glamorous, child-free life clad in designer duds I’d ferry from one 4-star hotel to another. What did I care about having a daughter just like me. Flash forward a mere decade and, sure enough, my first child was a girl. Speed the life tape up another decade and, sure enough, my daughter is just like me.

Which means, of course, that she’s got a smart-ass comeback to just about any situation. Her verbal judo is a force to be reckoned with. I know this because my self-esteem and sanity barely survived her teens. Then again, for the same reasons, she barely survived them herself.

Now that she’s almost 20 years old we’ve finally made peace. Her company is actually a comfort to me, and I am constantly awed by what a wonderful person she’s turned out to be. (As long as I don’t read her Facebook page.) In fact, we’re close enough that I can joke with her about how my mother drives me nuts these days, and she’s thanked me on more than one occasion for being nothing like my own mother. Considering how hard I work at that, it meant a lot to me that she noticed.

With that said, I do sometimes miss her histrionic outbursts. Oh, not the ones that were directed at me, mind you, but some of them were so pointed, so burn-and-salt lethal, that I used to wonder where the hell she got that kind of venom. Then, of course, I’d pass by a mirror and totally get it.

From what I read over at Techcrunch today, I might be able to put my daughter’s skills to good use. See, apparently Gmail now allows users to delegate responsibility for replying to email to other Gmail users.

So that next bitchy letter from my mother railing about how I don’t visit often enough, how I don’t call, how I should smoke/drink/weigh/work/expect less? Yeah, I am SO letting my kid answer it while pretending she’s me.

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The feedback we hear most often is that speeds are disappointing and coverage is inconsistent or non-existent in many areas.

After hearing similar complaints, my husband and I are among those who’ve opted to stick with hardwired broadband at home where portability isn’t an issue. For travel, we’ve often thought about signing up for pay as you go mobile broadband. (Last weekend’s drive from Kansas to Minnesota and back certainly would have passed more quickly had I been able to stream Netflix to my laptop, for instance!) But from what I’ve heard, mobile broadband in its current state is not going to be any faster or more reliable than my iPhone, which is much lighter and easier to carry on trips than a laptop.

Despite the abundance of mobile broadband deals being offered as providers attempt to compete with the lure of the iPad and smartphones, Webber says we’re not alone in our reluctance to make the switch. That may change as new 4G technology finally delivers speed and reliable coverage competitive with home broadband service.

That coverage bit is the key in my mind. I get all tingly when I think of surfing the ‘net on my laptop while sitting beneath a shady tree in the park. Until 4G coverage expands I’m only as mobile as my iPhone allows me to be, and that’s a pity because I hear there’s a big, wide world out there.

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Can anyone explain what an MMX error means? And, more to the point, does this mean I should assume something horrible has happened to my soldier friend???

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As I previously explained, we finally got a Wii. Oh, how I love that thing. If you’d told me a year ago — heck, even a month ago — that I would wake up in the morning looking forward to working out, I’d have told you to step away from the crack pipe. But here it is, just a few weeks later, and I can’t get enough of my Wii Fit.

But watching Mommy workout is even less interesting to the Big-Eyed Boy than watching Mommy’s toenail paint dry. Go figure. And that’s precisely why I’d thought that one of our best household investments right now would be a smattering of Nintendo Wii Games.

Unfortunately, in my glee to find something — anything — to engross the child (and thus buy myself some peace and quiet), I failed to factor in the hassle of having a somewhat small yet very loud kid demanding that I let him have a turn on the Wii.

So, back to the store we went in search of something that he could play without booting me off the Wii, and preferably play on his own. In his room. Or, at least, in any other room besides the one I’m in. Of course, the first thing he spied was the XBox 360, conveniently displayed beside its version of Guitar Hero.

Since that’s one of the Big-Eyed Boy’s favorite games on the PS2 — which we already have — I just couldn’t see myself buying a top-dollar console plus XBox 360 games that are basically carbon-copies of ones we already own, but for another gaming system.

Besides, even if I’d bought the XBox he’d still be begging to play on the family room TV, requiring me to abandon my Wii time (Mii time?), and thus entirely defeating the purpose of our shopping trip.

Fortunately, right next to the XBox display was a bright, shinny array of Nintendo DS’s, something my son has been begging for since he could pronounce “Nintendo”. And I, being the softy that I am (read: determined to beat level 2 of “Bunnies Love To Dance” on Rayman Raving Rabbids) agreed that he is, indeed, finally old enough to have a DS system.

That’s right, I bought my kid a Nintendo DS — and three Nintendo DS games of his choosing — so I could have my Wii all to myself.

But — when you compare that to the cost of hiring a babysitter, calling a cab, and spending a night out drinking — it’s worth it.

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That’s in part because they tend to be massive gobs of poorly formatted text which makes for unpleasant viewing online. But, of course, Adobe managed to convince the government and big business to use their program by promising it would make information more accessible when, in fact, quite the opposite has occurred.

See, I do a lot of research online — a lot — and yet I cringe every time I see pdf files in the search results since I know I’m not only going to be staring at an ugly page, but that it’s going to be a useless page for the most part.

For all their promise, pdf files can be nothing but grief if you’re just interested in copying and pasting a section into the Word document you’re working with … unless you’ve got the program to convert pdf to text.

Frankly, I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about that program. Surely I’m not the only person irritated with Adobe, much less the high price of Adobe Acrobat? It shouldn’t cost that much to translate from pdf to text just so you can work with information!

Given the number of projects I’m juggling right now, I’m definitely going to be looking into this program further. There’s a 30-day fully-functional trial version, if you’re interested in checking it out, too: convert pdf2text.

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So, I’m hoping that a change of hard drive is enough to solve the problem. Meanwhile, I’m using my old desktop computer which, because I’ve ignored it for over 2 years, means I have hours of downloading and installing updates (and making the desktop pretty) before I’m back up to speed.

Thank goodness I’ve been religious about backing up my data each week. Unfortunately, those backups didn’t include email… so if you’ve sent me something in the past 72 hours, don’t hold your breath for a response. (Unless you’re a liberal, in which case you should probably get used to holding your breath and waiting.)

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Very cool, and very thought-provoking. The soundtrack’s pretty good, too.

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Perhaps the solution to forgetting the last 5 weeks of my life won’t be hard on my liver, after all.

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