OMG, Google is so totally awesome!

Some people think Google is creepy. I think Google is changing the world. I'm into changing the world, unless it's done with violence (like Bush and other terrorists and warmongers). Google often delights me, and it's definitely a Gmail-Google Earth-etc. thing and not a search engine thing. I don't really understand the people for whom "google" as a verb is synonymous with "use a search engine." Like, where were you people pre-Google? Did you really not have to find anything on the internet before 1999? You horrify me.

Anyway, one of the things that many find creepy but I find oddly charming is the Gmail sidebar of "sponsored links" that places ads based on words and phrases in your email. I think it's a brilliant business plan, and it doesn't really faze me at all that Google is "reading" my email. And sometimes the ads are really amusing. Today in an email exchange between my mom and me about the movie Casablanca, Google helpfully provided a link to a site offering cheap airfares to Morocco. Or, take the one-sentence email from my sister, subject line "Utah??" She asks me if I'm going to be able to "swing a trip out West." Based on that, Gmail offers: Sundance, UT cabin rental; download this Mormon ringtone now; learn West Coast Swing dancing; and -- the best -- Coffee Exposed, a shocking secret the coffee companies don't want you to know. Ohhhh, Gmail. What's not to love?

Speaking of creepy innovative things all the rage among the kids today, the other day my dad, my aunt, and I were talking about text messaging. I text them both fairly often, and I happened to be sending a text message in their presence. My dad jokingly asked me about my use of the beloved text abbreviations such as GR8, TTYL, and, one I find particularly annoying, "NE1" for "anyone." Ugh. I said, "You know, I actually prefer to text in complete, properly written sentences, as you two may have noticed." And then my aunt said that in fact she had noticed and thought I was doing it for her benefit, to placate their generation! Ha ha ha ha ha! I love it.

OK, that's all for now. In my next entry I will perhaps share the thoughts rattling around my brain about boredom/law school.