Wait just a minute....

Recently on Facebook I've started noticing ads like these:

Try UGG's: Age 28

If you are 28 years old ONLY and female, get one FREE pair of UGG Boots today, participation required, (limit one) per person.

Age 28: Free Samples

Hundreds of companies are giving away FREE samples to 28 year old women. Check availability and participation requirements.

Age 28 ONLY: Free iPad

We are in desperate need for 28 year olds to test the new Apple iPad. You test it, you keep it. Participation required.

At first I was understandably excited, because HEY! I'm 28!!! How convenient for me that my age should finally be something I claim proudly, rather than hiding it shamefully away like a bad report card or an embarrassing relative. Also, free stuff?? I totally LOVE free stuff!

But then, as I went to the official websites* for these products I could find no such tests or trials that were aimed specifically at 28 year olds. That's when it hit me: I had been played. It never occurred to me that Facebook would sneakily tell these ads my exact age just to lure me in and make me think I had an advantage over other would-be product testers. I feel so betrayed and horrified at how easily my personal information is used against me for crass commercialization, like I'm someone out of Minority Report.

I don't know why I'm surprised, clearly FB has no problem selling my information down the river. How else would pictures of my friends appear on ads for various FB applications (on non-FB websites, too!). And isn't it convenient that youtube knows who to propose as potential video friends, as if FB didn't sell it my friend list?

As a final test, I just went and gave myself a fake birth-date (in addition to the fake email address I already gave so I would stop getting stupid notifications). Now, if the ads start being aimed at 33 year olds instead, I will know officially that FB is no longer a kindly site that only wants to help me be social, but rather it is a greedy, sneaky, information selling monster who cares not one whit for my privacy.

And I thought we were friends. Et tu, Facebook??



*I never clicked on the links themselves. At least I'm smarter than that!

Mon cher papa

Yesterday was my father's birthday, and so in honor of that momentous day I shall now write my top 5 favorite things about my dad.

5) Dad is a motor cycle maniac. I think he looks kinda like Harrison Ford, but the way Harrison Ford wishes he looked. Just check it out - you know you wish you were this cool.



4) Some of my fondest and oldest memories are of my dad reading to us. He read all of the Little House books, and I will always treasure that. A lot of my love for reading has come from this awesome example.



3) Dad, as is the case with all of the Kearl family, likes having his head/back rubbed and he isn't shy about sitting in front of someone and rolling his head around until that person gets the hint. I cherish the memory of watching one day as Dad looked around for something to scratch an itch with and used my sister's hairbrush. She came looking for it and was horrified to see Dad using it to scratch his leg.



2) Dad is the documentarian in our family. Without him, there would be little to no photographic evidence of our existence. This used to seem annoying, but recently (until my camera expired) I was learning to understand the compelling need to take awful pictures of everyone - which is why I took this awful picture of Dad getting ready to take an awful picture of us. And the cycle continues...



1) This last picture doesn't really demonstrate a quality but it makes me laugh.

And that is my favorite thing of all about Dad: his ability to make us all laugh. Dad brings out the giggly children in all the kids in my family - despite the fact that we are entirely TOO OLD to giggle. All my father has to do is make his hands into claws and say, "Did someone say it was TIME TO EAT?" and we all run screaming. Right before my parents moved from my childhood home, I remember one frantic night when we were lounging around in my parents' room. Suddenly we heard the thundering footsteps and growls of the Tickle Monster coming up the stairs. Immediately we all attempted to fit our adult bodies into the same spaces we hid in as children, despite having grown much larger since then. There was one violent scuffle wherein two or three of us tried to occupy the same spot and almost came to blows, all because my dad was coming to tickle us.


Thank you, Dad, for being a shining example and a wonderful father. Happy belated birthday!

License and registration, please

If you thought this was going to be a post about traffic cops, you'd be wrong. But I can forgive you for that, because my title was a tad misleading. In fact, this post is about something so different that you will no doubt be totally mystified and dying of curiosity to learn how the title even relates. The topic is: hair care. See? What did I tell you?



My sister was considering the addition of a nice punk streak to her head, something in perhaps a blue or purple that could show off her coolness to everyone.

Just something, you know, subtle.


Since I'm the one that always does her highlights I offered to do her streak as well, and when we noticed a small beauty supply store while we were out grocery shopping we decided to stop in. I explained what we were looking for to the cashier and asked if she had anything like what we needed, and to my surprise she eyed me up and down and said, "Well, are you licensed?" I replied in the negative, and in a condescending tone she told me, "Then all the items I could sell you are on that shelf," and she pointed to a rather sad and dusty shelf in a forgotten corner with five or so dejected looking boxes (clearly they knew they were not destined for a salon life).

Contents: unknown...



Dutifully, we went and looked at the shelf but quickly discovered that it had nothing we could use, and so we left. On the way out I stopped and said, "One more thing. Both my sister and I have tried at times to dye our hair dark brown, but as you can see from hers it quickly fades to a sort of red. I've been told that to keep it from fading we would need something called a filler. Do you have that, and is that something I could apply from home?" I don't know what I thought she'd say, since she had been none-to-helpful to a civilian like myself before, but I was very surprised at her response: "Well, since you're not licensed I really couldn't tell you about that, or how to do it. I could be held liable if something were to go wrong, you see."




What??? What was she expecting would go wrong? Was this merely hair-related - perhaps she feared I'd cause my sister to go bald and then come looking to sue her. Or was she afraid of something more dire, like maybe I'd be using this sinister filler to create home-made bombs which I would then use to blow up the beauty supply stores all over Idaho? I guess you never can tell with us fishy non-licensed folk. We're likely to do just about anything!

Unlicensed stylist at work.



The end of the story is that we left dye-less, and as of yet we haven't added that streak of brightly colored rebellion to my sister's hair. Next time I go in a store like that and someone asks if I have a license, I think my response will be, "I could tell you, but then I'd have to KILL YOU."

Bonsai update

My brother asked why there wasn't a picture of my tree. Well, it's still a soggy seed sitting in a disgusting lump of peat moss right now, so there really isn't much to photograph. Also, my camera has been broken since 2008.

Instead, I will post the trees that have been inspiring me and urging me on in this endeavor. Enjoy!

Musical musings

1) I don't know why I was so worried about a zombie apocalypse. I realized recently that an old childhood favorite of mine could easily have assuaged all my fears long ago if only I had listened to its message. I am, of course, refering to Zombie Jamboree as sung by Rockapella. According to Rockapella, zombies aren't the brain eating, bloody fingered, staggering monsters that Hollywood would have us fear. Instead they are a musical, rhythmical people who want nothing more than to dance on the Empire State building knocking conga drums and drinking rum. I shouldn't worry about being torn apart, instead I should practice my dance moves so we can get down together. Thanks, Rockapella!

(click here and skip to 2:37 to see old-timey Rockapella in all their mullet-headed, pastel shirt wearing glory)

2) My favorite song of 2009* is by far Say Hey (I Love You) by Michael Franti & Spearhead. It's true that this song loses quite a few point for repeatedly rhyming the word "you" with the daring choice of the word "you." That's why this phrase comes as such a surprise, and more than makes up for points previously lost:

Now I’m not a highly metaphysical man
But I know when the stars are aligned you can
bump into person in the middle of the road
look into their eyes and you suddenly know

From a song whose chorus is "my momma told me don't lose you/cause the best luck I had was you" one hardly expects to find a five syllable word, much less one that's as complex as 'metaphysical,' much less used in a sentence that actually kind of works. So, for the correct usage of that mammoth word, Say Hey (I Love You) wins my prize.

*I couldn't find the actual date this song was introduced to the world, so it could be from 2008. But I first heard it in '09, so that's the year it wins a prize for.

3) I've decided that what my life really needs is a soundtrack. I mean, watching movies and TV shows as much as I do, I have come to appreciate just how vital a soundtrack really is. Can you imagine Jaws or Psycho without the unforgettable music accompanying the contents of the films? Not as affective.

So, clearly in order for my life to be more awesome and memorable I really really need to have music to accompany all my actions, decisions, emotions, etc. Once there's music to go along with every car ride or phone call, my life will be complete. I just have to find an appropriate accompanist, and then I'll be all set.