Gecko Bloggle

It really is kinda freaky what people can find out about you online. I mean, there’s all this “freak you out” stuff in the papers going back two or three years now, telling you that people can find a torn up business card and end up doing a better job of running your life than you can, and while I’m a bit of an information paranoia kinda guy, I don’t fall for everything that comes across my path pretending to be legit.

(Hear that, Nigeria? Buzz off!)

(Oh, and would the “legal cousil (sic) of Burton Render buzz off too?)

(Thanks).

So here’s the thing I’m on a tear about: Livejournals & Blogs that give out more information than they should. Namelessly slamming your roommates about missing money is one thing. Giving out darn near every single piece of identifying information about you in a survey the post BEFORE the one about your roomies kicking you out is probably not a great plan. Especially if your roomies have ‘Net access. Or their siblings do. Or your landlord/boss do. Or the very same mom that you’re slamming. Maybe that’s the point. Hm…

There are better ways to boost your Google-Score than putting your full name and date of birth and address (and just about everything else about you) in your blog every other post.

I’m not sayin’, I’m just saying.

Due to my own stupidity at work, I had a little sign with the following written on it, stuck to the fuzzy corkboard stuff that makes up my punch-out-able wall (I have my back to the ocean view, don’t ask me why):

1. Would you want everyone mentioned in the thread to read it?
2. Would you want their boss to read only what you wrote?
3. Would you say it to their face?

I used to get myself into trouble by getting ticked and firing off kneecap shattering flames from which there was no return for either party (Frank will remember this about me), and then I finally sorta/kinda caught heat for it at work a few months ago. My right hand man at work used to see my typing away in a mad frenzy, and he’d slide over and go “Nuh-uhn. Don’t send that,” as I was hitting Control-Enter to send it.

And now, I wouldn’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d think it, by golly. If the kids that work in the Vancouver Sun building could lip-read some of the diatribes that go on from the balcony at 250 Howe St, they’d put up blast screens.