How UPCs Helped Create Facebook

Understand that this is just a theory of mine, but I think the ubiquitous UPC created a society in which the  phenomenal popularity of Facebook became possible.  Before the mid 1970's when bar code scanners came into use it was a much different world from what we live in now.  Stay with me for a little while and I think I can draw a line from then to now for you. 

Growing up, I have many memories of going to a gas station in the next town to the south of us with our Dad.  Dad would buy us a bottle of pop out one of the old machines that had the tall narrow glass door.  You would put your nickel in the slot, open the door and pull out a bottle of Mountain Dew or Choc-ola.  Both were impossibly sweet, but were only 9 ounces.  Just the perfect size for grade school boys.  While there Dad would catch up with his buddies, talking about ways to fix cars, where the fish were biting and I'm sure there were plenty of "blue" jokes that went right over my six year old head.  One of the other places in the men's world was the barber shop.  There weren't any appointments to be made when you needed a haircut.  You arrived on a Saturday morning and waited your turn.  I remember always being bored with the wait because the only comic books they had seemed to be the same ones I had been looking at for years. And I was only six!

The first UPC scanner was installed in 1974 at a supermarket in Ohio.  From there it's not too difficult to draw a line to the popularity of online social forums.  For some of you, you've always lived with bar codes and scanners.  The rest of you might remember what it was like before when going to the grocery store meant that the cashier had to look for a price label and punch in the price of each item on the cash register.  The cashier also had to be knowledgeable as to which products were taxed and in some case at what rate.  All this was done while making conversation with the customer.

I remember going to the grocery with my mother, waiting an agonizing long time in line, as the lone cashier rang up the woman in front of us.  The nice thing was there was no choice of paper or plastic.  It was only paper bags.  (But that's a topic for a different time.)  While in line, people would chat with each other and catch up on each others families, how Aunt Betty's gout was doing, Little Billy's recent spelling bee victory, and the next door neighbor's drunken yelling match with his wife.   I just wanted gum.

Now when you go to a store the scanners make it so fast to get through the line that you barely have time to register if the cashier even acknowledged you with a hello.  Paper or Plastic?  Rarely does the bagger ask anymore.  From being on the other side of the register in a retail store I can attest that there are a whole bunch of customers who can't get off their cell phones to answer any questions about their transaction let alone make small talk with the people around them.  Plus most stores give you the option of self check out if you have just a few items.  Actually having a conversation with someone?  Doubtful.  Maybe that's why Facebook has become what it has...  a substitute for the barber shop, beauty shop, grocery store, or gas station of the past.  It's a place to gather and share with our friends, families and voyeurs the everyday ordinary life things that make us all connect as part of the human race.

Random Stuff

Things Our Daughter Has Said:

Last week at daycare:
Woman dropping off her son "Well, aren't you just the little princess!"
Riley "I not a princess, I Riley."

Driving to a friends house:
Riley "Daddy, what that?"
Me "That's a hill."
Riley "Why?" (yes, we are deep into the "why" phase.)
Me "What do you think?"
Riley "Because why not." (yes, I've answered "why not" a few times to her why questions)



Riley "Daddy? What that?" [while patting the front of my pants]
Me "Don't touch daddy there."
Riley "Why?"
Me "That's my penis, you don't touch daddy there."
Riley "Yuck, poopie"
Me "That's not poop! Poop is around back."
Riley "No, poopie, Daddy."
(Yes, honey.  You just keep thinking that for the next twenty years or so.)


Hoosier Weddings:

Last weekend we had the privilege of being invited to the wedding for one of  Robbie's friends.  The wedding was held in a small rural town over an hour away.  The church is a newer building and doesn't have the traditional pews.  Instead, the congregation opted for interlocking chairs for what I assumed was flexible seating.  Right before the ceremony I realized that the contrasting lines of carpeting outlined a basketball court.  The church can remove the chairs, place portable basketball goals on either side of the sanctuary and turn it into a regulation size court.  It's been said  that basketball is the state religion of Indiana.  I don't think you need to look much further to find the truth of that statement.


Commute This
 (warning - rant ahead)

A little over a year ago I switched jobs.  I went from working retail and the inconvenient hours - weekends, nights and holidays -  to a Monday through Friday job.  The downside is that I went from having a five minute commute to a thirty five minute one.  I like driving.  However, I hate commuting.  I'm lucky to start work  an hour earlier than normal so that I could leave before rush hour hits.  Now I'll admit that rush hour in Indianapolis is nothing compared to Chicago, but I rarely drove in Chicago.  The big reason I hate commuting is that I have to drive through two construction zones on my way to work.  This wouldn't be a problem except for the zone on the West side.  There are four entrance ramps onto I-465 in the middle of that construction and somehow on a nearly weekly basis I've had to deal with people who don't seem to grasp the concept of merging.  The last one was a woman who was well ahead of me on the acceleration ramp.  For some reason she began to slow down and I made the mistake of slowing so that she could merge over.  Big mistake.  Traffic was heavy to my left and by the time she finally merged, we were doing fifteen miles and hour!  I was livid.  If you can't navigate traffic on the freeway, then don't get on it! 

My iPod is Trying to Make Me Insane

I listen to my iPod at work for two reasons:  One, it keeps me from hearing the monologue of a redneck's life from the woman in the department next to mine.  Two, if I listen to audio books or movies (we can listen to movies, we just can't watch them) then I lose track of what I'm working on.  While I can't say what it is that I do, I can say that it is one of the most tedious things I've ever done in my life - and I worked in a plastics factory one summer.

A few weeks ago ABBA's "Gold" was playing on my iPod.  "Waterloo" finished playing and then it went into "Honey, Honey".  Around thirty seconds or so into the song I realized I was no longer listening to "Gold" but instead was hearing the beginning of the soundtrack of "Mamma Mia!", the movie version.  There were several songs after "Honey, Honey" that I skipped.  There's only so much ABBA you can listen to in one sitting. 

In answer to your questions, I have ABBA "Gold" for the simple reason that I like it.  Name me one person who doesn't sing along when they hear "Waterloo", "Mama Mia" or "Dancing Queen" and you've found someone who hasn't listened to a radio or movie soundtrack in the last thirty years.  Either that or they're a big fat liar. 

The movie soundtrack for "Mamma Mia!" is a different story.  Over a year ago, I purchased the movie since all of our friends were raving about it.  We had seen the stage production and really liked it.  Three things about the movie versus the stage version:  Meryl Streep is an awful actress.  She over-acts way beyond belief which can sort of be excused once I found out that the three women who created the stage production were the ones responsible for the movie.  Pierce Brosnan makes my ears bleed everytime I hear him sing, which is the kindest thing I can say.  Understand that I've had a "crush" on him since he appeared in "The Manions of America" on TV in the 1981.  He just should not be allowed to sing.  And last the scenery is absolutely gorgeous.  We have found though that the more we watch the movie the easier it is to bear.  Plus Riley really gets into it which means that we have watched it dozens of times.

That's how I ended up with the movie soundtrack.  We thought it might be better for Riley to hear that version in the car since she is so familiar with the movie.  (There are songs in the movie that are not on "Gold".)  Big mistake.  Take away the dialogue, the scenery and the other actors and you get the stripped down version of how awful Brosnan and Streep as singers truly are.  For the most part Streep is a capable singer.  But I also think she's performing like she's doing musical theater and trying to emote every single word to the back row.

As to how it got on my iPod, I downloaded the soundtrack to my play list before listening to it.  The first time I heard it was the next morning at work.  I sent Robbie a text message saying how bad it was and he replied the he knew.  He and Riley had listened to it on the way to daycare.  A month or so later I'm still fast forwarding past anything that Brosnan is singing on... and hoping that the two albums never play back to back again.