Oh oh... Be careful of the Social Networking monster...

A couple of days ago I was at the beach and my best friend was talking about some weird shit that happened to a friend of hers. The story was so weird it gave me material to write a post, since this has been on my mind for a long time and I haven't had the right words to write about it.

The post would be summed up in a very quick sentence: this world is too small. But since this is a post, we're going with the largest picture. Well, seems that one friend of a friend posted some photographs at Facebook of a random night at a local place where all people hang out on Fridays. Not a big deal, just pictures of a group drinking, smiling, having fun. Yeah, just another day at the bar and someone decided to post them to share with the world.

Well as you all might know, these pictures are mostly available to all the people if you don't manage your privacy profile or if you don't care that the world will see them. A friend of a friend might see them, and a friend of another friend might be tagged, on and on it goes. Well, the thing was, in one of the photographs, deep in the background, were too people kissing. Let's fast forward a bit... a friend recognizes one of the two people... and he was kind of not kissing the person that he should. Fast forward again... it was all over for the dude.

Was the guy not caring if he got caught? That is not the point. His private life and his choices are only his and we're not one to judge. Every relationship has two sides, we will not ever know what happened to cause that moment. The post is not about that man and what happened next when he got kind of caught. It's Privacy.

Privacy, as a whole, is a thing of the past. Now every single detail of anybody's life, if it's not protected by privacy settings can change your life in a moment. Now you would have to move to Uganda, to a tribe down somewhere with no internet or phone capabilities just enough to not have every single person know what you are doing that day. It's all over, we have to accept it.

Facebook, MySpace and other social networking tools have ended what seemed to be a private life for many people. Isn't that sad? We all arm ourselves with clicking at any privacy setting an internet web page has, but still our lives trickle outside the coloring lines from time to time. Are we entitled to any privacy? I say yes. Are we anybody to judge people from a photograph or a statement somewhere? No, we're not. We have to live and let live. Will that man be happy after all this hoopla has ended? Do we care? Nope. Is it our business to determine if he did the right thing or not, just because of a single photograph? Nope. A photograph doesn't determine anything. But he sure lost some kind of privacy that he deserved to have. And that, my friends, is some scary shit.

What if you are walking with your sister, give her a hug and some douchebag decides to "out" you, not knowing who she is? What if you are having lunch with a very attractive client and your sister in law doesn't know and decides to give gossip a try? People need to live their own lives and let people do the same. What if the angle of the photograph in question was misleading? Yeah, you get the picture. We will never know.

People I beg of you. Be careful. Close your accounts to the people you know. Give that Privacy Setting a try and look for any nook and cranny to protect yourself, your loved ones and your friends from situations like these. You never know what intentions some crazy people have out there.

Let's Protect Privacy once again. For everybody.

How to Properly Joke on Barack Obama

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Click at the name of the post for more... Yikes.

For some, it's Holy Week...

For the rest of us? This.

Holy 3D Jesus: Monsters Vs Aliens!

I can't remember the last time I felt like a kid in a movie. You remember the feeling, don't you? Watching something that blew your brain, knowing that you were having so much fun you wanted to jump, laugh and even throw popcorn to strangers? Well, I'd like to say thank you to Dreamworks, because for a couple of hours, I was a four year old again.

WHAT A GREAT 3D MOVIE! Monsters vs Aliens is proof that Dreamworks can almost achieve Pixar greatness, if they only try. And boy, did they deliver. The story is very very funny, the voices are priceless. How good? Let me give you the actor list and you be the judge: Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Keifer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Paul Rudd and Stephen Colbert. Yeah, that's how great the voices are.

If you are not laughing 15 minutes in the film... well... um... maybe you're not human. There are SOOOOO MANY pop culture references in this film, punchlines galore (adult ones, thank God)... the set and costume designs RULE but most of all: the 3D! WHOA! 15 seconds into the film you think... damn this movie cannot be seen if it's not in this way. Please, I beg of you, if you can look for a Dolby 3D theater, do it.

For me, it will be very difficult to return to animated flicks without it. This was THE way to watch an animated movie, by far. Oh and for you Colbert Nation fans, there is a very nice touch that you will love.

Is this movie better than any Pixar movie? Ok, it doesn't have that special flare that movies like Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles had. Those people SURE know how to make movies for families in general, most of all not leaving parents behind. Pixar always gets to hit your sentimental bone while you are laughing your butt silly. But still, I cannot deny that this is far better that what they did before. Spinal Tap mode: It goes to eleven.

So, pack your popcorn and get the kids out. Put your 3D glasses on and remember me when you are jumping in your seat while you return to your childhood. Enjoy...

PS: Don't mind the bad reviews. This is just a fun movie. No Oscar nomination are needed, honestly. I mean... come on, at the end of the day, it's just a flick for kids. You hear me you Slumdog Millionare loving critics out there? For. Kids.

Free Hugs.

Last Sunday I attended a small comic convention. Apart from the usual cosplayers (look it up), nerds, Star Wars Geeks, Star Trek Gods (not too many but still they rule), tweens and teenagers... I stumbled on a movement that seems a little bit weird. What, pray tell did I see, loads of times? Free hugs.

This is just a post so people can answer me because I have a couple of questions. I agree that the movement started by a viral video made for a guy that had lost his grandmother and was in dire need of love. I totally can understand his motive. When the video got bigger in the net, the movement changed. It turned into the basic idea that some people out there had lost human contact of some sort and some people out there started giving it back to those who needed it. Perfect, I'm still understanding.

This "Free Hugs" movement, mostly seen in any type of Comic Con gathering is a bit more... weird. LOADS of teenagers are writing on the next piece of paper that they can get their hands on this simple message. They run around the con hugging left and right. I watched them for hours last Sunday, but I did remember having seen this in other bigger cons. Hm.

What can it possibly be? Are they hungry for any type of sexual contact? Do they really mean all the hugs that they give? Lots of the hugs I saw were not so sincere and lacking human emotion. So, if you are not fully commited... why do it? Some seemed desperate for attention. Hey, you could see it in their faces.

This generation astounds me. By watching them for hours and hours, all I could see were depressed faces with moments of glee, mainly when they saw their favorite "characters" alive by cosplay. Yes, they sometimes dance and laugh, but for the most part they are just... they seem... lost. I sometimes think that things like the internet and tv have made them lose contact with the real world, with real humans. They are so consumed by comic books, videogames, chat rooms, text messages... I can bet that if I ask one of them the last time they went out and enjoyed the sun they won't be able to answer me.

Is sad the new black? Is lost the new trend? And the most important question is... can we as fathers and mothers give them the idea that at the end, it's all going to be ok?

Help! My Netflix Queue is at an all time low...

Hey guys. Just visited my Netflix account and yikes, it's not looking good. Any ideas? Come on, help me build a decent queue again... Write back and tell me what's good!

PS: I love documentaries. If you have ideas on those they are very much welcome...

Much love! Me.