Off Topic: Living In A Fool's Purgatory

And by that I mean just sitting here, waiting for something bad to happen.

When Killboy took his blog to Facebook a couple of years ago, for understandable commercial reasons, I didn't follow.  I miss the hilarious comments, and the ability to comment, but am unwilling to be "tracked" on social media.  (At the time, some blog members predicted a decline in the quality and humor of comments on the Killboy page, and they were right.  To put this another way, as Jon Stewart recently said, "[the terrorist group] Isis uses social media as a weapon?  I have news for you: everybody uses social media as a weapon.")

Of course I use Google all the time--who can get by without a search engine?   The display ads which annoy me (all ads annoy me) are for or about cars, often local: targeted to my zip code.  Recently I showed my sister a website on her iPad.  When she brought it up, the ads were for women's clothing. When it comes to tracking, nobody gets out alive.

I don't shop or pay bills or bank online.  When I visit a customer service desk, this sometimes makes the representative smile condescendingly.  Not to mention my children and nieces. "Who's got time for all that Luddite paper and stamps?!?  Think of the convenience, man!"

All the same, the customer data of the department store I shop at most often was hacked last winter--right after I had finished my Christmas shopping.  Today brings the news that the customer and employee data of my bank was hacked.  For a second time, as I recall.

So here I sit, fortress-like, surrounded by the wall of my paper invoices, pre-addressed envelopes, and stamps.  Waiting for the first breach of the wall by a teenaged Ukrainian, Russian, or KGB spy.  (I pick on the Ukrainians and Russians because they are, improbably, 22% of the overseas hits on this blog.)