Have you Googled yourself lately?

I know internet privacy is an ongoing issue and the mantra "be careful what you post" has been told to us all repeatedly, but I just discovered a new (to me, at least) and alarming site when I Googled myself.

Spock.com is one of a few sites that now troll the web and aggregate EVERYTHING about you on one convenient page. My full name? Check. Phone, email, birthdate? Check. Photos from the Friendster account I created almost 10 years ago, that I haven't even logged in to in almost as long? Check. Spock also offers the "feature" of people being able to tag you with whatever term they want, which, as you can imagine, is not always a good thing. Here is an article on Spock and the tags - http://bit.ly/11LKEe and here is another article in Wired - http://bit.ly/llHdf

I never used my full name on Myspace, and my facebook profile is only viewable if you are my friend. I have now gone through and deleted my Myspace and Friendster accounts. As actors, we are in a tricky situation, because our LA Casting, Actors Access, LinkedIn, and personal webpages are also showing up, so any contact information listed there is now added to the Spock page. I know this is available by any Google search, but somehow it's scarier to me to have it all in one place.

The Spock privacy policy states that since they pull their content from the web, the only way to avoid having it on their site is to remove it from the web. Since I'm not going to remove my resume and contact info from Actor's Access, I guess I just have to live with it. If you create an account with Spock, they email you whenever anyone edits your profile. I'll be doing that, since it seems like the only way to try to stay in control of any invalid or unsavory information.

The articles are from 2007, and I know that I have googled myself since then, so I'm not sure why I'm just seeing it now. I know there isn't much to be done, but I just wanted to give everybody a heads up. You might want to Google yourself more often. (Giggity. I've wanted to say that every time I've said "google yourself.")

So. Be warned. And yet another reason I'll always keep my blogger identity at least thinly veiled.

June 12 of 12

Happy June! This 12 of 12 is pretty Luna-riffic. As always, thanks to Chad Darnell for the idea. Check out other 12 of 12s from around the world at his site.

Here's my day:



7:05 am - 1 of 12 - I took a nice picture of the Seattle-like weather here in LA, but the computer wouldn't read it. So you get Luna tired from moving.


7:32 am - 2 of 12 - Nice art at the Universal City Red Line station.


7:55 am - 3 of 12 - 302 from Sunset and Highland to UCLA.


10:30 am - 4 of 12 - Ad. Dic. Ted. It's terrible.


11:17 am - 5 of 12 - See all these files? They are now alphabetized, thanks to yours truly.


1:29 pm - 6 of 12 - Lunch with my long lost bestie! We haven't seen each other in 3 years!


4:15 pm - 7 of 12 - Craftiness attempts to defeat boredom.


7:12 pm - 8 of 12 - Luna trying to get me while I organize my closet.


7:45 pm - 9 of 12 - Xan putting together our over-the-toilet cabinet. Yay!


10:05 pm - 10 of 12 - Luna is ignoring me because he knows he should not be on top of the empty and non-earthquake-proofed corner cabinet.


10:30 pm - 11 of 12 - Have you tried this stuff? If not, go buy some immediately. Delicious.


11:55 pm - 12 of 12 - Me and Luna. We've had a little champagne.

Bad Blogger. BAD.

I just slapped my own wrist to accompany the title. (I really did. I hadn't before I typed it, but then I felt like I was being untruthful, so I actually slapped my wrist. But not hard. I'm so Method.)

Yeah. Life happens. And sometimes it gets in the way of writing. I know I am the very first person ever to have that problem.

I moved, so that's my excuse. I moved one weekend and then my best friend from college surprised me with a visit that was two years in the making the next weekend and now this coming weekend my mom is coming to visit me for the first time in the two years I've lived in LA. I'm very excited. And somewhat sleep-deprived. And a little stressed about the state of my bathroom and bedroom. But the over-the-toilet cabinet has been purchased and is camping out in our bathroom so that every time we go in there it can prod us saying "So...when you going to actually put me together? I don't do it myself, you know." But buying it is half the battle. The other half is putting it together. And then the third half is actually putting things away in it.

I've had a wonderful influx of friends from the past coming back into my life lately. I was lamenting some of my lost or forgotten friendships, and they seem to be coming back one by one. I have lunch with a dear friend on Friday who just came to LA for some reason having to do with creating theatre. We think we haven't seen each other since 2006. It's hard to imagine who I even was then. Hopefully the new and more evolved me will still enjoy the company of the new and more evolved her.

My visiting friend last weekend saw my new apartment and my cat and proclaimed me a grown-up. For the first time in my life, I thought maybe that isn't such a bad thing. But I still know that I'm not really. Maybe I'm just getting better at living like one.