The Next Step

1. Find out I got three A’s and an A- (+1)
2. Find out my mechanic doesn’t have the mirror he said he’d have today to fix my car. (-1)
3. The Bruins beat the Senators, 7-2 (+1)
4. Rumor has it that Amazon is going to try their hand at opening a DRM-less music store (+0.5?)

Also, it would appear that my readership entirely disappeared with the beginning of Northeastern’s winter break. Oops.

Hey kids! It turns out that if you didn’t burn your Damon shirt, you’re in luck. Daisuke Matsuzaka wears number 18, and with just a few readily-available materials, you can update that forsaken shirt and use it again!

What you’ll need
One (1) Johnny Damon t-shirt.

One (1) duct tape of the same color as your shirt.

One (1) Sharpie.

Procedure
1. Using the duct tape, tape over the word “Damon” located just above the “18″ on the back of your shirt. Warning: Don’t tape over the 18! This is very important!
2. Using the sharpie, write “Matsuzaka” or “Dice-K” on the duct tape.

And you’re done! Enjoy your shirt all over again!

Hi, my name is Nate. And I’m here today to warn you about something very dangerous. Something called Google.

Back in high school, I discovered a little site called Google. Nothing wrong with that. Google was a search engine, not unlike Yahoo and Excite (showing my age a bit, I think). A friend recommended it to me, so I gave it a shot. When I did, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Clicking the search button yielded *gasp* relevent results. Sites upon sites that really related to my query! It was a high that I had never experienced before.

It was a slow start, probably because of my dial-up internet connection at the time. But after going to college, it wasn’t long before I was hitting up the big G a few times a day, I started to have certain… expectations. I had a need for a thrill, and “I’m feeling lucky” just wasn’t cutting it anymore. And then, something happened.

I got a very exclusive, at the time, “invitation” to try out something new from Google. They called it “GMail”. This is The Next Step, they assured me. You want that feeling back? GMail can give it to you, if you just create an account. Google understands me, I thought. They know what I want, they really care, they know what I’m going through. And they’re giving me that feeling back. And sure enough, they did. From the moment I clicked on that compose button and realized that the page didn’t have to refresh, I was hooked. I told all my friends, sent them invitations, brought them all in. And life was great. They rolled out feature after orgasmic feature, increasing the rush slowly over time. And, for a time, that was enough. But they succeeded only in making me hungrier, expecting more and more. And profile photos were just not gonna cut it.

So I looked anywhere I could to get what I needed. I tried Google Calendar, but it just wasn’t new enough. It was too GMailish: different, but not stronger. I outgrew it in a matter of days. I was running out of services. Google Docs & Spreadsheets were just more GMail-style magic in a different context, I didn’t even bother with them. Instead, I went straight to the source: Google Labs.

The back alley, pre-beta wonderland of services in Google labs was exactly what I was looking for. Around every corner was another app, offering another service: Talk, Froogle, Notebook, Earth, Maps, Video, Checkout, Scholar, Reader, the list goes on. I was hopelessly addicted. Nothing could give me the rush I so desperately sought, but Google was perfectly willing to continue making promises they knew they couldn’t keep, so long as I kept the personal information coming.

Now, Google has all my email, my schedule, my to-do list, and my credit card number. They know where I live, where I go, and which blogs and news articles I read. They know who I chat with and what videos I watch. And I keep giving them more.

So, my friends, learn from my mistakes. Don’t be pulled in by the promises of flashy, user-friendly interfaces. Anytime you see a program that is just too good to be true, just think to yourself, who paid someone to make that so nice? Why did they pay so much just to get me to use this “free” service? Don’t end up like me, begging Google for another hit, wishing only that you had more information to give. Warn your children, tell your friends: it’s not worth it.