An old work buddy, Bryan Murphy, recently started a blog called ilovebryanmurphy.com. Though only weeks old, it's already full of cool stuff and great writing. Check it out. You'll love him as much as he does.
His latest entry is about something all guys do at night, when we're hunched over our computers with our pants off and there's a wad of Kleenex in our hands. We google people from the past. The pantslessness is for comfort at the Kleenex is to catch the tears of joy when we find an old friend's address.
I google a lot. I look deep into that invitingly minimalist search page and think: "Who was that one girl I used to stare at in 11th grade?" Then I type her in name and am relieved when I see her name pop up and find out she teaches kindergarten and is unmarried. It's nice to know that ex-crushes from high school are unmarried. It pleases my inner 15-year old, who still thinks he's got a shot.
I also like to google myself now and then. OK, a lot. There aren't too many Brian Kunaths out there, and most of them speak German. So I've got a front seat on Google. Anything I do online launches me right to the top of the list. Like this article I wrote for an online employment Website. I got paid $100 to write that in 1999, which wasn't a lot of money back then either.
There are also about a thousand links to my book, Fearless Brewing. Check out the glowing customer reviews. Six of the seven reviewers are old friends and the seventh only kinda liked the book.
Last night I found a new one. Turns out that in 2000, a Senate Subcommittee, headed by actor Fred Thompson, prepared a report on Day Trading that referenced an article I wrote for a financial magazine in 1999. That made me feel vaguely important and connected for a few minutes. Until I remembered what a lousy job I did on that article, and how much I hated earning $28K a year and getting paid once a month to interview bajillionaire money market managers about the viability of completing a institutional trade transaction in a single day. I get angry just thinking about it. Great, now I'm angry. Thanks a lot, Bryan Murphy
2 comments:
Try having a name like Jon Clarke. No one is ever going to find me online. And seems like everyone else my name pulls up on google is more successful than I am.
Bet they're happier too.
You sir, are a scoundrel!
Encouragement of the common man to indulge in inebriates is unbecoming
a gentleman of your once renowned stature.
I do declare, on the public record, displeasure of my recent attention to the facts regarding your role in the corruption of a once sound institution of unblemished moral standards - making available through the new technology of the printing-press - the tools and behaviours necessary for social corruption and moral ineptitude.
Sir, if you were indeed standing in my immediate presence, I would strike you about the face forthwith a linen glove and invite you to participate in a duel - one in which you could stand before me as I restore honour and dignity to polite society as a gentleman with the insertion of a cold saber through your beating heart.
You are indeed a harbinger of the unbecoming vile behaviour of indulgence. For shame!
Sincerely yours in displeasure,
Sir B. John Murphy of Lynnshire
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