Sunday, October 31, 2010

Working to erase my digital footprint

Does anyone know what it takes to try and wipe your digital footprint from the internet......especially when you have a somewhat uncommon name?  It's impossible.

I've been working to scrub my presence on the internet for HOURS today.  I am "officially" off Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.  I am no longer LinkdIn or Plaxo'd and I have no wishlist on Amazon (not that anyone ever noticed).  Unfortunately, Google's cache remembers every single thing.   

A recent search of my name primarily shows my comments on several blogs.  They are rather mundane comments on family-type blogs.  Actually those comments make me look rather sweet.

I have removed my abandoned blogs. Once again, Google Cache allows them to remain indefinitely.   I am grateful that I had the foresight not to have my name attached to any of those blogs.

I've also changed my email address which doesn't contain a variant of my first and/or last names.  It's not so much that I'm paranoid but who really wants their name floating around the internet decades after they've died?  Pretty creepy, if you ask me.

And this is just one of the reasons I am working to erase my digital footprint. 

Happy Halloween!


I'm embarrassed to admit that I have turned into one of those old curmudgeons who shuts off her porch light on Halloween and hides in the back of the house cursing EVERY TIME my doorbell rings.  What part of my porch light being off screams "I'm home.  Push my doorbell thirty-seven times"?

Everyone knows that you don't go to a house whose light is off unless your parents are just jerk-offs who drive in from other parts of the city to trick-or-treat in the nicer neighborhoods. You know which parent-types I especially love?  The ones who put forth such effort that they drive along side their child or better yet, the ones walking around with their kids while drinking beer. Awesome parenting!

When my children were younger, we took them trick or treating every year.  I handed out at least $50 worth of candy EVERY year.  I handed out candy to "children" who were over 6 feet tall, who had the nerve to come back two and three times within thirty minutes and whose voices were lower than my husband's.  I especially loved the ones who took the time and effort to dress up like............themselves.

Other than Halloween night, I had never seen over 90% of these people before and the majority of them either didn't speak English or didn't possess the common decency to say "thank you" when given candy.  I'll be honest, when the grown up kids came around for trick-or-treating, I always gave them the candy that my kids didn't want.

Let's not talk about how these little bastards destroyed all the pumpkins that my children proudly carved every year.

The truth of the matter is, I did buy Halloween candy this year.  I ate it ALL, ya' little bastards!

Happy Halloween!