Nameless, faceless Google

Is it just me or is Google becoming more Microsoft-like by the day. I was very keen on Google at the outset and I still think they have brilliant services, but the way the run them is looking more and more at odds with their “don’t be evil” mantra.

When you contact them, for example, you get a nameless, faceless response from a section representative, very much like you’re talking to a machine. That’s if you get a response, of course, and it isn’t a form letter.

I really dislike this kind of “customer service”. How hard is it to sign your name to the email? If you’re not allowed, why? Who is going to get hurt if I talk to a real human being?

Windows Vista in Meatspace

So Beautiful, So Disturbing

I wake. For a moment, I stare at the ceiling trying to remember something. Something important. Something important happened last night, but the details escape me. Something fascinating yet sinister, like touring the CIA offices. Something exotic yet somehow familiar, like putting hot sauce on meatloaf. I wonder if I have a hangover. I wonder why I am thinking about the CIA and meatloaf. I roll onto my side.

There is a strange woman in bed with me.

A lot of things happen at once. First, I realize that this is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and I am a lucky, lucky man. Second, I realize that this is not my wife, and I panic. Third, I realize that she’s awake, has been watching me sleep. Fourth, before I can really react to thoughts 1 and 2, she smiles at me and speaks with a lovely accent I can’t quite place: “So. You like new wife, yes? Yes. Up now, I make breakfast.”

She gets out of bed and stretches, perfect curves sliding under silky lingerie and momentarily making me forget about breakfast, meatloaf, and whoever it was I was married to before last night. She seems to know this, and smiles at me again, but apparently she’s serious about making breakfast. She turns and strides confidently from the room. As she does, I see for the first time the large Microsoft logo splayed across her back. My stomach lurches as I suddenly remember everything.