Jane Returns with Irish Whiskey

So Jane got back a few hours ago from her trip with her mom to Ireland, and she brought many presents -- including a bottle of Irish whiskey that supposedly isn't available in the U.S.

So we sat on the front porch and listened to the stack of Irish folk music CDs she brought, and I sipped Irish and Jane drank wine and we watched the rain that's been falling all week. I read that

we've had more rain in the past two days than we had during the infamous Hurricane Floyd in 1999, which put most of the area around Plymouth under eight or 10 feet of water. But since the wetlands around the Roanoke River here haven't been developed, we stayed dry.

Anyway, Jane brought me a bottle of Green Spot Irish whiskey. I've been drinking scotch for years. The Irish whiskey is sweeter than scotch, but not as sweet as bourbon, which I've never cared for.

She also brought me a mini-bottle of Irish potcheen, or moonshine, as it's known in these parts. Note that the label says it's "Now Legal" in Ireland. Haven't opened that yet.

And, oh yeah, while in Ireland she went to some restaurants and visited an old castle, and some writer's thing in Dublin.

OK, OK, I'm Finally on Facebook . . .

. . . but I'm a tad uneasy about it. And the story by David Carr in the Sunday New York Times Arts & Leisure section about the new movie, "The Social Network," didn't do anything to diminish my uneasiness about plugging in to this giant online virtual-socializing and snooping enterprise.

The movie is based on the story of the creation of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg, a socially clumsy young man at Harvard who, in a sense, executed the uber-geek's ultimate ironic twist. He channeled his frustrations, social ineptitude and exceptional intelligence into creating what the Times calls "the largest engine of social interaction in the history of mankind."

And he made a gigantic amount of money in the process.

Here's how the Times described both the movie and the phenomenon of Facebook: "Social media -- with the technology that allows people instantly to inform dozens or hundreds of thousands of people about where they've been and what they've done, in pictures and in words -- become a kind of self-replicating organism in the film, feeding and consuming all who mouse over it."

So Facebook ranks up there with the invention of the printing press and the telephone in terms of ideas that have altered our world. Many innovations have claimed to make the world smaller, but Facebook has used the Internet and the proliferation of personal computers to reduce the world to the size of a telephone booth, if anybody still remembers how small a telephone booth is.

And, like a cranky hermit living in a cave high in the mountains, I've deliberately avoided Facebook until it seems like I'm the last person in the civilized world to join the fun. Even people whom I thought had jumped off the grid long ago have Facebook pages. The New York Times says there are 500 million people with Facebook accounts. So, clearly, the rest of the world doesn't have the reservations about Facebook that I have.

Why have I avoided it? Partly just simple orneriness. The older I get, the less comfortable I am with cutting-edge technology. And there's also the fact that I'm lazy, and maintaining a Facebook page is a form of work.

But mostly, I've avoided Facebook because I'm afraid of it. I read George Orwell's novel, 1984, a long time ago, and it affected me. 1984 describes a world in which an oppressive, authoritarian government knows everything about you and can observe your every move.

Facebook is a massive central data base into which one deposits detailed acounts of one's likes and dislikes, comings and goings, political and religious beliefs, sexual preferences, favorite colors and football teams, and recent purchases. That's an awful lot of info for someone somewhere -- or anyone, anywhere -- to have access to at the click of a mouse button. It's like Big Brother with a smile, to borrow a phrase I picked up somewhere, probably while browsing the Web. And I worry about what some people might do with that info.

Still, it's fascinating and absorbing to be able to tell the world about your favorite movies, your favorite books and quotes, and post favorite pictures of your cats or your friends in unguarded moments. And I'm enjoying it.

And if you're wondering why I finally decided to jump into Facebook, you'll have to go to my page to find the answer. I'm going there now to add 1984 to my list of favorite books and add a personal news update that I've posted a new entry on "Drye Goods." 

Hurricane Karl Floods Mexico

Hurricane Karl made landfall earlier today near Veracruz, Mexico. Here's a link to a story I did today about Hurricane Karl for National Geographic News.

Meanwhile, a weakening Hurricane Igor is expected to diminish to a Category 2 storm (winds of 96 mph to 110 mph) as it passes just east of Bermuda late Saturday. If Igor follows the forecast, Bermuda will be on the weak side of the storm.

Monster Igor Won't Bother Us

Hurricane Igor has become the most powerful hurricane of the 2010 season, but it's not going to threaten the U.S. So it's OK to breathe a sigh of relief and milk an obvious laugh from the fact that this year's monster storm carries the name of one of Hollywood's funniest characters -- the misshapen, bug-eyed lab assistant Igor played hilariously by Marty Feldman in the movie "Young Frankenstein." In the movie, Feldman's character insisted that his name be pronounced "Eye-gor."

Hurricane Igor's strongest winds reached 150 mph earlier today, an intensity that put it on the verge of becoming a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. But it looks like that intensity may have been Igor's peak because as of 11 p.m., the storm's strongest winds had diminished to 140 mph.

Here's a link to a story I did earlier today for National Geographic News about why Hurricane Igor is expected to stay well offshore.

NOTE: The photo illustration at the top of this post is a composite of a graphic from the website Weather Underground and Marty Feldman as "Igor" in the movie "Young Frankenstein."