No, But Really

I know that this is going to sound incredibly self-centered, but sometimes I think the internet is in my head. Like the whole thing actually just forms in my brain, all the content and everything, and other people have somehow managed to gain access to it all but don't realize that they are really connecting to my brain rather than some amorphous world wide web. I'm not saying its imaginary or non-existent, just that my brain contains the entire web. And yeah, if the internet really was my brain Wikipedia would be a lot less in-depth and have more entries about recent sales at Anthropologie and pandas and fewer about quantum phsyics and Magic: The Gathering, but still. Everytime I convince myself that my crazy delusions are just that, something like www.cakesandbabies.blogspot.com comes a long and sends me right back into that headspace where Wi-Fi hotspots have access to my brain and the planet actually spins around me rather than the sun.

Because here is the thing: I am a long-time lover of cake and an admirer of babies. (I was going to leave it as "lover of babies," but than I realized how that might read. This is meant to amuse, not gross people out.) I have baked many a cake. I have not made many a baby (something that my mother, my college advisor, and my better sense are all relieved to know) but I certainly like them and have been known to hatch not-too-far-fetched plans to kidnap particularly cute ones. So I think we can establish that this whole "website devoted to food and babies" thing is something I would appreciate. IF I HADN'T COME UP WITH THE IDEA EIGHT BILLION YEARS AGO.

And by eight billion years I actually mean two. But seriously, two years ago during an especially nasty final exam period, C and I were freaking out in the library and talking about how great CuteOverload was for procrastination. (For those not in the know, CuteOverload is a site were people send in cute photos of their pets and visitors ooh and aah over them.) Suddenly, I was struck with the most genius idea EVER. I even have Instant Messaging proof, as follows:

Shoshanimal1: I just thought of the best/most dangerous website
Shoshanimal1: cuteoverload, but for babies
Shoshanimal1: human babies
Keeshi41: HAHA
Shoshanimal1: I KNOW
Shoshanimal1: the potential for AWESOME is unfortunately perfectly matched with the potential for creepy/illegal/pervyness
Keeshi41:hahaha
Keeshi41: yea you made it sound super shady
Shoshanimal1: because it is super shady
Shoshanimal1: only here, shady=amazing

So you see? I SAW THIS COMING.

I hope you don't think I'm accusing the Cakes and Babies folks of stealing my idea, because they didn't. The most likely explanation is that they are smart people who appreciate the combination of cute babies and yummy cake and thought it might be fun to make a website out of it - a sort of "two great tastes that taste great together." But maybe, just maybe, ethernet cords actually connect to my brain rather than the interwebs (which are, of course, a series of connecting tubes and thus are an improbable form of mass communication to begin with) and so when I come up with fabulous ideas, two years later they emerge as websites.

Which means that you don't have long to wait until some enterprising start-up will be selling rocket boots online. Now aren't you glad that this is all my brain?

They Came, They Saw, They Ate

The past few days have been a whirlwind of sight-seeing and tour-guiding as I took three of my dear friends, Acree, Ben, and Victoria around the greater Bay Area. During our jaunts around SF and Berkeley we talked a lot, as is our wont, about how this experience would look if we were making a movie about it. There would be a lot of montages of photographs of the four of us smiling, laughing, hanging off of each others arms as we lean in to whisper something, all intermixed with footage of people playing practical jokes on each other, climbing trees, walking in the surf, and generally looking happy, healthy, and gently, inoffensively hip. As you can tell, this film is destined to be a box office smash.

But anyway, if "Acree, Ben, Victoria and Shoshi Do The Bay Area" is a movie, then clearly their must be a moral, or at least some realization that the protagonist comes to. And seeing as how this is my blog, I get to be the protagonist. So here is my grand realization: I'm just not very good at showing visitors around the Bay Area. And this is why: its such a great place to live that the stuff I show people are all the things that I do all the time, like eat out at great restaurants and wander around the streets aimlessly. So people who come and visit me get the Tour de Shoshi - experiencing what I do when I'm home from school rather than the things that tourists enjoy.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing - a lot of the tourist spots are stupid and superficial, and I think there is something to be said for seeing a city as a local does. But I do think I should start showing visitors to actually important places, like art museums and historical locations, if only because the only way I'll drag myself out to these things is if I have the excuse of showing them to the uninitiated.