Things on my mind. George Drapeau's Weblog

Here's an update to last week's entry about me getting engaged on Facebook.  (I am so online, it's not even funny)

I got an email message from Facebook; here is the Subject line of that message:

<name withheld to protect the innocent> said that you two are married...

That's quite a claim.  I just had to read on; here is what the message said:

<name-of-person-requesting-Facebook-marriage> said on Facebook that you two are married.  We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, married to <name-of-future-wife>.

To confirm this relationship request, follow the link below:

When I logged into Facebook, it notified me that You have a relationship request from <said-person>.  Clicking on the link brought me to The Big Facebook Moment:

You have a request from <still-not-going-to-tell-you-her-name> (Silicon Valley, CA) to add her as your spouse... Would you like to confirm your relationship with <she-is-mine-go-get-your-own-Facebook-wife>?

then the two buttons Confirm and Ignore.

Geez, this is more involved than our wedding vows.

What happens when I press Confirm?  It's anticlimactic, really: Facebook congratulates us by saying You are now in a relationship with <name-of-Facebook-and-real-life-wife>.

What?  That's it?  I don't even get, like, a coupon good for 20% off dinner at a nice, quiet restaurant in (Silicon Valley, CA)?  Apparently, being married is supposed to be satisfying enough.

Turns out it is.

It's true, sort of: Facebook is correctly showing me as engaged, and I couldn't be happier.  But Facebook put a scare into one of my friends; let me back up and tell you the story.

I got engaged about six months ago, and in December my fiancee decided to update our friendship status on Facebook.  The way you do that is to update your profile to say "I am now engaged to so-and-so."  Simple enough; my fiancee updated her relationship status, and I got a message from Facebook that said:

<your fiancee> said on Facebook that you two are engaged.
We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, engaged to <your fiancee>.
To confirm this relationship request, follow the link below.

I suppose that's a good thing: I don't want just anybody to declare they are engaged to me and have Facebook shout it to the world without my approval.  It seemed a little silly to me, but I went into Facebook and confirmed that, yes I am engaged to the person who updated our relationship status.

But I don't check Facebook incessantly, and there was a lag between the time my fiancee made the relationship-status-upgrade request* and when I confirmed.  Meanwhile, one of my close friends logged into her Facebook account and saw a status update message about me: it told her that "<my fiancee> and George Drapeau ended their relationship."  She immediately sent me a panicked message (through Facebook, of course) to ask if I neglected to tell her something.  I assured her that we were okay, it was just a Facebook thing.

I guess Facebook is taking the safe route: until you confirm a relationship change, you are in relationship-limbo.  Maybe this is the Facebook version of two-phase commit (no pun intended, for you computer geeks out there).

I tell ya though: I'm a little bit nervous about changing my status this Saturday to "Married".  Does this mean we'll have to break up first?  And what if somebody else swoops in with a relationship update request to one of us while we're waiting for the confirmation to go through?  This is turning into the most stressful part of the wedding planning; sheesh!

* In the future, marriage proposals will sound like this: "If I updated my Facebook relationship status to say that I am engaged with you, would you click the 'Confirm' button?"  "Yes, I would be happy to confirm lol"
Sigh.

USC 44, ND 24

There's nothing related to Sun in this entry. Tonight, I don't care. Loyalty is worth something to me, and I'm nothing if not loyal to my alma mater, the University of Southern California. Tonight's game against the Catholics of Northern Indiana (that would be Notre Dame) can be safely summed up with these two photos, I think:

The Thrill Of Victory

---

And, Well...You Know The Rest

Next Up: The University of California annex, Los Angeles branch.

This weekend while I was on vacation in Kerala, I got the most amazing news: this guy proposed to my cousin while they were on vacation (based on the photo you see here, he's actually much funnier than looks). She said yes; I couldn't be happier.

(By the way, folks: this is in no way related to my wonderful weekend in Kerala; I'm writing this now because I'm so damned proud of these two announcing their big news and I just couldn't keep it to myself.)

Congratulations, Kim and Anil! I am so happy for you both.

Now Anil: when exactly does The Karaoke King come out again?

Oh. My. God.

I just checked into the hotel where I'll be staying for the weekend. I'm in Bangalore for business for about two weeks and decided to give myself a treat with a relaxing weekend near a beach in the southern Indian state of Kerala. It's been a while since I've given myself some good rest, so after struggling with the decision, I finally decided to pamper myself.

All I have time to tell you for now is that Pankaj (see the photo above) is my buddy.

But hey, I gotta go. There's high tea in the library starting in a few minutes; after that is my massage appointment, then dinner by the beach. Lots to do, no time to write. You understand, I'm sure.

Think I'm Done? Don't Be Silly.

I promised myself that I'd try to avoid writing about things in this blog unrelated to technology, management, teamwork, or my job and its experiences. But something is about to happen that has got me so excited, I just gotta share it here.

It's Television.

Call me pathetic, but I love a good TV show, and Aaron Sorkin's new TV show is set to premiere next Monday (the 18th, 10PM, NBC). I think that Aaron Sorkin's writing (if you don't know who Aaron Sorkin is, you might know some of his work: The West Wing, Sports Night, The American President, A Few Good Men) is some of the best writing that television has ever had.

Anyway, Sorkin's new show, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", premieres on Monday night. I think it's going to be a treat, and in reminiscing about some of Sorkin's previous stuff I came across a question that I'm going to have fun thinking about during long runs and my commute to and from work.

The question is this: who is the greatest Aaron Sorkin character?

I'm having a tough time with this one because I think there are a bunch of great Sorkin characters, whether regular characters or recurring guest characters (Lord John Marbury for one, Ted McGinley's "Gordon" character from "Sports Night" for another).

Man, it's tough. I don't think I can pick just one. But if I could pick a couple of Sorkin's best characters, I might pick from amongst these:

• Dan Rydell, Sports Night (Josh Charles, actor)
• Dana Whitaker, Sports Night (Felicity Huffman)
• Josh Lyman, TWW (Bradley Whitford)
• Jeremy Goodwin, SN (Joshua Malina; his character Will Bailey started out well until Sorkin left the show, then the Bailey character just got ugly)

So, what do you think are Sorkin's best characters? I'm not sure what my *favorite* characters are, but the ones I named here are some of his best, I think.

P.S.

...and I'm having trouble deciding who's the better patriarch: Leo McGarry or Isaac Jaffe (SN, Robert Guillaume). Whaddya think?