Writer Vixen Explains It All

Deborah Needs Google (and a Pink Bus)

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A friend of mine sent me an email the other day telling me to Google “[your first name] needs” (including the quotes) and write down the first ten coherent results that came up. 

I’m not a big fan of stuff like this. I need new ways to waste time on the Internet about as much as I need new ways to eat Oreos—I already know more than I should. On the other hand, I did have three minutes until I had to put on lipstick, find my shoes, and grab my keys before dashing out the door. Three minutes that may have changed my life forever.

I’m no stranger to esoteric problem-solving techniques. I was seriously into tarot cards for a few years. I’ve meditated with crystals. I’ve been known to ask a question and then find the answer by opening a magazine or newspaper and randomly pointing to a phrase. I once had an iPod mini that seemed to possess a psychic DJ so utterly attuned to my thoughts and emotions that it was like walking around with my own personal life soundtrack. And I still keep a Magic 8-Ball on my desk. 

You know, just in case.

Overrated :: Underrated

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Courtney Martin, over at Crucial Minutiae, put me onto a terrific new blog called Overrated List. The List was inspired by a typically surly and provocative Christopher Hitchens quote in The New Yorker a few years back, in which he declared lobster, champagne, picnics and, um, anal sex “the four most overrated things in life.”

Andrew Marantz, creator of Overrated List, offers the rest of us the chance “to be smart and sassy like Christopher Hitchens, without having to sacrifice your liver or your dignity.” Marantz explains that “overrated things aren’t just bad things. Global warming and impetigo and Cleveland, for instance, would not make the cut, because they were never rated highly in the first place. In fact, most overrated things are good—just not that good, for crying out loud.”

It’s an inspired idea. Unlike Facebook’s “25 Things About Me,”—an exercise in viral narcissism more aptly titled “25 Things We All Wish You’d Kept to Yourself”—your Overrated List opens a revealing window into your world view. Part of it is the enforced brevity. With only four slots available, you have to make choices. And those choices embody telling insights about your personal value system.