Friday Fun. (Hey, how old DO you think I look?)

I bow to no man, woman or child in my ability to find ways to waste time on the Internet.

I know, I know.

We’re all pretty good at it.

After all, who doesn’t want to look at a video of a cute puppy hiccupping? Who doesn’t get up in the middle of the night and google up the name of a guy they dated a couple of times 40+ years ago to see what he’s up to? Who doesn’t hop on Amazon and comb through couple of dozen reviews of a book written by someone they vaguely know?

Then there’s looking at kitchen designs, auto-diagnosing an imagined illness, listening to some old song that pops into your mind. (Haven’t you ever had the urge to hear “You’re So Fine” by the Falcons?)

So it goes without saying that I was thrilled to find Microsoft’s how-old.net.

It’s a show-off site for Azure (which is MSFT’s cloud service platform).

The site was unveiled [last] Thursday at the company’s Build 2015 conference to show off the powerful of its cloud service platform. The website lets you upload a photo, and then quickly analyzes the individual, and spits out an estimated age. (Source: PC World.)

Well, what’s not to like about this time waster?

Especially if you put in a head-shot taken when you were 61 and it estimates your age as 55.

Although this is my picture on LinkedIn, I’m not especially enamored of it. But I will admit that it looks like me. Sort of. (And, of course, I do look years younger than I am. You go, Microsoft. True that!)

One of the reasons I’m not wild about this picture is that it was taken at the request/on the demand of a former client of mine. Somewhere along the line, she decided she wanted me to be a co-author on a contributed article I’d written with/for her. The picture I sent her wasn’t professional enough, so I had to go out and get this one taken.

Anyway, I worked for this woman – who had a small consulting company in a niche technology area – for about a year, doing contract work: writing and research. Pretty much every blessed moment was sheer hell. (I can’t even begin to get into the awfulness…Someday I’ll dedicate a post to the experience.)

One of the high points of my consulting career was the day I told her that I could no longer work for her.

My husband cannily predicted that she would be back and, sure enough, over the next couple of years she put a couple of feelers out through an emissary.

All I can say is that I’d dig up my old white comfy shoes and apply for a job as a battle-ax Durgin-Park waitress before I’d do a lick of work for this woman. Unless she gave me a non-refundable (renewable) upfront payment of $25,000. A payment that I could keep in full if at any moment in time I felt she was being capricious or unreasonable.

The other picture I tested out on how-old.net was one of my favorites. It’s a selfie taking by our virtual nephew Sam a couple of months before Jim died. Sam is 32 here. Jim is 69. (The scally cap – which Sam is now in possession of - was to cover the brain surgery scar. Jim didn’t always wear it indoors, but they’d just come back from lunch.)

The photo estimator puts Sam at 40 and Jim at 62.

Jim was, in fact, remarkably youthful looking, and young in spirit and demeanor.

I’m happy that MSFT’s facial recognition technology places him as younger than he was, especially given all he’d been through by this point.

When this picture was taken, Jim didn’t have much time, but he still had some life in him. He never really got all that old looking – at least not to me. (What can I say? To me, Diggy’s forever young. “Forever Young:” another song worth listening to. Here’s the Joan Baez version. What did I say about my most excellent capacity to waste time on the Internet?)

But this is about your capacity to waste time on the ‘net.

Come on. It’s Friday.

Go head. Take a selfie. Head on over to how-old.net.

You know you want to.