Some Facebook Rants

I recently purged my “friend” list on Facebook. At first I thought it was great to have so many “friends” and to reconnect with people. But as my experience has progressed I have realized that these people are not my “friends”. In fact, I spent four years in high school or college in the proximity of some of these people without ever having a real conversation. My feeling is that if I didn’t make a point to “connect” with them then, why would I now? That may seem heartless and cruel, but it is a fact. I don’t dislike them or wish them ill – I just don’t want to get step up our current association level and become involved in their daily affairs. Most of the people won’t even notice – after all, they have like 300 friends’ lives to wade through and I am probably not on the top of the list. So, my “friend” list has dwindled from 200 to around 120. That is still too many. I would love to pine it down to 50, but that would cause some serious friction among acquaintances.

Maybe that is the next innovation that needs to take place on Facebook – differing categories. Instead of emasculating the definition of the word “friend”, why can’t we categorize people based on our actual relationship? If they are business related, church related, old school people, or whatever else that might solve the problem for me. I know, they have the “top 10” friends group or whatever, but anything that says “Hey, we are going to take all of your information and disseminate it as we please” usually leads me to click “ignore.”

Which leads me to my next Facebook rant – all of these groups and causes are pointless. I don’t join any causes because, listen closely, THEY DON’T DO ANYTHING!!! By definition a “cause” affects change. Signing up for something on Facebook does not make any difference to cancer, to the old vs. new Facebook layout – to anything. Your virtual support is just that – virtual and not actual. Prayer is not going to get put back in schools, abortion is not going to get outlawed, Obama is not going to get impeached just because you join a group or cause. How about writing or emailing your congress person? You might have a shot then. But I don’t think our representatives are trolling about the Facebook groups to help them determine policy.

And if you are signing up to make a statement to your friends, shouldn’t they already know where you stand? Or perhaps they are not actually your friends but merely people you sort of knew at one time. And so we have come full circle.

Social Networking Experiment

It has taken me all this time, but I finally have a Facebook account. I resisted for a long time for many reasons. They are as follows:

First, I associated Facebook with MySpace. MySpace conjures up images of teenie boppers, pedophiles, and terrible HTML coding. It seemed like every MySpace page I go to is bright blue lettering on a fluorescent pink background with kids boasting about their exploits and crappy music making the page take 10 minutes to fully load even with a fast internet connection. That is not my idea of a good time. So, why bother with this new upstart Facebook?

Secondly, I don’t particularly like talking to people, even people with which I have had a previous relationship. So I hear of my peers (30 year old people I respect) saying, “I have to check my Facebook” and I thought, “How lame are you?” Their defense usually consisted of, “It is better than you think. I connected with a guy I knew in college. It is pretty cool.” I thought, “I don’t care about people from the past. If we haven’t kept up until now why bother starting again?”

But, with my recent move to Kentucky, I have become nostalgic and have felt the need to keep connected with my old Youth Group in Tennessee. And sure enough, I have reconnected with some people from college and even high school. I have made the following discoveries:

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Aaron Fritz is still alive.
Tom Flammer has a collection of Football cards worth $1310. ‘Nuff said.
Justin Mayes is not in jail unless they have online access in the penitentiary.

However, I have a few questions:

I am interested in the etiquette involved. If I ignore someone who has asked to be my friend, are they going to commit suicide? I mean really, if I found them annoying in college, why would I want to go down that road in the cyber world? Or do you just have everyone be your friend, even if you can’t remember who they are even though they went to your high school or college?

What’s the deal with being a super friend or top friend or whatever? Do I make that designation or does Facebook using some arbitrary formula?

Does anyone else find it bizarre that the little bit of information you give them connects you with long forgotten people?

Which is better – “write on wall” or “wall to wall”?

So, Facebook is not as lame as I thought. If you have any suggestions to how I can enjoy the experience even more, I am open to hearing them. See you online…friend.

the fair, facebook and RSS

This week I'm at the Neshoba County Fair, otherwise known as "Mississippi's Giant Houseparty."



Here's a link to the Fair website: http://www.neshobacountyfair.org/



The fair really can't be explained, it must be experienced. Just ask Sam. Basically this week I'll be trying to keep the red clay out of clothes, chasing Larry around, catching up with my dad's side of the family, and enjoying same frosty adult beverages.



On a social networking note, the new version of Facebook is appearing. It does make a better use of the space, but the transfer from my previous profile is less than satisfactory. I really don't care about the feed. I would rather see bumper stickers and movies and apps than reinforcing the fact that I have changed my status or I am listening to a Pandora station. Is there any way to get the "home" page onto your main profile instead of flipping back and forth. We'll how it goes.



RSS has got to be one of the greatest inventions ever!! Feed me worldwide web. Let me gorge on your feast of trivial, insignificant, but important information. How I love receiving hourly transfer gossip and club news from all the soccer sites and ridiculous headlines from digg.com. I could spend all day just checking my feed and I would be OK with that. Well maybe a little time off to play FIFA or watch a movie. It's good to have goals.

another week living the dream

The Euro 2008 quarterfinals were amazing.

Portugal were overrun by Germany and yet still had a chance to equalize at the end. Scolari really pissed me off with his subs. Simao had to have been one of the disappointments of the entire tournament. Just a waste.

For the Croatia/Turkey game, I wasn’t surprised. I gave up after the first extra period. It was painful to watch. I figured Turkey would win on penalties. Two goals in two minutes was shocking though. I have heard comments that Turkey are this year's Greece. Well we'll see v Germany. Between suspensions and injuries, they'll barely have a team. Ff they win on wed, they will beat whoever they play in the final. A Croatia v Germany rematch would have been quite interesting but you don't mess with destiny.

Holland v Russia showed what a team can do against individuals. Holland fell apart in the second half and were lucky to even be in the game. Arshavin has to be one of the most influential players since Zidane. He makes Russia world class and can single handedly unbalance defenses. Spain didn’t face him the first time around and I feel that Russia will knock out Spain.

The Spain v Italy game went exactly like it was supposed to. Italy defended and Spain couldn't break them down. The only surprise was that Spain held their nerve in the PK's. I would still like that two hours of my life back, but Spain v Russia, partII should be very interesting.

I watched a little bit of The Office, Season 3 this weekend. Uncomfortably funny as usual. The merger plot line is rich in humor and the show made the most of it. How great is Dwight? Tool does not even begin to describe him. I love the dry, sarcastic humor of the background characters. And don’t forget Pretzel Day. I don’t even have that to look forward to.

I find it interesting that my disparaging comments re: Dunkin Donuts raised the ire of the some readers out there. I’m not dissing Dunkin because I work for a competitor. I just hated that commercial. I also find it interesting that since then, Crystal and Brandon have become fans of Dunkin on Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, the more I explore, the more I realize how much time I could waste on that site. Between chatting, reviewing other people’s profiles, uploading pics, creating bumper stickers and taking the never ending movie challenge, I would have to quit my job and get divorced. I want my page to be DYNAMIC!!! What a loser I am.