Social Networking-What am I Missing?

I absolutely do not understand the popularity of these social networking sites and I can’t be the only person who thinks this way. Would someone please explain what I am missing?

Years ago, I remember getting my first email account and how it gave me a good excuse for not returning messages right away, “Sorry, didn’t get your message… haven’t checked my email in a few days.” Don’t get me wrong, I like my friends as much as the next guy, and there’s nothing better than keeping in touch with acquaintances from the past.

However, this new phenomenon of hearing about every little detail of what friends are doing every second of the day is mind-boggling... I get little blurbs all day long, saying: “Getting coffee now… Traffic sucks… I am so tired.”

Ninety-nine percent of the time I could have an automated response that says, “Who Cares!?” If that other 1% of the time you need me to take you to the hospital for an emergency, you’re probably better off calling an ambulance (I pass out easily).

I feel like I may need to make an appointment with a psychologist. When she asks me what’s wrong, I’ll say, “Well, actually, I was feeling great, but reading all these constant complaints about nothing all day long gets depressing. What can I take?”

The best are the ones that say, “I am SO busy.” Well then, please take the twenty seconds you decided it was so important to tell me you’re busy and just relax. I’m still waiting for someone to send me at least one message deserving of a response. “Heading over to sleep with Steve’s wife” or “Just realized I am out of toilet paper and it’s not a good time.”

Nope, not me -- I get messages about what John is debating about having for lunch.

It’s actually amazing that people do this all day long through their phones. “At the beach swimming with my girlfriend.” NO, YOU'RE NOT SWIMMING WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND. YOU'RE UPDATING YOUR STATUS. Have we gotten to the point where people can’t enjoy life without telling everyone else how interesting they perceive their own life to be?

Maybe I will start a new site, mytwitteringface.com and it will work opposite of the others. Your site doesn’t become active until you have a substantial number of friends in your connections. With my site, each time you get a dumb message, that person gets deleted. The object would be to stay on as many sites as you can -- the messages therefore would obviously have to be more meaningful.

On my site a conversation might look more like this.
Message from John: “Heading to the bathroom.”
Response: You’re deleted and go see a doctor, that’s the fourth time this morning!” Of course, I may not have any friends left by the end of a day…

I know I’m in the minority, as the popularity of these sites is growing by leaps and bounds.

But as of today, I am done. I am officially signing off and going old school.

If you decide you’ve got something you want to tell me, just pick up the phone and give me a call. And whatever you do, please don’t call just to say you’re busy!

A Nursery Rhyme to Forget

If something odd, different or unexpected is going to happen, it is going to happen to me. They say what won’t kill you will make you stronger. I am not sure if someone is testing me, however if they are, I wish they would stop.

Saturday was a beautiful day and I decided to take my daughter for a walk in the stroller. As we were walking down the sidewalk next to the road singing, "Old McDonald Had A Farm, And On His Farm He Had A," well let’s just hope little Jordyn thought I said, Duck, rather than *uck, as I noticed a large Fox walking along the road a few hundred feet behind us an picking up speed.

Suddenly looking like I was one of those speed walking Mothers with the big wheeled strollers trying to get my exercise, I realized I had only a Blackberry to throw at the rabid Fox. Is that covered in my blackberry warranty?

I am now in a panic as to what to do and am picking up speed and so is the fox. I thought maybe I should take off my bright red shirt I was wearing and pitch it into the road then thought, “Mark, it’s a fox not a bull you idiot.”

Suddenly as I looked back and pondered my next move, a police car came darting up and “boom,” right over the fox, flipped his lights on, did a u turn and “boom,” back over the fox again. Then the officer stopped the car and got out with his gun drawn.

I turned around and said to the officer, “Thanks, great driving!” Nothing like running over the fox 6 times before shooting it to liven up the afternoon. I was fairly confident that fox wasn’t going to be biting me now. “Saw him coming after you, had to get him a second time, just to make sure I got him good," he said with a big grin. At least he didn’t ask me to stay and clean off the squad car…

Needless to say I am a little edgy about taking walks again. If you are driving through my neighborhood and see a guy pushing a stroller armed and in full military gear, you will know it is me.

As for Jordyn, I am just afraid when she gets to stories like the Big Bad Wolf and others where the evil character resembles the Fox, she is going to just say, “Well why didn’t they just run it over with the car?”

Handy Man?

It would be more than appropriate to never use my name and the word ‘handyman’ together in the same sentence. Giving a guy like myself a tool set as a gift is like herding 50 bulls into a jewelry store and thinking nothing will get damaged. It’s just not a good idea.

Recently, though, I got that itch to attempt things that a normal person should be fully capable of and, not surprisingly, I failed miserably.

First, I blew out a tire on the car and figured, even though I pay for a service to come for just this situation, I should be able to manage to change it myself. In auto racing, they accomplish this task in seven seconds -- surely I could manage it in ten minutes. So, I got out all the tools: the jack, the spare, loosened the wheel nuts. Next, I cranked the car up until there was just enough clearance to get the tire off. At this point, I even started to think, hey maybe on weekends, Auto Racing might need a tire man with my obvious natural talents….

However, my luck would suddenly run out.

Ever wonder what goes through someone’s head as they see their car fall off the jack? Just ask me. It isn’t bad enough that you screw up your tire in the first place; explaining your mangled attempt to fix it to the guys who bail you out... that’s the real challenge.

First, the call to the automobile service: “Well, yes, I did blow a tire.” “So you need someone to put on a spare?” “Well, sort of…after they lift that side of the car off the grounds, they’ll have to see if the crushed metal will still accommodate a tire.”

Finally, the real defeat comes when the service guys shows up and flashes me the same look I saw on the faces of my high school teachers whenever they’d hand me back a test. You know the look: why didn’t you just ask for help?

I was going to sell the car anyway, or so I thought, so a couple hundred to fix the damage, a little embarrassment, it was all par for the course, at this point. Could have been a lot worse. So, I then spent the rest of my day cleaning the outside of the car to make sure it was sparking, when suddenly the idea came over me, why don’t I power was the engine before selling it? That way, the stuff under the hood will look as clean as the outside!

So, I headed up the street to one of those self-cleaning bays, lifted the hood, and cranked up the washer to the maximum power. Got to get this looking sharp, I though.

By the time I was finished, the engine looked brand new, and finally, a sense of pride washed over me. If I had four arms, I’d have patted myself on the back with two, while holding up a trophy with the others.

Beaming, I slid into the driver’s seat and started up the car. Hmm... For some reason, the engine now sounded a lot closer to my lawn mower than what use to be my car. Except, my lawn mower doesn’t groan to a stop, like my car just did. The check engine light flashed on. The car wouldn’t start. And I suddenly felt that same sinking feeling I had before…

When the automobile service arrived, I experienced what had to be the worst déjà vu of all time: it was the same guy from the tire incident. Upon hearing of my idea, he simply shook his head, and $1,000 later, after replacing the wiring, I’d managed to short out, he concluded by asking me, “Who told you to power wash your engine?”

The last straw in my attempts to become a handyman came last week when I decided to tune up my wife’s bicycle, which hadn’t been used for awhile.

I insisted that the bike didn’t need an expensive trip to the bike shop, that I’d be perfectly able to pump up the tires, oil the chain, and get it running like new again, all by myself.

To make a long story short, the wheels have plenty of air now. Just can’t seem to get them back on the bike.

While I’m pretty disappointed in my skills as a handyman, the bright side is I’ll never have to spend my weekends helping friends repair things, and no one will ever ask me to borrow tools I don’t have. So, it’s turning out to be a good thing. Last weekend, I suggested I might rent a chainsaw to cut some branches down in the backyard. Luckily for me, my wife insisted she’d find somebody else to take care of it.

I think I’m going to like not being a handyman...

Shop til You Drop Dead

I’m a guy who absolutely despises having to go shopping during this time of year. Whenever I choose to shop – no matter where I go – I’m reminded of a condition that’s been plaguing me for as long as I can remember. Let’s call it ‘Shoppers Eternity Disorder.’

Even at the supermarket, you can count on me to get behind the person paying the large bill with pocket change. Or, the customer who forgets that one elusive item and heads back to what seems like Australia to find it –returning with a mushroom from the salad bar whose absence would have certainly ruined his day.

Usually, though, it’s the person whose reply to the age-old question of ‘paper or plastic?’ involves some combination of bagging four items here with plastic, and two over there with paper. By the time that gets done, I’m checking to see how many expiration dates in my order have passed.

Recently, I had to make a trip to Costco to stock up on holiday items.

Remind me, hasn’t Costco been around for at least fifteen years? The way people react to it, you’d think the store just materialized out of thin air this morning.

Anyway, I make my way into the parking lot just before opening time, and the lot is already flooded with people jockeying for parking spots. When I finally find a space, roughly a quarter mile from the store, I begin the hunt for a shopping cart.

Which reminds me, I know you need a membership card to get in, but do you also need a driver’s license? I wonder because, as I stand at the store’s entrance, watching people line up their carts at the gate as if ready to start the Costco 500, I wasn’t sure if they were going to wave a checkered flag or simply open the door and let hell break loose.

Of course, the latter was the case, which prompted me to quickly place a call to State Farm, asking if they’d add grocery cart insurance to my policy.

No such luck.

Another issue I’d have thought I was beyond is what I like to call the “Am I Out of My Mind Syndrome” The experts call it “Costco Irrationalities.”

An example: “Wow! Ten thousand olives for only $15. I’d be stupid not to buy them!”

Then, upon returning home and greeting the wife, reality takes grip. “What are you going to do with ten thousand olives?”

Even worse is trying to justify your purchase, explaining the reasoning behind it while undoubtedly sounding a lot like Forrest Gump.

“Well, we can make olive bread; we can have olives on our pizza, olives on our salad…”

Forget it. Besides paper towels and bottled water, I can’t figure the place out.

I occasionally enjoy the Frosted Flakes boxes that look so enormous I half expect Tony the Tiger himself to leap out of them, urging me to buy them.

Of course, another Costco pitfall arrives at the end, when you’re provided those ridiculously-shaped boxes to package your goods. You always figure, you’re saving so much money by shopping here, who cares if I have to box the goods myself?

I’m sure people get a good kick out of watching me devise creative ways of cramming my ten thousand bottles of dishwashing detergent into an odd-shaped box that might even be missing a side.

And finally, pushing your overstuffed cart to the car completes your journey.

I always wonder how long it’ll be before we flip on the TV and see a breaking story out of the Costco parking lot – JOHN SMITH STRUCK BY SPEEDING CAR, MIRACULOUSLY UNINJURED AFTER LANDING ON ENORMOUS CACHE OF TOILET PAPER.

It’s just a matter of time, I figure. Until then, I have holiday shopping to do. Wish me luck…

FREE! ENLARGE YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF SPAM!

Is annoying computer Spam affecting the way we think?

After seeing the same pop-up ads each and every day, I have now gone from simply clicking delete without a second thought to thinking about each ad that’s sent… and therein lies a problem.

At first, I thought the advertisers were just targeting me. I was having the same ad pop up on my computer multiple times a day, letting me know the value of a home surveillance camera. The highlight of the ad is a beautiful, scantily-clad woman who is seductively caught on film with a caption above her: “Do you know what is going on in your house when you are away?” After a few days of seeing the ad I, started to wonder… home surveillance camera, not a bad idea! This is where I knew the advertisers had gotten me.

I guess I am worried that, if these ads keep popping up, I am going to have to go see a Spam psychologist, or attend Spam anonymous meetings -- surely they must exist by now.

The next ad that jumped out at me was, “Harmless ways to improve your bust line.” I guess I didn’t realize that this was the rage for guys these days. I could be the first guy on my block with an incredible bust line. Interesting in a strange way, but the more I thought about it the more I figured, I had better pass on that one.

Now, I’m starting to get ads popping up by the dozen for that wonder drug we keep seeing on TV -- you know, the one with the warning about what they call a possible side-effect that -- how shall we put it tastefully? – deals with a four-hour drawbridge that won’t go down… Doesn’t sound so good to me. “May cause a rash” -- that’s a side effect; “walking into a hospital with your own mini version of the Washington Monument for everyone to inspect” -- to me, that’s more than a side effect. I always wish I had a friend who’s an ER doctor, because that must be quite a scene, when these unfortunate people with the mild-side effects that may occur come limping in…..

Then there are the ads that make all other ads look like kids play -- the guys know what I am talking about. Proven enlargement for men, Add 1-3” safely. You start to wonder, is someone watching me? Why is the computer constantly sending me these ads? Does it know something?

However, when we get to the point where we can completely block computer spam, I wonder if it will just take another form. Maybe years from now, the computer will just speak up and say, “Excuse me, don’t mean to interrupt your typing. I just wanted to let you know you might want to think about adding a little hair in the back; you’re getting kinda thin. Oh, and by the way, your wife was telling me the other day, I don’t know how to tell you this but …..”

short double decaf express latte cappuccino with ice and a twist

I am starting to believe that in today’s high tech society we are given too many choices with just about everything we do. Time and technology are moving at such a pace, I wonder if I am the only person who is having trouble trying to keep up with all of the changes.

The other morning I walked into a well-known Bethesda coffee shop to grab a quick cup of coffee with my father-in-law. This seemed simple enough. When I asked him for his order, he responded with, “Short decaf double latte cappuccino with a twist.” To my surprise, he was not insulting my short stature in some strange language, but was actually ordering a coffee drink. Apparently there is no such thing as ordering a large black coffee these days - you must have choices.

A whole secret coffee society exists where each drink has to have at least 10 ingredients, lots of weird names, and your voice changing several octaves as you place your order. When I finally began to figure out how this worked, I stepped up to the counter and nervously placed my order. The coffee specialist seemed unimpressed, but translated and relayed it to the coffeeologist who actually prepares your concoction. I don’t remember seeing this advanced field of study offered at my college, but it must exist as there is no way to know what anyone is talking about without a deep rooted understanding of this odd language. After paying what seemed like $20 for the drink and the experience, I decided to continue on with my day and get the car washed.

These days no one actually washes your car - everything is automated to give you control and choices. As I stood at the pump reading the vast array of specials, I wondered when a car wash became so complicated. Each wash had its own fancy name, which I wasn’t sure how it related to getting my car clean. Did I want the Washingtonian, the Presidential, or the Orioles Special? The choices were endless. Wasn’t the Orioles Special on my windshield the reason why I was getting the car washed in the first place?
By the time I got through the automated system, I had to go inside and get what they call “the secret code.” This would allow me to actually enter the car wash. As I walked out the door, I wondered if I should I be looking over my shoulder to ensure that no one was attempting to steal my secret code.

The day was only half over and already I had my first happy frappe coffee drink and the O’s Special car wash. I was starting to feel like the master of new technology. I figured let’s go ahead and order the new computer I wanted. Friends said, “Why go to the computer store - that’s how things were done in the past. You call up on the phone, order it, and it gets delivered.” So when I called the master computer technician, he told me that I could design my own system. This is the new way - fast and efficient, no hassle, and choices, many choices.

After about a half hour of going through terms I had never heard of, I simply asked, “With all of the technology and choices you have, just send me a computer that I don’t have to turn off and on every time something goes wrong. You must be able to construct me one of those.” It was hard for me to believe, but apparently it still doesn’t exist.

I sat back and remembered the days not too long ago where you got a quick cup of coffee with milk and sugar and when some people got upset because the guys drying their cars left a few streaks. It wasn’t long ago either when going to buy a computer meant visiting a store, learning all there was to know, and then trying to fit it in the car to drag home.
With everything changing so fast and with all of these choices, I am just trying to take things one step at a time. Hopefully, by next week, I will be up for trying the self-serve checkout at the grocery store.

A Gift For Shopping

Gift buying has always been a problem for me. You never want to give a gift certificate -- even though most people love them -- because it supposedly indicates a deficiency of thought. But I guarantee you, most people who’ve received well-thought out gifts from me would certainly agree… a gift certificate would have been better.

When I go to the mall in search of a gift, I usually end up walking around like a confused child who’s been separated from his mother. And I see other guys with the same look – stricken by the same uncertainty, nodding at me, as if to reassure me that we’re all in the same boat.

And every time, after hours of searching – and I don’t know if it’s pure exhaustion or the mental collapse that comes from wolfing down five cinnebuns – I always end up with the most ridiculous item imaginable. And always, it seems like a good idea at the time.

My friends mock me to this day because, growing up, my mom would receive the worst possible gifts from me, all the while assuring me how much she loved them and how useful they were. Of course, she was just being nice.

I got her everything – from the salad shooter to the hot topper; the former being a device that hydraulically propelled tomatoes across the kitchen, in hopes of landing them on a salad. The hot topper, you don’t even want to know what that was.

Then there were the Swedish Massage slippers that my mom described to me as “wonderful” and to my dad as “sinking”, as in, “I feel like I’m sinking.”

“Wonderful” and “sinking” don’t really go together, Mom.

I thought the jewelry cleaner would be the ultimate gift. Using ultrasonic rays to clean your rings and watches, it would be both fun to use AND effective. Only problem is, whenever I stop by my parents’ house, the machine is sitting in a box in the garage.

Of course, they assure me they love the gift, but its location in the house seems to betray the fact that they love it about as much as the paint thinner, or the recycling bin (where it’ll probably soon end up…).

For my grandmother, I found the most beautiful waterfall sculpture in the mall. The salesman assured me how great it was, neglecting to inform me that the constant sound of rushing water would not only relax your mind, but your bladder as well. Not the ideal gift for an older grandmother.

Years ago, before my wife and I were married, her birthday came around, and I decided to get creative. To my surprise, after the event, she still agreed to marry me.

Anyway, to mark the occasion, I obtained a large box which I expected to contain a bonsai tree. Not having any experience in botany beyond calling Bethesda Florist whenever I mess something up, I figured I had found the world’s greatest gift.

Unfortunately, the box didn’t contain an actual bonsai tree. Rather, some seeds were enclosed, along with a whole lot of dirt, and a certificate awarding its recipient an already-grown bonsai tree. Talk about a fun gift.

Last year, I mortgaged the house to buy a complicated massage chair replete with a foot and back massager. In the store, I was heard to remark how much use it would get, how someone would be sitting in that thing every day. A year later, it’s been used about as much as my long-term gym membership. Or that pool table we use as an actual table.

Some stores are so unique that you can’t help but buy something from them, even if you’re sure you don’t need what they’re selling. Illuminations, for example, is a store in the mall in which three thousand candles are constantly burning. How could you not want to buy something from there? I always wonder why that place hasn’t ever burned down. With all those scented candles, it would probably be a really delightful-smelling fire.

When you a buy a candle from the place, you imagine all the gushing comments at the dinner table from guests who’ll wonder where you found such enchanting candles. “Isn’t he thoughtful?” they’ll say. Of course, the reality is somewhat different when you discover the dog likes them, too, and as you’re walking around the neighborhood at 3 in the morning with your sick dog, you realize maybe those peach candles weren’t such a great idea…

I always say, this year it’s gift certificates for all. However, guilt will likely set in, and you’ll know it when you see me aimlessly trolling the mall, searching in vain for something somebody will appreciate. So, do me a favor. When you bump into me at the end of a long day of searching, and I’m carrying around some hideous talking statue with a big grin on my face, remind me that I haven’t yet found the Holy Grail of gifts. Thanks. And happy holidays.