Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Lane Pollock just de-linted his bellybutton. Now he will gripe.







I'm not really a facebook guy. Mostly I find it to be a monumental time-waster filled with the the mind-numbing drivel of narcissists and trolls. But, that said, I do occasionally fire it up to see if people I actually care about have posted any interesting pictures or said something clever. Oh, and is it me or is the bubonic-caliber PLAGUE of facebook quizzes finally over? I never got to spam-blast everyone from high school, whom I haven't talked to in 15 years, which Care Bear I would be. Dangit!!

But the intent of my post is to talk about "that guy". You know the one, he (or she) is an acquaintance, you guess. Maybe you knew him from high school, an old job. You don't give two hoots in hell whether or not he is even alive, let alone what he had for breakfast, but...he requested you add him as a friend...you sort of knew him, whatever. (click) Sweet, look at my soaring friend count!

This ill-advised move comes at a price, though, my friends. MOST facebook users, in my experience, are like me. You forget how little anyone cared about your last bi-monthly status update, and so you bust off another, are quickly reminded anew of said indifference, and go do something more productive. Like, I don't know...a dozen rounds of mahjong or maybe a nap. But not "that guy".

You know how you pick up a big, gnarly, chocolate-chip-riddled cookie all in chocolatey-bliss anticipation, take a bite, start chewing, and then to your horror you realize that they are not chocolate chips at all, but nasty freaking raisins? Yeah, it sucks. Well, that guy's incessant status updates and onslaught of retardo-posts are to your facebook news feed as nasty freaking raisins are to the cookie. Shut up, SHUT UP. Oh my heck (Utah roots), for the love, SHUT THE FREAK UP!! Get out of my cookie!

There is a happy ending to this sad tale, however. The greatest creation in the history of facebook is, far and away and without question, the "hide" button. Imagine a button, the simple pressing of which instantaneously transforms all those nasty raisins into chocolatey goodness. In terms of your newsfeed, this is exactly what the hide button does. It is seriously the most amazing feeling firing up the sanitized version of your news feed the first several times. And the longer you've endured "that guy", the more amazing it feels. It's almost worth not hiding him for longer just to experience the more intense amazingness!

Hooray for the hide button! Now if I could only make heads or tails out of how facebook chooses what to actually put in my news feed...a monkey throwing darts, perhaps?