One of the reasons I'm thankful for facebook's existance, is that it provides a glimpse at whatever Jim Wright is ranting about this time.
Happy Gobbletov, everyone. Tuesday, November 26 at 3:04pm · Edited As usual, I’ve got a bunch of friend requests that I’m delinquent on processing. Sorry about that. I’ll get on it right away. Or possibly later. Maybe tomorrow. OK, eventually. By now, you’re all (or Y’all for the Southern Folk) are likely familiar with my basic friending policy, which can be summed up as: I check you out, and a) you’re a jerk: then you get to die friendless and alone in a ditch alongside the information superhighway, or b) Not a jerk: Welcome aboard. Mind the white cat, he smells weird and he bites, or c) Can’t determine jerk status: You’re banished to Social Media Limbo unless you make an effort to message me otherwise. What you’re all likely less familiar with is my related Unfriending policy, or as I call it: The Steel-Toed Boot of High Dudgeon, Woeful Sorrow, Shameful Banishment, and Die, Die, Die. As I’ve said, I try to weed out the problems up front in the friending process. Unfortunately a few un-housebroken types do manage to slip past the gate and get into the party, where they usually proceed to claw at the furniture, bark furiously at the guests, and crap on the carpet – at which point I have to apply The Boot to their backsides. Here’s what leads to unfriending: You seemed like an okay person at first, but over time it’s become apparent that you’re a shameless practitioner of High Assholery. Want to stick around? Don’t do that. Seems simple enough, right? Sure, but what exactly constitutes felony assholery? - Anal Leakage: Probably the quickest way to get booted is by engaging in verbal diarrhea. I can only take so much gibberish before I start twitching. Interaction with these people is the conversational equivalent of a pinball machine: flashing lights, frenetic noise, and random motion. They habitually barge into conversations sideways, while in the middle of a thought based on something they were randomly thinking about that has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the topic at hand and then they just expect me to figure out what they’re on about. I post, “Hey, check out this picture of my cat attacking the mailman with a chainsaw. Thought you all could use a chuckle – because really nothing more amusing than a homicidal house pet maiming a public employee, right? Who doesn’t love that? You’re welcome.” And then we’re all having a good time in the comments telling funny stories about murderous pets and the random mauling of mail carriers when, without warning, Verbal Diarrhea Guy up and soils himself in public with “Christmas Elves! Radon! Airplane! Louis and Clarke slathered in stripper saliva HAH HAH and what about the Trade Federation’s robot embargo of Naboo, how is that NOT totally a Monsanto metaphor?” There’s a noticeable pause in the conversation while everybody makes the WTF Face, and then this goes one of two ways, a) I ignore him hoping he’ll just shut up and take the hint – at which point he predictably misinterprets irritated silence for enthusiastic encouragement and advances to the next category of capital assholerly (see below), or b) against my better judgment I ask for clarification which is the Facebook equivalent of waving mockingly at that one scowling chimp on Monkey Island who’s been throwing handfuls of his own excrement at the other primates all day and who will eventually be tranq’d by the zoo staff in the middle of the night and sold to a lab for medical experimentation - and nobody will care. - Obsessive Compulsive Conversational Disorder: This guy, we all know this guy. He SEEMS perfectly normal, until you accidently unleash his pet bugaboo. I post something like “Hey, check out this picture of my cat attacking the mailman with a chainsaw…” and we’re all having a good time telling funny stories about chainsaws and homicidal postal workers when, without warning, this guy suddenly becomes the conversational equivalent of a hyperactive incontinent golden-retriever leaping up on people and spraying warm yellow puppy urine in all directions. “MailMAN? MAN? I’m sorely disappointed that your domesticated but independent feline-American 4-footed housemate would continue to perpetuate sexual stereotypes by attacking a mailMAN instead of a Gender-Neutral Bi-Pedal Postal Delivery Engineer…” And they obsessively continue to comment over and over, “I didn’t mean to kill the conversation, sorry, but I just can’t let this go. It’s important to take a stand against feline sex bias in the field of old fashioned hand delivered paper media…” And then they start emailing you. I once made an offhand comment about the Occupy Movement and one of these people made more than an hundred comments, each more insane and irrational than the last, just on and on and on. I unfriended her. So she spammed my message queue. So I blocked her and reported her for harassment (fat lotta good that did, Facebook). So she then switched to spamming two of my email accounts. Do you know it’s been almost two years, the Occupy Movement is essentially defunct having imploded into a ball of apathy and personal hygiene issues, and I STILL get daily messages from this insane woman? - Joeblivious: There’s one of these people in every crowd. I don’t know what the equivalent is with women, but with men, it’s the sports guy. Doesn't matter what it is. Doesn’t matter what the conversation is about. Doesn’t matter what’s happening. It’s always the same with this jackass. “Jesus Hannibal-The-Cannibal Christ! Cats have taken up power-tools and are grinding people into kittychow! They’ve already slaughtered the mailmen and they’re coming for us next! Run! Run for your lives, Everybody!” and there’s this guy, totally obvious, “Heeeey, who saw the game last night? How about those Porkbellies? Man, when Ironballs Garfailowitz blew out a roller-skate but STILL managed to spike the boomerang over the net past the catchers’ racket there in that last lap for a double-birdie, EPIC, I just KNEW the porkbellies were going to go all the way!” Here on my facebook page, Joeblivious is the politics guy. No matter what I post, it’s always got to be tied to politics. “Hey, look, here’s a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head!” and Joeblvious responds with “Reminds me of that time Dick Cheney killed all those orphans at the church pancake breakfast.” Look, folks, not everything has to be about Dick Cheney. As The Freud once famously observed, “Sometimes it’s just a goddamned bunny with a pancake on its head!” - Inviters and crusaders: The staggering number of Facebook foofery I get invited to just boggles my mind. And, yeah, okay, maybe I get the part where you invited me to some political rally or to go naked hot-tubbing, but for the love of Cannibal Flesh Eating Jesus, Folks, why would you keep inviting me to your kid’s various activities? Do you really want me showing up at your offspring’s fifth grade graduation bar mitzvah rodeo? You really want ME around young impressionable children? ME? Really? I use a LOT of foul language, the only party stories I tell all involve alcohol and strippers in foreign ports, and the only balloon animals I know how to make all end up looking like dicks. I question the sanity of ANYBODY who would invite me to their family gatherings, including my OWN family. Also, please stop asking me to pledge my undying loyalty to whatever cause is popular right now. Frankly, folks, I don’t care how many “likes” you get, I’m not going to pledge my immortal soul against buying shit on Black Friday. I hate crowds and shopping in general, but if I see a good deal on chainsaw-powered cat boomerangs, you can bet your Gender-Neutral Postal Delivery Engineer I’ll be right down there at Wal-Mart sucker punching your grandma in the kidneys to get the last one. I’ve also got issues with people who engage in felony ellipsis abuse (USE A PERIOD TO END A SENTENCE GODDAMNIT!!!), however I don’t want to sound like I’m obsessing about it (SWEET CANNIBAL JESUS WITH A CHAINSAW, MAKE THE ELLIPSIS ABUSE STOP!! MAKE IT STOP!) But anyway, like I was saying, I’ll get to those friend requests in just a minute. In the meantime, here, have a balloon-animal… -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "StrataList-OT" group. 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