Chain letters, Cancer, and Unicorns

What is wrong with Facebook these days? Let me count the ways. In case you missed the obvious ranti-ness of my opening sentence, let me alert you to the obvious...I'm a little fed up.

Now granted, Facebook never clearly defined itself to me in my many years using it. Is it a gaming platform? It must be from the numerous requests I get to play Amish Mystical Wordy Farm Townville. Games just aren't my thing anymore Facebook, but in all your spying worldly knowledge of me you didn't know that? Is it a way to keep in touch with long lost loved ones? Is it picture storage? Is it a way for Mark Zuckerberg to become fabulously wealthy? (Ding-ding-ding)

Here is a sampling of things found on my timeline, or whatever magical horse hooey they're calling the stream of consciousness that runs a river of muck through my electronic devices:

Press Like if you think Cancer should be cured.

Well, who could possibly not do that?

But I've GOT kids, so if you think I'm pressing like so yours can get a puppy...well..you're safe. I also will not vote because I think your puppy is the cutest.

 

YOU KNOW, I'VE NEVER BEEN FOOLED BY ADVERTISERS BEFORE, SO I THINK I SHOULD CLICK ON GERARD BUTLER'S ABS BECAUSE FOR $10 HOW COULD IT BE A HOAX?

PLAY POKER

PLAY AMISH MYSTICAL WORDY FARM TOWNVILLE

PLAY POKER, BUT NOT THE SAME AS THE FIRST ONE.

I love how Facebook says the above are "Suggested" posts? So, who suggested them? Where is the suggestion box where I can "suggest" a few of my own.

IQ Test...if you're brilliant name a game, vegetable, word, toy, movie, etc. that doesn't have an 'a' in it, or maybe this time it does. First time, fun, not as much after that.

New profile picture..."hey I can make a camera phone AND a mirror work, jealous out there vampires?" Please, like anybody believes in Vampires anymore! (Twilight is over, right?) Is it more pathetic that you need your friends to comment on your self-portrait OR that your friends weren't around to take a picture for you...you know one that doesn't show the flash on your camera going off?

Hi, you don't know me, but I was adopted. I'm looking for my birth mom. (Oh, you're gonna hate me worse in a minute) While the first time I saw this, I thought it was a novel idea, but then it became a bigger trend than the Harlem Shake and everyone is forwarding. After the first one, it becomes noise.

Are you prepared to hate me yet? Ok, I can wait.

Press LIKE if you want to see a unicorn come out of my butt.

Realizing that unicorns coming from ones buttocks is rather painful, please LIKE if you want the unicorn to stop.

 

 

 

Ooh, how about the racial slur that I will take down if I get enough votes. Seriously folks?

If I had more space and energy, I could rant for days about people who check-in everywhere and take pictures of food, but...well...I do that.

What's the difference between a Meme and a Mimi? Well, one is a poorly made-up fat ugly blight and the other was the chick from Drew Carey's show. Ok, I get the cleverness, but some of these things are just over-done and over-shared.

I'm running out of steam and the NyQuil is taking over again....so prepare to be offended....

When did Facebook become an Amber Alert? Please don't get me wrong, if my kid was missing I'd be going crazy. But posting and forwarding these Amber Alerts on Facebook is like passing out leaflets in a fox den about a missing hen. I pray for each and every one I see, but like the adopted kids discussed previously, the alerts become noise, if this kid is in California, chances are the majority of my friend base on the East Coast aren't going to have seen them. It seems like Twitter would be a much faster and better medium to do this, but for some reason I don't see them there?

 

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/like-for-heaven

 

Hey, by the way...like my page, please! You know, like, hit LIKE, like you're from the valley from, like, 1984. Gag me...no, that wasn't gangnam...

 

Linking up this week with Finish the Sentence Friday. The sentence is "You want to know what I think of social media? I think..."

 

Kill Furry Cats

Over at Dude Write this week, Winopants has brought her fabulous Tarantino Movie Soup game. Below is a picture with the general rule set. I used Random.Org and the Dice to come up with each of my cards. As Tarantino doesn't follow the rules, I have decided not to either. In keeping with the Tarantino style, this will be more raw than my normal(?) posts, so keep that in mind.

 

Coming soon to a theater near you... (Cue low cat growling)

Kill Furry Cats - a rom-action-comed-icide

A Quentin Tarantino Film

Librarian Stanley Harris, played by Christopher Waltz has been stealing the cats of the rich and famous. His plan, to ease the black market demand for fur coats for American Girl Dolls.

Legendary jazz musician turned drug lord, High Dre, played by Samuel L. Jackson has no cats, none of the feline type anyway, so he has no dog in the fight until Harris sets his sights on Jasmine Kyle's pussy. Kyle, played by Uma Thurman is a struggling actress turned jazz singer. She is also a cat lover, Siamese to be exact.

In the astonishing climax, Dre, Kyle and an Army of PETA supporters storm the library where Harris works, spraying far too much blood red paint in every direction, throwing it from buckets, shooting it from super soakers, generally annoying the other library patrons and librarians. As the librarians try to quiet the scene, Dre guts Harris and makes an ugly white dude coat for Kyle's Siamese with his skin.

...fade to red.

 

100 Word Song - I Won't Back Down

Once again, I enter the fray over at Lance's 100 Word Song. This week, inspired by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "I Won't Back Down" I bring you these 100 words...

 

 

He regularly stood toe to toe with many worthy adversaries in the courtroom. Prosecutors who thought that they had ironclad cases. They had a parade of witnesses, among them crooked cops, snitches, and always victims' spouses. He was a defense attorney, but rarely on the defensive. He was relentless with witnesses, always pushing back as if he was prosecuting each of them.

His time was very valuable and expensive. He rarely gave his time away, he rarely took vacations.

As she glared at him, while holding his laptop over the balcony ledge, he knew the challenge was letting her win.

 

Mental (a)Ward

"She hates me," he thought as he read through the post. It should have read Happy VD Day. Worse than your favorite STD, this is.

He knew how this worked, having been its victim twice before. He recovered from it only through enduring its worst.

Part of it was the things it forced him to excrete, 11 things to be precise. Things like Cremation, Japan, Rudy, Pinky & the Brain, Fondue, 9, 19, 18, Canada, Heaven, and Buried Alive.

And those were just half of it...the second half, they had to be paired with things like Favorite Food, Driver's License Age, Greatest Animation Show, Age of Sexual Enlightenment (with a woman this time), Deepest Fear, Favorite Movie, My Afterlife Plans, Soccer Number, Destination Visited, Destination Planned, and Destination Desired not necessarily in that order.

This delightful blogger, this Kate Whine Hall over at Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine thinks as highly of this plague as I do, yet tweezed (a tweet sneeze) it in my direction!

Apparently, the secret incantation for its removal involves these 11 things.

1. What’s the grossest thing you’ve found in your kid’s mouth?

A bloody hole that dangled a tooth from it, you can read about it here.

2. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve found in your food?

Lima Beans, who would put such disgusting things in perfectly edible food.

3. What’s the most unique thing you’ve ever eaten?

I ate live ants in high school as well as a worm. I have also eaten turtle soup.

4. What is one of your worst habits?

Sighing. It's a natural stress reliever, but it makes people think I'm exasperated.

5. What’s one of your significant other’s worst habits that they’re willing to let you share with the entire universe?

I'm not allowed to share.

6. What is your favorite form of social media?

Facebook

7. What social media brings the most people to your blog?

DudeWrite.

8. What movie are you embarrassed to admit you love?

Lately, Pitch Perfect.

9. Whose blog are you totally jealous of? (like anyone is going to answer this)

All blogs are different. I'm jealous of Youngman Brown's audience. I'm jealous of Telling Dad's ability to make any story funny. I'm jealous of Kate Whine Hall because she can get a punny blog name out of it.

10. What was the last lie you told?

Not THAT jealous of Kate :)

11. I can’t think of anything else, make up your own.

Me neither.

Yes, I've been Lieberated! Unfortunately for you, this is highly contagious. Despite the medical mask I am wearing and the condom I have placed on the blog, I fear it will escape to the following people who have very readable blogs. Reading them also has the side effect of milk coming out of your nose and wetting your depends with a full bladder. Those are not symptoms of the Liebster.

 

I Blog Your Mom Bryan Jones Diary Ken-inatractor Whoa Susannah

Jeneral Insanity America's Next Top Mommy Angie Uncovered Jeezy Brown

Brilliant Title Simply She Goes Good Youngman Brown

 

Here are the rules, if you want to participate (I’m totally okay with you blowing this off):

1. Each blogger should post 11 random facts about themselves.

2. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you, and then create 11 new questions for the bloggers you pass the award to.

3. Choose 11 new bloggers (with less than 200 followers (whatever!)) to pass the award to and link them in your post.

4. Go back to their page and tell them about the award.

5. No tag backs.

Kate's questions for me, that I am far too lazy to change, should you choose to participate:

1. What’s the grossest thing you’ve found in your kid’s mouth?

2. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve found in your food?

3. What’s the most unique thing you’ve ever eaten?

4. What is one of your worst habits?

5. What’s one of your significant other’s worst habits that they’re willing to let you share with the entire universe?

6. What is your favorite form of social media?

7. What social media brings the most people to your blog?

8. What movie are you embarrassed to admit you love?

9. Whose blog are you totally jealous of? (like anyone is going to answer this)

10. What was the last lie you told?

11. I can’t think of anything else, make up your own.

 

Hope, Loves All Things

Do you ever fantasize about winning the lottery? I know that I have done it. It's fun, even if you don't actually buy a ticket.

Are you a spender or a giver or a saver? Would you quit your job? Quit working altogether? Would you put in two weeks or just not show up? I'd like to think I'm the kind of guy who would put in notice for a month and be on retainer for some period after that. BUT, I think I'd be on a hair-trigger for my resignation. Someone crop dusts my office, the boss looks at me a little funny...I might just leave.

What does it feel like when the dream ends? Your reality factor should have already applied the necessary safeguards, you know you aren't going to win, but...

Normally, we are left feeling a little diminished by the loss. What have we lost, really? It was a mental exercise wasn't it?

 

I'm talking about a little sorrow, nothing catastrophic. I mean, the odds are ridiculous. As someone said, the odds of winning are worse than getting struck by lightning, while riding a unicorn, with Bono.

 

Lately, with all the powerball and other lotteries out there and pools of winners coming forward, you might be inclined to buy in with coworkers and win. Congratulations, your odds just went to Lightning striking the Unicorn you are riding with Bono. Certainly not just rainy outside while you and Bono are riding.

Oh, but you wished and wishing works, write right?

Vent your frustration in some other direction, please. Your sarcasm is not endearing.

Every time the lottery climbs into three digits, I convince myself to play. Why does it have to be three digits? Is it not enough to win 1 million dollars? (Imagine Dr. Evil's voice if you like)

 

You can call me crazy if you like, but here is what it boils down to for me. I'm not ready to invest my hope in a mere pittance. I want to make my dreams come true. I want to make my friends' dreams come true. I want my friends to be able to make THEIR friends dreams come true. I'm a giver, in case that wasn't evident. I like to dream big, hope even bigger.

Only trouble with that is the bigger the dream, the harder it is to wake to reality. That slight sorrow that you feel, well I feel it bigger.

Unicorn, Bono, lighting strikes...it matters not to me in that moment. In my dream, we'll be catching the lightning in bottles made with mermaid scales...to cure cancer. What's your dream?

 

Secret message encoded

 

Not Dallas

Where have I been?

Where have I gone?

Well friends, my life has been upside down for a few months now. Against I am sure many people's better judgement, I tell you I am going through a separation that appears to have only one possible conclusion, Divorce. That was very difficult to write and likely difficult to read.

So what can I say? My kids occasionally read my blog so I'm not going to go into detail. Not being able to write my usual witty snark is difficult enough, I just haven't felt it. Not writing at all is even more difficult.

As I said, my kids read my blog occasionally. My ex estranged wife does also used to. I can't do anything about that. They all know how I feel and what we are going through, but for you wise reader, here's a breakdown of what has been lost.

 

19 years of marriage. I wouldn't try to fool anyone by saying marital bliss because it hasn't always been bliss. If you've been married, especially to a stubborn man or woman like my wife and I, you know better. Marriage, like life, doesn't follow a Hollywood script. The highs can make you dizzy and the lows can cause depression. It is a constant struggle, one that for the right person we go through willingly. Next October will be (would be?) the 20th anniversary.

3 kids came of this union. I wouldn't trade them for anything. My Teenwolf, who struggles to be so much like his dad, yet makes many of my mistakes. I want to tell him to make new mistakes, learn from my path. I'm very proud of the way he has turned out. He has rough edges, but deep down he is every bit of who I hoped he would be. Shaggy had a rough start in this world, but he's finding himself as he is getting older. I'm happy that he is comfortable with himself, so few people ever are. I hope his wandering spirit brings him home now and again when he is ready to leave. Princess Sassy Pants (PSP) is the late addition we desperately wanted to the family. A good 10 years behind her eldest brother, she has allowed me to revitalize my parenting. We learn so many things as our children grow and so often we say, "I wish I could have done better with that.." She is my wish come true.

1 Home held us. Sure, there was a room, a borrowed house, a condo, a townhouse, and a house all in the mix, but only one home. They say "home is where you hang your hat" but for me, home is where your family is and hangs all their hats. There is a husband hat, a wife hat, one for each kid, there are brother and sister hats, man and wife hats to name a few. Now, it has less hats, like riding in a speedboat less hats.

One. As in "the two shall become one." Conjoined twins who share a vision, a heart. Can you truly live with one eye and half of a heart? God can probably come along and fix us up, good as new, but I know he isn't enjoying it.

 

I don't like Divorce. It's painful in every possible way. It makes you question every thing you've ever said or done. It makes you feel like a failure. It is more than a break-up, but an amputation, some might say it is a living death.

Is it easier to hear "I've found someone new" or "I'd rather be alone than be with you" I realize that sometimes we don't actually get to hear either one, but isn't this the underlying message? Both are equally destructive, causing massive wounds to self-confidence. I'd rather face these questions out loud and in my face than let them swim in the undertow. How about the seemingly less intense, "we just aren't right for each other?" This statement merely invalidates the 19 years, some of which were or felt very right. Lest we forget the granddaddy of all, "we've grown apart." Well, again, we are invalidating any work we've put in over 19 years to build a life together. The proverbial "whatever."

Statements like the latter two seem to indicate that God (or the Universe) makes mistakes which doesn't seem to be in his character. More importantly, those statements take the blame for the failure off the people who are most to blame. It's like a day at the fair: you bought your ticket, you ate some food, you rode some rides, you experienced the thrill of the height or speed of the ride, maybe you experienced the low of throwing up some of that food because of those thrills. At some point you get your fill of the fair and you leave. It's how it's supposed to go, right?

Marriage is as much about the Sickness, the Poorer, and the Worst of Times as it is about their opposites. Nobody ever won the Medal Of Honor for working at the Burger King on post. Surviving the bad times is what makes the good times seem so much sweeter. It is your badge of courage, your Medal of Honor.

Friends tell me how much better off I will be when it's all over.

They are wrong.

I've missed the folks over at Yeah Write and thought I'd share this week with them.

Lots of good writers over there, click the button to check them out.

Drowning

"Face on Mars" source: Wikipedia

This is my 267 word response to February's flash fiction challenge over at Dude Write. Each story can be no more than 500 words. This month is a picture prompt called Face on Mars.

As you will read, mine is a different interpretation. Here is Drowning.

 

 

 

 

He looked out on the water. He contemplated a swim. He could slip over the side and enjoy the coolness of the water on this hot night. He dared not dive for at low tide, there was no danger of him drowning, but the water was shallow enough that he could likely stand. He couldn't see the bottom, but knew it was close. Diving would also be loud and he didn't want her to know...

"Don't stand there!" Those were the last words he had heard.

Slightly inebriated and quite perturbed by the barked order from his wife, Daniel was determined ever more to stand his ground. He would win this small battle.

Who was she to decide where he could be? She was so controlling, probably wanted to pick out his clothes, nay actually dress him. She didn't allow him to eat whatever he wanted, said it would make him fat and eventually kill him. The cocktails he so loved, she no longer prepared for him. As he glanced in her direction, he wondered if the look on her face was one of horror, or possibly concern. It didn't matter much, she had learned to lie with her expression. She was expert in hiding her feelings.

Fast were the thoughts running through his tired and oxygen depleted brain. The brain that had long decided it had no control over the body.

Who knew that the swinging boom of a sailboat could move so swiftly, break so cleanly, fell a man so easily?

The sea floor churned with each rescue boat passing him over, covering him more.

 

100 Word Song - Strength

He sat there on the curb in the back alley, sobbing. How had he screwed up his priorities this badly?

All of his hard work, the relationships put on hold, the ridiculous dieting...what was it all for? His admiration for the chicken breast was gone, he wanted a beer or seven. He'd probably spent more time in a tanning bed than his own bed, let alone his girlfriend's bed. The last year was a blur.

He startled at the voice behind him, "Hey Steve, they're getting ready to start the awards. Second place in Mr. Universe is a great achievement!"

This is my entry in the 100 Word Song. This week Lance has teamed up with DudeWrite to bring us a unique competition featuring a short, exactly 100 word piece of writing inspired by a song. The song chosen is Strength, by The Alarm.