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8 Comments Posted on People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

Effective Immediately: New Facebook Game- I Am Now Deleting Friends Who Complain About Monday’s

The rules:  A) You complain about Monday’s, I delete you.  B) You never complain about Monday’s, we continue to be facebook friends forever.

There are so many tempting games available for facebook users these days. Farmville is the main one that comes to mind.  But after blocking Farmville on my facebook feed, I didn’t have to worry about it anymore.  I’m in the mood to start playing a facebook game now, however.  The thing is, I invented this game. Here’s how it works:

Anytime I see any of my facebook friends complain about Monday’s, I will immediately delete them.  There is a reason behind this.

In a time where not everyone is fortunate enough to have a job, I don’t want to hear anyone even jokingly complain how about having to go to work on Monday. Because when people whine about Monday’s, they are ultimately complaining about having to get out of bed, go to work, and get paid.  Not all of us have that option.

Just to be sure, I will delete anyone who uses any of these phrases or anything close to them:

“I got a case of the Monday’s!”

“Ugh…Monday!”

“Darn you, Monday!”

“Dear Monday, I could sure live without you!”

There are a few exceptions of people who I will not delete for complaining about Monday’s.  I have a collection of guy friends that I cyber-bully regularly.  After reading this notice, they would probably complain about Monday’s just to despite me and to test if I am serious about playing the game.  So if you are one of the following dudes, you are immune to my game.  I will not delete you just to spite you:

Ben Wilder, Jarred Johnson, Kenn Snipes, Brian Winkles, and Dave Stanley

Just so everyone is clear on the rules, I will not delete anyone for celebrating the coming of the weekend. That’s not the same as complaining about Monday, which again, alludes to whining about having a job to go to in the first place.  If you have a job, thank the good Lord for it.  Even your boss is a jerk, you hate your job, and/or your job doesn’t pay enough money.

If I delete you for complaining about Monday’s, the only way you can be welcomed back in the fold is by submitting a 200 word essay explaining why I should accept your friend request.  Bribes are encouraged.

This is an open game.  Anyone is welcome to join.

2 Comments Posted on People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

Currently Uber Popular Status Update Phrases: “Darn You (Insert Here a High Calorie Food Item or Form of Exercise)” and “Just Sayin’…”

Darn you push-ups and curls!  And chili cheese fries…

We are exposed to an ongoing conveyor belt of snippets from our facebook friends’ lives, thanks to status updates.  From sadly and helplessly watching a person’s romantic relationship fall apart through relationship status changes and removals of entire photo albums, to discovering a another new spin-off of Farmville that we now will have to start blocking, the culture of facebook has been integrated into our everyday lives.  When it comes to status updates, I am more of an conscientious observer than an active participant.  So that evidently makes it my job to be the one to point out two phrases I’m seeing multiple times on a daily basis:

1) “Darn you (insert here a high calorie food item or form of exercise)”

2) “Just sayin’…”

Though you probably already know the connotation of both of these phrases (and that’s a big reason you chose to read this post today), I will offer the courtesy of explaining the usage of these facebook status gems.

Your facebook friends who are most likely to use the “darn you” status update are often the ones who give you a daily play-by-play of their work-out routine as well as an itemized list of the foods they eat each day.  When a “darn you” person has just experienced an annoying exercise at the gym, they might say, “Darn you, elliptical machine!” for example. And then a few hours later when they go out to dinner with friends and someone shares their Triple Chocolate Cheesecake with them, then you better know what’s coming up on your facebook feed: “Darn you, Triple Chocolate Cheesecake!”

However, in a more practical world, it seems people should say “bless you” before naming a high calorie food.  Who knows?  Maybe it would actually miraculously not metabolize into fat?  Maybe people should say “bless you” before naming an exercise, for the chance it would do twice or thrice as much good as it normally would to their body.  To curse an inanimate object that already knows it has a negative connotation seems to only add insult to injury. But then again, we don’t live in a practical world:  Instead, we live in a world where the inventors of Snuggies are millionaires.

While it’s typically exercise and high calorie that gets darned (literally cursed to hell for eternal damnation, in the hope that’s possible), I’ve also seen the “darn you” status update applied to weather (mainly snow), local traffic, and episodes of Glee that feature especially catchy songs.

As for “just sayin'”, it’s always applied at the end of a sentence- often after about 2 or 3 sentences of advice to another person or inanimate object: “So I just got back from the grocery store and everybody’s freakin’ out over bread and milk. It’s not the end of the world, people!  It’s just snow!  Just sayin’…”

“Just sayin'” implies the thought “now really take some time to think about what I said, but no pressure, really.”

Here’s another example:

“Some people really spend way too much time on facebook. There is a such a thing as leaving your own house and hanging out with actual people. Just sayin…”

If a person is really talented, they may try to attempt to use both phrases in the same status update: “Darn you, mother who is pretending not to speak English as her three kids run wild around the store!  Ever heard of actually having some control over your own kids in public?  Just sayin…”

If from now on, you never see “darn you…” and “just sayin’…” on facebook without thinking back to what you read here today, then I’ve done my job as a conscientious observer who shares my findings with the general public.  If nothing else, from now on, see if you can make it a whole day on facebook without seeing either of those phrases at all.  I bet you can’t.  Just sayin’…

2 Comments Posted on Storytelling, Uncategorized

Have you noticed that you are only seeing updates in your facebook newsfeed from the same people lately?

Like a kid finding a long lost toy in the back of a closet, as of today I’ve been able to start reconnecting with some of my old facebook friends who I assumed had nothing to say to me.  Instead, it’s just that we couldn’t see each other’s info on our facebook newsfeed.  I don’t know who originally wrote the message below, but I’m doing my part to spread the word:

FACEBOOK CHANGES

Have you noticed that you are only seeing updates in your newsfeed from the same people lately? Have you also noticed that when you post things like status messages, photos and links, the same circle of people are commenting and every……one else seems to be ignoring you?

Don’t worry, everyone still loves you and nobody has intentionally blocked you. The problem is that a large chunk of your friend/fan list can’t see anything you post and here’s why:

The “New Facebook” has a newsfeed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you’ve recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile). So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa – you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!!

HERE’S THE FIX: Scroll down to the bottom of the newsfeed on the homepage and click on “Edit Options”, click on “Show Posts From” and change the setting to “All Of Your Friends and Pages” Note: This is the fix for personal pages but I am unsure of whether or not the business pages are set up the same way.

Simply posting an update about it won’t do any good because lots of your friends/fans already can’t see your posts by default. You’ll either have to send out a message to everyone on your list (which I’m not even sure business pages can do and is a rather tedious method) or post an event explaining the situation like this one and invite your entire fan base and/or friend list. You can also tweet about it hoping that most of your fellow facebookers are also on twitter.

Shame on facebook for altering the default setting and not telling people and business pages about it! Just think about how many companies posted Christmas sales and discounts without having any idea that their customers couldn’t see the updates.

Leave a comment Posted on People, Recaps, Storytelling, Uncategorized, Writing

My Favorite Facebook Trend of 2010: Getting People to “Like” Your Fan Page

Getting “liked” on facebook is always authentic, right?  I guess I should just ask all 800 of my authentic facebook “friends”.

One of the popular online trends of 2010 has been to try to convince/bribe people on facebook to “like” your fan page.  I hope it’s okay to think that concept is hilarious, because it cracks me up every time.  Sure, having thousands of people “like” Conan O’Brien’s fan page on facebook had to have helped him, but the difference with him was that he nor his crew had anything to do with it.  True fans began and empowered the Coco movement on their own.  But I know that all entertainment and business entrepreneurs are being told by the experts to get people to “like” them on facebook and think up clever sayings for Twitter because this is the age of networking and doing those things helps ensure prosperity or at least survival.  And they’re probably right.

But still, it reminds me of being in the 1st grade and some kid you barely know asks for your slice of pizza during lunch and attaches this promise to his request: “I’ll be your best friend…”  As a young child, even then I always knew there was no authenticity there.  But then again, we are all well aware that at least a quarter of our facebook friends are not actually our friends- in fact, I have no clue who a quarter of them even are, and I bet they would say the same thing about me.

I’m currently (and slowly) reading a book called Microtrends, which explains the power of 1 percent of the population liking anything.  In the introduction of the book, author Mark J. Penn explains, “By the time a trend hits 1 percent, it is ready to spawn a hit movie, best-selling book, or new political movement.” According to the book, that 1 percent of the American population he is referring to literally means 300,000 people; not even a third of a million people.  In essence, the idea behind being “liked” on facebook is an effort to show the marketing executives that one’s cause has a following close to or reaching 300,000 people.

I’m all about other people being successful and even helping them to get there in big meaningful ways, but being asked to be “like” anything ultimately just reminds me of the fact that if everyone was rich, that no one would actually be rich- in the same way, only a limited amount of people can be famous.  And if you try to manipulate the true Invisible Hand of Coolness and Popularity in a room full of thousands of other people also metaphorically yelling to each other, “Hey, look at me!”, the noise just cancels out most of the room, while the actual trend leaders are in a different room down the hall.

I would rather know that a person authentically “likes” me, not by creating my own fan page and asking people to publicly acknowledge my awesomeness in a predictable facebook gesture.  But then again, I’m not cool enough to think up clever Twitter posts either.  I’m so out of touch- I’m such a bitter, old, stubborn man.  Now get off my property!

17 Comments Posted on Spirituality, Uncategorized, Writing

A) Agnostics Vs. Atheists, From a Christian Perspective and B) Is Atheism Technically a Faith-Based Religion?

I’m not trying to convert atheists to Christianity; I’m trying to convert atheists to agnosticism.

Maybe somewhat surprisingly, I am actually not the kind of person who participates in pointless debates.  Granted, I’ll observe them, but I won’t join the heated discussions myself.  One of these classic debates is when Christians try to argue with atheists.  I remember one time on a church mission trip in high school I witnessed one of our youth group’s leaders yell to a guy at Wal-Mart during an emotional exchange: “Well buddy, one day you’re gonna finally meet God and see that He’s real and when you do, I hope you bust hell wide open!”  For what it’s worth, the atheist started it by loudly scoffing at our youth group’s Christian t-shirts which explained we were in that city to help with construction in low-income neighborhoods and also to lead Vacation Bible School at a local church in Phenix City, AL.

But still, that story shows how neither person was there to even defend their own beliefs, but instead to try to prove that the other person was a fool.  Therefore, it’s safe to say they both successfully proved their point.  It was a win-win situation.  Technically.

It has been my observation that agnostics (people who admit they don’t have the answers when it comes to the afterlife or the existence of God or how we all got here, but are willing to admit there’s a chance that just like any explanation out there including atheism, Christianity could be right) are respectful and overall cool people.  Typically, from my experience, agnostics do not have a general attitude that comes across like they are smarter or better than those who do believe in God.  It seems that truly they have no agenda to convert me to a state of doubt or unknowingness.  And I like that.

Generally (but not always), my experience observing atheists typically means they openly mock the “blindness, arrogance, and lack of ability to think freely” of those who do believe in God, specifically Christians.  Of course, this only fuels the emotion of certain Christians who sincerely belief, yet fail to recognize that while Jesus did say to go forth and tell the nations, the Bible also teaches against arguing with a fool– whether that fool is an atheist, another Christian, or the host of a political talk show.

I don’t see how it’s my place to try to convert someone who not only clearly demonstrates they are not interested or are not at all open to the idea, but who also mocks my efforts or even my lifestyle, stereotyping me because I am a Christian.  When it became clear to Jesus that His own people, the Jews (especially the Jewish religious leaders), had officially rejected His claim to be the Son of God, He then focused His time and efforts elsewhere- to the rest of us Gentiles.  Jesus didn’t waste energy on those who wanted to argue with him.  And interestingly, He didn’t waste energy on trying to prove them wrong.  He just simply walked on.  Nice move, Jesus.

Since it’s not a Christian’s place to argue with someone who doesn’t believe or to try to belittle those who belief differently, I would like to expect the same amount of respect from atheists.  It’s this simple: I do not believe I am better than anyone in this world, no matter what they do or do not believe. If I did, I would be contradicting the beliefs of my own religion.  Again, in turn, I would like the same treatment from those who do not believe the same way as me.

It’s pretty clear to me that both Christians and atheists have given themselves a bad reputation in the process of trying to prove each other to be wrong and to be idiots.  For example, there is a facebook group called “f— Jesus Christ” (I am of course censoring the actual name).  Obviously, that group started quite a stir, some Christians started creating groups like“ban the facebook group ‘f— Jesus Christ’”.  Therefore, hundreds of Christians have joined that group and as they have done so, it proclaims on their facebook profile and on the status feed which all of their facebook friends see that “(So-and-so) has joined the group “ban the facebook group ‘f— Jesus Christ’”.

As a Christian, I feel bad enough even typing the censored version of the name of the original facebook group.  So I definitely don’t want it repeated all over facebook.  Again, even though Christians are standing up against some offensive atheists who created the group, they have ended up defeating the purpose by not only bringing attention to their cyber bullies but also by wasting their energy arguing with fools.  No one wins; instead they just get upset.  I guess the thing about this story that makes me the most curious is this: Why would an atheist hate Jesus Christ or curse Him?  How can you hate or curse something that truly doesn’t exist?

Ultimately, the atheist who started the facebook group ended up having his or her wish granted: Christians got upset and in turn may have said some less than nice things towards atheists on facebook.  Because if a Christian can be made to look like an unstable, hate-speaking person, the atheist wins because it in essence shows the Christian to be a hypocrite- since the angry Christian’s  demeanor is not in accordance with how Jesus taught His followers to behave.  But again, this whole thing just goes to show that none of this is even about converting anyway; it’s about proving the other to be wrong, and therefore to be an imbecile.

I just think that if I were an atheist, I truly wouldn’t care what other people believed.  It wouldn’t even be worth talking about.  There wouldn’t be any emotion or passion invoked when I thought about it.  It would be that simple for me.

The problem with my hypothetical example of me being an atheist is this: Being an atheist truly requires having faith in the unseen and in prehistory.  And the way I see it, it takes much more faith to believe in nothing than it does in something.  Not to mention, it has been my experience that atheism is a vehicle (or Trojan Horse) for Evolution and Darwinism.   Therefore, I see atheism as a religion based on faith.

But agnosticism, I respect.  Because I’ve yet to meet an agnostic who mocked me, spoke to me condescendingly, or was passionate about their view.  And they never tried to convert me to Darwinism; because just like they can’t prove or disprove there is no God whom they can not see, it would take faith to firmly believe in Evolution.  I am actually fascinated by agnostics, because they evidently have no faith in the unseen or unknown or physically improvable.  I don’t see how they do it.  It seems that goes against how we were wired as human beings.

I see atheism as a passionate, organized religion.  But agnosticism- I just don’t know how to classify it.  The combination of faith and passion is a clear sign of a religion; most atheists I have met in my lifetime clearly possess both.  Agnostics, on the other hand, are not passionate about their non-belief and truly appear to have no faith.  Like Penn said in this candid and honest YouTube video, if a person truly believes in their religion, they should share with it others.  I guess that’s unless you’re an agnostic, because there’s no big idea to prove- not even Evolution.  But it seems to me like atheists want to preach their “nongospel”- and that sounds like religion to me.

Maybe the ultimate irony here is that I realize it could be pretty easy for any “blog sniper” to come across this article and miss the whole point.  Maybe a reader’s perception could cause them to believe I have found a way to cleverly be condescending towards atheists while ironically preaching that we should Christians and atheists should treat each other with respect.  (But I don’t think so- I’ve made it pretty clear that overzealous Christians have mishandled the situation too and have definitely been in the wrong by being rude and condescending towards atheists.)  I could see how the exact kind of overzealous person I refer to in this post (whether they are a Christian or atheist or political talk show host) could find a way to get upset by the words I’ve said here today and be inspired to leave a three paragraph-long comment using my words (in sarcastic quotation marks and out of context, of course) to try to start a religious debate or character-bashing session.

If that’s the case, I promise this: I will not retaliate.  I will not defend myself.  I will not reply to your comment.  Because then I would without a doubt become my ultimate worst example.

But… if you’re just dying to leave a comment on this one, what I would rather you do is debunk is my claim that because atheism requires faith and has passionate believers (and often has an agenda based on its own bible: the teachings of Evolution), atheism is therefore an unofficial organized religion.  If you want to leave a comment about that, I may be inspired to debate you, with all due respect.