So You're the One?

Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. The light dusting of snow refreshed our winter tableau nicely this morning. I am thinking about teaching our dogs to eat beets. That splash of red would be a nice diversion from the everyday yellow and white snow. Even better! I may teach one to eat beats and leave the other one alone. That way I would have red and yellow on the pallet of my winter landscape. That is what I love about winter. After a time, you become so desperate for an escape from the frozen winter tundra, that finally after reaching depths of despair you look outside of yourself to make things better.

This is something that the folks from the northern climates know so well and why they are so good at the winter “sports.”

I do like watching the winter “sports” on the Olympics. First, I love the Olympics. It is a worldwide celebration of judgmentalism. You hurled your way down a mountain on an 8 inch wide board, managed to clear some hand rails left over from a previous civilization and made it all of the way down the mountain intact but you’re a loser because you didn’t get enough height or show enough flair on this or that jump.

Even the opening ceremony is all about judgment. Belize, please, get a real delegation. Canada had 320 winter “athletes” to which I respond, “yes, but its Canada.” My daughter takes exception to my air quotes of “sports” and “athletes.” I believe that any “sport” that basically relies on gravity and the reduction of friction is really just a physics experiment and not really a sport. Further more “athletes” who participate in such experiments are really just scientists who have no real need of athleticism. She points out that the cross country skiers have a resting heart rate of 24. “That’s proof of athleticism,” she says.  She claims that they will live forever being that fit. I pointed out to her that first, no one lives forever. Second, I challenged her to name me one 80 year old cross country skier. She couldn’t. I gave her a break. “Name one 70 year old cross country skier.” She couldn’t. “Okay,” I said “Name one 60 year old cross country skier.” She couldn’t. Of course she couldn’t; because no cross country skiers live that long. They aren’t athletes. They’re bear snacks; skiers on a stick out in the woods.

Speaking of judgment and the opening ceremonies; did you see those sweaters that the Americans were wearing? They were like the ugly Christmas sweaters of the Olympic Games. Ten years from now hipsters and hipster wannabes will be having ugly patriotic sweater parties on the 4^th of July. They will be hanging out drinking wine in all of their bitter ironic ugly patriotic regalia being too cool to go to the fireworks display. I’m lovin it.

 

The Olympics are a great topic. However, I really wanted to write about Facebook. It is celebrating its tenth birthday. What a ten years it has been. It is hard to believe that I have been friending, sharing and commenting for 20% of my life. It is even harder to believe that I have 20% of my social life squirreled away on Facebook’s servers just waiting on the Nebulous Society of Anonymity to take a peak at and determine how dangerous I may or may not be. Pick your friends wisely as momma used to say.

As this birthday party has approached, I have noticed two trends. First is the recent spate of “what character are you?” quizzes; or as I like to tauntingly call them Myers Briggs for dummies. Forget about how the different pillars of personality may play and interact with one another, the public wants to know what fictional character they are like. I never knew that I was surrounded by stars. I’m Hermione. I’m Harry. I’m Bilbo. I’m Gandolf. None of my friends are an orc extra on the screen for a second in the big battle scene. No one is the 12 year old young witch in Hogwarts walking behind Harry into the great hall. No, every one I know is a star; just the cool well adjusted stars though. No one has claimed to be Voldemort with his homicidal eccentricities, no sniveling Peter Petegrew cowering in the corner doing the evil lord’s bidding.

Why is that? Why are none of my friends even a little bit sociopathic? Why isn’t at least one a psychopath? It stands to reason that someone’s test results would say that they are  off of their rocker, but they haven’t. Everyone is well adjusted and a star. They also must have surprising levels of humility. With that many stars in one grouping, petty jealousies could easily tear friendships apart. However, it appears that everyone plays their part well and all is hugs and kisses out on the set.

The second trend that has caught my eye this past week is the movies that Facebook can make of your profile. They go in; take a look at your pictures; see how many are liked and get comments. Tallying all of the votes cast by your friends and their acquaintances, the most popular are harvested and placed into a “movie” with music. I write “movie” because it is more technically a slideshow. However, everyone knows that slide shows are the most boring form of artistic expression known to man. No, it does not matter. Even with musical accompaniment, a slide show screams boring.

Friday afternoon, I saw the first one pop up. By Friday evening, there was a blizzard of movies hitting my news feed. It was so popular that by Saturday afternoon a booger picker had made a parody of the Facebook movie; showing us his technique and love of booger picking. I hope that he posts his Harry Potter character soon. The psychopaths may have a winner.

I am not much of a joiner of Facebook fads. I have never watched a cat video. I don’t care if it “really is the cutest one you’ve ever seen.” I don’t watch the touching posts no matter if “this one will make you cry.” I only use Facebook to see how many of you are tired of winter already, have grandkids that you are proud of, and track assassin deer sightings. Other than that I am out of it. I do like the Facebook movies though. The lovely Miss Beverly drew me in with family pictures, Ghana pictures, Ben pictures, and wedding pictures. The picture of the raspberries on the kitchen counter may be my favorite. For me, it is the winter of 2014 antidote. I look at it and feel 50 degrees warmer.

I was so excited looking at Bev’s movie that I immediately went to my page to create my movie. I hit the button. The “we’re working on it” icon started to spin. A minute later I received the following “Thank you, Roger. Mark and the Facebook Team.” It appears that Mark and the team couldn’t make a movie from my five pictures. I hit the button again; knowing there must have been some malfunction. No malfunction; it appears that Mark and the Facebook Team had found that orc on

screen for just a second in the big battle scene.

Take care,

Roger.