Cry about it.  Four quick updates:

1) In the event that you read my post about the Fifteen Puzzle, it appears that the puzzle has successfully reached its first destination and that the recipient did as they were instructed.  They also took the opportunity to add some flare, and rumor has it have passed it along to someone that in fact do not know.  So from here on out, it’s beyond my control, and I love it.

2) In the event that I haven’t told you yet, if you rside in any of the following places: Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Ithaca, Philadelphia, Toronto, Tennessee, Chicago, Maryland, Delaware, or will be there in May/June/July, keep your eyes peeled.  Because I will be too.  More on that coming soon.

3) In the event that you read my post about Christmas in March, and you have yet to receive anything from me in the mail, don’t be dissapointed (or if you were me, feel like you’re off the hook), I just sent out some packages, and have a bundle of a few more to send out early next week.

4) I’m not wearing pants.

I’ve just about beaten the “I like/need/want/encourage-you to get rid of things” topic like some kind of Rodney King (too soon?), but since it’s a constant theme in my life, you are coming along for the beat down.  I hate messes, and have been struggling with finding a place/home/compartment for all of the little knickknacks that I possess.  I decided the best way to really find a place for all these things would be to scatter them across the floor of my office.  That way I see them everyday (sometimes stepping on them and hurting myself), and am reminded that I need to find a place for each and every one of them.

I know what some of you are thinking, ‘just throw them all in a drawer, everyone has a drawer with random stuff in it’.  Well I’m not you,  I don’t think like you, and I don’t want your drawer of indecision in my house. So my floor (after much organizing already) looks like this:

Hurricane Knickknackatrina

One thing that is not in that pile is a small game/toy called Fifteen Puzzle.  It is a sliding-tiles number puzzle (mosaic-like) that you will most likely recognize from your childhood.  It’s not in the pile because I have already decided where it’s going.

Fifteen Puzzle

Accompanying the puzzle is a red pleather case (pictured underneath the puzzle) and a booklet that has various solutions that you are challenged to accomplish.  What I have done is packaged this puzzle up and addressed the envelope to one of my lucky friends.  Included with the puzzle/case/booklet is a half-sheet of instructions that read something to the effect of:

1. Pick any solution in the booklet that isn’t checked/initialed
2. Take a picture of both the puzzle in the booklet and your solution side-by-side
3. Post the picture on Facebook and tag yourself and who sent this to you (and they will do the same, so that the trail can be followed by all involved)
4. Check/initial the puzzle you did in the booklet like those before you
5. Send this puzzle, booklet, and instructions on to someone who will do the same

No need to ask to be the recipient since I’ve already chosen the lucky one, and where it goes after that is up to them.  If it will fizzle out with the first recipient (sometimes we think too highly of our friends), or not even arrive at it’s destination, is yet to be seen.  But here’s to creative and fun ways of getting rid of your shit.

P.S. You can track the progress in the Fifteen Puzzle Facebook Album.

My father recently gave me an article from the Economist that contained some interesting Facebook facts.  Although I fear that Facebook has been slowly and steadily heading in the wrong direction (in terms of what I want/need/would like from it), I remain an avid user and so the article interested me.

The article, Primates on Facebook, focuses on social network grooming and the typical gender-based differences in which males and females approach their social networks.  It draws parallels between behaviors both traditionally in the physical space, as well as in the virtual space.  The gist of the article (which I’ll let you read) is that women tend to nurture slightly larger social networks (and thus more relationships) then men.  This is because women like to talk a lot which is further supported by the endless amounts of magazines that are available at any grocery store checkout line.  I’ve never been to a grocery store (that’s a woman’s role after all), but from what I hear it’s a safari of gossip rags.

So why am I recycling this article which is already posted online for everyone to read, and to which I have already provided a link.  Because I’m concerned.  It appears that based on the Economists math (which I assume since they are called the Economist, would be pretty good… Upon further reflection, I bet that’s what everyone who signed over their hard earned dollars thought when they hired ’stock brokers’ and ‘investment bankers’ to manage their money…I digress) So apparently based on my Facebook behaviors, I’ve got a vagina.

That’s right.  I’m a woman on Facebook.  Sure my profile says I’m a 25 year old Male residing in Kailua, HI that attended Ithaca College, but since I regularly write comments on 26 of my friends walls, and send messages to more than 6, I’m on par with the average female.  Here’s an idea, why don’t the economists focus on the economy and us Facebook women focus on Social Networking.  You get better at the numbers you are so clearly terrible at, and I’ll keep doing what I’m good at, running my mouth and looking at pictures of Lindsay Lohan.

It’s 2009 for those of you who haven’t been keeping track of time, and I am in Hawaii for those of you who haven’t been keeping track of space.  After a few days of reflecting on what my first post of the new year should be about, I found it only appropriate that the post be centered around what it is that moved me to first begin this blog 81 posts ago. In the last few weeks, I’ve been up to a quite a lot, and it doesn’t look like things are going to change anytime in the near future.  I’ve gotten to hop over to Maui twice, both times to visit some of the oldest (in terms of how long I’ve known them, not their ages) friends that I still keep in touch with.  My brother came out for a visit, and left last night to head back to the misery that is winter time in Manhattan. My cousin came out for a visit, and left today to head back to her South Carolinian college experience. Great times were had by all.

What is just as exciting as all of that, is what is yet to come (some of which will be happening, or is already happening, in 2009).  Just a taste:

• Matt and Grace Ann got engaged
• Jeff is back on Facebook
• Paul is considering investing even more of his time and energy into his music (even more then he already does)
• Cat and Alex are getting married
• Ashley is chasing her dreams down in ‘bama
• Amanda is launching DailyWorth.com and her second child
• Nicole launched her photo-a-night project
• Barack starts his new job
• VoiceStream drops Acapocalypse
• Bryant has a beautiful new baby

It’s kind of amazing that so much good is happening at a time where life for so many is so shitty.  I am certain you can chalk it up to ambition and perseverance.  None of these things are going to just happen to these people, and none of these people are just sitting back watching these things happen to them.  My friends get shit done, and my friends care about what shit they get done.  That is why they are my friends. It is what draws me to them, and I’m guessing, them to me.  So what do I have to offer them in 2009?  It’s yet to be determined, but stay tuned, and stay pants-less.

P.S. If I forgot anything that any of you would like to share, or to have on my blogdar (borrowed from the gays and modified for the ‘blog’ frequency), please share in the comments. (I can say this with confidence because I know you wont).

You aren’t aware of the huge scandal currently erupting in our nations capital this week, and that’s because you live in a cave.  A deep, dark, dank, damp cave of ignorance.  Fear not, for I am bringing the light. I’m bringing it so far down the deep vacant void of a hole that is your conscious, white light will shining out your other end.  The knowledge catching a ride on those wavelengths of light is the lie behind teeth whitening. You’re whole life is a lie.

First, the background.  Since early last century, an organized group of men(/wo) in white attire known as ‘Dentists’ or ‘Doctors of Dentistry’ (DoD to us in the know) have been misleading you, the common wo/man, about the your teeth.  You see, for decades now everyday Americans have been making appointments, forcing their children to read Highlights magazine in waiting rooms whose stuffy, sterile, tasteless environments were only made worse by the ‘music’ emanating from the speakers, all in pursuit of the mouths holy grail: whiter straighter teeth.

I’ll address the straighter aspect of the above mentioned holy grail first.  Somewhere along the way, a small faction of the DoD decided to combine their scam for whiter straighter teeth, with their sadism.  These wo/men formed a new school of elective and expensive torture which has been labeled  ‘Orthodontics’.  Wikipedia will have you believe that the word was derived from some deprecated language like Greek or French, but I posit that it’s name is an acronym in the beloved language that is my native tongue. Oh really, that hurts? Oh, doh! Oh, not that I care, shithead.

So for straighter teeth, you went to those a-holes.  The other half of the grail was whiter teeth.  For that, we needed the original gangsters, members of the DoD.  At first it was once every two years. That wasn’t enough for their greedy little paws.  They began using British peoples teeth as a scare tactic, and visits became necessary once every year.  Then as British people started to go once every year, and it was evident that it didn’t help them, the American DoD decided that once every six months was the way to do it right.  Dental insurance rates went up and only covered one preemptive visit a year (second visit for the whiteness was outta pocket kiddos!), the variety of toothpastes increased exponentially, and teeth hardly got any whiter.

Teeth Whitening Exposed

Forget about your dentist (I bet that jerk had a ‘No Pants, No Shoes, No Service’ sign on his door anyway)., because you and I, we know better.  We got a guy on the inside, called Facebook Ads.  And according to this mole, all it really takes to achieve the jackpot in the white teeth lottery is paying for something that is free, and sitting still for seven hours (that’s right, seven hours) with a giant white brick that shoots blue lasers into your mouth and makes your lips purple.  No, I’m not kidding.  It’s that easy.

I used to hear every now and then that people actually fell for those Nigerian prince scams. You know the kind where you get a random email from some Nigerian prince whose rich father forgot to put him in the will, but he could divert the millions of Nigerian cluckas (or whatever currency they have there) into your account if you give him all your bank account information.  Then he’d only ask for a modest sum of 50% of the total for himself, leaving you with the other 50% of the riches that should have been entirely his had he not had a fiscally irresponsible King for a father.  I think I got a few of them back in 1998, but since then I’ve been using an email service that has a spam filter, and I almost forgot about them until yesterday.

This one was enough of a deviation from the stories I had heard that I knew it wasn’t a scam.  Not a scam?  That’s right, not a scam.  So why am I not a multimillionaire right now?  Allow me to explain.

You've Got Facebook Mail!

In my Facebook inbox (of all places) I had a message from my buddy Abdullah Abdulwahid.  I didn’t seem to recall knowing any Abdulwahid’s growing up (some could say I lived a sheltered life), but I figured maybe one of the many Abdullah’s I knew married into a non-traditional family where the husband took on the wives last name.  Clearly, we were tight since he didn’t even bother putting in a subject line.  So I fired open the mail to see just who this AA character was, but alas I did not know him…yet.

Don't Cry For Me Nigeria

Apparently a rich industrialist and oil merchant by the name of Imran Shazhad died in a car accident with his wife and child in tow, and with no heirs left, his fortune has been sitting since 2001 just waiting to be claimed.  My buddy Abdullah works at Fidelity (a financial institution I know and trust) and has been watching this inactive account just sit there waiting to be tapped.  It’s not stealing if no one will even know it’s missing, according to the gist of what AA is saying.

He asks for some pretty straight-forward and standard information, and I was in the middle of typing my reply (with the requested information included) when I realized that rich Nigerian industrialist/oil merchants don’t die in car accidents on the way back to their ‘coountry’.  For one, rich industrialists don’t drive out of the country (that is too fuel efficient), they charter private jets.  In the even that they do drive out of their country (and back), they certainly aren’t behind the wheel (and neither are their wife or kid), and the mail mentioned nothing about a dead chauffeur either. But lets get serious, so few people are flying these days, there is no way he couldn’t get a charter flight.

So this is where you (reader) and I, don’t see eye to eye.  You think Abdullah is trying to pull a fast one on me, and use my credentials to steal money from my bank accounts, or thieve my identity for his own devious purposes.  I however, don’t think a Facebook friend of mine would ever dare do such a thing.  After all, we are internet friends.  So why didn’t I send the reply with my info intact?  Because I value my life.

See, if I were to inherit half of that large sum, then the same people who wanted Mr. Imran Shazhad dead (and succesfully assasinated him on the way back into his country after convincing him that car would be a good way to travel) would come after me.  They either wanted the contract with the Federal Government of Nigeria, or they wanted his money.  Now that he’s outta the way, they probably already have the contract.  In the event that they were after his money though, I’m gonna pass Abdullah.

Apparently, the Internet and I have an illegitimate love-child.  I know, I was just as shocked as you were.  And surprise surprise in the days of Web 2.0, it decided to tell me over Facebook.  I know right? Messed up.

I've Got A Secret

So there I was, mindlessly clicking through some walls and galleries, and up on the right side that ad appears.  It’s not as straight forward as ‘hey! we have a child together’, but it’s pretty much the ‘we need to talk’ that we have all come to know and dread.  The power of suggestion.  I need some suggestion for baby names. I’m thinking Moxy Crimefighter Part Deux.

Two sites I troll frequently are Facebook and Craigslist. Two very different sites. Two somewhat different target audiences. Two treasure troves of women.

Now it wouldn’t be a fair apples to apples comparrison if we just pitted the women found on Facebook with those found on Craigslist.  Afterall, Facebook is more commonly used to keep in touch with friends and Craigslist is more commonly used to be touched by strangers. However, comparing the women of Facebook ads to the women of Craigslist personals seems fair, since the personals are ads in their own right.

I conveniently have been accumulating screen caps of Facebook ads for singles sites over the last week or two just in case something like this blog post happened to come up, and have formulated them into a collage for your review:

Foxes of Facebook

Overall a 7.  I know, I’m being generous.  Yes that is an internationally known Victoria’s Secret Angel on the top left by the name of Adriana Lima, and apparently her and Marko Jaric split because she has a profile on singlesnet.com (I didn’t click the ad so I can’t verify this, but it’s an advertisement on the internet so it must be true). The gist of Facebook ad girls is that they all have a bunch of eye make-up (that they know how to apply rather well), with the exception of the one in the top right corner who clearly knows how to have fun (and would also be at home in a rabbit warren).

And now I present you with the cream of the Craigslist crop:

Cream of the Craigslist Crop

Overall a 9. I know, you think I’m being too generous. No she is not an internationally acclaimed super model, but they grow old, gain weight, get their own t.v. shows, and go crazy.  No she is not so good at putting on her eye make-up, or hasn’t ever heard of it, but eye make-up washes off.  If my decision isn’t obvious to you, you didn’t look hard enough.  Notice the date stamp on her pictures.  She is from the future.  How can you go wrong with someone who already knows how the next 5 years or so pan out?  Plus, if she is like most people, she is using a picture of her younger, brighter, and more youth filled days, so she probably knows what happens in year 6 and 7.

Knowing the future can bring you happiness that underwear models could never even hope to. So look for love on Craigslist, not on the advertisements that show-up while you are clicking around Facebook. Or, stick to the real world, if you dare.

Craigslist is always a comedy goldmine.  If you don’t regularly check out your local Craigslist personals section, I guarantee you you’ll have some serious laughs in under 5 minutes.  If for some reason your local area does not deliver, then check out the Hawaii personals.  Since I’m a maths guy, one recent post that really created a cackle was this:

You Can Never Have Too Many Friends

Take note of both her age (in the title of the post), and how long she has been out of ‘the dating scene’.  Unless she considers breast feeding with her mother part of the ‘dating scene’, then clearly she didn’t proofread her post.  If she did proofread her post, and she counts that action, then she’s posting in the wrong section of the personals anyway (that’s what w4w is for hun).

Another place that never fails to deliver some joy is the infamous Facebook ads.  Unlike a Craigslist personal ad, these cost money, so you’d think some proofreading would go into it, especially when the ad only has twenty-five words in it.

The IRS can due what ever they want!

And finally, this ad, for this shirt was right up my no pants alley:

With A Shirt Like This, Who Needs Pants?

I never click on ads.  I know some people do, and that ’some’ must be millions otherwise people wouldn’t pay for ads, but I just never do.  I do look at ads however.  I don’t really look at the nice ones, or the ones that look professionally created, because those are going to be without flaw/error and well thought out (most of the time).  The best ads come from places with limited technical resources, and fewer people to review the ad before deploying it.  Facebook seems to be a haven for ads of this lot.

A gem from the past week:

Nice Smile

Oh, really?  When I look at that mouth my first reaction isn’t ‘Wow those teeth need whitening!’  In fact, all those teeth are pretty pearly white.  I think a cause for more immediate concern should be the extra tooth that person has between #2 and #15.  Not only does that tooth need whitening, but it also needs to be removed.  In all seriousness though, that tooth is no longer in somebodies mouth.  Does that mean they just take out all your dirty teeth and put clean ones in their place?  Is that dirty tooth so dirty because it was removed from a dead person?

Another killer combo was this one:

Meet a Christian Woman While Finding your Ahupuaa

I wanted to give you a taste of the kind of ads I get because of my location.  I’m fairly certain that not many of you have ads that say Ahupuaa in them.  Do you know where yours is though? Seriously, do you?  You should get on that.  Lastly, we have Christian Women for sale.  Christian Women, or Christian twelve year-olds?  Cause I’m pretty sure little frau pigtails there just fell out of Hofbrauhaus Middle School.  Also, ‘looking to have some fun’ just sounds dirty without a ‘Jesus’ or ‘Our Lord’ thrown into the mix somewhere for good measure.  Let’s be honest, if she’s spending any time looking for fun instead of for salvation, she’s going to hell in a hand-basket, accompanied with some bratwurst.