Somebody's watching me...

I wonder if Geico would like my opinion? NO? Too bad!

I LOVE THE GECKO....and those 'eyes' just annoy me. There, I said it. Now...MORE GECKO!! It's the accent - and when he offers biscuits and jam, I imagine the two of us sitting in a french bistro laughing like old friends.....is it odd that I find him a wee bit sexy? Yeah...it is. Forget I said that.

That's not the point - that's just an editorial comment. My point is.....I DO love Facebook. I've been reacquainted with people I haven't seen in years - I mean yeeeeeaaars - and now, we are 'FRIENDS'. Thank you, Facebook.

So, I post a status update or throw up a couple of pictures and BAM....my new old friends (and distant relatives that I could not identify if they walked up to me in the mall) are commenting like the gap between all those years never existed.

HELP!! What is Facebook protocol? Should I acknowledge those random comments? And why do I suddenly feel like ...somebody's watching me!

My New BFF

I've gone from 'unfriended' on FB (I use abbreviations because I'm cool like that)to a new BFF (still cool).

While commenting on my friend's (girl #1)status update on FB I noticed another girl had also commented. I didn't know girl #2 but I liked what she was saying. So I posted yet another comment to the original post but it was directed at the mystery girl...girl #2. She, in turn, commented on the same post but it was clearly intended for me.

Soon my FB friend (aka girl #1) decides to jump in the conversation and says "You two should be friends"!! Request sent and FRIENDSHIP ACCEPTED!!

Oh the Karma of the Facebook Universe!

A Girl's Best Friend.

You know how we say "Spanx...a girl's best friend"? Or..my favorite, of course, "Brownies...a girl's best friend." Hey...I can say that if I want to. And since I was officially 'unfriended' on YOU KNOW WHERE I'm one less friend so I'm due one. (I'm kind of boycotting the name because YOU KNOW WHO made an application where you can unfriend your friend. So there.)

But I can say with 100% certainty that 75% humidity is NOT my friend with or without YOU KNOW WHO'S confirmation or lack thereof. So there.

Give me the REMOTE!

Have I mentioned my hubby? I love him. He's the bestest EVER! He doesn't Twitter or have a Facebook profile (I may have to put him in the circus as the last man on earth to not be on Facebook). But since he isn't a virtual friend...we're just plain ol' best friends. I just love him. I'm repeating myself, aren't I?

So would it be so bad if I had to ask this one tiny, itty, bitty favor of him? GIVE ME THE DARN REMOTE OR NO MORE BROWNIES FOR YOU...and that's just the first item on the 'no more for you' list.

Oh My GOODNESS. Don't leave a girl hangin'! The suspense is killing me!!

I guess it's just girl curiosity but when he breezes by a channel and actually stops for more than three seconds, I become emotionally invested. I WANT TO KNOW! Can anyone relate to this scenario:

"The mystery has been solved that has eluded scientists for centuries thanks to the discovery of......" CLICK

"Hollywood was shocked today to learn that............" CLICK

"We interrupt this program to bring you a special announcement........." CLICK!!!

Seriously....just hand it over and no one will get hurt.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

UNFRIENDED!!

It's a cruel world out there. And it can't get that way much quicker these days. One minute you have a 'friend" and then with a simple click of a keyboard button....BAM...."UNFRIENDED".

Back in the good ol' days we had girl cliques and people knew who your friends were. The lines were clearly drawn. And...if one of the 'cliquees' got her panties in a wad, there was protocol and a definite chain of events that went into redefining those lines. Most often it was over an all important issue like....well, a conversation such as this:

Cliquee #1: "Hey.....you know how we're the coolest clique at school and how it's so great that we're all best friends and we can tell each other anything?"

Cliquee #2 : "Yeah....I love everyone! We're the bestest friends EVER!"

Cliquee #1: "Well, you know how funny "Jessica" is (names have been changed to protect the ignorant...I mean, innocent)?

Cliquee #2: "Yeah....she's so funny. She makes me laugh. I love it when she laughs".

Cliquee #1: "Well....now I could be totally wrong but......I'm pretty saw her looking at your boyfriend. I'm not saying he looked back and....well, I don't know...I'm sure it was nothing. I'm just saying ....well, you know you're my best friend and if someone was looking at my boyfriend then I'd want you to tell me. You'd tell me, right? "

Cliquee #2: "What was she wearing? She always wears 'those kind' of clothes. Was she twirling her hair when she was looking at him? She always twirls her hair! Did she do that stupid giggle? OH...I hate that giggle. I'm never speaking to her again!"

Cliquee #1: Yeah...I think she was twirling her hair. YEAH.....she was giggling...she always giggles. She thinks she's so funny! Who does she think she is? I hate her stupid clothes.

Clilquee #2: "We should write notes in class and then pass then to all our REAL friends and then we'll ignore Jessica at lunch. And then everyone will ask us why we're not talking and pretty soon the whole school will be talking about us all and we'll be MORE popular than ever!

JESSICA: Hey y'all!!

Cliquee #1 and #2: "Hey Jessica. Love your shoes!!! OMG...your hair is so FABULOUS!

Cliquee #2: I love Jessica.

Cliquee #1: Yeah....she's the best.

Cliquee #2: Hey.....isn't that your boyfriend with Jessica?

Protocol my 'friends'.....what happened to go old fashioned gossip and classic unfriending?

Oh look.....I have a new Facebook friend! She lives in Idaho?? I don't know anyone in Idaho. Oh well - MORE FRIENDS, MORE FRIENDS, MORE FRIENDS!! We're the bestest EVER!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to poke her and then toss a virtual Brownie at her. I love friends. :-)

Cut off your Nose to Spite your Face

This has got to be one of the most 'interesting' posts I've seen on Facebook in a while....

From Fox News 5/31/09...CAIRO — "A 25-year-old Egyptian man cut off his own penis to spite his family after he was refused permission to marry a girl from a lower class family, police reported Sunday." Wow, makes me think of cutting off my nose to spite my face in somewhat of a new light...

And his wife's comment???
Don't get any idea's!!

I don't even know how to add to that. Someone needs a brownie!

I Caved and took the Facebook Challenge

So...here's the deal. I'm kind of a big deal - well, at least I am on my nifty vision board. I run a major organization that reaches to the far corners of the globe - at least that's what my Google Analytics say. Pretty impressive, don't you think, that people in China and Australia are reading my blog....did I say blog...I mean my amazing web based empire.

My point is.....I stopped all my very important business-woman duties this morning and took a "How well do you know me" test on Facebook this morning. And the "me" in this particular test was one of my best friends of many years - a real friend, not just a virtual friend who keeps throwing things at me or wants me to confess to being one of their relatives. Who are these people? Anyway - a no-brainer quiz I figured and because I've been too busy saving the planet these past few months, I haven't spent much time on the social scene with her (or anyone else for that matter) so this little test was meant to redeem my neglect of my friend since my time is so very valuable and, need I remind you...I'm kind of a big deal and I have the tee-shirt to prove it. No I don't. :-(

I scored a 41%!!! I don't even know her HALF WAY!!!

Looks like little Miss "I'm too busy to stop and smell the roses much less meet my friend for coffee" needs to remember what the word 'friend' really means. I think I'll bake her a pan of brownies. And I might even share them with her. :-)

A Day Without Facebook

Yesterday was travel day. Get up early in Colorado, finish packing, check early morning email, hop in the car, drive an hour to the airport....sit in the airport for three hours because, as everyone knows, it's better to be way early than late (that tip of the day does NOT come from my book of philosophy!), board plane and sit yet another 3 hours. I'll start a new sentence here just for the fun of it.....land at Atlanta airport, stand at baggage claim and play 'which black suitcase is mine' for 20 minutes, drive another hour home. (FYI...my mom had made us a welcome home pan of brownies....I am not kidding!).

The two hour time difference seemed to have vanish in the time warp of travel day (see I changed the color to green so you would understand what that whacky picture is all about....I'm not sure I trust my vitual friends to figure that out....except for one and when you finish reading this you'll know who I mean). So, I was tired regardless of what time my body thought it was. But not too tired that my Facebook OCD would let me just go on to bed without checking in on what I had missed in my virtual world of friends.

Thank goodness for the ability to see older posts or I could have possibly gone the rest of my life without critical information like....one of my friends discovered that she was most like the 80's TV character Punky Brewster. WHO KNEW? Additionally I learned that a friend has an IQ of 130. One friend was thankful for Karaoke and finally, I'm not sure I can even grasp the thought that I almost missed knowing that one friend just picked up some tickets for a baseball game.

Surprisingly, however, there were no strings of conversation questioning my whereabouts. Hmmm....seems that live goes on even when I'm not around to monitor it. I guess that's good to know. Oh wait...someone in New York just welcomed me home. Ahhhh.....it's good to be back among 'friends'.

I think a Spider bit me!

That's the truth. I was sitting on the couch enjoying my first cup of coffee when BAM...I felt this pain in my leg. Naturally, Ireached to touch it and OUCH...that hurt!! I had my silky pj bottoms on - but here's the truth....it's too hot to sleep in them so I just laid them on the floor by my bed before I fell asleep so I had easy access for when I got up. SO....back to the OUCH. I suddenly had this horrible image that a spider had crawled into my silky pj pants (do you get the sense that I'm making sure you understand that my pjs are not flannel - because, apparently that's important that you know).

My husband assured me it was NOT a spider and that I probably wasn't going to die today - at least that's not what my horoscope said.

So...you know me...I decided to experiement with my Facebook friends. Here's what I posted:

"I think a SPIDER bit me! Seriously - it hurts like crazy and I have to catch a flight later today. This is such an inconvenience."

How many 'friends' do you think commented on this potentially life threatening incident?? ONE!! And it was very sarcastic at that.

Need I remind you how many people commented on those stupid brownies?? Too many to count!!

Friends?? Really?? Thanks guys.
Wait....fingers going numb....vision fading......craving for chocolate.....Out - of - Control!!

Shhhh....My Secret Stash

I know I can't keep talking about these crazy Brownies for the rest of my life but let's just confess right here that we all have some secrets. Am I right or am I right?

I have a secret stash....of, wait...you'll never guess....BROWNIES!! OMG I am so addicted to these little guys. But do I really need to hide them? Who a I hiding them from? I just publically confessed last week that I ate brownies for breakfast. That pretty much lets the cat out of the bag, don't ya think?

And this is my point about Facebook. We share what we think are intimate parts of our life - maybe even things we consider secret - with total reckless abandom.

Guy posts: "I am listening to Dave Matthews instead of working."
Friend comments: "Yeah.....it's too nice of a day to actually work."

Girl posts: "I just bought a pair of $300 shoes...."
Friend comments: Oh dear.....better hide them before you know who gets home.

I'm just sayin'......well, I think we're ALL Just Sayin'.

Facebook = Internet Chocolate

AHA!! I'm beginning to understand the phenomenon of Facebook. This addiction can only be understood if one understands the craving and chemistry of.....chocolate. (The craving for some Johnny Depp is a separate subject altogether and you should mind your own business!)

Why do we love chocolate? Sure - there's the obvious. It's DELICIOUS! (that was my Kosmo Kramer impression in case you didn't catch it). We've learned recently that it's actually good for us because of those powerful Flavanoids and antioxidants (whatever excuse you need, right?). We also equate chocolate with love (ahhhhh).

But here's the real reason.....opioids. Chocolate contains chemicals called opioids. Opioids are also found in opium, and they serve to dull pain and give a feeling of well-being to people who ingest them. According to a study, people who eat chocolate produce natural opiates in their brains that soothe their nerves and make them feel good.

Still with me? How, you may be wondering, does chocolate correlate at all to Facebook?

Accoring to Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963) he says this about Opioids:

"If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution - then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise."

It is our need to absolish our solitude as individuals and atone us with our fellows (aka 'friends'...even virtual friends as it may be). A Facebook Fix! That's not such a bad craving or.....addiction, is it? So there you have it....Facebook must contain the same mind altering, pain-dulling, sense of well-being, love feeling inducing ingredients as....yep, chocolate.

I'm feeling a little solitary right now - I think I hear those brownies calling my name.

What, exactly, is a 'Confession'

Need to know what a word really means? Ahhh...dictionary (dot com, of course....why walk all the way over the book case where my 1979 Websters is sitting and actually flip page after page when I can point and click? Lazy...yeah, probably). So here goes ..Confession:

1.	to acknowledge or avow (a fault, crime, misdeed, weakness, etc.) by way of revelation.

2.	to own or admit as true: I must confess that I haven't read the book.

3.	to declare or acknowledge (one's sins), esp. to God or a priest in order to obtain absolution.

4.	(of a priest) to hear the confession of (a person).

5.	to acknowledge one's belief or faith in; declare adherence to.

6.	to reveal by circumstances.

It's that last one that I find most intriguing....to reveal by circumstance. So when someone updates their Facebook status by saying "I've been asked to write a column for a newspaper about ______ but the only stipulation is that I don't cuss" do all 534 people in your network understand that this is a JOKE because that's the last thing you would EVER do (uh...hem) or do the innocent bystanders think "wow...he's got a problem!"?

I like brownies but I don't typically eat them for breakfast. But when I decided to share that confession on Facebook a virtually feeding frenzy ensued. A Feeding Frenzy I tell ya!

Frenzy: a fit or spell of violent mental excitement; a paroxysm characteristic of or resulting from a mania

Mania: excessive excitement or enthusiasm

I guess I got a little excited about my Brownies....don't you agree? If so.....you should comment!

I'm going to share a Brownie with Dr. House

I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV although I have been known to dress up like a nurse at times (nope...no details on that little confession...and don't judge me....you know you have too!). But if I were (was? were? help me Miss Grammer) a doctor, I think I would be a psychiatrist - but one like Dr. House (is he hot or what - I mean, brilliant). House looks beyond the obvious to find that hidden mystery. And that's what I would do with Facebook because, face it, if you're a psychiatrist looking for a group to study then the Facebook community is the Holy Grail.

Facebook is the only place where you can 'friend' a total stranger and immediately begin sharing intimate details of your private life. You can be 'poked' by an old friend and not feel violated. You can publically wish a brand new friend, who just updated her status by sharing that she's boarding a plane at that very moment, 'bon voyage' ....as if you were emotionally invested in her leaving.

You can use terminology (aka acronyms) that you would never use if you were actually in a room with all 486 of your 'friends' and not think twice about it. THREE LITTLE LETTERS? What The "heck"?

Only on Facebook will you take the time to take a quiz that determines which Hollywood Movie Star you are or what Weapon of Mass Destruction you are most likely to use or what type of church member you REALLY are and then.....give permission for it to be posted to your public profile. And, as if that wasn't revealing enough, you will THEN.....oh here's there FUN PART.....you will actually argue WHY those results are wrong by posting your own comments on your OWN results.

Now I'm dizzy.

Where are my Brownies?

Brownies for My Breakfast....Confessions on Facebook

I created this blog this morning after, what I thought was, just a momentary crazy entry on FaceBook. I am the CEO of a web-based business (yeah....my attorney said I had to choose a legitimate title because Queen of Fun wasn't listed as an option...so there, I am now CEO). So...in the middle of working I realized it was 11:00 a.m. and I hadn't had anything to eat all morning. I was hungry - hey, even CEOs get hungry!

So, against my better judgment, I went to the kitchen and got myself - hold on to your widgets and gadgets and HTML....a BROWNIE (I bet you didn't see that coming!). Then, and I don't know why, I decided to share this with my virtual friends. This is called a momentary distraction. I simply put, as my status update, "I just had brownies for breakfast...seriously...what's that about"? And the replies started popping in faster than I could read! Affirmations....validations and even a reference to the great Bill Cosby - comparing his commenting that chocolate cake contained eggs, milk, wheat.....making it a health food! Seems like I'm not the only one answers to the beckoning of the brownie. Not that I'm at all ashamed. I am not. I love them. Who doesn't? And why shouldn't I have a Brownie for my Breakfast? As my grandmother once told me (I promise this is true and, in fact, she gave me a little plaque to hang on my wall saying so) "Life is uncertain....eat dessert first!"

So what will this Blog be about? Stay tuned - tell all your friends and get ready to get real! Brownie lovers - it's time to come out of the (pantry) closet!!

What did YOU have for breakfast?