Facebook Status Updates

We give you: The Top Four Most Annoying Facebook Status Update Styles

The Facebookitterer
This is the person who thinks their Facebook status update is supposed to function like a Twit. Updates may include the following:

John Smith is eating lunch.

Jess Smith is glad hubby is home to watch the baby...haven't been able to go to the bathroom all morning!

Elaine Craig is doing laundry.
Elaine Craig is folding laundry.
Elaine Craig is putting away laundry.
Elaine Craig clean laundry smells so nice!!!

The Confused Persons
This is the friend on your list who is a person confused by the concept of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd persons. They consistently write their updates in the first person, causing updates that read very oddly:

Grant Johnson I just had the greatest time ever at the beach!

Lizzy Jones me and my mom are loving this season of Dancing with the Stars!

Jane Victor I'm pregnant! Me and Bill are sooooo happy! Get the shotgun dad, lol

The I-Don't-Have-a-Life-So-I'll-Post-About-My-Family-Instead
The title pretty much says it all.

Elias Jones ' sister just came back from Costco with garlic bread!

Adrianna Ayers someone just pointed a gun at my brothers! YIKES! So glad they're OK!

David Daniels' parents just won a trip to Hawaii...wahoo! Can't wait for my lousy t-shirt!

The Trying Desperately to be Mysterious
This is the melodramatic person in your life who wants everyone to think their life is much more interesting than it actually is. They do this by posting vague, and sometimes worrisome, status updates:

Sarah Grant is trying to catch the rain.

Bryce Buckler sometimes, you have to die before you can live.

Boredom is the Mother of Creativity

It was another typical, dreary day in my Organic Chem class. If Organic Chem was a type of weather, it would be one of those days in November when it's not quite winter or fall, but dark and blustery... and awful.

Fortunately for me, my best friend is in the same class. She alleviates the intense boredom caused by my professor's droning voice. Not only is she pretty and witty, she is also a closet poet.

And today she wrote a poem in class. I laughed out loud at the result of her creative energy. My professor now thinks his jokes are funny. My classmates now think I'm a lunatic. They may be right, but whatever. See for yourself.

I happened upon a man one day

(His palor markedly white)

An unabashed grin being all he wore

(It gave me quite a fright)
"Good God, dear sir, what happened to you?

Your skin's so markedly pale

You shouldn't leave such things for the world to see

Considering you're irrevocably male."

He responded "A long time ago much before your day

I was not but a wee lad of two

Minding my own in a bath when the nurse

Had an aneurysm and out with the water she threw

My humble self to the street."

"For shame!" I cried, "And let a curse hang upon her head,

But dear sir, you have failed to mention yet

Why you are still so... naked."

"My color I shan't account for

'Twas given me at birth

And I will always bless whom gave it me,

My only mother, Earth.

As for my persistent state

My theory is simple, you see:

It was naked my mother saw me last,

And I have remained so, lest she shouldn't recognize me."

-Lorelai

Vote for ?

One of my hall mates approached me yesterday on my way to class and threw her catchy campaign slogan at me. I liked it. See, she's running for freshman class president and is trying to raise support. I encouraged her, promised her my vote, and kept walking.

This morning, one of my other friends accosted me in the college cafeteria at lunch and declared his intention to run for freshman class president. He promised, in a very Pedroesque style, to make all my wildest dreams come true if I vote for him. I encouraged him, promised him my vote, and went back to eating my hamburger-turned-meatloaf-turned-goulash-turned-chili.

Oh snap.

I'm in so much trouble. There's a few options I have to fix this situation.

1. I vote for the guy. We become BFFs. My unit mate hates me. And unless you're a girl in a dorm, you have NO idea how much drama that would cause. Seriously... I have goosebumps just thinking about it.
2. I vote for the girl. We become BFFs. I influence her to have hand lotion dispensers put in the women's restrooms all over campus. The guy hates me, but my wildest dreams have come true anyway. Come on, free hand lotion, right!?
3. I abstain from voting. No hand lotion, no wildest dreams coming true, but neither friend has cause to hate me. So boring.
4. I lie about who I voted for, and tell each one not to tell the other friend who I voted for. Sneaky. So secret agent-ish. But this is a Christian University and that just doesn't feel right.
5. OR... I run for freshman class president. I beat them both. They hate me, but can't help but be happy for me. I get the hand lotion dispensers. How hard could it be?

I don't know what to do. What do you, the omniscient and wise faithful few, think I should do in this situation? Is there really a "right" way out of this mess?

Adventures in Overnight Babysitting

My parents have been waiting for me to get out of school. Why? I am the designated overnight babysitter. Not that they don't trust anyone else... it's just that few people are up to the job, or willing to do it for free. So that leaves me. Last week, I was left alone with my 5 siblings while my parents took a week to travel to St. Martin. While they were off jet-setting, we got busy.

Day 1: Ah... the sweet taste of freedom. We did no housework, and watched TV for hours on end. I was voted "Best Babysitter of the Year". Three of my brothers went to the neighbors' house to camp out in the backyard while I had the neighbors' sister over for a sleepover. My friend and I sneaked out late to TP the boys' camper while they were inside the house watching TV. We left them a creepy note for good measure. Job well done. We stayed up until 2 a.m. watching the long version of Pride and Prejudice. It put us to sleep.

Day 2: My friend and I woke up and called the boys. They came over and we played a good game of Ultimate Frisbee in my backyard. We live in a housing subdivision, and our yard is tiny, so it's more like Extreme, or Arena Ultimate Frisbee. My brother almost got his eye knocked out, but we didn't worry too much about it, we figured that's why God gave him two eyes in the first place. He's OK now. I spent the rest of the day hopping from one graduation open house to another with one of my cousins. We decided that if we were really motivated, we could go a whole month without buying food if we spaced out our open house attendance and took home leftovers.

Day 3: Almost fell asleep in church. I was so tired, the rest of the day went by in a blur.

Day 4: Too tired to remember. I basically sleep-walked all day.

Day 5: We decided to throw a party. Isn't this breaking the number one "what not to do while your parents are away" rule? Movies like Yours, Mine, and Ours and The Pacifier show this quite plainly. We had a modest four guests over. It started raining cats and dogs while we were playing Frisbee, so we ran up and down the street playing tag and screaming like tortured banshees. Our neighbors must love us for that.

Day 6: My siblings, with the exception of my darling little sister, accused me of being cranky. They told me I was the worst babysitter ever. I said, "No, I took second. I'm going for FIRST this year!"

Day 7: Nothing big happened. We developed some serious cases of cabin fever. I sent my siblings to a friend's house.

Day 8: We babysat 3 more children under the age of three. I figured I was already babysitting 5 kids, why not 8? Then we cleaned the house. Yeah, that pretty much took all day.

Day 9: My parents got home. I found out that sibling number 5 hadn't brushed his teeth since my parents left. My parents thanked me for babysitting and asked if they could schedule me for next year. I'm still thinking about it.

Will you be my friend?

You want to be cool. The cool kids have friends. You want to have friends. Here's how:

Make eye contact and smile, even when the other person is ugly and eye contact is painful.

Tell people you like their hair. People like to hear things about their hair. Don't be specific ("the grease in your hair has a great sheen") -- you'll only get into trouble.

Poke the person. That will get them interested. This is especially important if they start to fall asleep.

Say something. Anything.

Keep your shirt on, even if you think it would be entertaining to take it off.

Use pejorative language sparingly, especially as it relates to your conversation partner.

Use technology like phone, text, email and smoke signals to communicate. You can speak in person too.

Make sure the other person knows your name. Remind them of it occasionally in case they forget. If you forget the other person's name, you can ask them to remind you.

Apply pressure. Chide them for failing to invite you to be their friend. Call repeatedly at odd hours to get their attention and show you care.

Take it slowly, but make sure it takes.

Use the other person's secrets for leverage to get more friends. This will test your ability to listen and repeat.

Remember their birthday.

Miss a couple of promised events to keep things interesting.

When you are ready to make the big leap, push the add friend button. With all this wooing, your new Facebook friend should accept post haste.

A Bottled Devil

I am sleeping deeply in all the blessed oblivion I have earned by long, late hours of watching movies. My dreams are as captivating as they are surreal; they even have butterflies in them. My blankets are warm, my mattress is soft, and my pillow is just cushy enough. In a word, I am in paradise.

Suddenly, every ounce of serenity is gone. In a magnificent jolt, my toes go taut, my hair raises, and my eyes spring wide open. On the table, not a foot from my bed, is a shrieking ghoul that I am powerless to stop. Shriek! Brinnnnngggg! It’s the kind of high-pitched cross between a wildcat’s scream and the cranking of broken machinery that every diabolical two-year-old longs for. It sounds exactly like (forgive me, gentle readers) a bottled devil.

Perhaps you have heard such phones. Sometimes, on more peaceful occasions, I like to daydream about maniac geniuses who sit around in antiseptic, sound-proof labs and concoct rings. I am sure there are some humane, intelligent, sensitive creatures among them. They are the ones who make sissy rings like “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” (Try saying that three times fast. Heck, try saying it one time slow!) or “Für Elise.” But there are other brawny giants who grin evil smiles through broken teeth, pull their ear-muffs tighter, and apply themselves gustily to creating instruments of torture.

“Well Todd, what do you think of this one?”

“I don’t know Bill. The little white rat in the box can still walk. Why don’t you add a few more jolts of that really dissonant tone?”

“Great idea. The fella can’t even open its eyes anymore!” Todd's evil laugh sits dead in the air like an insensitive remark.

You would think, in a day when cell phones are ubiquitous and new ring tones rarely cost more than seventy dollars or so apiece, that there would be no need to endure such aural agonies. After all, there's always a sissy tone available. But that, dear reader, would be an underestimation of human innovation. There are raving lunatics in the world who find every misery they deserve and heap it upon not only themselves, but their friends as well. They connive in back rooms and plot methods to torture the human ear. Yes, these misanthropes are a wretched lot, and you should do your best to avoid us. Yes, us.

Take, for example, me and a recent conference: I attend a conference with my parents and friends. The friends decide to do uncool things. The parents leave to watch boring workshops. I go to look at exciting vendor displays. The friends wouldn’t notice if I got eaten by a vendor monster, but the parents like to keep in touch. They call to check on me. I, having carefully set the phone’s mode to “normal,” ought to hear the ringer, but I don’t. They call again, I miss the call, and they conclude that I have been eaten by a vendor monster. Pretty soon I hear my name on the loudspeakers, on the list of casualties. Apparently, I am dead to the public address announcer.

So I do what any moron would do. I scroll through my ringtones and choose the loudest, most obnoxious ring I can find, one of those metallic nightmares that sound like a phone from the thirties. (People in the thirties must have been rather deaf, both as a cause and an effect of such ringtones.) Now when my phone rings, I feel like the frazzled executive in Spiderman 3 whose wife had a secretary vibrate his desk with a buzzer every time he got excited. A call comes in and—Brinnggg!—there is a bottled devil in my own pocket. I smile nonchalantly and check the caller ID. My friends gape wide-eyed and smooth their hair back down from its newly acquired upright posture. At this point, my friends would notice if I got eaten by a vendor monster. In fact, they would probably hold a party of celebration—provided the phone got eaten as well.

Ode to my notebook

I am an awful student. In class, I make disgusting noises, fidget, doodle, pick at things that shouldn’t be picked at, wink randomly, make inappropriate comments to my classmates and sweat uncontrollably. My mind wanders so much that I can’t keep on one line of reasoning for more than a few seconds and my cognitive ability makes Jessica Simpson look smart. I get bad grades, can never answer a question in class and am so cantankerous that some of my classmates refuse to study with me.

I have other issues too – I can’t get dates, have a nervous twitch in my left eye and sometimes think I’m Elvis – but let’s focus on my educational problems for now.

My notebook knows more than I do. Before every lecture, I obediently remove my spiral bound sheets from their special place in my backpack and flip through to where the last class let off. When the professor starts speaking my pen starts writing and words go from my ears to my fingers without ever crossing the cognitive part of my brain.

Some evenings I will flip through my notes and wonder how so much content was introduced without my noticing. Graphs, equations, people and dates limp off the page looking like a foreign language. Sometimes I vaguely remember the moment of their introduction, but most of the time I look at these random facts the way I look at six month-old yogurt in the back of the fridge: How did that get there?

My doodles, forgotten over the course of the day despite the hours I spend preparing them, look like artful masterpieces in a second examination. In fact, I think some of today’s “masterpieces” may even be doodles in wooden frames.

I wish my notebook could go to class for me. It would sit quietly in some corner and record things. Instead of relying on neurons for memory, it would use the indelible markings of pen and ink as a permanent ledger of the professor’s thoughts.

My notebook wouldn’t get distracted. Although sometimes I think notebooks can be romantically involved, the drama of life rarely penetrates the simple mind of an inanimate object and even the most suave pad of college rule doesn’t have romantic entanglements. Class content alone would dominate my notebook’s mind.

My notebook wouldn’t ask dumb questions or be at all disruptive. It might shuffle a bit now and again to turn a page, but its noises would always be appropriate for a class environment. My notebook would be in everyone’s study group and give notes to all the students who missed class.

If my notebook could take tests, write papers and do homework, I would really be in business. I would have to be careful that none of my impromptu artwork made it onto an exam, but my notebook is pretty smart about these things. Most professors test from lecture material anyway and a clean regurgitation of class content without human emotion would get a top grade every time.

I am trying to figure out a way to make this work; when I do, watch out. My notebook will rule the day.

Wanna catch a movie?

This story begins long before the trailers started rolling their shameless advertisements across the big screen at the local theater complex. It begins before the ten mile run that jarred my bones for a little over ninety minutes and the six hours of studying that fried my brain until I was dumber than the GED-toting model I will end up marrying. It even starts before my shift at General Mills, where I logged my contribution to our stagnating economy under the watchful eye of an unforgiving supervisor.

This story begins at 5:30 in the morning when my Radio Shack issue alarm decided my sleepy time was over and the awake hours should begin. Actually it was me who made that decision, but I'd set my alarm in a moment of weakness the night before, not realizing how early 5:30 really is. I had chores, a homework assignment and some personal hygiene problems to resolve before leaving for work. After my travails at the Cheerio factory and a quick rinse in the "Milk Shower," our loving moniker for the sprayer that helps remove the scent of heavily refined, super white flour before we leave for home, I logged some time at my school's library, reviewing the ravings of the lunatic Fourier (the socialist economist, not the physicist) among others and generally preparing for the irritable activity we call "Final Examinations."

When my eye balls were struggling to stay in their sockets, I replaced my books in my backpack, switched the music on my mp3 player from Brooks and Dunn to Blink 182 and went for a run. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how a derelict celebrates a sixteen hour day.

Only the day wasn't over. I ran into a friend on the way to my car who looked at me with a concerned eye [CAUTION VERY WEIRD] and told me to drink some juice, a comment I interpreted as a date invitation. But I'll share the rest of that conversation in another post. It suffices to say that I was looking a mite tuckered.

I was crossing the last street to where my car was parked when my phone buzzed. It was F.

"Hey C, wanna catch a movie?" The request was as enticing as it was impossible.

"I can't, F. I've been running around like a soccer mom all day and I just need to go home and relax. I think I'll just curl up with some Akerlof tonight." I think F figured "Akerlof" to be an adult beverage, but he didn't cop to it when I pressed him about it later.

"C'mon, C! It'll be fun. Everyone is going. And we're catching some dinner at In N' Out beforehand." It was as if F had pushed my "Easy Button." I went from ambivalent to persuaded faster than you can say "Flying Dutchman."

I arrived at the local In N' Out before F and his entourage, so I grabbed a seat at one of the outdoor tables and enjoyed a few slow minutes. Ten feet away from me two teenybopper females gossiped emphatically, never hesitating at the prospect that their words might be picked up by a guileless eavesdropper. I wasn't trying to listen in (although everyone should know that Jane broke up with Todd and it's all Todd's fault for looking sideways at Rhonda and that Jane is thinking about going out with Amanda's ex) but I got an earful nonetheless. Their conversation was like a verbal combat. One person would speak while the other tried desperately to get a word in edgewise. Then they'd reverse roles. In an odd way, their interaction held a chaotic beauty, like seeing lions eating zebras on the Discovery Channel.

Once F arrived, bringing with him the entire female population of the Central Valley, I waltzed (1-2-3, 1-2-3) into the restaurant and ordered with all the desperation of a starving distance runner. The food was delicious - I think even my cooking would have been good after a ten mile run and an overheard episode of conversational combat - but the real excitement started at the theater.

I thought my day was tough, but it was nothing compared to the hero onscreen. Robert Downey Jr. (the guy who loses most of one of his fingers in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) played an iron-clad special effects character who has bad day after bad day. My ordeal over the last 19 hours was nothing compared to the world changing problems he had to tackle. And putting Lawrence Fishburn in at the end was a great touch. He'll make a great villain in Iron Man 2.

The movie was over and we filed out into the lobby area just as the first pangs of a headache hit. I had been at it too long and my body was finally starting to rebel. I had to surrender or pay some substantial consequences.

That's when F pulled a fast one. "Wanna catch another movie?" Another film was playing (that happens when the theater has 12 screens) and F was leading his entourage into the next flick. I shouldn't have, but I succumbed, shelling out another ten bucks and feeling sorry for myself that I had to submit to such awful bodily torture. It was inhuman what I was doing to myself; the Geneva Convention should come down harshly on my persecutor.

I remember nothing of the second film besides some bright lights and the screaming of the main character at a particularly tense moment in the film. I don't even remember the film's title, other than to say that it had all the creativity of a cardboard box.

When the film was over, I stumbled out the glass double doors and staggered to my car. I know that beer and gasoline don't mix, but nobody told me not to try sleepies and gasoline. By the time I got home, I understood why "exhausted" begins with an "e," the only letter in the English alphabet that's doubled over. I went to bed in my clothes and didn't stop to remove my contact lenses. The next morning was a story unto itself.

Confessions of a Fat Man

The following was sent to FCN from a good friend and somewhat faithful reader who needed a venue to cry for help. This post is part of his therapy. Please give him an encouraging comment and keep his sad plight in mind next time you visit Sizzler.

I used to think that I was a normal young man. I ate my grandmother's apple pie. I liked baseball. I believed in the American way. I had two dogs and an eccentric family. My mother was an immigrant. I was the classic American boy. Or so I thought.

One lonely new year's eve, I happened to glance at a mirror. What I saw left me dumbstruck. There was a lot more of me in that mirror than I had counted on. Instead of the fit young man I was looking for, staring back at me was an abomination that could serve as a counterweight for the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I was fat.

At the time I tipped the scales at around ** —NOTE: THE EXACT AMOUNT HAS BEEN CONCEALED FOR THE PRIVACY OF THE AUTHOR— It was at that moment that I realized that something must be done. I set for myself a modest goal. To lose five pounds over the course of the year. I failed miserably. That year my weight marched into the triple digits. Each year since that fateful revelation, my New Year's resolution has been to lose five pounds. Sadly instead of losing unwanted adipose, I am consistently gaining weight at such an alarming speed that my mother has had to take me into town each year to purchase new clothes to accommodate my growing paunch. Today, when I step on a scale, I see the needle fly all the way to ***!

The thing about my weight that really bothers me is the way people look at me. When I walk in a supermarket, I see people staring. I know what they are thinking. I know people use words like, fatso, blimp, barge, blubber man, plump, big boned, stocked for famine, pregnant, obese, convex, structurally challenged, couch, Manuel Uribe Garza, and many other words that are too exciting to print, including some that have been banned by weight watchers (who are marvelous loving people, by the way). I see some mothers talk to their children as I walk by, some even point. They are telling their children to eat their fruits and vegetables, but not too many of them. They are telling their children that I am the result of too much candy. The only solace I find in my entire weight situation, is the knowledge that I serve as a waddling warning klaxon to this nation's youth.

I remember when a man approached me and asked“When is the baby due?” This comment hurt me so deeply that I could not think of a suitable response for over 10 minutes. However after some careful thought, I approached the man and asked him “When is YOUR baby due?” I felt that this was an appropriate comment until he demonstrated that he was much stronger than I. So strong, in fact, that he was able to pick me up and throw me through a glass door, which is no small feat given my aforementioned weight.

There is one thing, one person, who makes me more sensitive about my weight than anything else: My girlfriend, the apple of my eye. I know that the joy of my life loves me even with my extra five pounds, but I want to be the best I can for my Jewel. My Ruby is perfect in every way. There is nothing that can stand next to her and scratch even one tenth of one percent of her amazing personality. That smile. The softness of her voice when she greets me. Her very name means pure, and she is the purest of gold. I want my sugar plumb to be happy. I don't want my cookie to be burdened with the sadness of looking at me each day, and knowing that I am overweight; knowing that someday I will die and that my weight problem is only speeding up the process. I know my darling sweetheart would never tell me she is concerned about my weight because she knows how much it hurts for me, but I know it hurts her. I know it when her arms can't quite make it all the way around me when we hug. I see it in my baby's eyes when we pretend to watch a sunset. It is mainly because of the sorrow I cause my guiding light, my love, my soul mate, my honey bee, my 29 out of 29 on eharmony, that I have been diligently working on reducing my weight.

Each year I have employed a different weight loss strategy in the hopes of regaining a svelte appearance.

Year 1) THE YEAR OF IGNORANCE: I ignored my weight in the hopes that my problem would disappear. Though this strategy felt good and was the easiest, it failed miserably.

Year 2) THE YEAR OF LIPOSUCTION: They sucked a good ten pounds out of me. Let me say that liposuction is a real rush. Anyone who has not tried it should definitely give it a shot. It beats any roller coaster I have ever been on. Sadly I could not keep the weight off. I gained that weight back and another 10 pounds afterwards.

Year 3) THE YEAR OF GASTRIC BANDING: Stomach Stapling. It sounds really bad, but it isn't. They give you lots of morphine and other addictive narcotics that make the whole thing truly enjoyable. It certainly made my stomach smaller, but it didn't keep me from eating. I ate constantly and, though I had a reduced stomach capacity, I kept my gizzard stuffed to the brim. I gained more weight that year than the previous two years combined.

Year 4) THE YEAR OF JEREMY: My tape worm...at least he was my tapeworm until my doctor found out. I opted for adoption. Low and behold I had a friend who was searching for a companion. That gentleman took my friend, named him Jeremy and has been treating him with uncommon dignity for many years now. I still go see him sometimes to catch up. I miss him, but I know he is in good care. The surgery that separated me from my friend lost me five pounds. Jeremy had kept me from gaining weight, but once again I could not keep the weight off.

Year 5) THE YEAR OF ELECTRICITY: I got serious. For those of you who have been electrocuted, you know the weight benefits. For twenty minutes a day I would stick my finger in an electrical outlet, and let nature fry my adipose tissue. Let me say that the biggest barrier between me and my weight goal, is my doctor. Right when I have a good thing going, he always steps in and tries to stop it. I think he likes me being fat. One day my mother found me with my finger in the outlet, she immediately took me to the doctor (I wonder if my own mother has turned on me!). The doctor immediately took me off of my weight program (which had been working marvelously) and prescribed me some pills which were supposed to help my heart and liver out after the 'damage' I had caused them. To this day I do not know why losing weight would hurt your heart, much less your liver. I know my heart is important, but I really don't care all that much for my liver, the doctor had put me on 600mg of different medicines a day. I never took a single one of those pills. Imagine how much more I would weigh if you add 600mg a day up. According to Google over one year I would add a whole 219,000mg to my weight.

Year 6) THE YEAR OF THE MACHINE: Kids, don't try this at home. I created an apparatus that would –EDITED FOR CONTENT— I placed myself in the concaver –EDITED FOR CONTENT— needless to say the pain was unbearable –EDITED FOR CONTENT— I really think that my brother chose the wrong moment to enter the room. His shock was understandable after all I had just finished –EDITED FOR CONTENT— That was when they sent me to that doctor again –EDITED FOR CONTENT— I didn't take those pills either. I may get headaches every day, but I think it is worth it. I couldn't keep that weight off though. In one month I gained back the fifty pounds I lost. Talk about demoralizing

Year 7) THE YEAR OF AUXILIARY ORGAN AMPUTATION: This year, is amputation year. My body is chock full of organs and other things I just don't need. I can do without my appendix, and one of my kidneys can go. I heard of one guy who survived with only one lung. Most of my teeth can go. What do the ones in the back do for you? No one can see them unless you choose to make an exposé out of it. I am thinking about removing one of the muscles that makes up my bicep, maybe go for a the unicep look, maybe even do the same operation to my tricep. Really now, who needs two or three muscles when you can have one do the job. I also am going to shave my head, my eyebrows, and cut off my eyelashes. Dedication is a must to seriously lose weight. My ears can go - the outside part is not needed to hear. My nose (which is INCREDIBLY large and weighty) can be removed. If it worked for Michael Jackson, it can work for me. I am also looking into removing large muscles and tendons. Who really needs their Achilles tendon? The only person I know of who did anything with that thing was Achilles, and that killed him. I don't want to die, I figure that tendon can go. If all that doesn't work, I can amputate my head. A friend once told me that head removal is the best way to lose the ugliest eight pounds on your body. I like that, kill two birds with one stone.

The long and the short of it is that I need help. I am writing this to let out some of the frustration that has built up within me. Many people have called me "anorexic," told me I am "skinny" and made other unhelpful remarks about my weight when I bring it up. I have even had some who chose to laugh in my face about it. Only recently did I find someone who showed true understanding and compassion towards my problem. If it weren't for her, I doubt I would have the courage to write this, even if it is anonymous. I am asking for your help, for your collective cybersupport. I am counting on you.

Jack, Jack, Jane, Jane, Jeremy, Jeremy...

This post is a warning to my good friend Nick who is about to leave for law school: Keep reading FCN, buddy, or we'll have even more stories about you.

The other day a personal friend and coworker (same person) was chatting on his phone with all the innocence of a twenty-two year old male. Posterity will never know the exact nature of this young man's conversation, but history can rest assured that the content was as pure as the driven snow. He was talking about nothing prurient, obscene or in any way degrading. The writer of Philippians would have loved to listen in on the conversation. My coworker wouldn't even have minded his mother eavesdropping; in fact, he probably even gave his mom the transcript after the fact.

At the conclusion of this pure conversation, my coworker shut his flip phone. It might now be appropriate to mention that my friend uses a Cingular brand telephone. While FCN hasn't been contacted by any phone company to do a product endorsement, we are not terribly big fans of the Cingular brand. We believe the company's national motto should be "more dropped calls than any other network" or "we charge for the static" or "fewer bars in more places." We believe AT&T, a picture of corporate responsibility, was corrupted by its merger with Cingular; we believe that the folks at Cingular regularly eavesdrop on conversations just for kicks. Incidentally, we also use Cingular as our cellular service provider, but that's another story.

Somehow, when my friend shut his flip phone, the top part of the phone (the one holding the earpiece and monitor) detached from the mouthpiece and keypad portion. The separation was soundless and quick, like a Las Vegas divorce, but it left the phone quite dead. My friend showed me the remains of the device that had once been the conveyor of so many pure ideas and warned me not to touch the exposed wires for fear of electrocution.

The next day at work, my coworker arrived with a phone that looked exactly like his old one, only it was connected again. I asked what had become of the old phone and my friend replied that he had "borrowed" his brother's and left his broken device in the trash. My friend told me how he was able to receive calls on the new phone because he had transferred his old SIM card to the new phone, leaving his brother's SIM card, I imagine, in the trash.

Then my friend made a comment that ruined my day and the next three hours of my life.

"The only bad thing is that I lost all of my telephone numbers; they were stored on the phone and went down with the ship," he said with a grim expression.

His words completed a circuit in my mind and a little light bulb went off. (That was a figurative attempt to match my friend's "down with the ship" line). What if my phone, a flip device lovingly named "black magic," suffered a severing fate similar to its cousin? What if I lost all the precious numbers of all the girls who'd never returned my calls?

I stopped what I was doing, putting the love letter I was writing aside, and opened up my phone.

When I first received Black Magic, I'd familiarized myself with all its meager features. I learned how to take pictures, send text messages and tinker with the operating system. I even suffered an embarrassing episode wherein I locked up my device and had to get a new SIM card from the Cingular store. I consider my adventures well paid tuition, because I knew exactly where to go with this problem.

I navigated quickly to the settings menu and selected the "Address Book" menu. There, I asked that all my contacts, currently saved to the phone, be moved to the SIM card. It took several minutes (more of a reflection on the quality of the phone than the number of friends I have) but eventually my entire address book was on the SIM card.

That's when it hit me like a head-on collision with a locomotive: What if my SIM card were to become corrupted?

SIM card corruption is genetic in my family. My father has had two cards go Nixon on him and I already wrote about my experiences. The threat of SIM corruption is so real that I always set my phone down gently and sometimes wrap bubble wrap around it before I slide it into my pocket. This practice never fails to get stares from my friends, but I take consolation in knowing that my equipment will last longer; you can never be too sure about SIM cards, and I'm pretty big on protection.

To answer this fear of SIM corruption, I copied my entire address book back to the phone, while keeping the originals entries intact. Then, satisfied that my addresses were protected, I opened my contacts list to examine the results. What I saw there turned my satisfied glee into tepid concern:

Jack

Jack

Jane

Jane

Jeremy

Jeremy

The imbecilic phone had duplicated all my contacts! Now I had to thumb through twice the number of contacts to get to the name I wanted to dial. This inconvenience would be a serious crimp to my Cool, Calm and Collected approach to phone use. I didn't want to be another converse clad nerd who has to spend several minutes with his keypad to call his best friend. I liked the ease of push button calling and glide-like navigation through names; I felt that by ruining my phone, I had ruined my life, or at least my social life.

I ended up fixing the address book by tediously removing the duplicative listings on the way up to a friends' house in the mountains. Driving while using my phone's keypad through bubble wrap was an experience that, while comic, is not fondly remembered.