Monday, February 21, 2011

A Stranger Stops By

By now, unless you have been in a coma the last seven years, you probably have heard of Facebook.

Kind of hard not to take notice of something valued at $50 BILLION and has over 500 million subscribers.

Last night, The Professor and I watched the movie, The Social Network, which is about the early days of the founding of Facebook and the resulting lawsuits. 

I know, sounds all lawyerly and everything but actually it was quite good and moved along at a quick clip.  So quick, in fact, that The Professor and I had a hard time catching all the dialogue of these young brilliant-whippersnapper-programmer-techie-kind of super geniuses. 

Let’s just say they talk fast.  Supercalifragilistic fast!

The movie is also up for the Best Picture of the year and I pretty much agree with Philip French, a film critic, about the movie:
"A superb piece of film-making in every respect, probably the first important movie that could only have been made in this century. It brings a sharp eye and a critical intelligence to bear upon a remarkable phenomenon without appearing either dazzled by youth or querulously fogeyish."
I had to look up the word “querulously”.  

Definition:  irritable, crabby, grouchy or even cantankerous.

Totally not me.  Not even on my worst days.

Fogeyish ... perhaps.

So with the fear that one day I could possibly fall in the ranks of the “querulously fogeyish”,  I joined Facebook.

In 2007.

And besides, at the time, I thought it would be a great way to keep tabs on my college age daughter.


(Oh, the things I came to learn about today's college kids.)


Ughh.

But I had crossed over and there was no turning back.

I slowly began “friending” my kids, brothers, sisters, cousins and high school friends that I had not heard from in decades.  I friended a couple of authors and singers to hear about their new releases or tour dates.  I got NPR headlines.  Friends sent me game and app requests, those of which I declined since I don’t need any more distractions in my life than I have already.  The birds, squirrels and horses outside my office window are more than enough.

I especially enjoy seeing posts of my kids and grandkids at birthday parties, school programs, or their Christmas mornings, filled with fun and excitement. 

I try to be witty and leave some memorable comment on their page.  I fail 99% of the time though. Thank goodness for the ever ready "Like" button to rescue you when there are no words.

And then.

You have those rare occasions, when you get a friend request like the following from a Joe Brown.



Seriously?

Like your name is really Joe Brown?

Now I ask you, does this writing sound like somebody with a name like Joe Brown???

Perhaps it is from the Spanish actor Javier Bardem in disguise.  Now that would be something!   Remember him in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Eat Pray Love and in this year’s Biutiful in which he is an Oscar contender for Best Actor.

No, more than likely it is not from him.  He just married the beautiful and remarkable Penelope Cruz and they are expecting. 






















Oh, the genes that baby will have! So much beauty wrapped up in one child is just wrong!

But back to Joe Brown.

No, I did not friend him.  That is what is nice about Facebook.  You can be friends or ignore them.

And with this request, I simple chose to IGNORE.

Come on, Mr. Brown.  You need to get a better shtick than this one when you go trolling.

You might also want to consider using spell checker as well.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

But better yet, as a member of the Facebook community,  I seem to have avoided the stigma of being "querulously fogeyish".

So far anyway.

*smile*


Thanks for stopping by,
missing the mom gene