Facebook, It’s A Good Thing You’re Cute.

It’s a good thing Facebook is easy on the eyes, because lately it’s definitely lacking in the “personality” department.  And I do realize that I haven’t paid one cent for the 1,000 hours I’ve spent on Facebook, so complaining about it is a little like winning the lottery and complaining about the taxes?  But here goes anyway…

Recently, it’s about as reliable as Kanye West with a microphone.  About every-other day now, my interweb-challenged wife asks me about some “virus” she has on Facebook, or how she’s getting error messages, or how some of her posts are just “missing”…and my response is always the same: “It’s Facebook. It’s not your pink laptop—it’s everybody’s laptop.” Unfortunately, we also have the same discussion about her minivan, her Blackberry, and the gas grill.  (In her defense, there are now many real viruses that DO travel through Facebook’s chat and messaging system, so beware of viruses real and imaginary, and immediately contact Facebook if you get one.)

Facebook games remind me of the great buzz I had being crazy-addicted to Civilization…only the exact opposite of that. I computer-game as much as anybody (yes, it’s a verb), but nothing about “Mafia Wars” or “Farm Whatever” makes me want to do anything but block them off of my news feed. And suddenly the most-annoying people on Facebook are those people who keep inviting me to be part of their “team”.

Facebook is sending…Facebook is sending…Facebook is sending… If you’re a regular user of Facebook’s chat function, this message has become as familiar to you as the Twitter Fail Whale. And if you have any kind of following of friends at all, you’re also running into “friends” who will Facebook IM you as soon as they see your green chat dot. To use Facebook without being bothered by your personal paparazzi, simply click on “Options” at the top of the chat box, and then click the “Go Offline” button. As the greatest movie “guy” of all time, Lloyd Dobler, would say, “It’s the anti-social way to be social.”

(Now just noticing my affinity for quotation marks…but no, I don’t make them with my fingers when I talk.)

If you make any real-life decisions based on the outcome of a Facebook quiz, you probably used to be the GM of the Detroit Lions. Seriously, they can’t even spell. If you really need advice, this is a much more reliable source: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ssanty/cgi-bin/eightball.cgi