How to get your ass unfriended on Facebook

I don’t take Facebook very seriously. I don’t use it to broadcast political views, share deeply personal information about my life, or be all scandalous just to start arguments with people. I don’t think that Facebook friendships are in any way equitable to real-life friendships -- my “friends” are more like Twitter followers than actual butt buddies.

To me, the point of Facebook is to amuse. I try to put up funny status updates and funny pictures for you all to comment on, and I enjoy reading through my news feed to see what sort of shenanigans my amigos have gotten themselves into. I don’t really go around deleting people from my friends list, because why bother? Keeping them there isn’t harming me.

Typical Facebook status for me.

But sometimes, man, someone has to get the axe. It’s no easy feat getting yourself booted from my list, but it can be done. Here's how it usually goes:

STEP 1: I Have to Unsubscribe From Your Annoying Updates

I scroll through my news feed and what do I see from you? Maybe I see this:

Oh good, your daily “state of my face” picture, which is always taken from above while you wear a cleavage-revealing shirt and puff out your lips. You put up at least five pictures of your face per week. It is annoying, and I will unsubscribe from your stupid face after I’m forced to look at it for the twentieth time.

Or maybe I see this:

Oh good, political updates. You know, I was totally undecided until I saw your post. I clicked that link and read the article, and boy did it ever open my eyes! I can’t wait for Election Day now so I can go vote for the same guy as you!

... said no one, ever. If you think a Facebook status is going to help someone win the election, you’ve probably  been freebasing too much marijuana (or whatever the kids are doing today). And now I’ve unsubscribed from you, because you bore me.

Or maybe I see this:

I think I can speak for all of your 8542 Facebook friends when I say I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU AND LITTLE JIM-BOB THAT I JUST POOPED MY PANTS.

Ironic, right?!

UNSUBSCRIBE.

STEP 2: I Have to Add You to my Restricted List

Once your annoying updates are hidden from my news feed, you’re really just lurking silently in my friends list. You can’t bother me – your whiny voice has been silenced, and your pictures of duck face have been swept under the rug. Facebook time becomes happy once again.

But you were not content to lurk, no sir. You needed your voice to be heard. And so you brought your incessant yapping to my page.

NOT COOL, BRO.

And let's not forget these charming commenters, the spelling police and the oddly, pointlessly argumentative person:

I like my Facebook experience to be drama-free. If you bring the dramaz, you’ll find yourself added to the Restricted list in my account settings:

And the only things you’ll get to see on my Facebook page are profile picture updates and basic information. My hilarious wit is no longer available to you.

See this?

YOU DON'T GET TO HAVE ANY OF THIS.

YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF!

STEP 3: Deleted, Motherf*cker!

Your updates are hidden from me, and my updates are hidden from you, so at this point we are friends in name only. And that’s fine with me. I like it that way.

But you’re not done with me yet. You won’t let me get away so easily. No, no; you’re going to do whatever it takes to STILL piss me off on Facebook. At this point, it’s almost impressive.

Facebook doesn't make it easy to unfriend, and it's even harder to do it from a mobile phone ... but so help me God, I will find a way if it prevents you from posting a diarrhea-face on my wall. You fucking maniac.

Patent's Patented idea for making travel mugs better

The other day, I came up with a brilliant idea -- one of those brilliant ideas that someone else should have come up with years ago. Seriously.

So no shit there I was. Driving to work. As usual, I had to leave before the sun came up, so it was pretty dark in the car. And since it was pre-dawn, of course I had coffee with me in my travel mug.

Well, I guess I got a little too into my audiobook, because I didn't notice that my mug had rotated slightly. I brought it to my mouth ...

You see what's coming, don't you? DON'T YOU?!?!?

So yeah, you know those little knobs that are on the F and the J on a computer keyboard, so you can feel where your hands are without looking?

Whatever makes you happy, fruit loop.

WHY THE FUCK DON'T TRAVEL COFFEE MUGS HAVE A LITTLE KNOB ON THE EDGE WHERE THE HOLE IS, SO YOU COULD FEEL IT WITH YOUR TONGUE AND AVOID SPILLING COFFEE ALL OVER YOUR WHITE SWEATER?!?!?!?

SERIOUSLY.

GET OUT OF HERE YOU FUCKING LUNATIC.

Of course, then I would have avoided the extremely fun task of taking my sweater off and stuffing the front of it down into my water bottle while driving in traffic.

Nope; I'm just covered in coffee, angry, cold, and sleepy.

Our friendship is OVER.

THIS WOULD BE SUCH AN EASY PROBLEM TO AVOID.

WHY HAS NOBODY DONE THIS YET.

IDIOTS.

The steps to properly carving pumpkins for Halloween

Step 1: Gather ingredients

Shitty, deformed grocery store pumpkins

 

Shitty grocery store pumpkin carving set, augmented by dangerous knives

 

Sufficient beverage for the task

 

Step 2: Test ingredients for quality

 

Step 3: Hollow out pumpkins and separate seeds out, covering them in tasty spices and placing in the oven

 

Step 4: Threaten each other with knifes, carving tools, and various other sharp pumpkin-related paraphernalia while drinking more beer and waiting for pumpkin seeds to be ready

Step 5: Giddily eat handfuls of tasty pumpkin seeds while washing the salt down with more beer

 

Step 6: Get to the serious business of attempting to follow instructions on carving overly complex pumpkin design

Famous last words.

 

Step 7: Hopelessly fuck up overly complex pumpkin design

Step 8: Give up and carve triangle-eyed buck-toothed pumpkin

(aka “Old Faithful)

Step 9: Enjoy more pumpkin seeds and beer while admiring the terrible job you’ve done

 

Step 10: Place all pumpkins on the front porch despite their hideous manglement, allowing the neighbors to see just how much you suck at everything

The children next door are going to laugh.

 

Step 11: Celebrate with more beer and pumpkin seeds

... and maybe a bit more swordplay

 

 

Happy Halloweekend, everyone!

And for the record, our real-life pumpkins actually turned out pretty well.

 

WHAT NOW, BITCH?!?!?

The plotwrecker takes on: SUPERMAN!

Don’t worry guys; I used to watch that show Lois and Clark, so I’m pretty well briefed on the basics of the Superman story. So I probably won’t screw this up at all.

Ha. 

Superman is a superhero from outer space. Specifically, from the planet … well … it doesn’t really matter where he’s from. But he was born somewhere in outer space and got kicked off his planet as a baby, probably because his parents didn’t love him.

Against all odds (I mean seriously, just try and calculate those odds …), he drifted safely to the surface of the Earth, landing harmlessly somewhere out of sight and was immediately adopted by some new parents who named him "Clark Kent." They soon learned that he had super powers, but other than a few minor run-ins, they were generally unconcerned by this.

Superman eventually grew into an adult, and one with several dire enemies. The first enemy was a substance called Kryptonite, which is some sort of green glowy shit from the planet Krypton, but which there also seems to be an awful lot of here on Earth. The second enemy was the evil genius Lex Luther. More on him later.

Lex Luther is easy to recognize due to his villainous baldness.

Superman’s biggest enemy, however, was mediocrity. Despite his amazing powers, including super strength and the ability to fly, he took a mid-level office job at what may as well have been the Metropolis branch of Dunder Mifflin. In the office hierarchy, he was sort of like the Kevin of the group.

He then fell madly in love with a chick named Lois Lane – a woman of mediocre physical attractiveness and with no particularly noteworthy personality attributes. Superman made no moves on her -- despite his desperate love -- and thus got even less tail than the gas station attendant down the street who looks a lot like this:

Which is to say, he got no tail at all.

As for his superpowers, he mostly used them to help out third-rate beat cops with things like muggings at knifepoint.

 

He did also help with the enormous disasters that seemed to strike Metropolis with alarming frequency, however.

 

In fact, the only character in this whole thing who seemed to make any effort to better himself was Lex Luther. Luther, bent on world domination, was constantly trying to thwart Superman with a seemingly endless supply of Kryptonite.

I don’t know how the story ends, but presumably it involves Superman not getting laid, getting some Granny’s purse back, getting thwarted by Lex Luther, and crying himself to sleep in his shitty rent-controlled apartment in the ghetto with no friends except the rats that live in his radiator.

 

And that, my friends, is the story of Superman. Any questions?

The time I got a goldfish

I always thought goldfish were stupid pets. They died too easily and they didn’t really do anything to endear themselves to you. They just seemed altogether pointless creatures.

Like this fella here.

 

That was before Flipper came into my life.

Flipper and I met during the summer of my freshman year of college. I was back in Issaquah working at Petsmart, trying to refill the bank account before heading back to school in late August.

So one day, I was standing at the cash register as usual when a customer ran up to me, frantic and dragging a crying young daughter.

You see, we sold feeder goldfish in these huge tanks with hundreds and hundreds of fishies in them, right along the bottom row of the aquarium section. And one of the doomed little fishies had made a flying leap out of the tank and onto the floor. The customer and her young daughter were positively distraught about the dying goldfish. (I guess they didn't realize that the vast majority of the fish in this tank would be fed to bigger, meaner fish).

Poor little guy.

We sprang into action. I think everyone working that day got involved in the fish rescue mission. We got him into water and gave him some sort of fishy-tranquilizer crap that probably retails for $12 a bottle. He was stashed behind the podium in the aquarium section and promptly named “Flipper” after his suicidal act. The customer and her daughter, satisfied that the crisis was resolved, paid for their dog food and went on their way.

 

Meanwhile, we employees had to figure out what to do with him.

“Someone should take him home,” said I.

“He won’t survive the night,” the fish department employee responded knowingly. “That was all way too stressful for a goldfish.”

“So what, you want to just leave him behind the podium to die??” I asked.

“Pretty much. The only reason I even put him in this bag is because that customer was watching.”

I refused to accept that answer. Flipper had already attempted suicide once. He needed to be shown some love. He needed to know that life was worth living! So I decided to adopt him and make him my first-ever pet fish.

The fish department employee helped me pick out everything I would need to keep Flipper happy. Luckily, we were both on the same page that Flipper deserved nothing but the best.

At the end of my shift, I took little Flipper out to my car. Since I didn’t want to shake him up, I held his bag in my hand for the entire drive home.

I got home and set up his tank, reminding myself that he might die within a few hours. I decided that if that happened, I would just get a new fish and never look back.

But the next morning, Flipper was still alive.

And the morning after that, too.

Pretty soon, it was time to clean his tank, as he’d already been alive long enough to stank that sucker right up. I tried catching him with the little net I had bought, but it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Flipper was a quick little bugger, and that net did not maneuver well in the little bowl. So I came up with a better idea.

I caught Flipper with my bare hands to move him to his bowl-cleaning cup, thereby bonding us together for life. Week after week I would reach into his bowl and pull him out, feeling him flop inside my hands. Everyone said this was also too stressful and would probably kill him, but little Flipper just kept on trucking.

At one point, he got some weird fish disease called ick, so I went and bought him some ick medicine. Once again, the fish department guy was full of sage advice:

 

But the ick did not take Flipper; no sir!

Flipper lived through the entire summer. I gave my mom clear instructions on how to take care of him once I returned to school, and she reluctantly agreed.

… and then, about a week before I was supposed to get on the plane, Flipper died.

 

And I was characteristically emotional.

 

 

And now I don't have a pet goldfish anymore.