This article runs down the 12 most annoying Facebook users. You know someone who falls into every category. It got me to thinking about the whole Facebook thing today.

I really enjoy catching up with people that I haven't seen (or thought about, frankly) in 10 or 15 years, but what I find most difficult is reconciling the reality of who they are now with the image of how I remember them. One of my really close friends was one of the biggest goofballs that I knew. We had some really crazy ridiculous times together, but I've spoken to him regularly for last 15 years. I watched him transform from the guy that hit on strippers to married man to homeowner to father of two, so it's not shocking to me. Don't get me wrong: the idea that the guy that used to show off his dangle to people that didn't even ask has two kids hurts my head on several levels, but it's not shocking.

But when the guy that used to pick his nose and flick it at people friends me on Facebook, and I look at his profile and he's a married doctor, it's just a little bit shocking to me because I didn't see the evolution of his persona (or worse, he never evolved and is still flicking boogers at people, only now he also removes spleens).

And every time that I connect with someone, I go through this exercise and see who people have become and I'm never any less shocked, in the same way that my dog is never any less happy to see me when I walk in the door, whether I've been gone two minutes or two months. The guy that masturbated in the back of English class and then threw the er, "result" into the curly hair of the girl who sat in front of him is now a teacher. The girl that blew a guy in the stairwell is now a VP at Goldman Sachs (which I assume is how she got to be a VP in the first place, I'm sure the men that work there also have to suck someone off to get promoted). These are both true descriptions of people that I've known in the past.

I suspect that everyone who hasn't talked to me in 15 years that gives me a "poke" is thinking the same things:

"Someone actually married that schmuck?"
"He's been able to hold down a job?"
"Does he really still have the same haircut?"*

*The answer to all three of these questions is yes. To be honest, I'm as surprised as anyone.

Sure, the sharing seems over the top to me, but hey, it's your life. Share as much or as little as you want. You should know that I probably don't care (if I cared, I probably would have tried harder to stay in touch when it wasn't so easy to do so), but that's more my problem than yours.

And if you want to be that guy or gal that announces that someone died literally moments after that person actually died, then put RIP after it, as if it's not completely disingenuous or it will keep you from going to Hell, more power to you. I can't stop you. I've probably hidden your status updates by now anyway, but whatever. Go to town.

I just have so much trouble reconciling two visions of people in my head: one as I knew them and one as they are today. It just sends my brain into this infinite loop of Finkel/Einhorn-ness.

Labels: Facebook

William Safire is dead at 79. From the Times:

And from 1979 until earlier this month, he wrote "On Language," a New York Times Magazine column that explored written and oral trends, plumbed the origins and meanings of words and phrases, and drew a devoted following, including a stable of correspondents he called his Lexicographic Irregulars.

The columns, many collected in books, made him an unofficial arbiter of usage and one of the most widely read writers on language. It also tapped into the lighter side of the dour-looking Mr. Safire: a Pickwickian quibbler who gleefully pounced on gaffes, inexactitudes, neologisms, misnomers, solecisms and perversely peccant puns, like "the president’s populism" and "the first lady’s momulism," written during the Carter presidency.

I totally geek out to "On Language" every weekend, and it's just not going to be the same without Safire. And though "On Language" mostly devotes itself to usage (the recent "fail" column is a perfect example), it turned me into the kind of person that busies himself fighting a losing battle against poor grammar, spelling and punctuation in the Facebook status of every chump from Altoona to Albuquerque. And I'm definitely not apologizing for that. Memo to people on Facebook that can't be bothered to take six seconds and proofread their status: every one of your friends thinks that you're a moron, whether they admit it to your face or not.

And now, for fun, here's a link to one of the best Onion "News In Brief" blurbs ever: William Safire Orders Two Whoppers Junior.

Labels: On Language, Whoppers Jr., William Safire

Why didn't anyone tell me about this until it was too late to stop it from happening?:

Zooey Deschanel, 29, and Death Cab for Cutie singer Ben Gibbard, 33, tied the knot Saturday night near Seattle, her rep tells PEOPLE.

The couple got engaged last year when Gibbard presented Deschanel with a three-carat diamond and platinum Neil Lane ring, a source told PEOPLE at the time.

A couple of things:

1) I'm sorry, but I don't like the Postal Service record and I don't know why everyone else seems to like it.

2) If I'd known Ben Gibbard looked like such an insufferable douche, I would have sent him letters telling him to stop it (well, *more* letters).

Labels: Ben Gibbard, weddings, Zooey Deschanel

Now Henry Gibson is dead and this means that, aside from it being a very lonely Thanksgiving at Jo Anne Worley's* place this year, we have another dead celebrity on our hands. I'm sure when people look back on 2009, they're going to think of this as the year of the dead celebrity**. So I thought I'd take a look at who hasn't died this year, because it's late and I'm bored.

*Two things:
1) I find it unbelievable that Jo Anne Worley is 72 years old. This just seems impossible to me.

2) I went to her IMDb page twice to confirm her age and that had to double the amount of hits her page has gotten in the last year.

**This also begs the interesting question of where do you draw the line when discussing celebrity. I mean, Henry Gibson *was* something of a celebrity when Laugh-In was popular some 40 years ago (and by the way, he looked 73 then, so I don't know how he was 73 now), but when your most famous role of the last 20 years was the creepy neighbor in The 'Burbs ... sorry, you're not a celebrity anymore. We need a new word for these types of people.

OK, this is a partial list:

Hugh Downs (88)
It's not just that Hugh Downs is old, becuase yeah, he's old. He was the announcer on The Jack Paar Show (as in the guy who preceded Johnny Carson) and he played himself on Car 54, Where Are You?. I mean, come on. It's hard to get older than that. But good for Hugh Downs. He provided his own voice on an episode of Family Guy. And he's not dead.

John Forsythe (91)
I'll be perfectly honest: I couldn't pick this dude out of a lineup. But he was the voice of Charlie on Charlie's Angels, and when he was born, the Great War hadn't yet ended. That right there is some old business.

Ernest Borgnine (92)
So, not only is Ernest Borgnine not dead, the dude is still acting. He's got roles in SIX films that haven't yet been released, but are scheduled to come out through 2010. How is this possible? Is he bionic? It gets better: Ernest Borgnine was on the 28th Annual Oscar telecast. The 28th. In case you were sleeping, this year they had the 81st. This man is very, very old.

Gloria Stuart (99)
OK, I saved the best for last. The old woman in the movie Titanic was not only alive when the actual Titanic sank (she was almost 2), SHE'S STILL ALIVE NOW! I'm absolutely stunned. First of all, I can't be the only one who thinks that 99 seems young for her. Second, she appeared in some silent movies, and they weren't silent because they wanted to be. They were silent because they couldn't not be silent.

So there you go. That's four celebrities that aren't dead, and are also very, very old. Balance restored.

You're welcome.

Labels: Ernest Borgnine, Gloria Stuart, Henry Gibson, Hugh Downs, Jo Anne Worley, John Forsythe, not dead celebs

Generally speaking, women that are my age remember Patrick Swayze for his role in Dirty Dancing. Men that are my age remember him for his role in Point Break. People who like maudlin, sentimental crap remember him for his role in Ghost.

Really though, if there's one thing that he should be remembered for, it's Road House. On the Joe Posnanski scale of movie expectation, this movie is a 3. I expected a 0 star movie, but Road House is friggin' awesome, so I got a 3 star movie.

And since Mr. Swayze has now left this mortal coil*, I figured this would be a good time to explain why Road House should be remembered as his magnum opus.

*I want to make sure that everyone clicks through, if only to read the headline that Peter Travers put at the top of that blog post. "Remembering Patrick Swayze: Muscular Poetry in Motion." That's the title. Muscular Poetry in Motion. Now, Peter Travers has been writing professional for longer than I've been writing at all, so there's that. But, really? Muscular Poetry in Motion? Come on, man.

OK, here we go. Five awesome things about Road House:

1) The ripping his throat out scene
- OK, so let's lay out some of the plot here: Swayze plays Dalton: a philosophy doctoral candidate, an avid reader, the best bouncer around because he keeps his cool and uses force only when necessary. But don't fuck with the guy. When Brad Wesley's henchman come and try to screw with the old guy that rents his barn to Dalton, Dalton goes all Jeet Kun Do on them.

So when Sam Elliott meets his maker, Dalton loses it completely and while fighting with the guy near the lake, he rips his throat out and leaves him for dead face down in the shallow water just as Kelly Lynch drives up. It's one of the more improbable scenes in the movie, because I'm not a physician or vigilante, but I'm pretty sure ripping someone's throat out can't be done by grabbing the side of their neck and pulling.

Anyway, I'm glad I mentioned Kelly Lynch ...

2) Kelly Lynch
-She ain't the world's greatest actress, but she absolutely melts the screen in this one. In fact, she's the main reason that I can't watch this movie on AMC. And I'll leave it at that.

3) Swayze's tai chi scene
-So, I assume this scene is supposed to underscore that Dalton is a very cool guy because he's very philosopical and all that. Great. Why couldn't they just take 30 seconds and pan over a copy of Walden on his nightstand or something? I didn't need shirtless Swayze making me feel inadequate. If he reads philosophy and poetry and kicks ass and has dynomite areolas, what the hell is my wife supposed to see in me?

4) The fat guy
-I don't know where they found this guy or why he hasn't gotten more work, but this guy is the most underrated part of the film. He's absolutely, hands down the worst henchman ever. You'd think with all that weight behind him, he'd be at least marginally effective in fighting with people. But this guy gets his ass kicked non-stop throughout the entire movie and keeps coming back for more. I don't know what Brad Wesley is paying him to work for him, but I'll double it.

The fat guy is also the only thing in the movie that the director got wrong. The fat guy should have died in this movie, but he was allowed to run away and save his life. This is bullshit. He's such a dick in this movie. This fat bastard should have bit it at the end.

5) Sam Elliott
-Sam Elliott is badass in The Big Lebowski. He's badass in Tombstone. And he's badass in this.

And that's just five reasons that Road House rules. I didn't even get into Kelly Lynch's dad who owns the store that Wesley's men trash, Jeff Healey(!) as the band leader at the bar, and the script.

RIP, Dalton. Pain don't hurt.

Labels: Patrick Swayze, Road House

I love reading stuff like this:

Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin's "struggle between faith and reason" as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie.

--snip--
Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I'm anti-Hitler also. Big, big Hitler hater over here. I don't want to get into a whole pissing contest about religion, but there's a big difference between survival of the fittest and eugenics. Just like there's a big difference between funny and Glenn Beck. One is a neutral idea; the other is a complete perversion of that idea.

You don't want to believe in evolution? Fine. Don't. This is a free country. I'm not stopping you. Certainly, though, we can all agree that a movie can be worth watching, whether you agree with it or not. And certainly it's worth buying and distributing (particularly now, since a big deal is being made of it. Money is something the Church can definitely understand), so that people who want to watch it can and make their own decision from there. This is exactly my thought process when every Michael Bay movie is been released.

If we can't agree to hate Michael Bay's crappy movies, what can we agree on?

Labels: Charles Darwin, evolution, Michael Bay, movies

The World's Oldest Person^tm has passed away at the tender age of 115. From the Times:

Although she liked her bacon crispy and her chicken fried, she never drank, smoked or fooled around, Gertrude Baines once said, describing a life that lasted an astonishing 115 years and earned her the title of oldest person on the planet.

--snip--
In her final years, she passed her days watching her favorite TV program, "The Jerry Springer Show," and consuming her favorite foods: bacon, fried chicken and ice cream. She complained often, however, that the bacon served to her was too soft.

Two things:

1) Well, I guess we finally know who watches Jerry Springer. He's captured that all important 110+ demographic that advertisers covet.

2) It's always sad when someone dies, but people we're actually posting comments to this item on Facebook talking about what a tragedy it is that she died. I mean, really? The woman was 115 years old, for crying out loud. How much longer did you want her to go?

I'm not trying to be insensitive here, but dear lord. Newsflash: people die. It happens. It sucks, particularly when you're close with them, but it happens. When they die at 5, 10, 20 years old, it's really sad. When someone else kills them, it's really sad. When they live through the Spanish-American War, outlive all their relatives and die 107 years later, it's not as sad.

Labels: old people

On September 10, 2001, I went to the Yankees game. But the weather didn't cooperate and the game wound up being rained out. We got soaked, and while we were waiting, I ran into an ex-girlfriend at the Stadium. We had what I would consider a polite conversation that was full of subtext, the subtext being that she's a dirty, disgusting whore and I'll hate her for the rest of my life.

After they officially canceled the game, which they probably could have done hours before and saved me the hassle of bumping into and having to speak to a dirty, disgusting whore, we took the train home and I burned inside. All I was expecting to do that night was enjoy myself at a baseball game, and instead ... well, I had to talk to a whore. And a dirty, disgusting one at that.

We get home and I'm still pissed off. I go to sleep and I'm still pissed off. I wake up the next morning, and wouldn't you know, I'm STILL pissed off. It's not often that something has such a profound effect on me, but this was a tumultuous* time in my life, and it didn't take much to knock me off of my game. As opposed to now, when I get knocked off my game by the fact that Lee jeans actually uses a Cars song to try to sell their product.

*Does that word really have four U's in it?

But all of the sudden, around 8:48 AM, I wasn't pissed off anymore. All of the sudden, it didn't seem to matter that I'd bumped into a dirty, disgusting whore at the ballgame the night before. All of the sudden, nothing seemed to matter at all.

It's one of the reasons the drinking became heavier, and that's the absolute reason that the sobriety was suggested. And frankly, it's the reason that I am who I am today: a kind of pudgy, mostly happy jerk.

And to those who lost their lives, we still miss you and we still remember you.

Labels: memories