Relationship Status: Doomed

David's Bridal did some sort of online survey and found out that 49 percent of brides or brides-to-be answered 'yes' to whether or not they would change their Facebook relationship status to "Married" during their wedding.  During the wedding was determined to be at some point before the reception.  So I guess I could take that to mean that some of those brides just whipped their cell phone right on out of their corset as soon as they heard "I now pronounce you husband and wife".  I have no proof of that, but the whole concept seems so ridiculously insane to me to begin with that I really can't imagine that it wouldn't happen. 

After learning that slightly disturbing little factoid, I decided to check and see what the divorce rate in this country is at these days.  It's hovering just a little bit below 50% overall when you combine the divorce statistics from all of the categories (eg first marriage, second marriage, third marriage, what age you were during which marriage, etc.).  Huh.  That's right around the same percentage of people who feel the need to change their Facebook status before their freaking wedding ordeal is even over.  I realize that the divorce rate has been around 50% long before Facebook came around.  I'm not holding out any hope that it's going to go down anytime soon. 

Can there really be anything good that's going to come out of updating your Facebook status right smack dab in the middle of what is supposed to be one of the most important days of your life?  I can't imagine that there is.  See, the thing that those people don't quite understand is that it isn't all that important to everyone else what in the hell your Facebook status is.  I don't give a crap what any of my Facebook friends relationship statuses are.  Why would I?  And why would anyone else?  What Facebook says about your relationship status is so much less important than at least a hundred other things.  I'm not sure what this says about people, but I don't think that it's anything good. 

I'm going to be interested to see how the divorce rates are effected by Facebook in the coming years.  That is, provided that something new and cooler than Facebook doesn't make it obsolete.  (Hello?  MySpace?)  Actually, what would be cool is if we could track all of those dimwits who took the survey and said that they'd change their Facebook status before their wedding was over.  I want to know what their marital status is in five years.  I would be interested in seeing if it would be over 50% for that group of people.  I've got five bucks that says those marriage are doomed.  Doomed!  The rest of us aren't going to fare much better either if we have to be subjected to folks like that.  Facebook - Getting folks to take themselves way too seriously since 2004.

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I Am Unaware Of Your Status Meaning

Once again, the Facebook has angered me. And it has done so in the exact same way that it has angered me in the past. I don't understand how there can be a Facebook "trend" (or whatever you want to call it) that is supposed to "raise awareness", but at the same time with the goal of keeping certain people in the dark. That's right. It's time for the "breast-cancer-awareness-status-update-that-only-women-know-about." Idiots.

I knew something was up when one of my FB friends (someone who I knew in high school) posted her status as "3 weeks and craving bubble gum". OK, now while it wouldn't be totally impossible for this chick to be preggers, it would be a bit unusual. I was also unaware that someone could know that they were three weeks pregnant. Then again, I've never been pregnant (thank God), so maybe there have been developments. But I realized that something was up when I saw another one of my FB friends (again, someone from high school) post her status as "18 weeks and craving lollipops!" Again, would not be totally impossible for this chick to be knocked up (but in a "good" way), but two people of the same non-traditional child bearing age posting a similar status within days of each other? Yeah, this wasn't pregnancy. This was stupidity.

I got on the Google and did a little looking around. Turns out, this is just another one of those status updates that only women are supposed to be posting and the men are supposed to just be completely boggled about. Can I just start by saying that I am so completely over this division between men and women where the women end up being the superior being and the men are just these clueless, blundering idiots? This trend seems to have started on American TV sitcoms and worked its way into the general thinking of the American public. (Maybe you people in other countries treat your men like dumbasses also. I don't know. But what I do know is that it goes on here far more than I'm comfortable with.)

Here's how it works: The part of your status with the number of weeks is supposed to represent the month that you were born. Now wait! Before you go getting all know-it-all on me and thinking that you know which numbers represent the month that you were born in, think again! The chart goes like this:

Jan - 1 week
Feb - 2 weeks
March- 3 weeks
April- 4 weeks
May - 6 weeks
June- 8 weeks
July- 10 weeks
August- 12 weeks
September-13 weeks
October -14 weeks
November-16 weeks
December -18 weeks

That's right. It starts off just fine and then becomes ridiculous. What happened to all of the odd numbers after the 3? I don't know either. And if you're wondering what this has to do with breast cancer or breast cancer awareness, keep wondering. It clearly has nothing to do with it. (Oh, and if you're wondering why the men are supposed to be clueless about what all of this means, keep wondering about that as well. No idea. And there's no rationale given anywhere.)

Then comes the next part; the part about what you're "craving". That item is represented by the date that you were born. Here's the asinine chart for that (and if you think that you're going to know what all of these things are, you would be wrong):

Skittles -1
Starburst -2
Kit Kat -3
M&M's - 4
Galaxy -5
Crunchie -6
Dairy Milk - 7
Lollipop - 8
Randoms -9
Malteasers-10
Twirl -11
Kinda Bueno-12
Boost-13
Dime- 14
Lion -15
Wispa - 16
Fudge-17
Freddo - 18
Milkyway -19
Milky bar -20
Creme egg - 21
Skittles - 22
Fruitellas - 23
Haribo -24
Fruit pastels - 25
Starburst -26
Mini eggs -27
Kit kat chunkie -28
Wines gums -29
Smarties - 30
Snickers -31

Congratulations if you know what some of these things are. Bonus points if you realize that "Chunky" (for 28) is spelled wrong. Also, if you wondered why they put "Wines gums" instead of "winegum" or the more realistic (and something that people have actually heard of) "Swedish Fish", then you and I are on the same page (provided that you realized this after looking up what in the hell "Wines gums" were in the first place). Also, it's KINDER Bueno, you dumbasses. (And while I've never heard of it, it does look fairly delicious. Good thing I wasn't going around looking for a Kinda Bueno or I never would have found one.)

HOW does this raise awareness about breast cancer? It doesn't! It's just one more thing that people do so that they can feel good about doing "something" when in reality, they aren't doing anything. You want to raise awareness about breast cancer? How about you post a status that says "It's breast cancer awareness month. Please be aware of breasts." or something like that? And if you REALLY want to raise awareness, what say you raise awareness of women AND men? Aside from the fact that men can get breast cancer as well, it's not like breast cancer has nothing to do with men. Do these dip s***s think that if a guy's wife/mother/sister/aunt/cousin/daughter/grandmother gets breast cancer that it has nothing to do with the guy? That the guy is totally unaffected? What the hell is THAT all about?

Man, this chaps my ass. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't think so. And just to be clear, I'm not "offended" by this. I'm annoyed by it. Again, it does nothing, but the people who are doing nothing have convinced themselves that they are doing something. And regardless as to what they think they are doing, nothing would ever get done if everything were tackled in this fashion. If you want to raise awareness about breast cancer, what say you just talk about it to women and men. Nothing raises my awareness about something faster than having someone talk to me about it. Shocking, I know.

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It's Spelled M-O-S-Q-U-E

Here's a fun little site I learned about today. It's called Openbook. It sort of allows you to have a gander around Facebook by searching for any particular word(s) that you'd like. Granted, it is only able to search those Facebook profiles where the people have not set their privacy settings in a way that would not able their profile to be searched. And folks that don't care about their privacy settings really don't care about their privacy. That means that they'll post just about whatever. And whatever do they post.

I read somewhere on the Internets that getting a glimmer of how people on Facebook feel about the mosque that may be built by Ground Zero is an amusing way to pass some time. Simply type "mosk" into the search box on Openbook and read the results that come up. So I did. I also searched for variations on that them. That is, the misspelling of mosque. Let's look at the results, shall we? You're probably going to have to click on the images to make them bigger. Blogger has it's limits and apparently making screen captures from Openbook able to be read is one of them.

Let's see...Oh, from Alexis. "Obama isn't Muslim. Even if he was, that shouldn't matter anyway. The rednecks need to get over themselves. And btw, I'm for the mosk near Ground Zero. The Muslims didn't do crap to WTC families, it was the Taliban. Get your facts straight!"

Well, she's close. Taliban...al Qaeda...close enough. She is right, however, that President Barry is not a Muslim. She's also right that folks should get their facts straight. See the Taliban reference. Moving on, to Brad's words of wisdom. "OK, this whole moske thing and yes I know I spelled it wrong but I dont care. Yes they do have every legal righ to build it on ground zero but its quite unethical to do it. You wouldnt see us building a church on heroshema or auswitz. And I am sick of hearing about it."

You tell 'em, Brad! Good points bringing up heroshema and auswitz, too! Hard to argue with that (but that's only because I don't know what the heck he's talking about). Next up is Landis who says: "Ground zero might be at risk cuz they want to build a mossque thats a memerial for those who died if u care about those ppl who lost there lives respost this".

She's awfully confused in several aspects. Spelling and punctuation being only a couple of them. How is Ground Zero at risk if the mossque gets built? Does that mean that the World Trade Center buildings will magically reappear? I don't think that's what it means. Then again, I don't know that she is really all that sure what it means either. (The scary part was that it sounded like she was actually trying to explain it to people) But maybe Nancy knows what she means. Let's see...hmm...it reads: "jonmanncnn jonathan mann developing story from irak war their legancy is islam and the builing of moske on ground zero. Anna coren reporting".

Then again, maybe she doesn't. Really? We've been in Iraq for years now. You still don't know how to spell it? And what in the world is a legancy? Never mind. I don't want to know. Kind of in the same way I don't want to know much more about Peggy's point of view, expressed as "their building a mosk for arabs over ground 0...ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!!?!?"

I'd like to know why she had all of the time for the abundance of exclamation points and question marks, but couldn't find the time to type out the word zero. I wonder if she would express the same disbelief if someone told her that it's they're, mosque and Arabs. Perhaps. Actually, I'm guessing she would. But she's not alone in thinking that the mosque would go right on top of Ground Zero. Russ thinks the same thing and says, "I vote to kick our current president out of office solely on the basis of him wanting to put a moske right where the twin towers used to be.! I mean... WHAT AN IGNORAMIS!!!"

Yes. What an ignoramus, indeed. Speaking of those who might be an ignoramus, Stephen enlightens all of us with this nugget of knowledge: "Oh, you Angelenos with your Emmys and your Glees, what about the MOSK?"

Who should break it to him that Glee isn't an award? Or that Emmy isn't a show? I just know that I can't do it. Nor can I take much more of this. One more. Let's hit 'er, home, William! "Well I agree with the Presadent, Musslems shude be alwoed to build a Mossk near ground zero. To denie them that constitunel right, would make us no beter then the people who attaked us in the first place. besides last time I checked it was alkida that attacked us not Islam".

Typing that out made my head hurt. I'm going to look into who this alkida person is. Sounds like one of Superman's enemies. Alkida from the planet Mossk. Keep your eye out for 'em. And keep your eye out for these folks, too. They're clearly not well.

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