Facebook Quizzes: How Low Can You Go?

Which dead Beatle are you?
What would be your redneck weight?
What kind of movie candy would you be?
What disease best fits your personality?
How good a singer would you be on another planet?
How would you commit suicide if only you had the nerve?
If you were a food, how many calories would you contain?
What movie star would you most like to see publicly flogged?
If you were a serial killer, how would you murder your victims?
How would you like to make Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann suffer?
If you didn't waste all your time on Facebook, what might you accomplish?

Mean People Suck

When my son was about eight years old, he made a clay paperweight that I keep on my desk to this day. It's a bright yellow, three-dimensional "Smiley Face," with the words, "Mean People Suck" etched into it. (It is the one thing I would save, should my house catch on fire.)

It reminds me of two things:
1. My son was adorable once.
2. Mean people DO suck.

Sadly, the Internet is home to the meanest of the mean. Almost every news item that allows comments from the public is riddled with the most awful sentiments, written by your average Jane and Joe. Somebody died a horrific death? They say, "Good, they deserved it!" No matter what it is, the hateful public can always come up with unthinkable trash. The recent death of John Travolta's son was a perfect example. This wonderful actor who has given us so much pleasure over the years was targeted simply for having an autistic son that died.

The bottom line: bullies graduate from high school and go out in the world and procreate.
Be careful out there.........

Passing Middle Age

I am now old enough to take two different medications every day, both very popular with us "aging baby boomers"-- Lipitor for high cholesterol and something else for high blood pressure. I take these because my doctor says I should. Who knows, maybe the first pill is the reason I need the second pill. Regardless, I take them because, despite being "over the hill" and sliding down the other side, I feel good, look reasonable, and definitely want to stay alive for the time being.

Since I'm here, I suppose I should know what to do with myself, but I don't. My college-age son is always questioning the Meaning of Life, and I keep telling him there isn't one; if there were, we'd have heard all about it by now. It would be BREAKING NEWS on CNN, Greta would do a show on it, Larry King would interview the experts who discovered it, and all the magazines would have it on the cover. So let's assume that nobody knows.

But since I am fairly old already--I was at Woodstock--I have learned some truths, and I'm happy to share the ones I am sure of:

1. Most people are idiots.
2. Having a dog is not as much fun as it's cracked up to be, especially when your kids move away and you're stuck with it in your otherwise empty nest, and you'd love to drop everything and fly off to Greece for awhile but alas, no pet sitter, etc.
3. Smoking cigarettes is just plain dumb. (See #1.)
4. Running every day for twenty years really will destroy your joints eventually.
5. Saran Wrap is better than all the other similar products.
6. Friendships are optional, so don't hang out with people who treat you badly.
7. Everyone is good at something. Find out what that is and do it as much as possible.
8. Watching a movie is not really doing anything; it's just watching people pretend to do things. Yet, millions of people attend movies all the time, thinking they are actually doing something! This is moronic. (See #1.)
9. Do what it takes for you to enjoy today, without hurting someone else of course, and then do it again every other day.
10. Avoid surgery when possible
11. Floss daily.

So, that's all I got. After college, years of working at many jobs (42), two marriages, and raising a child, that's it. As for meaning, I believe my cousin Brian put it best, when talking about the origins of life: "First there was nothing, and then it blew up."