Facebook Makes Me Laugh

Usually my status updates on Facebook are meant to give people a taste of my keen sense of humor. Sometimes they offer my witty observations of life, but mostly they're talking about the husband's antics, or those of the cats. It's a quip that marks what my life was like at a specific moment in time. What surprises me, though, is how people react.

Take, for example, a popular post:

My husband was wearing his ridiculous lounge wear with the stylish addition of a pot holder. Why a pot holder? Because the mug of hot cocoa he microwaved became too hot. Why not a pot holder might be a better question. Posts like this garner the most responses from my bizarre network of friends and family. In this post, nine people liked it and 14 felt the need to comment.

Enter the cat:

People on the Internet love pictures of cats, that's been made clear. Nine people liked this picture, too, but a different nine people than those who liked the husband-sporting-a-pot-holder photo.

Upon scrolling through my Facebook wall for the past few months, I've come to a few conclusions:

1. I do not go to Facebook to share "real" news about myself. People in my Facebook world want light, fluffy musings and I am happy to give that to them. I do not go on to Vaguebook about life trials and injustices. There's enough of that crap. And if it's really important that you know about something, I'll call you.
2. Part, if not most, of my online "brand" is my sense of humor. Life happens, and as Jimmy Buffett would say, "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane" (horse's mouth at 1:07). I believe that you get what you give, so giving off post after post of negativity will only make fewer people listen when I have something to say. Not good to drive away your potential audience, right?
3. People are more apt to respond to a picture with a cat, than a picture without one. The exception is including a picture of the husband in a funny scenario. Combine the two and you get a new level of comment glory:

The difference is people still talk about this picture to us in person. While there were four comments on the picture and four likes, we've had multiple friends bring this up when we run into them in real life. What did I learn from that? Humor is memorable. Work it in to your daily life not only for your own sanity, but with the knowledge that it may help people remember you some day. Only (ok mostly) good things can come of that, right?

Tweeting from the Id

I'm helping, along with three other folks, to promote Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week through social media. At first, I thought, "What in the world have I gotten myself into?" Now I'm thinking, "How do I love Tweetdeck, let me count the ways..."(Seriously,  I can schedule a week's worth of tweets at once and then not have to remember to tweet at specific times. Brilliant stuff.)

Through a class I'm taking at LSU, and through talking with these PR and Tourism professionals about this week-long event, I've discovered being the "voice" of an organization on a social media account is kind of up my alley. I suppose it goes back to my newspaper days and writing what we called refers. (Not pronounced as "a doctor refers a patient," but as "hey, I never would have guessed your Dad smoked reefer in the '70s"). Refers are those little gems found on a section front of a newspaper that -- appropriately -- refer you to other stories or information inside the paper. These nuggets of personality and wisdom were anonymous - no bylines or photo credits. And they were generally my favorite things to write.

Being one of the voices for @BREW_2011 on Twitter (and for the organization's Facebook page) has brought me back to the days of writing short, informative quips that are designed to grab your attention and gain your interest. These quips come from a special side of  my brain, the part that can boil things down to its essential ingredients with just enough snark to - I hope - make people either turn to that page or click on that link. Freud called that part of my brain (the dark, desire-centered part) the Id. Tweeting from the Id works for me. And apparently it works for the masses, too. I saw this tweet in my newsfeed this past weekend and laughed at humanity:

What' I've learned is not only does your message on social media  have to have "meat" to it (good information), it has to be engaging and, preferably, funny. People gravitate toward funny and informative. They retweet funny. They follow informative. If my Id can continue to think of snarky things and turn it into a conversational tweet, then I'm fairly certain my help for the BREW project will be useful. And it can only help this sweet digital brand o' mine in the long run, too.

A Third-Party Response

As if Mashable read my story (c'mon, it's entirely possible), today it offered a solution to help Netflix in its quest to, oh, stay alive and offer me more movies.

Here's a quick synopsis in case you're too lazy to click the link above:

"5 Ways Netflix Can Stop the Bleeding," by Lance Ulanoff at Mashable.

1) No More Reversals 

2) Sign One Big Studio Now

3) Create a Lifetime Membership Option

4) Sell

5) Make Hastings Chairman Only and Bring in a New CEO

What I love about this: Idea No. 2. Yes! Isn't this what all streaming subscribers have been screaming for months/years? Offer us more! If you provide a streaming-only option, give it some legs to stand on. I won't go back to getting DVDs, but eventually I will work my way through your sad streaming offerings. Don't make me cancel because of -that-.

What about the other ideas? Sure. Fine. Whatever. Selling, Idea No. 4,  makes me nervous, because with selling comes more change, which kind of contradicts Idea No. 1. Lifetime membership? Meh. I don't want to shell out $300 or $500 right now, but I'm sure some people would. And the new CEO option? I don't really care who the CEO of Netflix is, honestly. I want a broader assortment of TV shows and movies. If Reed can do that, great. Hooray Reed. If not, I'm happy to see what a new CEO can do. I think. Unless that means more change for me, which I'm really kind of over at this point.

My "Love and Hate" show, featuring Netflix

Tonight I tell a tale of longing and resentment. The object of these feelings, I'm sure, cares little of them; but I'm here to tell a story.

Picture it: the year was 2006 and I found a new (to me) service called Netflix. It sent me movies just a few days after I requested them, it even offered streaming, though we weren't yet ready for such bold moves then. It suggested titles that might interest me, and it let me pause my membership if ever we were on holiday. We carried along in this fashion, embracing the streaming feature in 2009, all the while still receiving the occasional movie by mail.

And then came the year 2011. Netflix approached me and demanded I choose between its mailed DVD feature or its streaming. Oh, but I had grown to love the streaming, as we are without cable. And, yes, we had neglected the DVD by mail feature, but we loved it no less! And now we must choose? We chose streaming.

Oh, how Netflix deceives. Its sting, shown here, denies the longevity of our relationship. May 2010? I think not! We've been together since at least 2006, but Netflix's fickle past -- its brief affair with Qwikster, mainly -- tries to imply our relationship is fleeting.

Our relationship is anything but fleeting; I've been loyal, but lately, I must admit, I long for more.

Enter resentment. I now have far fewer options to watch. And I am far from the only one noticing. My dear friend Conan O'Brien announced he'd like to watch "The Golden Girls" on streaming, but he most certainly didn't check to see if he could before this post.

And my plea for more content:

My call has gone unanswered. Dear readers, please respond to this heart wrenching tale and help make it so no other feels this loss. Let @Netflix know our longing for more options and our desire to remain faithful. Let it not test our resolve, let it not toy with our emotions. Let it give us the "Golden Girls."

Bones

I think the husband and I are realizing our mortality through our Halloween decorations.  This year, I haven't gotten into the Halloween spirit as obsessively as I typically do. The decoration bins were dragged out by the husband in early October -- weeks after I typically would have done it. Once he started placing things willy-nilly around the house, I was forced to step in and do it the right way (my way).

As I sit here pondering birthday presents and potential parties, I realize I'm surrounded by death. Gone are the mostly happy, smiling pumpkins and ghosts; they've been replaced by skulls. Lots of skulls. It seems in almost 9 years of marriage, the husband has slowly, but steadily, ossified the tone of the Amanda Fall Festival. (I am not going to dwell too much on how this might be his interpretation of life after marriage.)

Just look at this - a five-second tour around my condo:

My husband's beloved glow-in-the-dark skull he got as a kid from Disney World's "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride (the original one!) way back when. He added the blue candle he got from my grandmother about 4 years ago. I believe this guy would be one of the first thing he'd grab in a house fire -- I might come in a close second or third.

This is a Dollar Store find that has somehow managed to stay out year-round last year. It lived in the garden until I noticed it and put it back in the Halloween bin.

His newest obsession: glowing things. This year, we've been to far too many different stores looking for the "right" glowing decoration to add to the arsenal. So far the $2.50 lights at Target have made him happy. There are two strands of glowing skulls in my house now. I'll update ya'll if more appear.

Every guest bath needs a little bit of morbid, right? There are two of these in there now.

I admit I bought this cute little pirate skeleton dish off Etsy because I adore it. I think once you add in a little bit of pirate, the skeleton becomes a little more loveable and a little less harbinger of death.

I suppose I should be thankful that he's not the "bleeding body parts" kind of Halloween decorator. This time of year isn't about gore, it's about me and my birthday. And costumes, candy, and pumpkins. Oh, and of course his birthday, too.

Big Bites

We were supposed to go to Philadelphia for our birthdays this year. Yep, supposed to. The husband was going to present a paper at a Political Philosophy conference there, and I was going to tag along since I'd never seen the city before. A perk of grad school, I'm told, is a conference in a cool city. Unfortunately, the research didn't come together for the husband's paper, so he decided to withdraw it from the conference. Withdrawing the paper also meant withdrawing our travel plans from the docket. (Practical note: We were even going to fly there for free, thanks to me complaining on Twitter about a delay on a Southwest Airlines flight. I recommend you follow airlines/hotels you frequent and be vocal, but not rude, about your experiences. I got some serious Southwest dollars for my comments.)

A little back story: both my and my husband's birthdays are around Halloween. When I was a child, fall celebrations started popping up in September. The St. Peter's Oktoberfest carnival was the big event in my hometown, followed by a harvest fest at school, my birthday, then Halloween. I was convinced at a young age that the world celebrated me for a good 6 weeks. My parents called it Amanda's Fall Festival. And the sentiment has stuck. I adore the fall, and Halloween, and pumpkins, and (except in Louisiana) cooler weather.

This year was supposed to be a new kind of Amanda's Fall Festival since I got to travel on our birthdays to a cool new city. Now, we must come up with a Plan B. The trouble is, I'm just not feeling it this year. The husband bit off more than he could chew with this conference paper whose focus was a little outside his research area, and I think I've bit off more than I can chew with the idea of big plans for birthdays, pumpkin carving, and Halloween. My sights were set on a weekend of travel and a weekend prior filled with events. Now all the plans are kind of up-in-the-air, and I just don't feel like sorting them out.


The husband always says his birthday comes at exactly the right time: the day after mine to stop the insanity of Amanda's Fall Festival. This year, I think he might be right.

I do?

So, I'm a bridesmaid again. This is a role I kinda thought I was done with. I've done the bridesmaid routine for high school friends and college friends, and of course family weddings, but at a certain (yet still very young, really!) age, you assume you're too old for this stuff.

A good friend I've made since moving to Baton Rouge is getting married in May, and she's asked her two knitting cohorts, of which I'm one, to be in her wedding. Don't get me wrong, I'm honored to be asked, and any excuse for a new dress and shoes is great, but the last two weekends of dress shopping and detail discussing has made me realize how "20s" this activity was to me. I'm not in my 20s anymore, and this experience has definitely made me feel it.

She's determined to have the bridesmaids in dresses they'll "wear again." Oh, isn't that the most naive thing a bridesmaid can hear? We never wear those dresses again. Just accept it. I finally had to say, "honey, every bridesmaid has accepted the fact that she'll never wear this again except for maybe a Halloween costume*. Choose a dress you love and we're happy to wear it." Yep, that's not the 20s talking. That's the full-blown 30s, baby. Bridesmaid experience, I has it.

How is it different this time around? Well, the iPhone for one**. Although we all have different models, we all have some way to take pictures while dress shopping and send them to anyone who can't be with us. Back in my day, we found pictures on the internet and attached them in an email to friends out of state. I know, that's so early 2000s.

While I won't be able to get the new, fancy version of the iPhone any time soon, I can dream. I can dream of asking Siri, "What's the easiest way to be a thirty-something bridesmaid?" I'd love to see what it says.

*Note only one of my bridesmaid dresses has been hacked into a costume, but I have a nice red number that has potential, circa 2007.
** The iPhone 4s was announced yesterday. Did you miss the details?