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Things you’re doing wrong in Facebook comments

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 21, 2012| 5 Comments »

Well, maybe not YOU.

But some of our Facebook friends are making us cringe when we see that we have comments to review. Here are the top 5 Facebook commenting blunders that I’ve noticed seem to be on the rise:

  1. Adding needless drama and stress in the form of one-upmanship. Your FB friend may complain of recurring back pain, but YOUR brother had long-term back pain that was finally so disabling that he couldn’t walk anymore. Yeah, your FB friend’s headache is PROBABLY related to allergies, but that’s what your uncle thought before he died of a neuroblastoma three weeks after diagnosis. You’re not only asking your friend to worry needlessly, you’re managing to focus the attention on YOU. Way to go, Narcissa.
  2. Offering unsolicited advice. Your FB friend announces that he’s found a diet and exercise plan that works for him? No better time to tell him how much you love this OTHER diet plan and how it has ALWAYS worked for you. Your friend has made the painful decision to have his dog put to sleep? Why not tell him he should TOTALLY reconsider because your cousin’s dog was misdiagnosed and got better after a few weeks with another vet. If someone has thought long and hard about a tough decision or lifestyle change and you insist on offering unwanted, contradictory information, they’ll remember that more than any helpful advice you’ve ever given them.
  3. Ignoring other comments and repeating useless, damaging information (see Nos. 1 and 2). If someone has already said exactly what you’re going to say in a comment, and your FB friend has responded with a “thanks but no thanks” reply, you’re going to look like the biggest idiot in the village when you make the same comment. If you just can’t bring yourself to read all the previous comments to ensure that you’re offering unique and/or reassuring information, then you’re just adding white noise to the conversation anyway.
  4. Saying something unforgivably filthy. As a former newspaper copy editor, I admit that my tolerance for inappropriate humor is a bit higher than normal. And I realize that Internet discourse is a little rougher than interoffice email, depending on the office. But when you say something so obscene that I have to drop whatever I’m doing at the moment to log in and delete your comment from my timeline, you’ll never see anything I post again.
  5. Starting arguments with other commenters just for the sheer egotistical joy of outmaneuvering someone intellectually. This leaves the “losing” commenter with much less of an inclination to ever comment on your mutual FB friend’s wall again. Unless this commenter is someone with whom you engage in intellectual horseplay on a regular basis, save the academic arguments for your own posts.

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The joys of destination dining

Posted in Eats, Photographs, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 14, 2010| 6 Comments »

From Jean Georges in Manhattan: Warm sweet potato cake with a cranberry compote and cranberry foam.

 

When the husband and I go on vacation, we tend to plan our itinerary around food. We’re not the only people who do this, but I get mixed reactions from a few folks, some of whom apparently expect to hear more about the shows we’ve seen in New York City (most recent count: 0) than our sake-tasting and evaluation of the freshly made tofu at EN Japanese Brasserie (evaluation: awesome).

Some people get it: After a recent photo documenting our pilgrimage to the Doughnut Plant, one Facebook friend noted, “You take the best doughnut vacations ever!” Indeed, we do.

So what’s with our vacation food obsession? Honestly, we eat like monks at home. We have old-fashioned oatmeal (or steel-cut oats, if there’s time) with walnuts and raisins for breakfast every day. I almost always have a fresh salad and quinoa or hummus for lunch, while the husband consistently has a ham-and-cheese sandwich. Dinner might be homemade lasagna or something easy, like a cheese sandwich pressed into submission on the Foreman Grill with a bowl of leftover Cowboy Stew. We rarely go out to eat. We’ve found that one of the consequences of cooking your own healthy, delicious food at home is that your average restaurant food doesn’t measure up anymore.

What does measure up, however, is your above-average restaurant food. And this is what turns our vacations into the pursuit of destination dining. So while I can’t be bothered with a 10-minute drive to Krispy Kreme for Hot Doughnuts Now (trust me when I tell you that growing up with a Krispy Kreme within easy driving distance makes their doughnuts way less of an attraction later), I am perfectly willing to make a 15-minute hike to the subway station, stand on a crowded car for five minutes, make a 10-minute hike to the Doughnut Plant and stand in a long line for a Valrhona chocolate doughnut. I deem the calories worthwhile.

And that’s how my photo albums end up filled with pictures of doughnuts, ice cream, cheeseburgers and steamed shrimp, while we forget to take pictures of ourselves. Sorry, Mom.

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25 Things I’ll Admit to in Order to Make the Tagging Stop

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 8, 2009| 2 Comments »

Fine. I gave in. Here are 25 Things About Me. If Facebook can suffer through it, so can you.

  1. I love coffee. I drink more coffee than anyone knows.
  2. I drive my dream car, a Mini Cooper S. It’s cute, fast and fun, and more affordable than most people seem to realize.
  3. I work out with free weights three times a week. A former co-worker who calls his muscle-bound arms the “pythons of death” used to call my arms the “blue runners of death.”
  4. I can’t wait for warmer weather so I can go caving again. I have never felt stronger and more dexterous than I do when scrambling over giant piles of rock.
  5. I always thought I’d have dogs, but I have two cats instead. They’re hilarious.
  6. I judge people based on how they treat animals.
  7. I’ve always had more male friends than female friends. I may be from Mars instead of Venus.
  8. My husband is the kind of guy I would be friends with. I’m pretty sure this is why we’re still married.
  9. I’ve been to England, France, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico.
  10. I have no children. This is neither an accident nor a tragedy. I’m cool with other people having kids though, and love my nieces and nephew.
  11. Hurricane Katrina flooded a third of my house. It’s barely worth mentioning compared to the damage other people had. That said, rising water and high winds still give me a little punch in the gut.
  12. I’m still pissed off about what happened to the people of New Orleans.
  13. Since childhood, I’ve had a recurring dream in which I had to walk across a yard while avoiding snakes of every type and size every few feet. That dream has been replaced by one in which water is rising in my back yard and I’m trying to move things higher in the house.
  14. I’ve never told anyone about No. 13.
  15. I had a casual smoking habit for about six years in high school and college. Nasty habit? Sure, but I miss it and wish cigarettes weren’t so bad for me.
  16. I miss clove cigarettes the most. A friend tells me it’s because I’ve always aspired to be Eurotrash.
  17. I’m really proud of my little brother for being such an awesome husband and father.
  18. I’m not sarcastic ALL the time.
  19. I decorate with objects that I love, which range from an old Royal typewriter to tea tins.
  20. The first concert I ever attended was Bon Jovi.
  21. I’ve seen Metallica in concert six times.
  22. I exhibited multiple signs of OCD when I was a kid. I remember wishing somebody would notice so that they could figure out what was wrong with me AND hoping that nobody would notice that there was something wrong with me.
  23. I think that my remaining obsessive-compulsive tendencies make me a better copy editor, writer and coder.
  24. I took Spanish in high school and French in college. When I try to speak either language I end up with a mishmash of both. Sacre gato!
  25. I’m pursuing my master’s degree in English mostly because I really enjoy the classes.

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