I don't follow stock trends and I have no investments. But when the pandemonium following the announcement of Facebook's IPO reached the point of insanity, I took notice. I have no interest in buying shares of Facebook. I have a Facebook account and depending on my amount of free time and level of boredom, I will check my page one to perhaps five times per day. I don't know why. Most of my "friends" ramble on with political statements, motivational crap, religious views or cute pictures. I consider Facebook a colossal waste of time and try to spend as little time on there as possible.

The furor over Facebook's IPO was unsettling to me. Didn't anyone remember MySpace? Five years ago, MySpace was the hot thing. Now, if anyone mentions MySpace, it's generally a punchline after a comment about Facebook. I suppose that the prospect of huge profits, fueled by media speculation and heavy-handed saturation coverage, got too many people thinking about the quick million or two that they potentially could earn. Of course, they also could fall into financial ruin but that easy money seemed to obfuscate that fact.

Facebook stock was crazy at first but it quickly slacked off in price. As of yesterday, I believe it was down to $21.00 per share, a 51% drop if I did my math right. I'm not surprised. Despite the insider tips and questionable handling of the IPO, did anyone really think that it would make them the fortune they expected? I know that a lot of people made some very quick money in the early going, but by now they've lost half of their investment. I have no sympathy for them. You take a risk, you risk losing it all. Yesterday a report came out stating that advertising on Facebook did not yield qualitative results, that very few dedicated Facebook users actually used services advertised on the pages. No surprise there either.

My dad always told me in regards to financial deals of any kind, "No deal is so good that it can't wait until tomorrow." Wise words. Now, I'm not a risk-taker with my money. I don't play the stock market. But I have to chuckle to myself when I read the daily reports of how the financial side of Facebook is imploding. Not to worry, though...something else will come along and five years from now Facebook will be a cautionary topic about how not to handle an IPO in an economics class leaving a memory of some very wealthy and some very bitter, broke people in its wake.

So Justin Bieber is wanted for questioning in the assault of a photographer. This is just so pathetic. Not because this little girly-man is being sought for questioning, but that any man with any dignity would: 

A) Let that little pussy touch him. 

B) Let that little pussy beat him up. 

C) Let it be known that the little pussy beat him up. 

D) Decided to come forth with this.

Bieber was wearing purple shoes. ??? His socks had purple stripes. I don't know. It seems that this is what girls of his generation find attractive, but why? I'm not saying that he should be some burly he-man, but purple shoes and socks? Metrosexual? Maybe. But that doesn't make it right. I'm still not sure what role Selena Gomez plays in all of this. I have maintained for a long time that their "relationship" is little more than a contractual agreement to make him appeal to females. But if a girl with as much sex appeal as Ms. Gomez possesses really does find males like Bieber attractive, then I weep for the future of masculinity.

Many things just piss me off because they are used by so many people, yet too often the terms are not fully thought through. Today, among other topics, I'm going to discuss the ridiculous use of the prefix, "pre."

We see it and hear it all the time: 

Pre-register now!

Now pre-leasing...

Pre-order yours today. 

Pre-boarding will now begin.

What bothers me about this is that once you've done whatever it is you're doing, it's done! If you pre-register, once you submit it, you have registered. The same goes for all of them. If you pre-lease, and you sign the papers, you have just leased. Once you step onto the plane, you've boarded. There can be no other way. 

I think the reason that this has become so popular is that Americans in general like to think that they are getting a deal, that they're getting something that someone else isn't. It makes them feel special somehow. Never mind the fact that one person certainly cannot be the only person in the world doing the registering, ordering, etc. It just makes them feel good. 

***

How about the term "baby bump?" Or the one that sets my stomach acid churning, "baby daddy?" Baby bump might be appropriate for about six weeks, those first exciting days when it slowly starts to become obvious that the extra bit of tummy is more than just a few extra pounds. But when a woman is days from delivery, the whole "bump" thing seems kind of stupid to me. It's no longer a bump. 

Baby daddy? My God, that's just pure laziness. We can't punctuate anymore? We're talking about an apostrophe and an "s." Is that so difficult? The dumbing down of our country is sickening.

***

Bad dream

I had a dream the other night that my son was trying to kill me. He's full of blind rage in the waking world, so this isn't all that out of the question. The strangest part of this dream is that his accomplice in my attempted murder was none other than the ultra-sexy Britney Spears. And yes, this is during her "train wreck" days. I find her unbelievably hot. Anyway, he didn't kill me in the dream, but it was disturbing enough that I had a terrible time sleeping and was a bit creeped out when I woke up.

I think the fact that he was in my dreams was due to the fact that he was to be in court the day after I had the dream and he had threatened to beat me up in a phone message the night before.

Soceity's slow demise...

For years now, I've been lamenting the slow but certain deterioration of our society. Many years ago, I noted that in my opinion, the advent of the self-flushing toilet in public restrooms marked the beginning of this deterioration. When we can no longer be counted on to flush a toilet, then something clearly is wrong. So, someone has to come up with a way to make the toilets flush since we're too unconcerned to do it ourselves.

At some point in the early 80s, having "attitude" suddenly became the cool thing; it somehow became attractive in an odd way. Prior to this change, people with "attitude" were merely considered bitches or pricks. And loudmouths. Now, attitude not only is acceptable, but it's considered a valued trait. Being a loudmouth has now morphed into being "outspoken," and this too has become desirable.

Recently, Chee-tos changed the company mascot from the hip, cool Chester Cheetah - a sunglasses-wearing cheetah with huge feet and a disproportionately large head who wanted nothing more than to enjoy his cheese puffs. Now, the cheetah has changed into some sort of European hipster with a generic accent. He still wears sunglasses lest the American public forget the association to the parent company, but now he's a sardonic and cynical mystery (he disappears in the commercial). In this new commercial, a woman is doing laundry in a laundromat and she has about six or seven dryers going with her clothes in them. A woman across the way in the laundromat looks at the other and says, "You know, other people are doing laundry too." Here is the outspoken attitude I mentioned earlier. People are more confrontational now. In my view, if you get to the laundromat before the other patrons, and you want to use six dryers, that's fine. If you don't like it, get there earlier. Rather than take responsibility for your actions (i.e. get up earlier) it's easier to bitch about it and put the onus to make things right on the other person.

The woman's comment irritates the original woman using all the dryers. She looks around, perplexed as to how to handle the comments. The new cheetah is playing chess with an old man sitting at a table. The cheetah looks at the camera as if he is addressing the woman directly and says, "You know, those are HER whites behind you." The woman takes the hint and puts a handful of Chee-tos into the dryer with the other woman's clothes. The idea is that all of the powdery delicious goodness of the Chee-tos will turn her white laundry orange. When the Chee-to woman looks back for approval from the cheetah, he has disappeared.

I understand the way commercials are supposed to work. I have a degree in public relations and I studied advertising in college. I'm also aware that the world changes all the time. I'm fine with all of that, but why do we have to become a nation of rude people with an attitude?

Priorites...

I'm mystified as to why there is such attention being paid to Heath Ledger dying. I know that sounds cruel, but come on...he wasn't that damn great. I remember when Princess Di was killed. The world stopped. Her death, by the way, sparked the insipid "makeshift memorial" that seems to present itself every time there's a death. But back to the original rant...just one week after DiDi and Dodi died died, Mother Teresa died.

This was a woman who went on to become a saint, yet her death was overshadowed by the media frenzy covering Di. So, a selfless woman who had committed her life to God and helping the helpless dies in wake of a globetrotting hottie being killed in a wreck and the hottie is deified. It didn't matter that Di had been unfaithful, bulimic, alcoholic, a pill abuser and frankly, a shitty mother. She "worked tirelessly" to help AIDS victims (yawn) and auctioned off gowns. I don't recall ever seeing her surrounded by the filth and squalor and poverty of the poorest children in India. Di was too busy hanging out with everyone's favorite faggot, Elton John. Oddly enough, aside from a very small minority of victims, AIDS is pretty much self-induced: dirty needles, unprotected sex, multiple partners. The poor people living in the streets in New Delhi didn't put themselves in that position by being narcissistic hedonists. Yet the AIDS victims are the ones that the world worries about.

Let's get our priorities straight: not one of the soldiers who's died in Iraq has gotten a fraction of the attention or the outpouring of emotion and sympathy that Ledger has gotten. What the hell is our society coming to?

Christmas thoughts...

What's a man to do? Christmas is just two days away. I'll be all by myself. Why? My son hasn't spoken to me in months. He's awaiting trial on a felony charge. My daughter will be with friends of the ex. Jessie, usually a pleasant and very giving person, won't be getting me a gift this year either. Normally she does, but for some reason, this year, she isn't. She asked me today if I "wanted her to get me a gift." How do you respond to that? I don't want to tell her that I expect one. She'd go right out and buy me something. I would like to be remembered at least with a card. I don't expect or really want anything more. My felon...er, son, hasn't gotten me a gift in five years. He'll come around to get the gifts that others have sent here for him...monetary gifts that he will need to get more tattoos.

I am ready for the holiday to be over. I know that sounds like I'm a Scrooge, and I guess that's fine. I've been bombarded with Christmas advertising, marketing and promotions of one sort or another since Labor Day weekend. When I think of that and the fact that I'll be alone this Christmas, I don't get too worked up. My neighbors have made a supercilious attempt at decorating for the holiday. One of them strung a single strand of lights over a shrub in the front yard. A woman across the street twisted a few strings of lights along the banister and railing on the side porch of her apartment. I'm sorry. I'd rather see nothing at all rather than these half-hearted tries at "decorating."