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. 

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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.

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