How Many Days Until Zappadan?

Cal Schenkel tagged me in this photo...



....and I removed the tag.


A few times a year, seems like clockwork, Facebook goes ahead and changes the layouts, changes privacy stuff, etc. I'd never been that comfortable on Facebook, and I only really joined because the Filipino Clan had abandoned the Yahoo Email Group, and they all migrated to Facebook. If I wanted to see all the photos, I had to join. But, after 2 years on Facebook, I've had enough.

Facebook would love it if everyone's privacy settings were set to "everyone", because that is their business model. The most amount of personal info that is shared with the most amount of people is going to earn them the most amount of advertising dollars. I keep waiting for someone to steal my identity using the fake birthdate that I changed to another fake birthdate, and that "Only Me" can see. Ha! Why can my friends share my info with their apps? I'll know where the identity was stolen from when the fake birthdate shows up with it.

Some "friends" will not even notice I am gone. That guy I knew from High School that sent the friend request, then never had 2 words to say, the friend of a friend from the blog world who never bothers to comment on the blog, the person with 426 friends, and their total just dropped by one and they have no idea who is no longer their "friend", they're just collecting "friends" as trophies to put on the mantel.

I knew my days were numbered there about a month after I joined. I cracked a Mitt Romney joke on the wall of an old friend, a Massachusetts Republican, a guy I've known since 1971, and he "unfriended" me without saying a word! It's a wonder I lasted that long. Sometimes it got ugly, like the times I called out all my Catholic family and friends about the priests raping children, the Vatican covering it up. I was met by silence from most, except that one guy from High School who had the total meltdown, threatening violence for talking bad about The Church. Good times, good times.

Wasn't all bad, though. Chatting with Bill Griffith or Steve Lafler was great fun, but not enough to keep me there. Also, I'm heading into the cold weather drawing season, got a couple of comic books I want to finish up, and I also want to start investigating some of the digital drawing tools for making vector drawings with an eye towards making animated cartoons. I don't have time for Facebook.

So, I methodically untagged every photo I was in, deleted every comment I made, removed every post I made, every link, every video from my wall and the walls of my friends. I deleted every photo I posted, then deleted the albums they were in. I deleted everything, and I'm sure when you reach a certain number deletions, it trips the "OH My God, He's Deleting Everything,Let's Slow Him Down By Making Him Click On Everything 5 Times" Facebook Algorithm. Fuck you, assholes! When I got everything deleted, I unfriended everybody, then "Deleted" the account, which is not the same thing as "Deactivating" the account. They deliberately make the delete button more difficult to find, and I suspect some people who want to delete their accounts mistakenly think that deactivating the account is the same thing.

Wayback Machine

Bow Down Before The Ones You Serve

If only those Tibetans had worn suits and ties, instead of looking like a bunch of pot smoking hippie hobos, then the police wouldn't have had to beat up a bunch of Buddhists with billy clubs.

Figures with Meat

Hat tip to Hoback!


"I kinda like this one, Bob, leave it!"

The House of the Dead

"There are people who are like tigers thirsting for blood. Anyone who has experienced this power, this unlimited mastery of the body, blood, and soul of a fellow man made from the same clay as himself, a brother in the law of Christ- anyone who has experienced the power and full license to inflict the greatest humiliation upon another creature made in the image of God will unconsciously lose the mastery of his own sensation.

Tyranny is a habit; it may develop, and it does develop at last, into a disease. I maintain that the very best of men may be coarsened and hardened into a brute by habit. Blood and power intoxicate; coarseness and depravity are developed; the mind and the heart are tolerant of the most abnormal things, till at last they come to relish them.

The man and the citizen is lost for ever in the tyrant, and the return to human dignity, to repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible. Moreover, the example, the possibility of such despotism, has a pervading influence on the whole of society; such power is a temptation. Society, which looks indifferently on such a phenomenon, is already contaminated to its foundations."

Fyodor Dostoyevsky in "The House Of The Dead"

The Day 9-11 Bought The Farm

There's an Underground Comix story called "The Day JFK Bought The Farm" from 1982 (Gates of Eden #1) by Michael T. Gilbert. The comic is told from the point of view of a young teenager who is missing all his favorite shows on TV because every channel has coverage of the JFK assassination and funeral ("They even bumped Rawhide!"). It is a savage satire, simultaneously ripping on the budding "Grief Porn" of 24/7 TV coverage of tragedy and the growing influence of the Boob Tube in American culture.

Hey, how about this for commemorating 9-11? A National Moment of Silence!! (the two exclamation points are necessary in representing the Twin Towers on the eventual bumper sticker) on 9-11, and the moment lasts from 12:01 a.m. until 11:59 p.m. No? Too Austere?

Well, how about this? "The Commodification of Grief Porn" (came across that phrase in one of BDR's generous links) has only had its surface scratched. Let's make 9-11 a National Holiday, give the kids the day off from school. The Holiday will be celebrated like Halloween, The Day of The Dead, Christmas and Easter all rolled into one. People will dress up in costumes (this will give Rudy Giuliani an excuse to dress up like Marilyn Monroe in public), kids will go door to door. Instead of handing out candy, you'll be expected to hand out any unused prescription drugs. Kids will go to school the next day and swap their favorites. ("Hey Joey, I'll trade you some Zoloft for a couple of Viagras.") Somebody on Tumblr will make an animated GIF of Charlie Brown smoking "rocks" .

The week prior to 9-11 Day, in school and at home, children will erect replicas of the Twin Towers using old cereal boxes. Box Tops for Education will be replaced by Boxes for 9-11. Back to school shopping in August will see a spike in Tony the Tiger's bottom line. Underneath the Twin Towers, the 9-11 presents will placed. Some families will open one present on 9-11 Eve, others will wait until 9-11 Morning to open presents. Every TV Christmas Special will be retooled for 9-11. The Grinch Who Stole 9-11 will break box office records.

At the Mall, men will dress up in Dick Cheney costumes, and children will line up to sit on his lap and tell him what they want for 9-11. The stockings were hung by the Twin Towers with care in the hopes that St. Dick would soon be there to scare. The 9-11 Shopping Season will begin mid July, and all the 9-11 toys will be made in China.

Let's Roll!

And if they were Muslim Soldiers doing the pilfering, we'd be hearing about it 24/7

But it's probably some Christianists looking to set up a militia, or maybe a couple of Sons of The Confederacy hoping for the South to Rise Again ,so expect this story to fade away.