Okay, I don’t want anyone to get in trouble… and the library just contacted me to politely remind me that anyone sharing their card number with me is violating their user agreement.

Facebook, for better or worse, is like being at a big party with all your friends, family, acquaintances and co-workers.
Facebook can be a great tool, and an occasional annoyance. What kind of Facebooker are you?

Facebook can be a great tool, and an occasional annoyance. What kind of Facebooker are you?

There are lots of fun, interesting people you’re happy to talk to when they stroll up. Then there are the other people, the ones who make you cringe when you see them coming. This article is about those people.

Sure, Facebook can be a great tool for keeping up with folks who are important to you. Take the status update, the 160-character message that users post in response to the question, “What’s on your mind?” An artful, witty or newsy status update is a pleasure — a real-time, tiny window into a friend’s life.

But far more posts read like navel-gazing diary entries, or worse, spam. A recent study categorized 40 percent of Twitter tweets as “pointless babble,” and it wouldn’t be surprising if updates on Facebook, still a fast-growing social network, break down in a similar way. Take a CNN quiz: What kind of Facebooker are you? »

Combine dull status updates with shameless self-promoters, “friend-padders” and that friend of a friend who sends you quizzes every day, and Facebook becomes a daily reminder of why some people can get on your nerves.

Here are 12 of the most annoying types of Facebook users:

The Let-Me-Tell-You-Every-Detail-of-My-Day Bore. “I’m waking up.” “I had Wheaties for breakfast.” “I’m bored at work.” “I’m stuck in traffic.” You’re kidding! How fascinating! No moment is too mundane for some people to broadcast unsolicited to the world. Just because you have 432 Facebook friends doesn’t mean we all want to know when you’re waiting for the bus.

The Self-Promoter. OK, so we’ve probably all posted at least once about some achievement. And sure, maybe your friends really do want to read the fascinating article you wrote about beet farming. But when almost EVERY update is a link to your blog, your poetry reading, your 10k results or your art show, you sound like a bragger or a self-centered careerist.

The Friend-Padder. The average Facebook user has 120 friends on the site. Schmoozers and social butterflies — you know, the ones who make lifelong pals on the subway — might reasonably have 300 or 400. But 1,000 “friends?” Unless you’re George Clooney or just won the lottery, no one has that many. That’s just showing off.

The Town Crier. “Michael Jackson is dead!!!” You heard it from me first! Me, and the 213,000 other people who all saw it on TMZ. These Matt Drudge wannabes are the reason many of us learn of breaking news not from TV or news sites but from online social networks. In their rush to trumpet the news, these people also spread rumors, half-truths and innuendo. No, Jeff Goldblum did not plunge to his death from a New Zealand cliff.

The TMIer. “Brad is heading to Walgreens to buy something for these pesky hemorrhoids.” Boundaries of privacy and decorum don’t seem to exist for these too-much-information updaters, who unabashedly offer up details about their sex lives, marital troubles and bodily functions. Thanks for sharing.

The Bad Grammarian. “So sad about Fara Fauset but Im so gladd its friday yippe”. Yes, I know the punctuation rules are different in the digital world. And, no, no one likes a spelling-Nazi schoolmarm. But you sound like a moron.

The Sympathy-Baiter. “Barbara is feeling sad today.” “Man, am I glad that’s over.” “Jim could really use some good news about now.” Like anglers hunting for fish, these sad sacks cast out their hooks — baited with vague tales of woe — in the hopes of landing concerned responses. Genuine bad news is one thing, but these manipulative posts are just pleas for attention.

The Lurker. The Peeping Toms of Facebook, these voyeurs are too cautious, or maybe too lazy, to update their status or write on your wall. But once in a while, you’ll be talking to them and they’ll mention something you posted, so you know they’re on your page, hiding in the shadows. It’s just a little creepy.

The Crank. These curmudgeons, like the trolls who spew hate in blog comments, never met something they couldn’t complain about. “Carl isn’t really that impressed with idiots who don’t realize how idiotic they are.” [Actual status update.] Keep spreading the love.

The Paparazzo. Ever visit your Facebook page and discover that someone’s posted a photo of you from last weekend’s party — a photo you didn’t authorize and haven’t even seen? You’d really rather not have to explain to your mom why you were leering like a drunken hyena and French-kissing a bottle of Jagermeister.

The Maddening Obscurist. “If not now then when?” “You’ll see…” “Grist for the mill.” “John is, small world.” “Dave thought he was immune, but no. No, he is not.” [Actual status updates, all.] Sorry, but you’re not being mysterious — just nonsensical.
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The Chronic Inviter. “Support my cause. Sign my petition. Play Mafia Wars with me. Which ‘Star Trek’ character are you? Here are the ‘Top 5 cars I have personally owned.’ Here are ’25 Things About Me.’ Here’s a drink. What drink are you? We’re related! I took the ‘What President Are You?’ quiz and found out I’m Millard Fillmore! What president are you?”

You probably mean well, but stop. Just stop. I don’t care what president I am — can’t we simply be friends? Now excuse me while I go post the link to this story on my Facebook page.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

Blogging as a personal tool for expression has waned in the shadow of Facebook, Twitter, and any number of new digital tools of personal mass-communication. Unless someone can blog full-time as a profession or committed hobby it is difficult to maintain steady and meaningful content… making the maintenance of such a beast more trouble than it’s worth.

I have had this conversation with several blogging friends within the last few months. As more and more of our friends and family get on Facebook, for example, it’s much easier to maintain interactive and up-to-date communication with them within Facebook, rather than a blog. And since most folks I know started a blog to (mostly) broadcast happenings to family and friends… well, you can see the conundrum.

Infrequent posting can be minimized by emphasizing RSS feeds. Today, it’s impractical to keep up with more than a few blogs without subscribing to their feeds (for example: here’s mine). Once you have a site’s feed you can effectively “combine” them using tools such as Google Reader into a one-stop shop of all your favorite blogs’ latest posts.

Now, I’m not saying that blogging is gonna fade out very soon. Indeed, the number of blogs on the internet is still increasing. What I’m saying is that – with every medium – there is a natural cycle… and the “personal” blog is waning. The “topical” blog is still a strong format, and won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

As such, I may be turning Negative99 into a topical blog in the near future. I will first – probably – set up my personal website, SteveMooradian.com, to be more of a personal “portal” that will contain a aggregated blog feed, Twitter feed, Facebook feed, Flickr feed, and other details. Whereas my blog, Negative99, will host content directly related to what I’m most passionate about… being a Christ-follower who’s conservative, unashamed, and too discerning for his own patience. I’m not sure exactly when this change will occur… but if you SUBSCRIBE then you’ll be the first to know!

UPDATE: Yes, yes… I figure I’ll keep the flash games up…

Below are a few of the many pics I snapped, and the entire photo album is viewable at my photo gallery.

Ice-covered berries in my back yard

Work lost power Friday so they closed the plant at lunchtime. I went home and surveyed the tree damage, taking pictures of both destruction and beauty. The iced-berries you see featured here was my favorite shot. A few more are included at the end of this post.

Today many folks are still without power. Some friends over the weekend recount similar scenarios — no power, therefore no running sump pump in the basement, therefore any rain, melting ice and snow must be hand-carried in buckets out of basements! Major bummer!

My back yard trees glistening with ice

Mulberry Tree On Our House and Deck

Mulberry Tree On Our House and Deck

I’ve been toying with the concept of setting up websites that auto-populate themselves with content that I’m interested in. Basically I would take a topic (like politics) and retrieve the latest posts from like-minded sites… display those posts as headlines over a square thumbnails extracted from the original post… and link that headlined thumbnail back to the original post. So, it would look like a lot of square thumbnails linking to the latest headlines from my recommended sites on that topic. Not only would I have a one-stop-shop for the latest stuff (almost like a personal Drudge Report), but I’d also be able to post my own two cents to be intermingled among the “experts”.

I still need to publish the pictures from our anniversary jaunt to Lake Placid.

I also have a few shots from San Jose and San Francisco to publish.

I think I’m getting to the point where I’m going to drop all support for the few WordPress themes I created. It’s more trouble than it’s worth (well… it was NEVER worth anything directly, but that’s not the point) and my time has better outlets than to keep up templates that I regard as far inferior to some others currently available and with dedicated authors keeping them current.

And it feels like a bazillion other things are all going on at the same time. Oh well.