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Angry Julie Monday

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No, I Won't Join Your Mafia

Once again, I'm annoyed with Facebook. I'm pretty sure you wondering, why don't I just delete my account and move on? Well, I use it for Junior League and to network with friends from the past. I actually like looking at pictures of people's children. Sometimes the day to day stuff is a nice break.

But within the pregnancy announcements, the new homes, the births, and vacations photos are the applications. I have "friends" where their entire wall is either Mafia Wars and/or Farmville. Do I want to join your mafia? Nope, not now, not ever.

Angry Husband was complaining about our computer in the office, which is not my Macbook. I won't let his hands touch my Macbook. Angry Husband has a Dell in the office, which is his "gaming" computer. He had to have the top of the line graphics card, hard drive you name it. Well he's been complaining about the computer being SLOW. I just roll my eyes. He then proceeded to tell me that the computer has some issues and then he needs to wipe the entire hard drive. I proceed to lecture him with my Facebook/MySpace education seminar. I told him that these "games" on Facebook and/or MySpace are applications which can cause viruses and other problems with your computer. Angry Husband is the king of clicking on things. He just can't stop. I also think he has a slight addiction to these little games. He plays Mafia Wars, Pirates, and even Sorority Life. He even had a Facebook War with my best friend over a Tetris Game. Guess who has to re-format the entire computer now?

I currently have over a 100 invitations hidden on my Facebook account. Here are some of the them.

*Jane wants you to join their crew in Mafia Wars, a Mob-style game of combat & criminal empire played on Facebook. Start out as a small-time hood and fight your way up to ruling your own crime family!

*Hey, I added you as my relative on We're Related. Can you do me a favor and add your relatives too? You'll help me see who I'm related to on Facebook.

*Here is a Ramboo plant for your (Lil) Green Patch. Could you help me by sending a plant back? Together we can fight Global Warming!

*I've added you as one of my favorite moms on Mommyhood. Join my Mommyhood so we can share advice and send each other fun gifts!

*Here's a Juicy Couture Dress to help you out in Sorority Life. Please send me a gift back and together we can become the most powerful house in Sorority Life!

Seriously, I'm over the games and applications on Facebook. But at least, I can hide most of them. I have a new pet peeve within the past few weeks. My best friend, Stacey, also shares my view on this. Well, actually there are two pet peeves.

1. Passive-Aggressive Statuses: They make you wonder, is this person talking about me? What the heck have I done to piss them off?

2. Political Statements: They hear something on the news, involving politics. It may be about healthcare, educations, you name it. They have to give their opinion and they want the controversy.

I just wish people would realize whom they have as "friends" on their Facebook accounts. I have family, high school friends, college friends, sorority sisters, co-workers, supervisors, bloggers and other random people. It's quite a group. We've had several discussions at work lately about some of the "statuses" we've seen. Actually several wars have started because of Facebook comments, statuses, and pictures.

So no, I won't accept your drink or play Farkle with you.

I Like Them Better as Adults

High School was the probably the worst four years of my entire life...no joke. I moved to the area in 7th grade. There were already established cliques. It's an Orange County thing. The kids who went to Junior Lifeguards, played volleyball at the Bay Club, and they surfed. Well I came from Los Angeles County, and this was an entire new world for me. I traded my tennis shoes for flip flops and Birkenstocks. I got a beach cruiser. But I never learned to surf. Probably one of my downfalls. I had a small group of friends through school, but I was never really part of that group.

I dressed well, but I was a little chunky. In Orange County terms, I was HUGE. Looking back, I wasn't that big. I've seen the pictures. I didn't go to dances, well I went to Prom, stag. I played softball for a few years. But that's about it. I hung out with my friends, because really I didn't fit in with the rest of the crowd. Because I swear, the cliques were established at birth, probably at play groups on the sand.

I went to a local college, joined a Sorority and never looked back. But with the invention of Facebook, it's all coming back. I'm seeing people, pictures, and comments from events that happened sixteen years ago. Wow, sixteen years ago I graduated high school. I've come into contact with these people at children's birthday parties, through other friends, and after talking to people on Facebook. I love to see what kind of jobs that they ended up in, whom they married, what their kids look like.

But what I've realized now is that most of these people, I like as adults better. When we were in junior high and high school, it was about their parent's money and where they lived. Now, we've all graduated from college, etc and have our families. We have a lot of the same issues.

I work near the city I grew up in. I'm seeing more and more people move back there. They want to raise their children there. They want to be close to family. I run into them daily. Especially while working. It kinda freaks them out to see Julie in the police uniform. But really, I've had great conversations. I felt like a complete outsider when I was in school, but people do remember me. Sometimes, I wish I engaged in things a bit more. Gee, if I had it to do all over again..well, that's a whole other post.

But really these all came from a chance meeting last night. I ran into a high school classmate at a blog meet-up. No, she is not a blogger. But she just happened to be at the same establishment that I was at. We sat outside and talked for ten minutes. I was completely relaxed and it was not superficial. We discussed work, family, and people we were mutual friends with. We had a great laugh and talked about discussing things again.

So really, I might not have all these fabulous stories of growing up, as the fat girl, in the non-popular group. I am a great adult. I make good conversation. I love chatting with people and I'm definitely more approachable now. It takes a lot of the regrets away. Because I truly love my friends in my life right now, they are my family, and my network.

How Facebook Messes Up Your Relationship

A friend posted this on her Facebook. I think it's hilarious. I heard about so much drama on Facebook lately. Really people, Facebook is what you make of it. Step away from the drama. Oh, and enjoy this video!

How Social Media Impacts Me

I was surfing my one of my parenting forums today, because that's what I do. I have several sites that I check daily. I may not post as often on them, but I do check them. One of the women posted this link to this You Tube video about Social Media.



That statistics that they gave were quite amazing. I use most of these sites/applications daily, but I never really thought about the number of people that do. My parents are just starting to see the trend also. My mom and dad kept asking me to teach them. It's quite frustrating, as my mom can barely use her e-mail. I've tried, but they just don't get it.

This is a part of my daily life. The people and sites that I connect with online, are just as much as a part of my real life as my co-workers, family, and neighbors. I actually like some of my online connections better. I have genuine bonds with these people through my computer and Blackberry. I have even taken the time to meet some of them.

My husband does not use social media as much as I do. Yet, he's in a pretty technical business. I think one of the main factors is that he doesn't have a smart phone, which was his own decision. But yet, once again, I got the plea at dinner last night.

"We should really get iPhones. It's amazing the things that you can do with them".

The video I posted above was done by the people from Socialnomics, a Social Media Blog. I have never visited this site before. I will be bookmarking and subscribing to it now.

Here are some of the Social Meda statistics that they posted on their site.

*Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
*If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
*Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama
*54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
*78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
*24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us

And if you don't know what Social Media is? You do. Because you are reading this blog right now, which is a part of Social Media.

Facebook and Family

This past week, everyone was in an uproar about Facebook changing their terms of service. I saw all kinds of posts on the forums, Twitter, blogs, and several web pages about it.

Here are some of the articles.

The Consumerist
Yahoo News
Amanda French

I read all the posts, and made myself aware. Facebook has back-tracked and decided to return to their old terms of service. I'm not too concerned because I have privacy settings on my page.

I have the Facebook for Blackberry application set on my cellphone. When I got ready to take Angry Toddler to preschool, I checked my phone for e-mails, texts, and Facebook messages. I saw that I had a new "friend request" from my Aunt. I freaked! I told Angry Husband, and we both agree, "Ohhh nooo." This Aunt is known for her chain e-mails, craziness, and random e-mail updates. I've tried to step away from that side of the family, and have been successful for almost a year now.

When I finally got home from dropping Angry Toddler off at school, and going to the gym, I sat down at the computer again. I clicked on my Aunt's profile (cause I'm nosey). I click on her "wall" to see what's she's got up there, and who she's chatting with. I FREAK! She has (3) recent photos of Angry Husband, Angry Toddler, and I on her wall. Somehow she's right clicked them from MY friends' pages. These are all photos that I have either been "tagged in" or (2) I posted on my page. I had to go through all my "privacy settings" and make sure everything was set to "private". Angry Husband and I are soo pissed. I even called my BFF, Stacey and she made sure that she changed the settings for pictures of me. Nice Aunt of mine, stealing photos by right-clicking them.

Everyone is worried about what Facebook is doing with our photos. I'm worried about family getting a hold of my pictures. In one of the pictures, I was wearing my work uniform, aka police uniform. I don't want everyone is my crazy family knowing where I work. Seriously, that side of the family is CRAZY, with a capital "C". That's all we need.

I'm ignoring her friend request. Hopefully, she won't keep asking me. I don't think she got the hint when I didn't send her my new e-mail address, almost 2 years ago. She was one of the main reasons that I changed my e-mail address in the first place.

A runner like you, mama

As we were leaving the park today, Angry Toddler saw a woman running on the street. He got all excited and pointed. He said, "Mama, mama, she's a runner like you, mama". I can't tell you all how good that felt. Seriously, when you're child sees someone soo athletic and thinks of you. I want those thoughts to stay in his head. I'm glad he will never be able to remember the lazy, larger Angry Julie.

I actually haven't ran much this week. I usually track my running with the RunLogger application on Facebook. It's pretty nifty. I've ran over 21 miles this week and averaged 4.79 miles on each run. That is not too bad. If I ever want to run a 1/2 Marathon, I need to get my miles up though.

I finally went to the doctor on Thursday this week, after having some issues for a couple of days. Ugh, I was right all along, and had a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection). I seriously think it was from running; either from the long mileage and not showering right away (within the hour), or issues related to my mud run, which seems forever ago. I'm on all kinds of drugs right now, which make my stomach hurt.

Hopefully, I can do alot more running next week. I'm glad that the weather is getting cooler, cause I might be encouraged to run outside a little more.

I don't have an races planned right now either. I think I'm going to do one on Thanksgiving with my pal, Mo.