F Book, I say.

There is a whole bunch of us here. Some we know professionally. Some personally. And a lot who occupy the vague space in between. Every once in a while one more joins us quietly. Not always though. Some don’t feel comfortable unless they have made their presence felt with an announcement.

Like: “It is rum & coke* weather.” (Coke is the registered trademark of a bunch of guys in South America and if you use it without paying them, you get your nose blown off.)

Not all those who make announcements are addicts of course. Some of them are very matter of fact and say stuff like: “It’s hot outside!”

Then there are some who quietly slink up to you and slide you a note that says, “Ha! Ha!! You have to watch this!!!” Why? Why do I have to watch this? What if I don’t? Oh, you are the illegitimate offspring of a coke trademark owner? Sure, will watch it. Or, “This is the funniest joke ever!” Funniest joke ever? Are you sure? Because the last I remember your sense of humour was suffering from a king-size tumour. But I am being harsh here. Or myself. Whichever is ruder.

Occasionally someone lands up who is deep, philosophical and brings a breath of death in with a curt: “God is dead.” Of course it was first said by Nietzsche (German name meaning, ‘One who gets psyched at night), but when you have such a depressing world view you don’t want to waste time giving credit. Of course the fact that Nietzsche is dead (like god), and has no connections in South America makes it easy to take credit and give none.

And don’t tell me you haven’t come across the one who comes in and despite the presence of hundreds of people thinks he is alone and speaks aloud to himself: “I can do this. I can change my destiny as if it were a diaper.” It is clear the guy has never changed a diaper in his life or he would know that changing destiny is sometimes as easy as changing your astrologer while diapers are a different smell game altogether. And yes, please use the disinfectant on your hands before you come in.
About those who can’t stop yapping, the less said the better. Their yaps can only be compared to a Pomeranian dog in heat who’s been sniffing that parcel from South America.

Then we have the strong silent ones who believe a picture is worth a thousand words and flood the place with the picture-equivalent of hundred thousand words a week – it is like watching a slideshow of their private lives.

Occasionally, to break the monotony (guy called Tony who believes in monogamy), a farmer lands up, worried about the health of his crops and wanting to borrow some fertiliser and willing to settle for that soiled diaper if you don’t have fertiliser.

Duck! For cover!! Here comes the mafia don, all guns blazing with an offer you cannot refuse: I am a farmer and I have a gun… Hey, how did you know I am from South America?

The perceptive reader (described as the one who has lasted up to this paragraph), has already realized that the topic of this blog post is Facebook. I have always wanted to write a candid (means, ‘I can so I did’), critique (French word for critic), of Facebook and the absurdities on its pages but desisted because I was still active on it. After all, I have a set of morals. I learned them in school through fear of punishment in the form of a wooden blackboard duster pretending it was a missile. Gosh, I still remember most of them. Like: Look before you leap. Practise what you preach. Always wear a condom. Okay, not the last one. I learned that in private tuition classes.

So there it is. I am off Facebook. And I have got the critique off my chest. (Yeah, a French one. Nice.) To conclude here’s a link to a video (thanks Prajakta for the link), that pokes (pun intended), fun at Facebook. You have to watch it. It is the funniest one ever. LOL.