Ladies and Gentlemen, today I would like to take the time to talk with you about an epidemic that is sweeping the world. This is more serious that Swine Flu (but then again, so is the climbing number of attacks from laser sharks), more deadly than Monkey Pox, more realistic than Swine Pox, less made up on the spot than Monkey Flu, and more annoying than people who can't tell the difference between 'your' and 'you're.'

Seriously, if you can't tell the difference and are older than 12, kill yourself.

I'm talking about the rampant spreading, much like a virus, of Facebook quizzes. Facebook was created for four reasons: to reconnect with old friends, to make friends with people you never liked in high school as a way to try and be less of a douche, to stalk that cute girl via her pictures, and to create awkward situations when you don't accept your bosses' friend request.

Is there anything more strange than seeing a request from your boss?

But quizzes bring Facebook to an all time low. 'What College Do You Belong To?' 'What Would You Be In The Star Wars Universe?' 'What Decade Fits Your Personality Best?' 'How Many Kids Will You Have?' 'Which Disney Girl Are You?' 'What Stereotype Do You Fit?' As I type this post, my friends have decided to let me know via my news post the answer to those serious questions.

And that's just in the last 6 hours. When a majority of people are sleeping. That sucks when you can be infected in your sleep.

Now, I'm not saying that you can't take quizzes. I'm sure it's important to see what your 'True Theater Calling' is. Just don't post them to my news feed. Please. For the good of humanity. But I've got to run. I need to go and take a quiz to find out 'Are You A Potato?'

Wish me luck.

Muggle - n. In the fiction of J.K. Rowling: a person who possesses no magical powers. Hence in allusive and extended uses: a person who lacks a particular skill or skills, or who is regarded as inferior in some way.

Blamestorming - n. A method of collectively finding one to blame for a mistake no one is willing to confess to. Often occurs in the form of a meeting of colleagues at work, gathered to decide who is to blame for a screw up.

Gaydar - n. A homosexual person's ability to identify another person as homosexual by interpreting subtle signals conveyed by their appearance, interests, etc.

Grrrl - n. A young woman regarded as independent and strong or agressive, especially in her attitude to men or in her sexuality.

Threequel - n. The third film, book, event, etc. in a series; a second sequel.

Mini-me - n. A person closely resembling a smaller or younger version of another.

Screenager - n. A person in their teens or twenties who has an aptitude for computers and the Internet.

Cyberslacking - v. Spending one's employer's Internet and email facilities for personal activities during working hours.

Lookism - n. Prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of apperance.

Frankenfood - n. Derogatory. A food that contains genetically modified ingredients.

Riffage - n. Guitar riffs.

Bouncebackability - n. The ability to recover from near-defeat in a competition; the ability to recover from a setback.

Prebuttal - n. A rebuttal for an accusation before it is made.

Ego-surfing - v. Searching the Internet for instances of one's own name or links to one's own website.

Meatspace - n. The physical world, as opposed to virtual.

What do all of these words have in common? Simple. They have all been recently added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Heaven help us all.

So, last week I had a text message conversation with my mother-in-law. We're cool like that. You don't have to be jealous. Anyway, the main point of the conversation was so that she could tell me that a police officer drove to her house to arrest her for pumping gas and driving off.

I'll repeat that.

A police officer drove to her house to arrest her for pumping gas and driving off. Her words: "He felt kinda stupid when I pulled out my receipt!" But here's where it gets good. Apparently, before he came over, the officer called her and asked her if she pumped gas today. She said yes. He asked if she even tried to pay for it. She said yes, and she had a receipt. So he called the gas station back, but they said they had her on camera stealing gas. So he came to her house to arrest her.

To her house. To Arrest Her. Even though she had a receipt.

I wish I was making this up. Apparently, every other crime had been solved. Rape? Check. Robbery? Yup. Murders? Yeppers. B&E? You Guessed 'Er Chester. The only thing that's left for our officers to do is to track down 45 year old women so that they can prosecute them for pumping gas and driving off. Your vigilance is astounding. The only other option is that the cop was a rookie. I can picture the role call in the morning now:

Chief: Well, today we don't really have anything to do. Earl, you take a hairdryer down to the corner of Main and 17th and pretend that you're checking for speeders. Pull 'em over if they're hot.
Earl: YES!
Chief: Wayne, you'll be in charge of patrolling by the high school and making menacing gestures at all the band kids.
Wayne: Can do, Chief.
Rookie: What about me, Chief?
Chief: Well, there's this 45 year old lady who pumped gas. The video is fuzzy, so we're going to assume that she's stealing. Lock her up.

Other than that, there's really no logical answer.

Quick edit: This weekend we were up in Idaho Falls so that a) C. could take some wedding photos, and b) I could rip out some walls from my bro-in-law's house. While working on the house, the local law enforcement drove past the house at least half a dozen times, just so that he could scout license plates. When my bro-in-law was driving down the road later, he got pulled over, just so the guy could give him a ticket because his plates were expired. This is the same town where people have broken into buildings and stolen a bunch of stuff, but it's more important to pass out tickets for license expiration than find thieves.

Just saying.

That's right folks, it's time for another rant. Allow me to set up the scene.

I am a poor, struggling college student. Joys in my life come from varied places: reading a good book, catching a concert or twelve, playing the guitar, watching the Flames win (yes, they just lost in overtime before I started writing this. Dumb). But most of all, I'm happy when I'm with my family, especially my wife and little girl. Today before work, we noticed that my little girl was running very low on formula. This is bad, because my little girl has this habit of wanting food rather than starving. I know, I've tried to explain, but she just says "Da, da, da."

Enter the hero organization: WIC.

According to their website, WIC "provides Federal grants to States for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five." In other words, they give us vouchers to get formula. Lots and lots of formula. So, we went to the grocery store. No, not Walmart. After we had gone to the aisle and returned to the check stand with about $90 worth of formula (that we were getting for free).

Enter the villain: Socially Inept Bag Boy. (The SIBB)

I should have known that we were in for trouble with the first words I heard escape his mouth. After the checker lady passed the cans of formula down to him, he says to my wife, "Oh, Fun." She is obviously confused, but just kind of shrugs it off. The SIBB then asks her about the difficulty of mixing up the formula. Again, this is a confusing statement. My wife explains that it's a really complicated task of adding water to a bottle, then putting a scoop or two of formula inside (sometimes three!) and shaking it like a poloroid picture. Yes, that was an Outkast reference.

I have no explination for what happened next. Then again, I have a few social skills.

The SIBB continued talking to my wife. The words that came out of his mouth were something along the lines of: "I sure hope that when I have kids, I don't have to be on WIC. I want to have a good job that pays a lot of money then."
Mental Translation: "It sure sucks that neither your or your husband can get a job and have to mooch off the government. I promise that I'm better than you and won't have to leech off of society." I stood there in shock. My wife didn't know what to say. The checker lady looked at The SIBB like he had just slapped my baby. And then The SIBB left. We had six cans of formula, he bagged three of them before he went to the next check stand to bag some gummi worms that some girls were buying, and was talking to them about how he never bought the candy there.

W.T.F.

Driving to work, my wife and I talked about the exchange. Everything from the checker lady giving him the look of death, to the fact that he won't ever have to worry about getting on WIC because he'll never find a girl that can tolerate him. And that's when I decided, if I ever see The SIBB again, I'm going to smack him in the mouth. That's the only answer that makes sense.

Hi. First of all, I want to thank the Subway people. I think employing two people to work during the dinner rush is a swell idea. Kudos to you. Because of the wait, I had to opportunity to sit behind you two love crazed baboons and your dates. Now, I'm not a girl, and I haven't been one for a while. And while I am married and feel as though I want to give you advice on what to say so that you can get a girl, it's really not my place to help you out there. But what I can do is offer you a few pointers on how not to sound like a couple of people so dense that cabbage feels smart when it hangs out with you.

1) If you look like you currently are on an LDS mission, you aren't going to convince anyone when you talk about how you "rock out hard to Metallica," or that you think "the more a band yells, the better their music is." No. Metallica sucks. There, I said it.
2) You are not convincing anyone of your technical prowess by explaining to your dates that you stream episodes of Monk from the USA website.
3) If you are trying to impress a girl about going to a concert and you don't even know the names of the bands you are going to go see, you probably should just leave it alone.
4) If a ticket to said concert costs $12, and the service charge is $4.95, that makes your ticket $16.95, not "over $20" like you claimed.
5) It's not cute when you ask the girl who is not your date if you can touch her toenails. That's just effing weird.
6) Also, no matter how cool you think it is, you should never brag to your dates that you down 2000 calories per meal on the weekends. Fat pigs are not equal to guys that get second dates.
7) Ditto point 6 when bragging about your epic Dungeons and Dragons battles that last "seriously like five and a half hours."

In summation, thank you for reminding me of yet another reason that I'm glad I'm married. I hope you all get fire cancer and die, or at the very least, choke to death on the three fistfulls of olives that you made the Subway girl put on your footlong. I have officially run out of words that express my disgust towards you.