frenchtown fiber

Chris Mundy and Kate House try to make art while navigating the crap life throws at them.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

I'm Done With Facebook

Just a few things before I complain about facebook.

Recently Idaho Beauty commented on my unbelievable story of a good experience I had with the NJ state department of taxation.She related several instances where she also had good experiences with state employees. I would expect that in Idaho as compared to NJ. When you travel away from this area you notice people being more outwardly friendly. I decided to do a population comparison of Idaho vs NJ. There is a government census site that gives detailed info on each state.  Population of Idaho = 1,523,816; Population of NJ = 8,414,360. Here is something even more telling. Population per square mile in Idaho = 15.6   Population per square mile in NJ = 1,134. No wonder we are crabby.

A shout out to Kim who was finally able to leave a post, this one about the 4-H fair. I never see pigs at our fair. Wait, I lie, we saw one of those Vietnamese pot-belly pigs. But that really does not compare to a real USA farm hog. I can't believe how huge they are.

OK, so about FaceBook. My neighbor talked me into joining it. It has ended up most of my "friends" are people from work. I have never actively tried to find anyone. I just end up copping friends based on the friends of others. I don't bother with it much, but whenever I do, it's all about everyone playing a farm game, or a pirate game, or a mafia game. Or they are asking me to join some cause, or they are sending me grateful dead bears, mixed drinks or something. I already waste a lot of time on the computer. I have to draw a line somewhere. How can I unfriend someone I work with? I don't want to say, look, you are boring  me with this farm crap. Maybe I will just ignore Facebook from now on.

A word about my next door neighbors. I want to start by saying that we like them a lot. However, we are watching with concern as their house is allowed to fall apart. Joe and I have done big an small things to improve our house since we moved in 3 years ago. It's old, and you know how it is, there is always something to be done, cosmetic and otherwise. I can tell it causes our neighbors great consternation whenever we do so little as to plant a flower. They apologize about their house, and give a variety of excuses about how why they are not fixing theirs. One day the husband was outside, and Joe was up on a ladder cleaning the gutters out with a hose. The husband says, almost with disgust, "Look, more activity."  I might point out that they have trees growing out of their gutters, the ones that haven't fallen off the house. The wife bought an "antique" front door, that has been sitting on the front porch for over a year now. The porch will one day fall right off of the house, or, at least someone is going to fall through it.

Last Sunday we heard heavy machinery noise in the backyard. These neighbors had some guy back there ripping up every last bush. When it was all over, we had a painfully clear view of their eyesore of a house. The wife came out and said, "What do you think?" I can't bear to say anything mean, I managed to blurt out, "Looks kinda naked." Instead of,  "What about your damn house???" She referred to it as a second chance, starting from scratch. She talked about all the plans she has for the yard, she's talking butterfly bushes, trellises, sunflowers. I will bet good money that she doesn't do shit. She's got a stonecrop in a bucket that has fallen over and manages to grow and bloom every year right where it is. I have been so tempted to just go over and plant it, but it isn't my place. She has a stack of top soil bags that have been there on the ground since before we moved in. Hopefully they never see this blog.

4 comments:

Marty Mason said...

Chris, what a bummer about your uncaring neighbors. That's what really drags property values down. Not only their value, but the entire neighborhood.

I agree with you about facebook. I marked it up to my ignorance. I just really didn't care what a farm (on facebook) was, so I continue to ignore it. Hopefully my real friends aren't offended by my neglect.

momtofatdogs said...

When we lived in a trailer WE were those people next door. I always thought that living in that trailer was temporary. TEMPORARY was 9 years....I'm making up for "not doing sh!t" We do a LOT now. Never ends. Always something to do with the house. I jokingly ALWAYS tell my neighbors "We're not the quietist, but we're NOT the trashyist". Is that a trade off? I don't know - they never say. I DO KNOW that they were REALLY (really, really) glad that I spent $5G on chain link & now that my BIG DOGS are no longer in a 10 X 10 kennel, they are so much more quiet! They rarely bark. And I have planted more plants & built more planters than I have EVER done in 30 stinking years....Again - we're not the trashyiest.

Sam in Middle TN

The Idaho Beauty said...

I'm impressed that your curiousity led to looking up those facts about our respective states. Yup, not much concentration of population here in Idaho, but we get cranky all the same. ;-)

I know what you mean about Facebook. I joined because the number of people insisting it was the only place to see their pictures was getting out of hand. Now I'm feeling my way around and deciding how I can use it to benefit me, not suck up more time on the computer. A balancing act for sure.

gunnelsvensson said...

You can ignore all these "not funny" things on facebook. I ignore allthing that I don´t want to. And all who wants me to join their own fanclubs. I want to choose self who I am a fan to.
And I agree so whith you, I also waste too much time with the computer!