Dear Mark Zuckerberg

Dear Mark Zuckerberg,

I think you're great.  For real - you were amazing in Zombieland!  But if I may be so bold as to suggest that your recent changes to Facebook, while brilliant for ADD afflicted chihuahuas, doesn't really jive too well with your more seasoned users - you know, those of us with a firm and troublesome grasp of linear time and in possession of one set of eyeballs.

Now, while I understand that Justin Timberlake convincingly argued the benefits of expansion in that wicked restaurant scene, I would also like to point out that that character was also later arrested for possessing drugs that may or may not lend themselves to wanting 150 different things to look at in one's newsfeed while meticulously cleaning one's home at three in the morning because one's waiting for a cake to bake because one suddenly became hungry in the wee hours after an all night pool party.  Just saying . . .

I'd also like to point out that while you displayed razor sharp intuition picking apart the Winklevoss twins' lawyer in that boardroom scene, that doesn't mean you have a profound grasp on what I'd like to see in my newsfeed within a newsfeed (hint: It's not what friends are "liking" on other friends' statii).  Algorithms are sexy and stuff, but they can't be used to read my mind.  Only my wife can do that - and even then it's mainly only concerning whether or not I had that last cookie, or whether or not that girl that just walked past was cute or not.

Don't get me wrong Mark, I like your Facebook thing.  It's free, it's a good networking tool, and it lets us all creep our exes' profiles to see if they wound up better or worse off after dumping us.  The thing is most people like our social networking the way we like our relationships - initially exciting, eventually dependable, and with no huge sweeping changes that leave us confused and scared and trying desperately to figure out why it keeps bringing up stuff from last week in the middle of a conversation about Farmville.

Thanks for your time,
Richard

P.S. I hope they make Adventureland 2

Stop Stupiding Up the Planet

 Here's the thing - everybody's good at something.

Some of us are good at studying.

Some of us are good at sports - like gymnastics . . .

Others of us are good at eating bananas . . .

. . . okay, maybe that's a little much.

But the point is, we all have different strengths and talents.
Some people - scientists like Mr. Darwin for example -

- are good at being smart.

While people like Mr. Limbaugh -

- are really good at being pig-headed, ass-faced drug addicts who cater to the lowest common denominator and pander to the extremists by playing their own fears against them.

See?  Everyone's good at something.

Every time I read the comment sections on news articles about Evolution online, I get the sense that the people who are really good at eating bananas are fancying themselves as being on the same level as Mr. Darwin.

Well, they're not.

These people get scared because science seems to be contradicting certain deep-seeded beliefs.  They say that humans and apes are not descended from the same ancestor.

Although I wouldn't mind sharing an ancestor with the fetching Janet here - I'm sure you'll agree.

As a species, we have a lot of beliefs about nature and the Earth - some of them substantiated by science, some of them refuted.

The thing is however, that I can assure you that believing in something or not, doesn't change or make true or false something that exists or doesn't exist of its own accord.

My humble request would be that we let the people who are good at being smart take care of the smart stuff and led the banana eaters take care of the bananas.

Haters Gonna Hate . . . Because They're Assholes

I have a lot of great fans.  Fans Tony the Tiger would be proud of.

They visit me on my fan page, they visit my website, they visit this blog, they write their government representatives to tell them how great I am, and some of the more female and attractive fans even send in bikini shots of themselves posing with cakes because they know how much I like cakes.

But then there are the anti-fans.  Not Auntie Fan - she's lovely.

No, I'm talking about the haters.   You know the ones - the total douche-bags that live on the internet and smack talk everything that comes their way.

They are also known as trolls - as in the things that live under bridges and eat childrens' bones, only in this case the bridge is their mother's basement and the childrens' bones are Hot Pockets and Tang.

I've come across a few of these guys and gals over my years as an F-List celebrity (that's right baby, F-List - I've had it confirmed by NASA.  They apparently have a lot of down time these days).  

They're generally on YouTube and love to slam me and call me a jerk, and weird looking, and small.  Now to be fair, all of these things are true, but they wouldn't know that because they've never met me.

Although I may have met them.  I wouldn't know.  You know why?  Because although literally billions of people hate on me on the interweb, figuratively zero people have ever said anything to my face.  You know why?

Simple.  Haters are pussies.

These people hate on everything and everyone.  From that 14 year old girl Rebecca Black, to that 17 year old girl Justine Bieber, trolls attack anything that reminds them that they're angry at the world because their mom doesn't serve the Tang cold enough to their gaming liar.

So I say screw 'em . . .  not literally of course! 

I'm pretty sure they all have some kind of immaculately spread venereal disease that makes everything itch and 8-bit characters sexually appealing.

Taking the Fun Out of Fundamental

It has occurred to me that the most fundamentally, intractably, and aggressively religious among us don't understand life. 

You know the ones.

They want to run your life.  They want to tell you how to live.  They want to tell you how evil you are and why you're going to go to hell.  They don't believe in a separation of church and state unless it's someone else's church from their state.

Some of them want to hurt you.

They are distrustful of intellect, let alone intellectuals.  They flat out hate science right up until they need it to save their lives.

They will tell you it's us against them.  Of course the ones you're talking to are always the "us" in the equation no matter where on Earth you're standing.

I have realized these people don't understand life because they think they are going to live in one capacity or another forever.

It's awfully easy to be glib with someone else's life if you don't believe in death.

No matter your belief, try a little experiment - spend one day as though there is no heaven.  Spend that day savoring the light in the present that only exists in that moment.

Try to have a little fun.  Pass on the fundamentalism.