Nearly two months ago, I joined Facebook.  I had low expectations, despite the fact that a few people whose opinions I value told me the same things I’m about to tell you.  I have to say, as a whole, Facebook doesn’t really suck.  I guess I was expecting something more like MySpace, which just kind of looks like the Internet ate too many gifs and had to throw them up as partially-digested ads.  Or something like that.  I probably stretched that analogy too far there.  Whatever.  The point is Facebook doesn’t suck, and it’s actually kind of fun, even for an antisocial computer geek like myself.

A hilarious blog I discovered a few months ago is Stuff White People Like.  I’ve been meaning to mention it here for a while, but a good post last week, entitled Being Offended, reminded me I needed to share.  Here is an excerpt:

Naturally, white people do not get offended by statements directed at white people.  ...  As a rule, white people strongly prefer to get offended on behalf of other people.

Another good one is Knowing What’s Best For Poor People:

It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things.

Those are two of my favorites.  Some other good ones to read are Study Abroad, Music Piracy, Organic Food, Hating Corporations, Religions that their parents don’t belong to, and Grammar.

And for a great cross-section of the kinds of idiots that reside on the internets, try to read some of the comments!  (I say “try to” because very few people will actually succeed.)

I had to devote a small part of my blog to spreading the word about The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.  I wouldn’t be doing this except for the fact that you probably haven’t heard of it.  It’s a movie about Steve Weibe’s efforts to beat “Gamer of the Century” Billy Mitchell’s 1982 world record Donkey Kong high score, and the efforts of Billy and his posse to stop him.  It’s a documentary, but it’s still really entertaining and hilarious.  I won’t spend time repeating things you could read on various other sites.  I’ll just suggest that you go see it if you can find a theater that’s showing it (you currently only have two options in North Carolina..).  Failing that, save it in your Netflix/Blockbuster queue so that you can watch it whenever it comes out on DVD.

you’re the best around, nothing’s gonna ever keep you down

Not too long ago I posted about Budget and Time Warner not being very good at communicating what happens on their website to the real people who also work for them.  In order that none may claim me to be a negative Nancy, I’m going to post about one company that seems to have gotten it right: Papa John’s.

At first I was afraid to order pizza from a website.  It’s the kind of thing that requires instant communication to the human beings in the brick & mortar location.  If it’s not done right, your pizza could take hours to get prepared, or worse yet it might not get made at all.  If this required the manager to check his e-mail or something, it would not go well.  But after the time I called in an order for pick-up, and they decided to deliver it (and Stephanie called me from the apartment just as the cashier was trying to find my order in the computer), I decided I’d try to remove the idiot answering the phone in a noisy room from my pizza-ordering process.

I’ve now been ordering Papa John’s online for over a year.  That’s a whole year without hearing “Thank you for calling Papa John’s, please hold.”  In that time, I’ve only once had an order messed up, when I got pepperoni instead of pineapple.  Even in that case it was printed correctly on the receipt, so I think the guy making the pizza just didn’t read closely enough.  This is a problem that could easily be solved by replacing all the humans with pizza-making robots.  The kind which will someday take over the world.

My only real complaint is that I can’t use the coupons they send in the mail when I order online.  But usually they have the same deals or better online so it’s not that big of an issue.  On the plus side, you can take advantage of the system to some extent.  For example, Stephanie and I prefer to get pizzas with pineapple and bacon.  A large 2-topping pizza is $12.99.  Now, either through an unadvertised online promotion or a glitch in their system, a large Smokehouse Ham & Bacon specialty pizza is $11.99 (with ham, bacon, onions, and green peppers).  You can remove or substitute two toppings from a specialty pizza and still get it at the same price (I’m not sure if the rule is 2 toppings, or half of the toppings).  So if we substitute pineapple for onions and remove the green peppers (or substitute extra cheese), we now have the original pizza we wanted, with an extra topping or two, for a dollar less.  And when there are deals such as “free cheese sticks with a large specialty pizza,” which there usually are, we are able to take advantage of them (we technically have a specialty pizza).  So now we’ve got extra toppings and cheese sticks for a dollar less.  Funbelievable!

I think this is pretty cool:  Microsoft got some of the wallpaper images for Vista from amateurs they found by searching Flickr.  Read more here or maybe over here.