I owe Pallas five bucks. We were upstairs playing while Michelle was making supper. Then there was a vacuum sound and Pallas asked what it was. "Mommy's vacuuming." "No. That's not!" "Yes, sweety, that's the vacuum cleaner." "Mommy's not vacuuming! She's not!" And we then had a protracted argument, which I thought I would end by saying, "Yes it is, I'll bet you five bucks." She answered by saying something about 6:35 which is her favourite number for some reason and then we went downstairs for supper. And Michelle was not vacuuming anything, it was our neighbour doing something outside. So I guess I owe her $6.35.

Anyways. Always with the tinkering. Facebook. George Lucas. Even Blogger. Why? To make something better? Not if you ask all 8 billion Facebook users, or the remaining 8 Star Wars fans. George Lucas has never held the Star Wars universe in the same esteem as his fans- for him it's always been about developing new technology to do cool things and making money while doing it. That's not even a cynical criticism by me- I love Star Wars and always will because he can't go back and tinker with my childhood- it's just a widely-accepted reading of the ample history available on how Star Wars came to be. It's also pretty commonly held that Lucas's strengths aren't in the "people skills" category. He makes neat stuff but doesn't always understand or seem to care why others like it or dislike it.
Mark Zuckerberg has never held Facebook in the same esteem as its users- for him it's always been about developing new technology to do cool things and making money while doing it. A common reaction to the howls of rage that accompanied the new(est) Facebook was along the lines of "no one's forcing you to use this free service that you enjoy". True enough, though I would argue that Facebook isn't free- just the costs are hidden and indirect. It's a $50 billion company for a reason, and that reason is not to give you more enjoyment. Does Zuckerberg and co care that you dislike the new Facebook? I doubt it, they never cared before all the times they changed it. Zuckerberg's strengths aren't in the "people skills" category. He makes neat stuff but doesn't always understand or seem to care why others like it or dislike it- and there still isn't a "dislike" button on Facebook.
Though you can always, like Vader, scream "Nooooooooo!"

Since Facebook stati go away forever after a while but blog archives are forever, I am retweeting, uh, reFacing my status since it's about my daughter and she's just so darn cute!
Pallas helped me put up the Halloween skulls and stuff*. Then she gave them all kisses and milk after!
Then she helped me make pancakes, I had to explain that the recipe actually didn't call for napkins, Pink Guy, egg shells or paperclips which is why it was important to fish all that stuff out. And she can crack an egg like nobody's business! her aim is not so good though.
* all this stuff basically. I need to get some new stuff since decay is making them a worse for the wear.

So the other day I went down to the Status Store to buy some Facebook statuses. There was a sale on, buy one get one free. They were even Twitter-optimized to be under 140 characters. Course I don't tweet but one of these days I might have to branch out. I loaded up, I paid for ten so I walked out with 20 really clever and witty statuses. I was trying to decide if I should use em all up in one day, just dump them out there so I'm on top of everyone's newsfeed like a passive aggressive drama queen. But a funny passive aggressive drama queen. But then I thought it might be better to ration them out, one or two a day.
Then this dude jumps from behind a sandwich board (listing 4 foods you should never eat) and he's holding a knife! Says "Give me those statuses right now muhfuh!
"But I just got these! They're Twitter optimized!"
"I ain't LOLing around here! Give em to me now!"
Obviously I had no choice. So now this asshole's out there posting MY statuses! As he was running away I cussed him out- "I hope no one 'likes' a single one of those, dickwad!"
He yelled back at me, "I did you a favor- now you can change your status to say that you got mugged!"
That's true . . . though it's really more of a story suited for a blog post.

For gabrielle:

Poe was on Facebook checkin out Lola's status:
"Of all the kittens in the world I think Poe is the fattest!"
Poe was spitting hissing mad so she wrote on Lola's wall
"You're a great big rusty car and the slowest of them all!"

Continuing adventures? Aren't they on totally different continents? Ah well, this is what I came up with off the top of my head. I liked the idea of a car and a cat keeping up on Facebook. Knowing those two they will be friends again in a minute.
Guess what? We bought snowshoes! Thanks to Steve for the inspiration. You can check out some photos from our snowshoe adventure here. On Flickr. Not Facebook, where all you ever get is trashtalking Sunfires.

Dear Facebook:
Everyone knows your new version sucks so I don't even need to go into that. I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually, like I got used to all the other less-better versions of things that were just fine how they were (remember several versions of Blogger ago?). One small request though- I would appreciate it if the buttons actually worked when you clicked them. Buttons like Post! and Confirm (as Friend).
Anyone can make a button that doesn't do anything- look:



Yours truly,
http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=626851200

And completely unrelated, exact opposite in fact since this doesn't suck at all, check out Jane Austen's Batman. Brilliant.

Yoda on Facebook
I had a funny dream last night where Yoda was checking his Facebook during Revenge of the Sith. His friend status updates were full of the usual-
Obi-wan Kenobi is fighting General Grievous. 36m ago
Chewbacca is wrreeeerrraarrghhh! 2h ago
Padme Amidala is pregnanter every day. 3h ago
But Yoda made an alarming discovery in his News Feed:
Anakin Skywalker and Darth Sidious are now friends.