Life’s Curveballs

I don’t know who authored these rules but they sound good to me, enjoy!

1.  If you eat a Christmas cookie fresh out of the oven, it has no calories because everyone knows that the first cookie is the test and thus calorie free.

2.  If you drink a diet soda after eating your second cookie, it also has no calories because the diet soda cancels out the cookie calories.

3.  If a friend comes over while you’re making your Christmas cookies and needs to sample, you must sample with your friend. Because your friend’s first cookie is calories free, (rule #1) yours is also. It would be rude to let your friend sample alone and, being the friend that you are, that makes your cookie calorie free.

4.  Any cookie calories consumed while walking around will fall to your feet and eventually fall off as you move. This is due to gravity and the density of the caloric mass.

5.  Any calories consumed during the frosting of the Christmas cookies will be used up because it takes many calories to lick excess frosting from a knife without cutting your tongue.

6.  Cookies colored red or green have very few calories. Red ones have three and green ones have five - one calorie for each letter. Make more red ones!

7. Cookies eaten while watching “Miracle on 34th Street” have no calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one’s personal fuel.

8.  As always, cookie pieces contain no calories because the process of breaking causes calorie leakage.

9.  Any cookies consumed from someone else’s plate have no calories since the calories rightfully belong to the other person and will cling to their plate. We all know how calories like to CLING!

10.  Any cookies consumed while feeling stressed have no calories because cookies used for medicinal purposes NEVER have calories. It’s a rule!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Larry

1.  I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2.  Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

3.  I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

4.  There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5.  How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6.  Was learning cursive really necessary?

7.  Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I’m pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8.  Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9.  I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

10.  Bad decisions make good stories.

11.  You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12.  Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don’t want to have to restart my collection…again.

13.  I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes - to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14.  “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this thing I have– ever.

15.  I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damn it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

16.  I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

17.  I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

18.  My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day “Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How the hell do I respond to that?

19.  I think the freezer deserves a light as well….

20.  I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet, on any given Friday or Saturday night, more kisses begin with Bud Light than with a Kay jewelry product.

I wish I knew who wrote these because I would give them credit.  If anyone knows please let me know.

My answer to number 11 is about 10 minute after I get there.

Larry

Facebook has done a pretty good job with their privacy settings if you know how to use them.  I decided to put some instructions together for those that want the straight and skinny on privatizing their Facebook account.

For those of us that play a lot of games on Facebook, we may have hundreds of friends.  As of this writing I have over 600 friends and most of them are game friends.  After you add a friend to a game, you are not required to keep the friend in you Facebook account.  However, they can be a good resource if you decided to play multiple games because some will also play multiple games.  Additionally, it’s a good way to communicate and get help if you need it in a game.

Privacy Concerns

Having a few hundred gaming friends does lead to privacy concerns because you don’t really know these people.  Granted, some will become close friends even if you never actually meet them, but most will not, so you may not want them to know your phone numbers, address, or other personal information.  At the same time, you may have family members and/or close friends that you do want to have access to your personal information.

I have found the easiest way to take care of these concerns is to create two groups of friends.  Facebook calls these groups ‘List’ so I will use List from this point on.  You can create more than two Lists but as the number of friends grow it becomes harder to manage.  For most people, I think two Lists are sufficient.  Making a List is easy, just click on ‘Friends’ on the Facebook bar.  If you haven’t made a List you should just see ‘All Friends’ on the ‘Friends’ List on the left side of the page.  Clicking on ‘Make a New List’ does just that, it makes a new List.   I have called my two Lists Facebook Family and Game Friends.  No matter what you called the Lists, think of them as the people that you want to see everything and the people who you want to limit what they see.  Hence, the names I have given my lists, Facebook Family and Game Friends. Once you have your Lists, it is time to start adding friends to them.

To add people to your lists just click on first list and either start typing the names, or if you have a lot of friends it may be easier to click on ‘Select Multiple Friends.’  If you select ‘Select Multiple Friends’ you will see all of your friends with their avatar and name.  Just start clicking on the names to add them to each of your lists and save it.  Once you are done, move your mouse pointer over ‘Settings’ on the Facebook bar and select ‘Privacy Settings’ from the drop down menu.

Privacy Settings

On the Privacy Settings page you will see four links: Profile, Search, News Feed and Wall, and Applications.  My main focus with this post will be for your Profile so you will want to click on ‘Profile.’   On the Profile page you will see a bunch of drop down boxes and you will want to use ‘Custom’ setting for most of the drop downs.  Selecting ‘Custom’ from the drop down box brings up a dialog box, and most of the time you will be using the option ‘Some Friends.’  Here is how my Profile page is set for the Basic settings (yours may be different depending on what you want your friends to see):

• Profile - Friends Only
• Basic Info - Friends Only except for Game Friends. Select ‘Custom’ from the drop down, then select ‘Friends Only.’ At the bottom of the dialog box under,’ Except These People,’ enter Game Friends or whatever you called your list to limited access.
• Personal Info - Friends Only
• Status Links - Everyone
• Photos Tagged of You - Custom. In the dialog box select, ‘Some Friends,’ and enter Facebook Family or whatever you called your list so that everyone can see. Under the drop down box you will see ‘Edit Photo Albums Privacy Settings.’ If you want to limit what photos are seen click on this link. This page is much like the Profile page with drop down boxes for each album. Select Custom and then select Some Friends and enter Facebook Family for the albums you want your close friends to see.
• Videos Tagged of You - Custom > Some Friends > Facebook Family.
• Friends - Only Friends
• Wall Post - Box checked for, ‘Friends may post to my wall.’ ‘Only Friends’ in the drop down.
• Education Info - Custom > Some Friends > Facebook Family.
• Work Info - Custom > Some Friends > Facebook Family.

Once you are done with this section, click on ‘Save Changes,’ then at the top of the page select, Contact Information.  On the Contact Information page there are more drop downs.  Here are my settings:

• IM Screen Name - Custom > Some Friends > Facebook Family.
• Mobile Phone - Custom > Some Friends > Facebook Family.
• Other Phone - Custom > Some Friends > Facebook Family.
• Current Address - Custom > Some Friends > Facebook Family.
• Website - Only Friends
• Your email address - Custom > Some Friends > Facebook Family.

Once you are done with this section, click on ‘Save Changes.’  You are now done with the ‘Profile’ settings but you will want to test your settings.  At the top of the page there is a box titled, ‘See how a friend sees your profile.’  Enter a Facebook Family member in the box and press enter to see what that person will see.  Do the same for Game Friends.  If all is well you can make other privacy settings by going back to the main Privacy page and selecting each of the other settings i.e., Search, News Feed and Wall, and Applications.  The settings in these areas are self explanatory if you slowly go through each and read the pages.

I hope this helps make you feel a little more secure on Facebook.  Also, don’t forget when adding friends, make sure to put them in the right list.

Larry

I have never been a lover of games and I attribute this to the fact that I don’t like to lose.   If you read my last post about Social Networking you know that I’ve been playing games on Facebook.   I have managed to cut back on my game playing even though these games are very addictive.  I can envision cutting back even more because of the lack of fairness in these games.

Zynga Games makes many of the games that are played heavily on Facebook.  I can’t speak for My Space because I don’t have an account, but from looking on the Zynga website I believe the same games are played there as well.

As far as I can tell, Zynga games are all basically the same with a different theme.  Four of the games that I have played are probably written on the same code base, and I assume the same is true for the others I have not played.  Pirates, Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, and Street Racing are all played the same way.   Three of the games I am most familiar with, Pirates, Mafia Wars, and Vampire Wars, all have a number of tasks to perform.   They call these tasks different things in each of the games like Plunder, Jobs, or Missions, but they are all tasks that can be performed to gain levels in the games.  There is also a way to fight your opponents, i.e. other game players on Facebook.  In Pirates and Mafia Wars it’s called “Fight” and in Vampire Wars it’s just “Combat” but they do the same thing, i.e. fight other game players.  Of the games I’ve listed, they all have a number of items that you can buy like weapons, vehicles, and property.  They may be called by different names but they have the same function and are used for attack and defense.  Supposedly, they offer attack strength and defense against an attack by someone.  I say supposedly because no matter how much of this you have it seems that it does very little in determining the outcome of a fight.

After playing these games for many hours, the conclusion I come to is the games are skewed very heavily in favor of the one that does the most fighting.  As an example, in Mafia Wars I was a Master Capo at level 87 with 559 members in my Mafia, with attack and defense items for each of my members and lost a fight to a Master Street Thug (one of the lowest titles) at level 70.  This person was 17 levels below me and I still lost the fight because the person who fought me had won more fights than I.  This doesn’t seem fair to me.  I think the algorithm used to determine the winner of a fight must weigh more heavily in favor of the higher level player. This needs to be corrected by Zynga.

Larry