Facebook admits defeat!

Sure I fell off the face of this blog about four months ago.

I'll grant that my torrid pace of following suggestions slowed to a mere trickle.

And I'll even concede that I stopped logging in to Facebook all together for several weeks of flood induced basement renovations.

But Facebook grew fearful of my experiment and conceded.  The "Suggestions" area has been officially changed to "PEOPLE YOU MAY KNOW."

That's hardly something I should go ahead and do - plus what happens to the group suggestions - are they gone forever?!?

I must think about what this means...

Catching Up

So the great plague has finally passed, and Facebook rewarded me with a bunch of new suggestions.  Of course, trying to do three or four days worth all at once inevitably exhausts the pool and I have to hunt for more, so it would probably be best to NOT fall behind like that in the future.  So noted.

As we inch close to a month of this adventure, let's check the stats!
Friend Count: 268 Friends (from 242, up about 10 %)
Page Count: 40 pages (from 11, up about  360%!)
Group Count: 2 groups

So FB obviously doesn't like to suggest the groups that much.  What these stats tell me quickly is that a lot of people are accepting my friend requests.  Of course, there have been a lot of reconnection requests lately - maybe I need to keep better stats?

One final note from this boring housekeeping post, I got a new suggestion type for the first time today - send a birthday greeting.   With a little cake icon.  Hmmmm.... frosted cake icons.

My will waivers

So I was really sick this week - ugh, I went right past the "oh that was a relief, I feel better" vomit to the "ouch I think park of my intestine just came up" vomit.  Right too much information, moving on....

Consequently, I was behind on my Suggestions this night - I just ripped through 12 and went hunting on the Suggestion page (I found the hidden trove) for more.  I look at all these people that I sort of know and think about what lies ahead and my will waivers.  I try to keep my mind on the important social work this experiment is achieving, but it is hard, my friends.  It is hard.

Quick Facebook Tip

If ever faced with being tasked by Facebook to suggest a profile pic of someone for whom you have no pictures, there is a simple, yet elegant solution.  As a public service I provide it to you:

1) Copy that persons full name as it appears on Facebook.
2) Go to Google Image search and paste it in the search field - click search.
3) Save the first image returned and upload it as the profile suggestion.
Ta da!

If you really want to have a rip roaring time, turn the "Safe Search" off - who knows what will show up then...

And now you know . . .
*Cue falling star and promo music*

Oh Alma Mater, thee we hail . . .

Past couple nights, I've had to sneak up on Facebook to get it to give up the goods and hand over those sweet, sweet suggestions that I crave.  Each night, I've found suggestions in more unusual spots, but less and less on that front page.  I am confident that the more we plunge into this abyss, however, the more plentiful the suggestions will become.  Facebook has to be conglomerating what my friends are fans of and then suggesting those things and their friends to me.  If so, once it hits the tipping point, there will be more and more material for it to draw from and, hence, no need to hide suggestions from me.  Instead, they'll pour out of the status box like a stampede of lemmings heading for the cliff.

Speaking of lemmings, and the birds of prey that eat them, I've been friending a lot of WDHS Eagle Alumni so far and I'm starting to wonder when I'll hit the wall.  My graduating class was about 180 people, and I had already friended quite a few of them before I started this run.  Oh, I'm really curious how many I have friended at this point . . .

RESEARCH BREAK

Okay, I got up to the mid forties and then realized that I'm not even sure which of these people were even in my graduating class.  This is going to take some old fashioned book research.  Now where did I stash that yearbook?

Back in the Saddle

And we are back! 

Since my wife has become a vampire (and not the sparkly Twilight kind - she's out all night, comes home covered in blood, and doesn't seem to like the sun), I didn't get a chance to hit Facebook last night.  I logged in tonight knowing I need to do some catching up, but worried there would be no suggestions to follow.  Those worries were baseless - I made it through two sessions of friends and fanning things with no hitches.  Glad to see you back Facebook, where were you?

The fan pages are getting more and more obscure; I became a fan tonight of stuff that I'm not even sure what it is.  For instance, want to guess what "My Baby Vintage, Inc. - Christy Tharp" is?  Go ahead take a shot.  I'm looking at it's fan page and I still don't know what I'm looking at - trunk shows?  Huh?  Okay, I went to their website, and I think it's like a Tupperware party for children's clothes.  Their motto is "A piece of yesteryear for the hip child of today."  And apparently, yesteryear was all about the camouflage cargo pants.

I'm also now a fan of Holland "Master Caster" Striplin - who appears to be some sort of casting director for reality shows.  From the comments, it looks like casting is going full bore for the Biggest Loser.  An aside on that, I can NOT watch that show (not that I watch much TV anyway) - the weigh in takes like thirty minutes.

Host: Contest #2 you're weigh in is next, after this commercial.
*three commercials*
[Contest #2 approaches scale]
*two commercials*
[Contest #2 gets on scale, cut to shocked teammates, cut to]
*four commercials*
Host: Welcome back . . .

ARGH!  Just weigh them allready.  How can people watch that?

On the friend side, just more high school alumni - that well has to dry up at some point.  Right?

Houston - we need more suggestions.

I expected hiccups and problems to abound, but come on Facebook - you're stumped after a week and a half.  Seriously?  The good news is the experiment continues.  Let me expound on what's happening, however.

I logged onto Facebook and had one, ONE(!), measly suggestion waiting for me (a reconnection for those interested), but before I decided to deal with it, I answered a message that was waiting and a couple of friend requests.  When I returned to start handling suggestions, it was empty.  Yes, I was as shocked and outraged as you are right now.  Fortunately, I had two friend suggested groups/pages to check out.  So I happily decided that they were getting some of my unrequited love.  But then, lo and behold, a ray of sunshine came through my basement window, at 11 pm, and bounced off a wall or two to illuminate four new friend suggestions from Facebook sitting on the notifications page.

I have to pause here because, frankly, I'm absolutely befuddled at Facebook's motivations here.  If you had more friends to suggest, why are you hiding them up your sleeve?  Put them on my page, let me be more popular - why must you make me hunt for these things?  Why Facebook, why?

So, after a high school acquaintance I recognized, I went on to friend someone shooting me the double bird in their profile picture and then two people without profile pics whose names I honestly do not recognize at all.  So here I sit, with that double F! You! burnt in my retinas thinking about how low I'm sinking (after only ten days mind you) and wondering where this experiment will finally lead. 

For some reason I can't get that scene from Trainspotting out of my head (you know the one - if you don't, you still don't want to click that link) and the funny thing is, I've never even see Trainspotting.

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