Cyberstalking 102: When you just gotta know, ya know?

"When I meet a new person, I’m terrified of mentioning something he or she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking."

Following up my last post, I realized the need for very clear directions on how to stalk a facebook stranger. This is very important when you've only just met someone and aren't ready to actually ask them to be your facebook friend. Especially crucial when you've slept with someone and need to know if they are actually married, although you might not know their last name.

How to cyber stalk a non-facebook friend:

1. Simply search their full name in the search field. If you don't know their full name, don't worry. Start with what you do know. For example, if his name is JR, Search JR, J R, and J.R.

2. Scroll through every single of the 500+ possibilities until your finger gets tired of clicking next. At this point, narrow the search to a certain network, college, or city. For example, search every JR in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

• Too few results? Check out local colleges (bonus if you already know where he went to school, or can at least remember he really hated Gustavus).
• Too many results? Try multiple networks or more specific college info i.e. grad year. If you're really serious, search by High School, especially if you knew where he grew up and can narrow down his pre-college school.
• Helpful hint: Open another tab or window on your browser to begin to google any results you find that might bring you closer to the results.
  

3. Continue to search and click on every profile. Here's when you should be praying for Open Profiles so you can click through every single picture of a total stranger in order to determine if he might be the guy from the bar.

4. Have you found him yet? Not quite satistfied with the results? Think really hard to try to remember his friends names. Or his last name, or even a nickname. Grasp at straws of any recollection you can have about your time together. Because finding him is fate, and more so, serendipity. He wants you to find him.

5. Hooray! You remembered what high school he went to AND one of his friends first names!!! You recall that he was a year younger than you, so you search for the friend. Congrats - FOUND! Now, search through all his friends to find more friends from the night before, and hopefully your man you've searched high and low for. If not, never fear! Search through the friends of all the friends of the friend from the bar last night. All private profiles and no pictures? Don't worry, they have friends with open profiles. Click "View All" on the friends tab and check out all their friends, systematically check for photos of your mystery man from the night before.

• Remember that open tab you have for googling? Don't forget to google the friends' phone number you got last night in case they got lost on the way to the after bar. Silly you, I can't believe you haven't done that yet! Also key: there is a facebook search option for phone numbers.
  

6. The final step: DO NOT add them as facebook friends. Chances are, he's looking for you too! It's so important to remain mysterious, you don't want to come on too strong. Continue to check his profile (if you were lucky enough to find it) and his friends each day - if they are lucky enough to be public. If they're private, still check each day. They may some day lighten up their privacy settings. Also key: make sure your profile is semi-private. Don't want to give away too much when he finds YOU on facebook!

Cyber Stalking 101: How to take it too far

Recently saw an e-mail with some funny observations. One specifically tripped my trigger:
"Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!"

Seriously, don't mind if I DO! I find facebook stalking to be one of the most therapeutic exercises known. I have a very specific way that I do it though. Here's a step by step process of just how it goes down.
How to stalk your facebook "Friends":
1. Sign into facebook.
2. Check out your newsfeed, but skip by all the unattractive people you're friends with and go straight to looking for the people you've slept with. If they don't show up on your newsfeed, search for them and check out everything they've been doing (timestamps = BONUS!) in the 12 hours you haven't looked at their profile.
3. Be sure to also click on people's profiles whom have written on walls, commented, become friends with those because you need to know who your elementary school boyfriend's been talking to. It's your right.
4. Look through photos. Not just the photos they're tagged of, but also be sure to look through the photo albums their friends have tagged them in. What if they removed themselves from being tagged in a photo? What if you recognize a trend amongst visited establishments and conveniently show up every night?
5. Be sure to check out your own profile often. People who comment, write on walls, or "like" your shit are doing the same thing as you. Don't be that person! Do it discreetly! Nobody likes a "thumbs up" whore, because then it loses all meaning.
6. Never sign out. Constantly refresh your home page each time you go near your computer. I reccommend Mozilla Firefox's tabbing system (especially at work) so you can actually do other things while facebook stalking. A few minutes here, a few minutes there, and you can also accomplish your job! Plus, if a coworker comes over to your cube while you're in deep stalker mode, you can easily switch a tab without losing your place in your stalking by having to close the window.

Stalk on.

Abandonment Issues

My co-worker BFF had her last day at our office today. Big ups to her, as she got her new job yesterday and decided today at noon would be her last day. Our manager makes her life pretty difficult at work, and I do not fault her in any way for leaving, even though she has an event on Friday. I would have done the exact same thing. She's smart in that she is taking her last two weeks as PTO so they don't tax the shit out of giving her back her PTO time earned.

However, I'm feeling abandoned. I really don't like a lot of the rest of my co-workers, and whenever I needed a good gossip session, she was always there.

It's not like she died or anything, but it still leaves me feeling alone.

All the more reason to get the F out of here.

What do I look like, a camel?

I am amazed at the conversations people try to start with me. Sometimes I get very strange questions, such as "Can you tell me if you've ever peed off this bridge?" or questions like "How many floors are there in Sex World?". These questions always make me look a little surprised, and honestly, I always answer them. But I always think, as per my uncle Dick, "What do I look like, a camel?" What about my khakis and Rainbow Brite t-shirt screams "Yes, I want to be in this conversation with you!"

For example, I was visiting my local Tar-ghey. Mostly groceries. Nothing out of the ordinary, no pickled pigs feet or iguana eyeballs. The craziest items in my cart were very likely the Activia yogurt or strawberry milk.

So WHAT about this, or WHAT about my black sweat shorts and green "racktastic" beer pong shirt made the guy bagging my groceries actually try to hold the following conversation with me?

If I can't wear a ski mask, how come they get to wear that? - crazy Target bag boy
Huh? (looking around for some crazy kids in gothic clothing or something equally "ski-mask". Finally, see woman in burqa, and realize the kid bagging my groceries is about to launch into a conversation I will totally disagree with.) Nervous giggle. - Me
Seriously - it's racist!
More nervous giggle, quickly swipe card in an effort to move the entire transaction forward as crazy target bag boy has actually stopped bagging to hold conversation.
It's not like it's in the Torah, it's not religious, it's culture.

Well, this annoyed me and I decided the asshole (who was honestly probably 27) needed to be reminded that he was working at fucking Target and probably should have a respect for other religions, cultures, and otherwise more evolved beings on the planet. I therefore "gently" reminded him that the Muslim culture - and he was right, their religion is also a culture - used the fucking Koran and NOT THE DAMN TORAH.

And in true "old lady" fashion, I'm calling the store manager today to let them know about the crazy cashier they have, because I'm totally appalled.

Why do the crazies always find me???

Shark Week: Rocking your Face off for 22 years!

What's the eating disorder where you get fatter instead of skinnier? I think I have it, as this will be my 3rd food post in recent history. However, I'm so damn proud, I'm doing it anyway.

I made a ridiculous cake in honor of Shark Week (one of my favorite holidays) and I had to share it with the internets. Honestly, it tasted like shit because apparently you're supposed to flavor fondant. Whatever, Duff never told me that. All he ever shows is cutting the cake (which I tried to do... it sort of worked) and putting some other frosting on before the fondant. I have to admit I had no idea what fondant was until 5 pm yesterday when I decided I wanted to make this damn cake.

It was actually quite fun, but still took me 4 hours to do. I don't forsee this happening again in my future unless I quit my job and go to culinary school... which, secretly I would love to do and is my #23 thing I want to do in my life: Take a cooking class!

Peanut Butter makes the world go round

I would first and foremost like to say just how sorry I am for you if you are allergic to peanuts. Not only must eating in general suck for you, but I bet that whole "life threatening allergy" really makes you a little sad.

This summer, I spent some time with a young lady who had said allergy. We had to watch everything we ate around her, including not having peanut butter sandwiches in our lunches. It was the saddest week of my life.

Over the past few weeks, I've eaten an entire 40 oz. container of chunky peanut butter. This is averaging just under 10 ounces of PB a week. This is not abnormal consumption, by any means, on my part. However, I wanted to point out how abnormal it probably is for someone to be able to pound down a jar of peanut butter in 4 weeks. VERY abnormal. The average US consumer will eat 3 pounds of PB a year. (www.peanutbutter.com/funfacts). My jar of peanut butter is 2 lbs 8 ounces. In 1 year, I will have consumed 32.5 pounds of peanut butter. Yes, my friends. 11 times average. This makes me about 99% more likely than all other Americans to have a heart attack by the time I'm 27. How do I get to the YMCA again?