This post is going to be a vent/rant. Please do not read any further if you are not in the mood for something like that.

Facebook.

I stayed away from it for a long time. Even after I joined it I didn’t really see the need for it. It was great for reuniting me with people I’d gone to school with or had lost touch with, but I was not interested in updating my status daily. Or hourly. Or sharing a lot of personal information with those people. I still don’t link my blog to it.

Over time and through mass quantities of boredom I’ve spent more time on the site. I love looking at pictures of my cousin’s fast growing baby. It’s also how I find out things about family members I wouldn’t otherwise know. So while I don’t totally hate Facebook anymore, I’m still not about to be on it all day.

I recently discovered Lamebook.com. Oh the joy this site has brought me. It’s a potpourri pot of all the worst things out there on Facebook. And by worst I mean funny, ridiculous, stupid, and well… more stupid.

So I find myself looking at my own Facebook, searching for a little gem I could forward on to the site. So far nothing has really popped up that would be worthy. What does pop up? Let’s just say if your English teacher was reading your Facebook you would get a big fat F on your spelling test.

Facebook is not a text message.* It’s also not Twitter. You are not limited to 140 characters to say what you want to say. Also, since when did punctuation become a thing of the past? I understand that we get in a hurry or we make mistakes. Or like me, I throw grammar out the window often because I choose to blog the way I talk and not the way my English professor would have wanted me to turn in a paper. No one expects you to be perfect. But is it too much to expect a period now and then? Or maybe a comma so that things like this don’t sound so, um, inappropriate?

image from lamebook.com

And don’t even get me started on the run on sentences.

im gunna go see my bf this weeknd bcuz hes been outta town an i miss hm and were gunna go 2 the movies and eat popcorn and then maybe go see his mom and dad and then who nows luv u bebe!!!!!1

That was a mild example. (also, it seems the exclamation point is the only punctuation that actually gets MORE action on facebook.)

I also can’t decide if it bothers me more when it’s adults or kids/teeens/tweens.
On the one hand, when it’s an adult I want to tell them that they should know better.
However, when it’s a kid… specifically one who is in junior high or high school I want to shake them and ask them if they do know better. You know, to make sure the public (or private) school system isn’t failing them.

I know this doesn’t bother most people the way it bothers me. And maybe this means I need to relax and not let it bother me so much. Or maybe it just means that I should go back to not being on Facebook.

*I realize that a lot of you do send updates to Facebook via texting. This should still not be an excuse to cheat on proper spelling.

Of course the magical menstruation pony* would show up the day before BlogHer. You couldn’t come during your regularly scheduled programming time of oh say, last week. No you had to pick today. As if I have all this extra room in my suitcase for things like tampons.

I suppose if not today it would have happened the moment I stepped foot in the Hilton hotel with the other 2000+ women who will be at BlogHer.

BlogHer: syncing women’s periods since 2005.

Maybe instead of Go Girl, I can get Diva Cup to throw me some swag.

*the magical menstruation pony is in no way affiliated with sparklecorn, the also magical but less offensive unicorn.

I’ve been selling a bunch of stuff on ebay this past week. To both clear away the clutter and to help fund my upcoming trip to NYC. And as I usually do with my auctions, I just sort of guesstimate the shipping cost. And then I try to add on another buck or two to cover ebay and paypal fees. (unless I’m purposely doing a free shipping auction)

So I had this small Fossil crossbody purse that I bought at their outlet store last year. It was a fairly inexpensive purchase, and it’s ended up being something I just don’t use. So I listed it on ebay with a starting price of $8.99 and shipping price of $6.

Of course I had hopes that it would sell for more, but let’s just say it wasn’t one of my big ticket items.

Annoyance #1: Someone actually had the audacity to email me and ask me if I would give them free shipping on the item. Are you kidding me? I would like to actually make money on this transaction lady. I replied that I could not offer that since I didn’t know what the final sales price would end up being.

The person who ended up winning the auction actually got it for $8.99. I guess no one else was interested in it. Ok fine.

So I take the purse to the UPS store to ship it USPS Priority. I like to send my ebay stuff Priority because I know it will get there in 2 days. And as a person who frequently buys from ebay, I know how nice it is to get stuff fast. In the past I’ve always taken my stuff to this little gift shop in Jenks that has a post office set up in the back. There’s never a wait like at the actual post office and they are so nice. Well now that my company moved out of Jenks and into Tulsa the closest place to mail is a UPS store right across the street.

Annoyance #2: The UPS store charged me over $12 to ship that little purse priority. I could have shipped it UPS ground for just over $11. But for a dollar difference I would rather send it priority and know when it will get there. If you’re doing the math you have just realized that I made no money on that sale. After paypal and ebay fees I made nothing. It may have even cost me money. I mailed two other similar items and walked out having spent $30. I was quite annoyed.

Lesson learned: The UPS store will no longer have me as a customer.

I sent Thom to the post office today to mail two other items I’ve sold. One was going to Tennessee and one was going to Canada. Canada! He also had to purchase bubble envelopes to send them in. The grand total? Less than $7. On the one hand I’m a bit remorseful that I charged that lady in Canada $10 shipping. I really had no idea how much it would cost so I was protecting myself. On the other hand I’m all… well at least I made some money back from those other auctions.

I’m sure everyone is shaking their heads at me and telling me I should have known how expensive the UPS store is. I really didn’t. I honestly didn’t think they would upcharge me. The Bleu Door gift shop never upcharged me! I’m actually considering driving all the way back to Jenks from now on to mail my ebay stuff. I’ll gladly use up my entire lunch hour to avoid being ripped off.

and these are the things that grind my gears (line stolen from Family Guy)