Observations from Chicago

Facebook is taking over my life. I can't seem to stay away from it, but I'm proud to say I have not made it my default homepage...yet. True, I've thought about it, but I do still have some control thus far.

At first I resisted Facebook altogether. I was committed to MySpace, and although I had created a Facebook account I wasn't very impressed the few times I had visited, in fact I found it boring. Then I discovered the secret...the addition of friends. So I got some and it snowballed from there. Now I am very involved in the community. Each day I have to go take care of my virtual pet; feed, care, play with it, and compete for points. In addition, there are other competitions to enter that elevate the status and rank of the puppies. I do that one too. Then I discovered that even though you only get your main points once a day, champz points are added every hour and you get more points the more often you visit. Eventually it wasn't enough to only have one pet. Ok, that's not true. The truth is I couldn't just have a Miss Sassy puppy without having a Sadie Belle puppy, then I added a Miss Moo puppy as a tribute to the baby I had before Miss Sassy. All three require the same feeding, training and care. It has become a giant pain in the ass, but if you don't go visit everyday, the puppy loses happiness points. At first it says "Perfect Puppy", and then if neglected for a couple of days it changes to "Happy Puppy", then "Lonely Puppy" to "Starving Puppy". I know it's not a real puppy, but I can't even stand to read about a virtual puppy being sad, lonely or hungry. It's enough to cause me hypertension. To make matters worse, you get points for visiting other puppies, and sometimes those puppies are in bad shape. It's tragic really.

As if Pet Pupz is not enough to keep my busy, there is my virtual garden that is helping to save the rain forest, my fish cove and numerous quizzes that are very enlightening. For instance, I learned this week what kind of soda pop I am; "Orange Crush". I'm still very upset I did not turn out to be Dr. Pepper and took the quiz numerous times trying for that result. At first it said I was Pepsi, and I was like, "Hell no! I'm not Pepsi", and took the quiz yet again. In the end, Orange Crush was the best I could do. I also learned that the 80's movie that defines me is "Princess Bride", the Beatles song that describes my life right now is "I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends", and the song that most describes me personally is "I'm Still Standing" and f%*k if those are both eerily accurate! My name should really be Paige, except in Chinese, where it should be Ayo, the type of flower I am is a Petunia, I type 80 words per minute, I write like James Joyce (WTF?) and I was Queen Elizabeth I in a past life. The one word that describes me is "kind/friendly" (I know it's two words but I didn't make up the answers) and I know it should have been OCD, but technically that is three words...but whatever...you get my point.

So there, now you know what I've been up to. Until next time...Paige