Team Droid vs. Team iPhone

Dear Diary …

We are a country divided. We have been thrown into two opposing groups that are constantly at odds with one another. You’d think we could all just get along … but oh no … our disagreements run passionate and deep.

And we find ourself in these two distinct camps. Camps that as time goes on, seemingly can’t agree on even the most simplest of issues.

And those camps are … of course … Droid people and iPhone people.

What? You thought I was gonna say Democrats and Republicans? Oh man … it’s WAY easier to get those two groups to get along than Droid vs. iPhone.

I mean … full disclosure … I’m team iPhone. I like it better, and I think it’s better. And you would think, that would be the end of it. We could just agree to disagree and move on.

But I gotta be honest … Team Droid … You just never let it go. Droid people got some kind inferiority complex where they are constantly working overtime to prove to you how much they love their Droid.

Great example happened to me the other day … I went into my email and managed to clean the whole thing out. 500 messages … all the way down to 3. And because I’m a dork … I was also very excited about this, and I shared it in a status update on Facebook.

And after posting that update, the first comment I got was this … “Must have an iPhone. Yep … Love my Droid.”

Wait … what?

This had nothing to do with my phone. What are you trying to prove?

But that’s Droid People for ya … They are dying to remind you “Love my Droid!” even when you didn’t ask.

“Hey I heard we might get snow tomorrow”

“Yeah … if you have an iPhone. Yep … Love my Droid.”

Look … all nerdy technical arguments about the two phones aside … you do realize that this makes you look desperate, right? Why you gotta try to prove to me all the time how much you love your Droid? Why aren’t you just comfortable with your Droid? Why do you need to prove to the world that you love your Droid?

You’re like the husband and wife … The ones that always go out of their way to try to prove to everybody how happy and secure their relationship is. And then what happens? Divorce cuz they hate each other … that’s what!

Look … I understand … Droid’s your wife, and you wanna cheat on her when you see my sleek young thang that is this iPhone. No I love my wife … I swear I do. Look how big her screen is … it’s way bigger than yours. Love my Droid!

It’s OK darling … I inderstand the truth, and I won’t tell anybody.

And on the bright side … even if we do continue to fight one another, Team Droid and Team iPhone can come together and agree on one thing … Blackberry? BWAHAHA!!! Ohhhh man … at least we aren’t THOSE people!

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

No Friday Meetings and Your Elf on a Shelf

Dear Diary …

I often talk about how when I become King and Supreme Leader of Zackmerica, there will be TONS of new laws that will go into effect. Well today, I have one that I want to add. But you know what? We don’t even have to wait until King Zack is in charge. Start doing this law IMMEDIATELY!

And here it is … No meetings on Fridays. NONE. EVER! No exceptions and no substitutions!

First of all … let’s just stop lying to ourselves and all admit the truth … nobody works hard on Fridays. OK, you might work hard, but you still work hardER on other days. Case in point? You know what day of the week has the most botched surgeries? Friday! Now that should tell you something. That no matter how important your job is … surgeon for crying out loud … You’re still just a human that wants to kick back and enjoy the freakin’ weekend and you’re not working as hard as you do on Wednesday.

Second … And here’s the real reason why Friday meetings are banned … Your lazy butt had ALL week to get this stuff done, and now all of a sudden you realize “Oh no … it’s Friday and I haven’t done anything all week … I need to have a meeting!”

Oh no … I ain’t gettin’ you off the hook any more there, slacker!

“But it’s important!”

Too bad!

If it was that important, you should’ve gotten your stuff together earlier in the week.

Friday meeting. You ever notice too how they never give you a heads up either? They just come in on Friday … “Hey we need to have a meeting … right now. Meeting … Come on. Conference room.”

Oh awesome! As if I’m just sitting here … doing nothing … thinking to myself “Boy I hope we have a meeting right now so I can have something to do, cuz I was just sitting here doing nothing.”

No more. And I’m drawing a hard line. No slap on the wrist. Cuz then you’ll never learn. So it’s very simple … You call a Friday meeting … Life in prison. Next!

OK … moving on Diary … Like it or not … the holiday season is here. I for one … like it. That said, let me go ahead and just give everybody out there on Facebook a warning … Nobody wants to see pictures of where your Elf on a Shelf ended up last night.

“Oh look at that naughty Elf … he ate all the marshmallows!”

Don’t care!!!

Hey … if that creepy little Elf makes your kids behave at Christmas time. That’s great. That what Cherry Sparkles … yes that’s our Elf … Cherry Sparkles (I know … I didn’t pick the name) … but that’s what she does. So I like her for that, but I don’t need to be punishing the rest of the world with a running newsfeed of all the silly Pinterest-inspired mischief that my Elf was up to last night.

Keep you Elf to yourself! Oooh … that’s catchy! Zack Jackson, you stayed up late comin’ up with THAT piece of comedic gold!

No but seriously … we don’t wanna see your dumb Elf. Stop it.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

Kids Are Little Jerks

Dear Diary …

As you know … I have two small children. And as anybody who’s raised children knows … they are the apple of your eye. And sometimes that’s a sweet, delicious, beautiful apple that you love and cherish. And other days it’s a rotting hunk of fruit that fell off the tree, landed on the ground, got bruised all over, and has a big, gross, worm in the middle of it.

Because let’s just call it like it is … some days your kids straight up suck. Other days they are the light of your life and you just wanna :::squeeze em::: you love ‘em so much. Then other days you just want to leave them on the sidewalk with the bulk trash and start a new kidless life as a beach bum in Key West who drinks margaritas all day and rents surfboards to tourists.

Which day do you think I had yesterday?

Now it is true … those are the days that truly test your skill as a parent because, Diary, I swear to you … I think sometimes kids say to themselves “I am going to misbehave until I get in trouble. Try to reason with me all you want … I’m still going to be an unreasonable little turd and getting punished is the only thing that will stop me.” That was both my kids yesterday.

My daughter just gets in these moods. Like right now she’s learning how to read. So we sit down with the books, sound out the words, and everything is fine. She works it out and bangs out a page in no time like a champ.

Other days … Like yesterday … She just decides “I’m gonna be a jerk” and she then refuses to do it right. The word was “crawl” … and instead of really even trying to sound it out, all she does is go …

Cuuuuuuhhhhhh … Crowbs? I dunno. Crowbs. That it?

No it is not crowbs … you know darn well crowbs isn’t a word! And it’s not like this is an isolated incident, when she’s in this mood, that’s what you get on EVERY … SINGLE … WORD.

Duuuuuhhhh …. I don’t know.

DOG!!! The word is DOG!

But she knows that. And she knows she knows that. She’s just wants to be a stain.

Meanwhile my son … he’s just laying on the couch, yelling “Mickey Mouse! Want Mickey Mouse!”

OK fine … I’ll get you some Mickey Mouse. I call it up on the TV, and Diary, there are three different Mickey Mouse’s. You can have regular Mickey Mouse Clubhouse … You got Mickey Mouseketeers … nd You got Mickey Christmas. That is the entire Mickey Mouse catalog of his life. Those are the things he knows. So it has gotta be one of those three.

So do you want Mickey Mouse Clubhouse? “No!”

Alright … do you want Mickey Mouseketeers? “No!”

Alright Mickey Christmas then? “No!”

OK well that’s it … there’s no others. “Want Mickey Mouse!”

There is no other Mickey Mouse! “Want Mickey Mouse! Not that one!”

WHAT ONE???

I’m telling you … I see it, and you see it too. They’re doing it to me on purpose.
And also, where exactly do they learn to talk with their hand on their hip and have this “I have attitude” voice? Where does that voice come from? We are not a sassy black family from a sitcom … so where in real life does she pick this up? It’s gotta be school. It’s always school.

Oh and once the hand is on the hip … oh it’s all over with. The only way to stop her is to send her to her room.

“Well I was playing with it first”

Yes that’s fine … but now it’s your brother’s turn.

“But I was playing with it first.”

Yes … you made that point already.

“Well I was first”

Got to your room!

“FINE!”

Yes … exactly … fine. You know, I used to have adult conversations with other grown adults. Now I just have this conversation 10 times a day.

Though I will say, I’ve at least grown to have appreciation for the small moments of these whole things. Like when kids have temper tantrums and you send them to their room … The things that they yell from there that you can’t even hear or understand are hilarious.

“I can’tya yakayou TAKE IT DOWN!”

Yup … whatever you said! Stay up there for 45 minutes while Daddy catches up on “Walking Dead.” Bye bye.

Hey it’s a give and take. Some days they’re great. Other days … they’re this.

But you know what helps? Drinking.

Now you know … kids don’t be like me … or whatever … and don’t drink TOO much. Just drink enough that you only fantasize about leaving them out with the bulk trash, and don’t actually follow thru.

OK … birth control class over.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye

3 Things You Do On Facebook That Make People Hate You

Dear Diary …

I’m all about the helping … I give till it hurts. And today … oh it’s gonna hurt. You. But it’s good pain, like “feel the burn” exercise pain. You’re gonna feel better in the long run when I help fix you.

Now there’s all kinds of people in this world that call themselves “Social Media Experts.” They come up for a name for their company (that’s just them), and they print out some businesses cards, and then charge businesses to sit down and teach them “How To Post on Facebook.” Then they charge ‘em like a thousand dollars and move on to the hosting a seminar called “Tweet Your Way to Social Media Engagement” or whatever the blah blah blah it is that they do.

But you know what? You’re not a business, and you don’t have a thousand dollars. AND … I fancy myself as a bit of an expert, so I’m gonna give you some advice to make you better at Facebook. For free!

Today’s lesson is called … “Three Things You Do On Facebook That Make People Not Like You.’

Obviously the message here of all this is … “Stop doing those things and people won’t hate you so much.”

OK … class in session.

The first thing you do on Facebook that makes people not like you is what I call “The Play By Player” … This is the person who sits down to watch a sporting event, and also feels the need to post something about every single detail of said sporting event ALL GAME LONG.

I also call you “Facebook Ebola,” because you’re just a virus that takes over my feed … pushing everything else out of the way and instead infecting me with nothing but posts like “That was holding!” and “First Down … Tes!”

How am I supposed to even respond to these things? I had one in my feed on football Sunday this week that just said “Dang!” What was the context of this “dang?” … Dang good? Dang bad? And since I don’t see everything real time … when was this dang? An hour ago?

So you see where this is useless blathering that noone knows what to do with?

And here’s the kicker … there are plenty of social media sites where this is exactly what they want you to do. There’s probably even other people watching the same game as you. So now you can say things like “That was holding!” and they can say “I know … It was holding! HTTR! HTTR!!”

Do it there! You’re doing it in the total wrong place and you’re gummin’ up the works for the rest of us.

OK … let’s move on to the second thing you do on Facebook that makes people not like you … I call this “Pathetic Ol’ Me.” You’re the one who spends all your time posting sad and whiny things, and we … your friends … we don’t know how to react.

Here’s one I just saw …

“I have the worst headache of my life today.”

Ummmmmmm …. Like?

How does anyone respond to this? It’s just … there.

Here’s my advice to “Pathetic Ol’ Me” … Pretend you’re having an actual conversation with real live humans …

“Hey Bill … how are you?”

“Terrible! My head is literally going to explode from all the mucus buildup in my sinuses!”

NO! You would not say that! And if you would actually say that … then don’t talk to real live humans!

Point is … quit being so darn depressing all the time. You’re bringin’ the rest of us down!

What happened to the good ol’ days when people hid all their problems and ailments and pains and lied to the world and pretended things were great? I miss THOSE days!

Finally … the third thing you do on Facebook that makes people not like you is what I call “Robot Parent” … because you are no longer you … You are just some robot that [[[Robot voice]]] “Only posts about my children. Nothing about myself because I don’t exist.”

You don’t even have a profile picture of yourself anymore. Instead it’s your kid wearing a funny hat.

What are you, dead? Can’t you be a parent AND an individual at the same time?

The answer by the way is “YES”

And we … your friends … we miss you. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not really friends with any five year olds. They can’t even get into bars … what good is that? I like being friends with grownups. That’s why I’m friends with growups on Facebook and not children.

Of course you can share pictures and details about your kids. But we also want you to be you, not some robot that used to be you. It
It’s called “balance.” Have some!

OK … lesson over. Now stop doing these things so we can all like you more.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.