FACEBOOK AS REALITY

What a night I had. I was up late surfing the web, fell asleep at the computer ( like that's anything unusual ), finally got into my actual bed, and then had a fantastical dream where Facebook was a total reality - not just your friend list, but the games, quizzes, and other sundry fun activities that are little more than a new-fashioned waste of time. Don't get me wrong, I stinkin' love Facebook and all the reconnecting I have been able to accomplish on it. I now can "talk" to a number of real friends everyday if I have the time and choose to do so, despite their residence in a variety of states from east to west coast. Heck, I even have friends in other countries who can keep up with me and I with them, if we so choose. I suppose this blog could take a more effective role in that particular aspect of life, but Facebook is a faster and more of a "fun" approach. Not a lot of thinking goes into Facebook posts or game play - although some would question the amount of thinking that goes into this endeavor. Either way, it doesn't really matter.

Now, on to my Dorothy Gale experience, before it totally slips from my mind.....

I was visiting my old school buddy Debbie Berend when we left town to go work at her farm. As we harvested various foodstuffs and did general work around the farm I received several notes (just appeared in my pocket magically) that I had other friends in town who wanted to see me and rekindle long ago relationships. Some of them Debbie knew, so she came along as well to accept this offer of friendship and camaraderie. We ended up in downtown Wichita Falls as it looked in the 60's and 70's - still a busy place with full storefronts. There seemed to be one main place where everyone hung out and this is where we headed first. I approved (?) my friendship with a number of people, including Sonya, and went about the task of investigating the cityscape. As I was exploring my hometown I became aware of a new "note in the pocket". I read it and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was an invitation to join in a military type game involving airplanes and bombs. My party of friends and I were suddenly in flight on a large bomber, wishing that either Bill Studdard or Joe Bohac were there with us to help us out. We even sent the aforementioned "notes in the pocket" to them, but they were not in the network to receive them. We just had to rely on ourselves this time. We were told the object was to pinpoint bomb different areas while making sure we avoided other areas. The bombs were white, very small (only about a foot long) with three red stripes on the end cap. There was a push button type of trigger on the very end, to detonate the bomb when it hit nose first. It was very cartoon-like in design, but lifelike in appearance. As we flew over our targets we just eyeballed the coordinates and hand tossed the bombs out the tail of the plane. Suddenly Mike Brown was on the plane and he showed us how to enable an automatic release that dropped a four-pack of the bombs at once. There seemed to be an unending supply of them, so we dropped bombs for as long as our fuel would last. We finally landed and went to see if our mission had succeeded. The even weirder thing was that there had been no attack on any of the areas we had just completed attacking. I took Sonya and went to find some food since there was still a supermarket standing. Just as we were starting to check out, a loud crash was heard. BOMBS !!! They were crashing through the roof. The noses hit the ground, but no explosions. Instead, we heard a very loud ticking commence. I picked up a bomb and examined it. Sure enough the ticking was coming from the bomb. I tossed it back into the store. I immediately grabbed Sonya's arm and ran outside. We ran and ran and ran. There started a series of small explosions, accompanied by Hanna-Barbera looking smoke clouds ( think of the Flintstones ). When we reached the Wichita Theater we stopped running as that seemed to be a safe distance from the action. As I stood there I noticed a couple of new "notes in my pocket". The first was from Bill Payne, thanking me for my assistance in his war game. The next one was an invitation to go to Mike Brown's house for a party. Sonya seemed to disappear, but it didn't seem unusual as she wasn't on the guest list. The only people I saw there were old school friends, just a little more adult in their appearance. We were laughing and talking about the days events when party crashers started trying to get into the soiree. We retreated to the backyard and let Mike's dad handle the problem. In the backyard we split into groups of two and explored the grounds more thoroughly with our partner. Evelyn Kaukel and I were partners for this part of the adventure. After traveling through the woodlands and over the hills in Mike's backyard we found a beautiful bridge that went all the way from the Brown's house to downtown. Before we had a chance to go back and see what damage had occurred in the aftermath of Bill Payne's advances, Charlie Brown, Mike's brother, not the cartoon character half of us would be if we were a cartoon character according to the quiz, grabbed my arm and wanted to know why I had not replied to his repeated requests for friendship. I had not seen the requests, but now I gave my okay to him. Immediately he gave me information on several other friends, including Paul Belvedere, who had some news for Evelyn. She and I searched him out, and upon finding him, discovered that his news was merely an invitation to a class reunion for her sister. Evelyn then took the invitation back to Germany to give to her sister. I went with Charlie and Paul back into the Brown's house to watch a little television. we were watching FOXNEWS and Keith Vaughn came on with his daily newscast. At that same moment he was knocking on the door of Mike's room. He entered with a laptop in tow. As he sat he logged into Facebook and started updating his status. The whole dream then started to fall apart as I noticed what he was saying on TV or what was on the feeder stream under the video matched what Keith was typing. I ran out of the house and into the backyard, under the fantastical bridge, and found several of my friends updating their Facebook statuses as well. As each changed their profile activities or thoughts, so did their actions in my dreamscape. I became aware of the fact that I was dreaming, and as I did so, I tried to manipulate it, as you can do so if you practice. It was too late though. I slipped free of the embrace of REM and moved towards a reality not so easily manipulated - that of the waking world.

I begrudgingly left the comfort of the Serta and joined those unknowing souls clamoring about for their piece of the pie. If only they knew that we are slaves to our own postings on our own personal Facebook.......Somehow I must let them know.......but how?......I am not quite sure..... wait.....I know.........this has got to work..........

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE ! ! .......... PERCEPTION IS REALITY !!!