Facebook Addiction Disorder

Are you a Facebook addict? Do you feel a pressing urge to share intimate details of your life with relative strangers? Do you have a need to notify the planet of your every thought or feeling? Is your sense of self-worth based on the fact that you have over two hundred imaginary friends?

If this is you, there is help. With time, patience, and a little effort, you can overcome this consuming addiction and get back to living your life in the real world.

I enjoyed this recent article in the Winnipeg Free Press by Janine Legal on her efforts to break her Facebook habit. Perhaps her words will be of encouragement to some of you other hopeless Facebook-junkies out there (you know who you are).

In the Paper

Well, it seems that I am now a published newspaper writer.

I emailed a letter to the editor last Sunday, and it was published in Saturday's paper. The purpose of the letter was to complain about disgusting "pet people" that don't clean up after their animals, and was prompted after a particularly nasty incident at Patricia Beach last weekend.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get started on my next big exclusive.

If the link stops working, here's the letter that I wrote:

I’m beginning to think that “pet people” (as my family and I call them) are, by and large, a terribly inconsiderate and pretentious bunch. More often than not, I’m noticing people taking absolutely no responsibility for controlling or cleaning up after their pets.

A neighbor a couple of doors down frequently lets his little mopdog out to defecate on other people’s lawns. Another neighbor allows her three cats to roam about as they please, littering in neighborhood flowerbeds and gardens – even after being confronted by an avid gardener across the street who is constantly having to remove feces from her vegetable garden. And on two separate weekend trips to nearby Patricia beach, I was aghast to see people – numerous people – walking their dogs right past the “No Pets Allowed” signs and letting them run wild on the beach, annoying other people and defecating all over the place.

Honestly, now. If you want to live in your pet’s filth on your property, that’s your business. But to force other people to pick their way around piles of your doggy’s doo simply because you refuse to take responsibility for what comes out of your animal, well, that’s just incomprehensibly rude.

Adultescence

On his blog, Dad has commented on the fact that our society lack a definitive "coming of age" ceremony, a specific point in a young man's life when his boyhood ends and adulthood begins. In fact, our culture makes a decided lean to the opposite, avoiding holding young people responsible for much of anything. The obvious result is that young people aren't terribly good at shouldering responsibility even as they age, often resulting in adults who aren't able to conduct their lives in a mature fashion.

Reading through the morning paper as I occasionally do, my eye was drawn to this Winnipeg Free Press article that was written along a similar vein. It seems that social scientists have coined a new term to describe this relatively new phenomenon: "adultescence".

"The boundaries between childhood and adulthood have become increasingly blurred," said sociologist Barbara Mitchell, professor of gerontology at Simon Fraser University in B.C. Of course, Mitchell doesn't add that in blurring those boundaries, modern society has created adults -- even seniors -- who, fundamentally, are still children.

Our children are our future, we're constantly reminded. Apparently, though, the meaning of this mantra is a bit more literal than we had previously imagined.

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." - 1 Corinthians 13:11

The Half Moon Drive Inn

Here's a review of the Half Moon Drive Inn in Lockport, from the Winnipeg Free Press:

It's been there, in one form or another, since l938, and, although a hot dog isn't exactly a culinary event, a 70th anniversary is something to be celebrated.

It has just entered its most recent incarnation with an additional indoor eating area, which almost doubles the previous space.

You place your orders at a counter, and carry them to your table when your number is called, and if you don't mind carrying your tray a bit farther there are some outdoor tables near the river.

The hot dogs are good, slightly crisp ($3, or $4.25 for a foot long), and if you order yours with chili (75 cents extra) the chili will actually taste like real chili, with a decided bite.

The burgers are pretty good, too, ($3.05) and, unlike the olden days, you can now also have a smokie dog, bursting with flavour ($4).

The fries are fresh-cut ($3.89 for a sizeable medium serving), and if you're still up for dessert there's a whole range of ice cream (both hard and soft), as well as something they would never have dreamed of back in '38 -- yogurt.

If you're really lucky you'll see flocks of pelicans frolicking around the locks.

And if not now, soon.