When Facebook becomes Fakebook (from '12)

I did something yesterday for which I’m feeling justifiably small: I tried to bust someone for fibbing on FaceBook.

It’s not exactly “60 Minutes” going after Big Tobacco, is it.

And I should know better.

Facebook is a perfectly innocuous place where we all go to post our prettiest pictures and give the shared impression we all live in a happy, shiny place free of discord and things that smell, although I’ll bet  Zuckerberg’s about to force that function on us all.

It brings old friends and classmates together and connects those with shared interests. In these divisive times, we need more, not less, of that.

So why did I feel instantly compelled to expose what I suspected was deceit?

Because I feared it was being perpetrated in the name of George, one of my all-time very best buddies.

It’s not a stretch to say it was George who taught me how to drink, which means George taught me all I know.

George and I met in the dorms and became fast friends.

I remember us sitting in the library that first week bored out of my mind and saying to George, man, we’ve been bearing down on this algebra for 10 excruciating minutes and we still don’t get it. What ever are we going to do?

“Well, we could leave and go to a bar,” he said.

His remark showed a genius Ohio University transcripts failed to recognize. The state drinking age at the time was 18. Athens was strewn with bars. He was right. We could go to a bar! And that’s exactly what we did.

And we never left.

He’s the one guy old friends always ask about when they call to catch up. “Have you heard from George?” they’ll ask. “Is he on FaceBook?

I talk to him every six months or so. The sound of his laugh takes me back to some of the happiest days in my life. But, no, he’s not on Facebook. He’s too cool for that.

That’s why I was shocked to see a burst of George behaving very uncool on Facebook yesterday. He was posting pictures of his kids, his wife and the captions said things like how much he loved these people.

I thought he only loved me.

And Anheuser-Busch.

I suspected fraud and immediately posted the comment: “If this is really George posting these pictures, then what’s Brad Wiseman’s middle name?”

This was a serious breach of Facebook etiquette. I should have posted, “George, you have a beautiful family! Like! Like! Like!”

But this was George -- and let’s say that’s not his real name and that he’s not married to someone really named Jeannine.

Instantly, one of George’s relatives responded, “Quick, Jeannine, get off the computer and ask George what Brad Wiseman’s middle name is!”

An hour or so went by and finally George typed in the single word “Boner,” which was wrong but Alex Trebek would have accepted. Boner was Brad’s nickname.

Then he came back about 15 minutes and typed, “Lon,” which was correct. Brad had the uncommon middle name Lon and the nickname “Boner” for reasons I won’t dare reveal.

By now I was beginning to realize feelings were being hurt. So I typed, hey, it was just a little test I conduct to make sure people aren’t using the internet for less than pure purposes. Because no one wants to see that.

And today I feel bad. I sanctimoniously suspected Jeannine had hacked into George’s computer to make him look even more perfect than he’s always been.

Even worse, just three days ago I perpetrated an even more egregious fraud.

I’ve long been frustrated by my inability to lure more people onto my languishing @8days2amish Twitter account.

In fact, reaching 190 followers last week seemed an opportune time to run a sweepstakes. I tweeted, “Anyone who helps me get to 200 followers by 5 pm gets a free signed copy of “Use All The Crayons!”

The result? By 5 p.m. four once steadfast followers bailed on me. I was down to 186.

So on Sunday I decided to take matters into my own hands. I snuck onto my wife’s laptop and signed her up for a Twitter account so “she” could follow me.

But I didn’t do anything as innocuous as I suspected Jeannine did. No, I really upped the ante.

I signed her up under the user name @ILuvChrisRodell! I figured I could use it for a clearinghouse for things I wish she’d say about me, but has never had the grounds to. Things like: “He’s a spectacular lover! . . . He’s a great provider! . . . He’s, uh, honest!”

And because I wanted to bestow my darling new follower with intellectual superiority, I signed her up to follow Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama, Maya Angelou, Nelson Mandela, Ann Coulter -- and me!

And I have the nerve to doubt the authenticity of my old friend’s innocent posts.

So I feel bad about my petty suspicions. Because I @LuvGeorgeNJeannine.

I really, really do.

I’ll swear it on a whole stack of internets.

Mark Zuckerberg's amazing weekend

When I saw Mark Zuckerberg got married the day after FaceBook’s IPO earned $20 billion, my first thought was, “And someday those kids are going to be fighting over money.”

And I’m not talking about divorce settlements, although that romantic Trump is.

“They get married and then for some reason over the next couple of years they get divorced and then she sues him for $10 billion and she hits the jackpot,” he told CNBC. “I think if she made $1 million, that would be very good.

A romantic indeed, but only about things that stir the pulses of people proficient in accounting.

I’m talking about whether one is maybe a coupon clipper while the other is extravagant. Many couples agree on the great moral issues of raising children yet spar over whether the breakfast waitress deserves an extra quarter.

Money’s just an evergreen source of conflict with every couple.

A friend of mine forewarned me of this on the eve of my marriage. He said it was absolutely essential my bride and I run all our finances through the same bank account.

“Trust me on this,” he said, “having a joint bank account will eliminate all the arguments about money. It’s one of the things that helps my marriage succeed, that and mutual respect.”

Back then he was utterly sincere.

Fifteen years later, he’s divorced. He busted his wife cheating on him with their kid’s karate instructor and now he sits in the bars and advises singles as to why they should never marry.

Of course, I wisely ignored him. My wife and I have joint accounts for savings, but we have separate accounts for individual spending loot. We argue about big decisions but we arrive at our points through positions of fierce independence.

And it’s worked out well. Through 15 years of marriage we’ve rarely fought over money.

The skeptics will point out we never fight over who gets to drive the Lamborghini either, which is something else we don’t have, so the point may be moot.

But we did nearly have a fight over Facebook this weekend. It’s free so that we have.

Our 11-year-old asked Val to check something on Facebook and said, “I know you’re always on there anyway,” to which she responded indignantly, “Not as much as your father!”

For some reason, them’s fighting words.

Neither of us wants to admit we’re on Facebook more than the other.

Why is that? Has there ever been an institution in which we’ve participated with almost compulsory dedication that as a whole we enjoy less?

I mean besides high school.

I felt good when I learned economists deemed his $106 billion IPO “a disappointment.” It seemed like a healthy development.

And I felt relief, too, that those same honest brokers haven’t taken the time to examine my finances.

I still don’t know what to make of Zuckerberg and Facebook. Of course, my opinion of him is colored by the exaggerations of his portrayal in “The Social Network.” That and, like R2D2, it is said Zuckerberg doesn’t blink.

It’s true. Interviewers and confidants say he spends his waking hours staring like a birddog fixed on a pheasant.

I guess he scares me. He’s got so much money and power earned through something so trivial I feel compelled to resent.

I guess I’m looking forward to his second act, something that will define him better than just a guy with massive brain power who seems oddly incapable of mastering the common Windsor knot.

So of the twin Facebook news bulletins -- the IPO and the wedding -- I believe the surreptitious nuptials will be the more pivotal.

It’ll be up to the new Mrs. Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, to use her matrimonial influence on her husband, something she’s already done by convincing him to use Facebook as a force to transform how we donate life-saving organs. Bravo.

She needs to encourage his philanthropy so in 10 years we’ll all think about how wrong we were about Zuckerberg and Facebook.

She’ll need to do it with guile and logic. She’ll need to be persuasive and perseverant.

And she’ll need to understand in matrimonial arguments, it’s not always about who blinks first, especially when it comes to Mr. Z.

Enough with thanks, let's get back to bitching!

I’ve spent the last four days immersed in the bosom of my family and expressing heartfelt gratitude for all that makes life so rich.

Man, am I thankful that’s finally over.

I truly am thankful for all life’s gifts.

But I’d be untrue to myself if I spent more than 48 hours expressing earnest thanks. The soul-supple yin of gratitude needs its bitter yang or it’ll die from diabetic shock.

I read the newly single Demi Moore tweeted what a pity it is that we have just one day out of 365 to be thankful. Why not, she wondered, be thankful 365 days a year?

Well, because I live a world where I’m reminded Demi Moore has access to a Twitter account for starters.

If they made a sunscreen to ward off life’s annoyances it would have to be about SPF 995.

So here’s a little list of stuff I’ve needed to get off my chest when saying so out loud would have struck a disharmonious note.

Better make sure the coffee’s warm. This could take a while.

• NFL officiating: What they need to do is get rid of the instant replay and all but two of the officials, one for each side of the ball. Then ask the players to play under the honor system. If a player feels he was too aggressive, he should raise his hand and assess himself a 15-yard penalty.

• The Euro: Either rise or fall, but stop all the waffling. If you’re going to collapse and drag the world into an apocalyptic depression, let’s just get on with it.

• Our dog: His frequent yips still make me feel someone’s just attached the 400-watt defibrillator paddles to my chest and is about to yell, “Clear!” Snickers is 18-months old and still peeing on the carpet. I’d say, “Look, if that dog pees on the carpet one more time, it’s either me or him,” but I know I’d be annoyed watching the dog and the girls enjoy Christmas morning with me on the cold side of the frosty window.

• I’m annoyed honesty in prayer is frowned upon. Everyone freezes at the Thanksgiving dinner table when I ask, “All right, who wants to say the prayer?” Of course, no one does and it’s left to me. So I mumble some Sunday School sort of prayer about being thankful for the food, the family, the need to help the lonely and less fortunate, blah, blah, blah, when I’d like to at least mention, “And thank you, Lord, for the men and women who make this Tennessee sipping whiskey that’ll help me get through another two hours of sitting here at this table with my father-in-law.”

• The march of time annoys me. I don’t know whether it’s the pending holiday involving important people making naughty/nice lists, but my darling daughters are loving Daddy these days. They out of no where will pop up onto my lap for cuddling and tickle time. Can’t they stay 11 and 5 until at least the year 2017?

• The “Some Girls” re-release. The 1978 Stones classic is one of my favorites. Play it all the time. Now, they’ve re-released it with premium pricing and 10 extra songs. I heard one of the vault songs, “No Spare Parts” and was blown away. I have to have it. But do I need to spend $14.99 on songs I already have? And it annoys me when I have to stoop to cherry-picking selected cuts.

• Dull things annoy me. It’s wood chopping season and my trusty Stihl MS 270 needs new choppers. It’s tedious sawing wood with a machine inefficient for the task. Still, I’d rather spend two hours in the woods with a dull chainsaw than 10 minutes alone with a dull bartender.

• My Twitter account: The thing, I think, sparkles with wit. Yet, bone-headed moron Ashton Kutcher’s account has 8,551,759 followers and mine has a measly 106. What does a guy have to do to get that kind of following? Oh? Really? Okay. I’ll pass.

• My inability to start a movement. I have the perfect solution to the really crabby mood the nation’s in right now: Everyone take the afternoon off and let’s all go see the new Muppet movie! Saw it yesterday with the family. It’s wonderful! And just why are there so many songs about rainbows?

• Black Friday violence on principle annoys the hell out of me, but I’d rather see bargain shoppers getting pepper sprayed than sidewalk-occupying philosophy majors.

• Facebook’s certainly annoying. I read recently Mark Zuckerberg was barnstorming the country to hire 700 new Facebook employees. If he was really smart, he’d fire 700 employees. The more Facebook improves the worse it gets. Nothing can change that trajectory.

• I annoy myself. Because, God help me, I still care what happens with those kids, Demi and Ashton. The sentimental old romantic in me hopes Demi reunites with Bruce but, this being Hollywood, I won’t be disappointed if Bruce and Ashton wind up together -- at least until Rumer’s old enough to date Ashton without it all looking so unseemly.