Streamlined for 2005, BabyAt 5:30 PMby: Nana

This blog post is about MSN messenger lists; more specifically, it is about how long they have become. Rather than get straight to the problem like any normal person, I have designed a scenario that you may relate to, in the hopes that it will bring you closer to my frame of mind. It also allows me to dirty up the pristine visage of Pleasant Interruption. She's been a bad girl, and she needs to be punished with another long and pointless post.


You have just come back from the club, and you have some hot guy/girl's messenger contact. You load up MSN and you can barely contain the excitement. You realize that you aren't that excited, and that you just need to go to the bathroom. Afterwards, you come back to your computer and attempt to add said person to your list. This is where you run into a problem - you have too many people on your list.

I have never had this problem, for two reasons. The first reason is that being a cynic and generally dour person is a full time job. Adding a female to the strange and sad series of seemingly unconnected events I call my life would not be advantageous for me (I couldn't care less about her). The second reason is that I erase people from my list all the time. I realize that some people make friends extremely well and have full lists, but I have never understood the rationale behind this. Unless you actually speak to every one of these people, the MSN Messenger list is just a way for people to look at a large number and think to themselves "Jee Smith (Smith is your name), you sure do have a lot of friends." Also, erasing people is cathartic. Goodbye, I will never see "'So and so - I love you POOPOO' has come online" ever again (hopefully I don't see you in real life either).

DO NOT BE DISMAYED good readers! The experts at Pleasant Interruption Labs, nestled away in a covert laboratory rivaling the Batcave's own lab have concocted some solutions for streamlining your list. Here are a few of the estimated million kernels pulled from the minds of said experts.

• Send out a mass message, saying that those who reply with a reason for their undying allegiance to you will be saved, and those of you who do not will be deleted. This works if you are above all the lesser beings who exist only to inhabit your otherwise empty world. I would call you a solipsist, but thems fighting words.
  
• Become a hermit. Cut off all ties with society and shun all forms of technology. Essentially you'd be Amish, but without the hats and the barn raisings. Since you've excommunicated yourself from the rest of the world, you won't have any problems with your MSN list anymore. This method works best for people who have lots of "friends" on their list who never talk to them. People like me (single tear).
  
• Erase everyone, and add them back when they talk to you later on. This is pretty effective if you're the type of person who waits for the conversations to come to them, you cool person you. We're all so impressed with your magnetic personality.
  
• Stop using instant messenger programs. Call people, using the thing that connects to the wall thing with that string... oh yes, the PHONE.
• Scour the web, searching porn sites, warez, and other unmentionable-but-probably-will-be-mentioned-later-on things. Eventually your computer will become so infested with viruses that you'll have to get a priest to perform an exorcism before sacrificing it to a lesser demon. Without a computer you wont have list problems.
• Send me more of those damn chain letters! Then, I'll tell everyone that you're into bestiality (See? Told you I'd mention an unmentionable) and you worship reptiles or something like that. I like to imagine that frats worship reptiles, but it's probably not true. Anyway, this will cause people to block/delete you from their list. When you realize what has happened because you wanted to make your wish come true (who has 20 friends anyway?) you'll reformat your computer in shame, and cry in some corner somewhere.
  

At this point you may have two, or possibly three people on your list. You may also no longer have a computer. THIS IS THE DESIRED EFFECT. You're streamlined for 2005, baby!

Although you are in fact streamlined for 2005, baby, other people may not feel as happy about your actions. Somehow they are unable to rejoice with you in your hyper-efficiency. They might be (inexplicably) hurt that you decided to erase them from your list despite the fact that you haven't spoken to them in months, or that they are lesser humans. But aren't other people's feelings rendered meaningless compared to your sleek profile cutting through cyberspace, streamlined for 2005? Baby?