WHO ELSE CAN I ALIENATE?

You know you're a real outlaw when Face Book gets on your case. It seems I have been promoting this website to my personal friends and that's a no-no. Maybe I should have been posting photos of puppies or something. Only trouble is, I don't have any puppies and the only pictures I do have of puppies are from Korean cookbooks getting themselves wokked. Nobody wants to see that on Face Book, except maybe Korean chefs, and I don't know any. Besides, a lot of my friends are animal lovers, which is a good thing, except maybe for Sheep Guy. That's just wrong what he does and I wish he'd stop sharing those disturbing photographs with me. Sometimes you can't be too quick on the draw with the old Delete button.

Sheep Guy, do us all a favor and keep that part of your life private. While I have to admit your Little Lamb doesn't look unattractive in that French maid outfit, the bondage stuff is a little too much. How did you teach her to tie you up like that when all she's got are hooves? That's one Little Lamb that knows how to do more than follow Mary to school, eh? Be that as it may, why don't you go back to letting that be your little secret? Trust me, it's better that way. Sooner or later the Face Book Police are going to figure out what's what and you'll be banished like me. Maybe forever. My exile only lasted half a day, but with dire warnings that I could be terminated. Or at least my Face Book page, anyway. They don't have Face Book hit men, do they? That would be pretty awkward.

Maybe I'll move over to My Space and see if I can alienate them too. Wonder what rules they have? Does anybody ever read the Terms and Conditions to anything you sign up for on the internet? I sure don't. Hope I didn't promise anybody my first born or anything like that. He'd be pretty pissed off, no doubt. So would his lovely wife. No sense alienating the family, so maybe I'll start reading some of these Terms and Conditions. One of these days... Well, at least I don't have to deal with Microsoft anymore. That's one hard-ass company, let me tell you.

Got me a Mac now, and just in time, too. I was trying to get back to the Windows '98 operating system for my old computer and you'd think I asked them for Bill Gates' personal bank account numbers the way they reacted. Tried to shove that lame Vista system down my throat, they did, and I was forced to tell them where to go, and it wasn't Seattle. Who knew they tape all their calls? I never meant to actually carry out all those threats! I was just a little worked up is all! They sort of didn't see it that way. Now, those people have hit men, and even worse; attorneys. If you hear from Microsoft, you don't know me. Or my eldest son. Never heard of those guys.

So far so good with the iMac. If I have any trouble I get to speak with a nice Chinese lady in Shanghai named Veronica. Unless it's a music question, then she transfers me to some slacker in California named Chip or Slick or Skip or something and his accent is harder to understand than Veronica's. "Duuu-de, that's a narlee friggin' praah-blum!" What? Get me back to the nice Chinese lady! Luckily, I got the hang of the thing and stopped calling them. Every other week they send me updates and I agree to Terms and Conditions and upload whatever it is they're offering, I have no idea since it makes zero difference in the computer's performance. If they want to charge me, then no thanks, I'll muddle along with the free stuff. I'm not NASA over here, and odds are I'll never use half the crap inside this machine.

Which gets me thinking... I have a subscription list to this website! There must be rules, or Terms and Conditions. I don't even know, I leave that to my son the web guy, the one I promised to Microsoft. Maybe I can put something in the small print, oh, I don't know, nothing too greedy, maybe making me one of the beneficiaries of my subscribers' wills and life insurance policies, for maybe just a percentage point or two. Junior won't even miss it, especially if I stipulate I get paid off the top. That's more of a long-term strategy, though, and for all I know I'll drop dead before they do.

Then again, if I do live a long time I'm pretty much screwed since I never thought I'd live even this long and I'll be one broke-ass old codger. You think I'm grumpy now? Wait until it's cat food time! The win-the-lottery strategy hasn't panned out, so maybe the way to go is a combination long and short-term scheme, since I'm kind of broke now, too. I'll have to look into my options here, see how touchy banks are about sending me a tiny portion of my subscribers' bank accounts on the strength of their agreeing to my Mickey Mouse Terms and Conditions. Of course I won't implement these rules for my current subscribers, mind you, only new meat, er... readers!

So, here's what I'm offering my current subscribers: For every new subscriber you recommend and who actually signs up, bobcrespo.com will give you a piece of the action, say...10%. No, wait! Let's provide a real incentive here. How about 25%? We can make a discreet PayPal arrangement, maybe set up something offshore. Don't touch that mouse, that's not all! I can also offer you a preferred price for stock in bobcrespo.com. This one's totally legit, an IPO being handled by one of the top guns on Wall Street. Bernie Madoff himself is handling the whole deal for me, and he assures me it's a steal! Now if you'll just click the YES box on the Terms and Conditions...