I was very active on Facebook from 2008 to 2011, but then The Destroyer blew up my account there, dropping all of my friends, likes and connections, leaving only the Indie Albany Group (which also blew up) and then the Indie Moines Group. When I decided to re-active my personal Facebook profile last week, it really bugged me when I went back in time and saw all of the dead links to old Indie Albany pages, as well as the live links to a certain Albany newspaper whose name shall not be mentioned here, because they keep my words in the public domain against my expressly stated desire that they delete them. So even though I know that virtually no one is going to go back in time to look at those updates, I felt that a full clean up was in order, because I am tidy and obsessive that way.

Thing is, though, that Facebook does not really want you to delete your back pages, so they do not provide any convenient way to batch edit that which has been posted before. So it took me about six hours to go back, post by post, through my entire Facebook account, to delete the things that I wanted deleted, leaving my profile and time line with only those links, notes and connections that I would want there if I had created the entire page in February 2013.

Since I was a prolific poster during my first foray in Facebook, this means that a whole lot of stuff went “poof” into the virtual ether as I vigorously slammed the “delete” button again and again and again. So in recognition of this corpus of lost work, I post my 50 favorite deleted status updates below, allowing you to experience in a pure, distilled version just how annoying-to-amusing it was to have been one of my 700+ Facebook friends back in the day. Proceed at your own risk . . .

1. I shaved my head again today. Because life is so much easier when shampoo and soap are the same thing, and you don’t need to own a hair brush.
2. Theory: Hardcore is Ayn Rand for boys who don’t like to read. Discuss.
3. Did the Times Union win “Best Times Union” in the Times Union‘s “Best Of” poll again this year?
4. After the rapture, all your breakfast are belong to us.
5. 18 holes at Winding Brook Country Club today . . . . Slicey Lostballs rides again!
6. OMFG!!! SUPERMOON CAUSES BIG EAST TEAMS TO FORGET HOW TO PLAY BASKETBALL!!!! OMFG!!!! SRSLY!!!!
7. The Cowboys are 1-4 and the Yankees are done for the season. The Universe is a good place to live in tonight.
8. I have no idea who these Jon and Kate people are, nor why I see them every time I log onto any major news/public website. As best I can figure, all they did was have a litter of puppies and cheat on each other. Why is this news?
9. In the 44 Stanley Cup finals since 1968, 19 titles have gone to Original Six teams, 15 titles have gone to the eleven franchises added in the ’68-’75 expansion, eight titles have gone to the four World Hockey Association (WHA) franchises that were merged into the NHL, while only two titles have gone to the nine franchises added in ’92-’01. Can we just move the WHA franchises back to their original markets, and write off that ’92-’01 expansion as an expensive mistake?
10. Why does Albany’s Hipsteroisie care more about chickens in backyards than they do about education, transportation, public health, absentee landlords, and street safety? Is it because hens are generally cuter than cops and teachers and bus drivers?
11. I was sitting in IHOP eating all-wheat pancakes when the Talking Heads song “(Nothing But) Flowers” came on the stereo, and I found myself thinking: “This may well be the worst song ever written, arranged, recorded and released.”
12. Oxymorons: jumbo shrimp, minor crisis, old news, instant classic, conspicuous absence, Academy Award Winner Sandra Bullock.
13. I think the world would be a much, much, much better place if Jane’s Addiction would just GO away, and STAY away. Thank you.
14. Mean grows The Bumble, Oh.
15. Eric: “Why am I a crank??” Marcia: “Because you have strong opinions about too many topics.”
16. I am awe-inspired afresh every quarter when my new issue of “The Journal of The International Kitchen Exhaust Cleaning Association” arrives. Riveting reading. Great graphic design. Aces.
17. Dear FOX Sports TV, Please, please, please retire the stupid football robot. And also Jimmy Johnson. Signed, Grateful Football Watcher.
18. I lost my harmonica, Albert.
19. I just finished watching Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.” What a stupid, artless, pointless, needless piece of marketeer-driven codswollop, one of the worst movies I’ve ever sat through. I’m not sure I can forgive Tim Burton for this one. I know that Lewis Carroll can’t, since they even botched and truncated the magnificent “Jabberwocky” poem.
20. I am making Turkey Tetrazzini out of leftover Thanksgiving white meat, but I know that THE BROOD is going to be gnawing the dark meat off the bones tonight, regardless.
21. Accounting is a science. Budgeting is an art.
22. Taking a benadryl at 9 AM on a work morning = BAD IDEA.
23. JES lives in a capital I. In the middle of the desert. In the center of the sky.
24. We ate at Reykjavik’s finest traditional Icelandic restaurant last night. Minke whale, puffin and foal (horse veal) were on the menu, though (alas) fermented ammonia shark was not.
25. My father and I both went through our 20s being told we looked like Tommy Smothers. I’m reading a bio of the Smothers Brothers now, and learn that their dad was from the Winston-Salem, NC area . . . the same area that my dad’s dad was from. I wonder if we’re cousins?
26. I can now plug an iPod into the car stereo. This is the official death knell of the CD collection accordingly.
27. Uh oh . . . Capitals take a 3-1 series lead over the Rangers. For a lifelong Caps fan, there are few more terrifying situations than a 3-1 lead in the first round of the playoffs . . .
28. I always liked Goofy Grape better than Choo Choo Cherry, although Rootin Tootin Raspberry wasn’t bad either.
29. Okay, I declare spring in Albany to be a bust. Again.
30. Fragment from an old music review: “There are only three contemporary vocalists more annoying than Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, and all of them are members of the Beastie Boys.”
31. Revive the dying vine, restore the ruling line, then contemplate the whims of fate, until the next decline.
32. I have put 197 songs by COIL, Throbbing Gristle and Butthole Surfers on his iPod Shuffle. There will be many dramatic commutes over the next couple of weeks as a result.
33. I am trying to catch up with the spirit of the age.
34. My inner monologue sounds uncannily like Nathan Explosion.
35. I am trying to figure out how to get Marcia to like Napalm Death, so I can put them on the family iPod play list . . . . . hmmmmm . . . . . .
36. I can’t decide how I feel about one of my student board members greeting me with “Hey, dog” as we passed in the hallway.
37. I just listening to Alice Donut’s cover of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind,” which replaces Black Francis’ vocals with a trombone solo. It’s the best Pixies cover ever, for people like me, who don’t actually like the Pixies.
38. I am having a Uriah Heepathon tonight. Because . . . . well, just because.
39. I get mad at people who think the walrus says “koo koo ka-choo”. It’s “goo goo g’joob,” dammit!!!
40. I am off to Binghamton. I hope the mud is in blossom!
41. I practice conservation of friends: when new friends are created, old friends must be destroyed.
42. Be careful what you ask for, because I just might make a spreadsheet.
43. I am raising intellectual self-indulgence to an art form.
44. The most convincing proof of institutional racism in the NFL is the fact that Norv Turner has been hired to coach three teams in the league.
45. I have been listening to a lot of grindcore and jazz lately. When you put them in the same iTunes playlist, magic happens . . . they totally go together like peanut butter and bearing grease . . .
46. The female-to-male ratio on the dance floor tonight was about 8 to 1 when “Don’tcha” by the Pussycat Dolls played. I really felt let down by the local chapter of Team Testosterone.
47. I had to turn off Napalm Death tonight, because the child said “It makes my insides hurt.”
48. I wonder when people stopped understanding which music you mosh to, and which music you don’t.
49. I think “fantod” is a magnificent word.
50. I am cooking up a pot of Allen’s White Hominy. Please . . . try to contain your jealousy.

Oh, and the title of this post? I meant to type “Shorts” as a place holder, but my typographical error seemed somehow more fitting. I don’t know why.