Shortly after I joined a month or two ago, FB became my first-choice website for occasional malingering at work (replacing Mudcat). The postings I read and write there tend to be much shorter, so I'm in and out much more quickly and back to business, and no longer get caught and sometimes scolded.

Unfortunately, our receptionist, who sits in a much more visible location than I do, had her Facebook page up on her monitor all that time, so the boss finally blocked the site, so here I am back here again (grin).

I'm in occasional touch with a random selection of Mudcatters on FB, but I am much more involved with other friends and family members, especially my two sons who are both pursuing careers in comedy, Cassidy in New York and Mike here at home in New Orleans. Also, quite a few of their contemporaries and friends are now among my FB "friends," and we enjoy a great deal of wisecracking and exchanging of one-liners. I have another bunch of FB friends who are friends-of-friends of my kid brother (10 years younger) who lives in England.

Facebook allows you to "block" all input from any specified individual friend(s). I would prefer an option to block selected categories of postings. I have no desire to cut off any person completely ~ I'm glad to see everyone's thoughts, statuses, links to articles/videos/music, etc. On the other other hand, I don't want to see anyone's game-playing activities, quiz results, how much of the environment they supposedly saved by trading virtual trees or cows or fishes or whatever, etc.

At first, I "befriended" just about anyone that the FB robots suggested to me (on the basis of mutual friends, appearing in each other's email address books, etc.) Now I don't do that anymore, but I do say "yes" to just about any personal friend-request made by any individual.

If you want to find me, my FB name (i.e., real name) is Tom Henehan. Also, you can check my "group" page entitled "Old Hippy Shit."

PS: Kat, I can't believe that anyone would pose as another person (e.g., you) ~ what a freakin' bummer! Fortunately, I have no such experience. My son Cassidy had a somewhat similar experience on MySpace, where someone, apparently an enthusiastic fan, set up a page in his name, creating a bit of confusion but no harm done. On his own real page, he had to write "This is the REAL Cass..." Go figure.