Blogatology

OK, so you’re not feeling well. But how can you really tell if it’s some run of the mill illness, or the panic-inducing pandemic for our times, swine flu? Here are the Top Ten indicators you might be feeling a bit piggish:

10. You wonder if rolling around in mud is an effective way to treat a fever.
9. Extreme anxiety when Vin Scully reads a spot for Farmer John sausage.
8. You can smell a truffle a mile away.
7. You wonder why more supermodels don’t wear their hair in pigtails.
6. You have a strong desire to rent the movie “Babe” (but still don’t want anything to do with the sequel).
5. You Google “Arnold Ziffel” and are outraged he didn’t win an Emmy for his work on “Green Acres.”
4. Suddenly, Miss Piggy looks kind of hot.
3. You look at that package of bacon in the refrigerator and feel guilty.
2. It seems worth it to drive 1,200 miles to shop at a Piggly Wiggly.
1. Have taken to ending all conversations by saying “T-t-t-hat’s all, folks!”

Facebook is now accepted by even the most minimally tech-savvy people, which means it’s clearly far too popular to remain cool, hip or cutting-edge. (There are people out there using it to communicate with their grandparents, and it doesn’t get much less cool than that, except maybe to use it to communicate with your accountant.)

 And so, inevitably, some sort of replacement is going to have to rise up so the cool people can migrate away from the rest of us and tell us how unhip we are.

I’m guessing the next wave will be more specialized networks, to avoid that awkward Facebook blend of actual friends, acquaintances and people you once kinda knew, and somebody who once stood behind you in the 15-items-or-less line at Trader Joe’s.

And so if you’re an online investor, I’m willing to take your money to sell you these concepts:

 Faceplant — the network for skateboarders and snowboards.

Disgracebook — For Bernie Madoff, AIG executives and former members of the Bush administration.

Defacebook — For taggers and vandals.

FaceLift – For Beverly Hills and Upper East Side socialites.

FaceCard — for gamblers (and their loan sharks), with a sister site, AceBook, for people who think poker on TV is actually compelling viewing.

FacePaint — For guys who like to get drunk and make spectacles of themselves at sporting events.

WeGottaGetOuttaThisPlaceBook — For ‘60s rockers.

Casebook — Lawyers, who will find a way to charge by the hour for visiting it.

YourSpace — For hackers.

And finally:

Lacebook — for lingerie models (probably the one most likely to succeed).