I think, therefore, I Twitter

I like social networking. I blog (obviously, eh?), I Facebook and I Twitter.

I can take a picture with my BlackBerry and when I upload it via Ubertwitter, it automatically updates my Facebook status.

In short, I'm a bit of a geek ... well, I don't write code or anything smart like that, so maybe I'm just like everybody else who performs these now-mundane tasks.

Through Facebook, I've been able to reconnect and stay in touch with many family members who I'd normally see only at weddings and funerals, as well as former classmates and long-lost friends.

For me, social networking is fun. I like it — for the most part.

There is a basic code of etiquette to which we should all strive for our online presences. Click here to read Brenda Powell's basic list of dos and don't for social networking.

Here are a few of my guidelines:

First, my kid, my mom and my grandms are all on Facebook. So I do try to keep my posts, pictures, stories, videos, etc., acceptable for their viewing enjoyment.

I break this guideline often.

I have been known to spend a Sunday morning or two deleting unsavory pictures and/or comments that I had posted the night before when my good judgment was clouded by my beer goggles and readily accessible Internet.

I try to make my updates at least marginally funny (to myself, anyway) or informational. I try (and, again, often fail) to avoid posting mundane facts, e.g., "I had lunch with Bill today," "I'm working at my desk," "I'm walking my dog."

All those things are true (well, I'm not actually walking my dog right now. She actually hates the cold. Thank goodness our dear friend bought her a dog snuggie), but in the grand scheme of things, who cares?

If I'm dead set on pronouncing my lunchtime activities, I try at least to include some entertaining tidbit, e.g., "I dazzled the folks in the Chipotle parking lot by falling off the 6" curb today after lunch with Bill."

Still not the most interesting thing in the world, because if you know me, you know that the probability of me falling off each and every curb I'm presented with is pretty high. But at least there was some effort to craft a statement worth reading.

Now while I'm not that interested in reading about what you had for dinner, I am interested in seeing your pictures. I'm a visual person. Don't write that you got a new haircut/tattoo/snuggie unless you are going to post pictures of the aforementioned item. I want to be able to judge for myself whether the haircut/tattoo/snuggie is indeed as awesome as you suggest.

One of my social-networking pet peeves is when people use their status updates to count down to their awesome vacations upon which I have not been invited (Daniel, I'm looking at you!).

While I love to hear what people are doing on their vacays and see pictures of the places they are visiting, knowing that they have 3 days, 15 hours and 29 minutes until their plane lands in Hawaii, makes me hope — just a little bit — they experience a bed-bug infestation.

I post links to my blogs on Facebook and sometimes to Twitter, not because I expect everyone to be interested enough to read them, just so that those that I've "friended" can, if they want to.

Honestly, I'm always surprised when I find out that people actually read my scribblings. That fact alone makes me strive to be more interesting, more funny, more profound.

In the meantime, I only can hope to be less annoying.