Me, two years ago: "Look! They found another pervert on MySpace. Those social networking sites are nothing but a bunch of teeny-boppers, shut-ins, mental defectives and child predators. I've got better things to do with my time.

Me, this morning: "I'm going to get up early so I'll have time to check my Li'l Green Patch and play Mafia Wars before I log in to work. I hope nobody robbed me and damaged my buildings overnight!"

Yes, I've become a Facebook addict, one of those slightly vacant, twitchy-fingered dweebs obsessed with updating my status, finding old high school friends who probably haven't thought of me in the nearly quarter-century since we graduated and looking up various other odd folks I've known through the years.

I now have nearly 400 friends (feel free to "friend" me if you're of a mind, but you'll have to join my Mafia, too), some of whom I'll confess I honestly don't know from Adam's off ox. That's as a result of one of Facebook's more insidious services, the Friend Finder. Periodically, I'll log in and find the names and pictures of two or three folks that the Facebook algorithm thinks I should be friends with. Unless they're holding a severed body part or seem otherwise likely to inject just a little more psychosis into my already-psychotic existence, I usually go with the suggestion and invite them into my happy little electronic world. The same goes for friend requests. A few of you faithful readers have become friends, and I'm always finding folks with whom I'd like to rub electronic elbows.

But some of the people Facebook recommends just don't make sense to me at all. I think somewhere buried deep in the programming is a sort of ethereal Miss Lonelyhearts who finds folks who either don't have a lot of friends or haven't made any new ones in a while and decides to help them out by sending them to random people. How else do you explain the 19-year-old emo kid who's a hardcore anime fan?

Another great thing about Facebook is the "groups" function. With but a few keystrokes, I can start a group devoted to anything under the sun that's not a violation of federal or international law (My "We Love To Counterfeit Euros" group got deleted). There are, of course, all the usual TV, movie and celebrity-oriented groups, some official and some started by fans. Better, though, are the offbeat gangs like my favorites "I Judge You When You Use Bad Grammar," "The Hardest Part of a Zombie Apocalypse Will Be Pretending I'm Not Excited," "It's Not My Fault What You Said Can Be Construed As A Sexual Innuendo" and, of course, groups for Shiner Bock beer and Lupie's Cafe.

There are a few groups whose existence makes me wonder if social networking has gone a bit too far, though, like "I Secretly Want To Punch Slow-Walking People in the Back of the Head," which seems to allow those angry folks you see on sidewalks occasionally a place to gather. I check that group frequently, just in case any of my neighbors have joined. I'm not known for my speed on the walking trails and don't want to suffer a concussion for it.

By looking at what groups someone has joined, you can tell a lot about them. For instance, by looking at mine you could tell that I'm a hardcore foodie who loves good grammar, snarky humor and the occasional bit of zombie horror.

Of course, I've got my share of memberships to the "normal" sites, chief among them a few very active groups devoted to the most aggressively creative, take-no-prisoners, pay-attention-or-you're-lost show in the history of television, "Lost."

I've got to say, letting the creators set a definitive end date for the series may have been the greatest masterstroke in the history of series TV. By defining the size of the box, ABC has freed Carlton Cuse and his merry band of tormentors to fill it with all manner of plotty goodness. I absolutely adore when I hear someone whine about the fact that if you miss one episode of "Lost," you wind up way behind. Yes, you do, and that's what's brilliant. There are no wasted episodes, no one-offs, no red herrings other than the ones the creators weave in on purpose. Perhaps never before has any series had so much thought put into not just the ongoing plot, but the backstory, the mythos and mystery and the higher meanings behind everything that happens.

In fact, it's one of the few shows I'll log out of Facebook to devote my full attention to.

This is the first new Weird Chronicles in a while, but your wait will never be that long again. I'm back, for better or worse, and you'll hear from me every week or so from now on. Tell your friends (on Facebook or elsewhere). Heck, start me a fan group!

Got a question? Comment? Weirdness going on in your life? Drop me a line, anytime!