A friend on Facebook recently asked me how to delete all of one's Wall posts (the Facebook equivalent of an OS post) at one go. For people on the job market, this is a useful thing to think about. Of course, Facebook doesn't allow you to do this, given their business model. You have to walk through your entries and delete them one by one.

Wondering how I come across on Facebook--I've been there since September, 2008--I looked at my own history of status updates, all 140 of them. I've copied and pasted about half of these updates below, leaving out "What am I going to cook for dinner?" and "What am I doing for work right now?" entries.

The results are--well, see for yourself. I'm a little bit hesitant to post this, because it's so self-centered (obviously) but I hope some readers might find parts of it amusing.

Rob St. Amant is listening to a Youtubed Chrysler Cordoba commercial with his wife. 'Corinthian leather...' 

Rob St. Amant will soon don 3D glasses for the sake of computer science education. 

My first (very minor) sunburn of the year. At least I accomplished something today. 

Digging in the garden today; digging is a nice, lowest-common denominator activity in the animal kingdom... 

Rob St. Amant had the phrase 'Crush, kill, destroy!' running through his mind today; had to resort to Google to identify the source. 

Rob St. Amant just got hit in the face with a pie, gently thrown. The things I do for our students... 

Rob St. Amant is learning how to type on his uPhone... 

Rob St. Amant woke up this morning, looked at his calendar, saw a Ph.D. defense fifteen minutes away, thought, 'How did I forget this? Have I read the thesis? Holy shit!' and dashed around like a madman before realizing he was looking at next week's schedule. 

Rob St. Amant did not realize that going unshaven this morning, putting on a blazer over a T-shirt, and driving to work wearing sunglasses in a Miata would combine to create such an unfortunate Miami Vice wannabe vibe. Damn you, Don Johnson! 

Three unusual things for today: I killed a snake. I wore a tie. I sat in a Baptist church. (Only the last two were simultaneous.) 

Rob St. Amant is wondering whether his wife is enjoying this year's Tour de Coop, which involves visiting Raleigh practitioners of urban chicken-keeping. Really. 

Having a Google alert on your last name is fine when it's as unusual as mine is... unless your last name is also the name of a city. Then you read headlines like this in your email: 'St. Amant man killed in police chase'. Oh no! 

Rob St. Amant is sitting on a porch swing outside a quilting store. 

Rob St. Amant is taking a break from weekend chores and errands to watch an old episode of Land of the Lost on TV, enjoying the way banjo music heightens the suspense of a sleestak chase. 

Rob St. Amant just got a wireless keyboard for the Mac Mini hooked up to the TV, which gives him the ability to... well, not to do very much that's interesting--but he can do it from ACROSS THE ROOM. 

Rob St. Amant discovered that his afternoon class is held in EBI 1007, a large classroom, not EBII 1007, the first floor women's rest room; fortunately, he recognized his mistake in time. 

Back home after visiting the tailor to pick up some altered clothes, the thrift store adjacent, a new place for lunch down the road, the fabric store, and the dress shop. Yes, it was a day for errands. Not all my own. 

Someone has set up a circus tent outside my office window and is playing '80s heavy metal through bad speakers, interspersed with police siren sound effects. WTF? Time for me to go home, I guess. 

Buying vanilla yogurt instead of plain yogurt is not a disaster, unless you're making tzatziki. 

One of our red-in-tooth-and-claw cats killed a bird this morning (ugh) and then came inside to chow down on his dry cat food. Unclear on the concept. 

Shiny wax helps me forget that I'm driving a 10-year-old car. 

Is there a preference setting in Microsoft Word to say, 'I am editing a student's dissertation draft, so please warn me if you are going to crash and lose my last 9.5 minutes of work'? I didn't think so. 

The State Health Insurance Plan has been modified such that to stay in the Standard Plan I have to 'attest' to having a BMI under 40 and not smoking. (For the latter, I may be 'randomly selected to participate in a tobacco use verification test.') Thank goodness for American resistance to European-style socialized medicine! 

How long can I sustain an exercise program motivated by a minor obsessive streak, unease about approaching middle age, and personal vanity? 

Rob St. Amant has just finished putting the second coat of primer on the bathroom walls. In future, he will complain less about that room being 'too small'. 

What, it's not brillig yet? 

Praise the Kitchen God for blessing us with no-boil lasagna. 

Is it optimism or stupidity that has me cleaning the pool on a cool October morning? 

'The trench spike is, without a doubt, the best compact anti-zombie weapon on earth.' --Brooks 

My wife and I stopped at a sandwich shop yesterday, where this conversation ensued: Me: We'd like the ham sandwich, a coffee, and a diet Coke. Counter guy: That'll be 11.01. Me: Here's a twenty. ...I have a penny, too. Here. Oh, and could you cut it in half? Counter guy: The penny?! We were amused. 

Just watched the movie Black Sheep: zombie sheep, human-sheep hybrids, off-color sheep jokes, beautiful sheep farm scenery--what's not to like? 

This past weekend, my wife received a compliment from a stranger, an older man, who said she looked like Sarah Palin. Awkward. 

So having someone give you an estimate for replacing your windows is like inviting the unholy offspring of a used car salesman and a timeshare saleswoman to spend a couple of hours in your house. Who knew? 

When I'm reviewing papers, occasionally a line from an old Thomas Dolby video will run through my mind: 'Science!' Such is the burden of having gone to college in the early 1980s. 

Just caught the end of a Steve McQueen classic, The Blob--yet another reason to worry about global warming. 

Candidate for the best exchange ever in horror movies: 'Are they slow moving, Chief?' 'Yeah, they're dead, they're... all messed up.' 

Today it feels as if I'm seeing the world through new eyes. Oh, wait--I just picked up my new glasses. So the slight disorientation should go away soon. 

From CBN: '[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.' Hmm. I wonder if there's a market for certified 100% witchcraft-free candy? 

I think I'll start getting up an hour earlier in the mornings. (It's best to pick your resolutions strategically.) 

If you're laying out slices of eggplant on a tray in preparation for cooking dinner and it occurs to you that in general this is an intractable problem... you might be a computer scientist. 

If you notice the changing of the seasons because the afternoon sun now shines through the window directly onto your laptop screen... you might be a computer scientist. 

Describing things is hard. 

Feeling old and tired tonight. Maybe I'll make some primordial soup for dinner. As soon as I finish this snifter of primeval mist. 

Preparing for 2012 by cataloguing stuff already in the house that never goes bad: hair gel, WD40, bag of Werthers candy. Must stock up on Twinkies; hope for a gift fruitcake this Christmas. 

My wife and I observe, while watching Goldfinger, that even Sean Connery can't pull off wearing a sky blue, terry cloth, high-waisted onesie around a Miami pool. 

Vindaloo simmering away on the stove. I like recipes that say, 'Go away and do something else for two hours.' Approximately. 

My wife was persuaded by a friend to buy a female mannequin at an odds-and-ends shop. A thin, glossy white figure that would be six feet tall if it had a head, which it does not. It will eventually be put to use in dress-making. Right now its main purpose seems to be to startle the crap out of me at night, when I catch a glimpse of it standing in the next room... Look for my article, 'A Headless Ghost in the Library,' in the next issue of Martha Stewart Living.

Understanding the concept of amortization is small comfort as I consider the projected repair bill on our 10-year-old car, probably 20% of its current value... 

This morning I look inside the oven, which bills itself as 'Continuous Cleaning,' and I think, 'One of us is unclear on the concept.' 

I think I entered a time warp yesterday--we lost two entire hours on I-95 between DC and Fredericksburg, VA. Shouldn't some shadowy government agency be investigating this? 

Vietnamese carry-out: On the plus side, it's delicious and convenient. On the minus side, if you accidentally spill a bowl of fish sauce all over yourself, a nearby rug, and various household articles, your perception of the plusses changes drastically. 

Today's to do list: Writing papers. Reviewing papers. Recycling papers and bottles and cans. (I may be overgeneralizing slightly here...) 

Tonight I see this guy in a hoodie, sitting hunched over on a bench, with his hands twitching between his knees. I think, 'A druggie who needs a fix?' Nope, just someone texting on a Blackberry. Hey, wait a minute... 

Heat pump is out; repair company will get here tomorrow. Fortunately, we have a fireplace... Bacon butties for lunch: internal heat to ward off external cold... Still damn cold. I'm wondering how civilization could have arisen before the development of central heating. At least there's hot coffee. 

Searching my memory this morning, I discovered that a Russian class 20 years ago has left me with only a random assortment of words and phrases and just two complete sentences, 'I work in a factory' and 'I like milk'. My brain is a junk drawer. 

My mind is full of bitterness this morning--oh, wait. It's my mouth. Ah, coffee. 

So the other night I thought we'd have a nice quiet dinner out, until I heard a booming voice at the next table: 'When I was a freshman at Harvard...' Autobiographical dinner theater is not my thing. 

Maybe someday I'll convince our cat to pick up his toys after he's finished playing with them, but I'm not optimistic about the chances. 

I can fit a hundred bottles of beer, a dozen bottles of wine, and a few bottles of Scotch in the trunk of my car. This says less about my drinking habits than it does about my procrastination in the face of no curbside recycling. 

At the grocery store where I shop, every cart has not one but two cup holders. I think this is funny. 

IFC is showing The Life of Brian tonight. When it was first released, I had to drive to the next state (Pennsylvania) to see it. 

Just back from dinner with Daniel Povinelli (of Folk Physics for Apes fame). Totally fun. 

So we ended up downtown at a so-called gastropub called the Oxford. Good food and beer. Unfortunately, we hadn't realized that, according to the news, 'a swarm of tea partiers' had descended on the capital to protest Tax Day earlier. You've never seen so many tipsy middle-aged guys wearing Harley vests, unless you've been to Sturgis, I guess. 

Rob St. Amant just finished replacing the leather cording on the wife's smallest loom. Pre-industrial technology is pretty cool. 

Rob St. Amant is watching an episode of Peter Gunn, in which he's visiting a beatnik coffee shop. You dig? I'm hip. 

When you get up in the morning with itchy eyes and realize that it's not allergies but poison ivy, you tend to want to go back to bed. 

When you make a last-minute decision to go out for Mexican food for dinner, you may be in for a surprise if you haven't asked yourself, 'Does today happen to be May 5th?' 

A storm has knocked out our cable modem and all I have is my iPhone, in a partial dead zone. This is what it must have been like to live in Victorian times. 

If I were living in a parallel universe where undone things didn't pile up so that I notice them, I'd probably be starving and homeless before I thought to do chores.

Packing a suitcase would be much easier if I could shred and compact my clothes, then reconstitute them on arrival. I've perfected the first two steps, but I haven't yet figured out the third...