I waited almost one month on purpose...

It's been almost one month since I last posted. I did it on purpose...if you can call being tired, lazy, unmotivated and generally lacksidasical "on purpose."

There is something that caught my attention this morning, so the motivation is back...

Why do foreign men (i.e. not from the United States since that's where I live) use an inordinate amount of exclamation points when writing messages either via e-mail, message boards or text messages? I thought at first that this was a singular phenomenon wholly owned by my close friend's exboyfriend, Eamonn. The man could write a paragraph containing only three sentences but manage to use no fewer than 15 exclamation points. Below is an example of what I'm talking about (this was not actually written by him, but let's pretend that he was writing to me):

Him: "Hello Mary Ann!!!!!!!!!!! How are you?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: "What in the Hell..."
Him: "LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and so on and so on.....)."

Imagine if he actually spoke like that? Are there such people that can't control the excited tone in their voice regardless of what they are talking about? If there are folks like that, I would like to meet them. I think I could appreciate how utterly ridiculous they must look every second of every day.

But back to my point of thinking this was singular mishap, that poor Eamonn was doomed to come across as the excited asshole at every social gathering or via every electronically-based correspondence he will or has ever sent. I recently came across a Facebook "Wall" comment posted on a good friend's page. He had actually posted the comment himself (perhaps he's not bright enough to learn the function of properly posting on a friend's page and not one's own, or perhaps I should stop calling him a retard because he is, in fact, a retard****). The context of the comment was not bothersome - just a typical fragmented sentence written by someone who I know for a fact is alot smarter than poorly formed sentences. It was the punctuation. As if wanting to take the exact opposite approach of say, a William Faulkner book, he used no fewer than three exclamation points at the end of every sentence. To help show how absurd this is, I have taken a passage from William Faulkner's classic novel The Sound and the Fury and changed all the punctuation (periods, question marks, etc.) to exclamation points. It helps give the situation some perspective:

"When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight o' clock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch!!! It was Grandfather's and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it's rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father's!!!!!!!!!!! I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it!!!!!!!! Because no battle is ever won he said!!!!!!! They are not even fought!!!!!!!!!!!! The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!"

Fair enough, Faulkner's work did not include the "LOL" at the end, but I thought it was appropriate, given the situation.

So what's the deal? What's with the excited tone when I know for a fact that they don't actually speak that way. I know both these men aren't a jittery bunch of school girls laughing at everything and overstating every word that comes out of their mouths...well...at least Eamonn isn't...

*** I explicity told the person I am referencing here to NOT read my blog. Something feels weird about it. So if he is reading this, it servesr you right. Pig.