But you say he's just a friend

[Thursday is "National Unfriend Day," a movement spearheaded by Jimmy Kimmel encouraging people to pare down their list of Facebook friends.

But it's not an original idea, as evidenced by this (rather humorous) post that I'm recycling, which was originally published on my old blog on January 14, 2009. Since Jimmy's quest isn't new, I don't have to come up with anything new to say about it, right?

As I post this, I have exactly 750 Facebook friends, a nice round number. I've never unfriended anyone, mainly because, as I describe below, I'm too lazy. As a result, there's at least one deceased person on my friends list. Oh well.

Oh, and this week's Sunday School lesson is all about love, but can easily be adapted to apply to this situation--as in, "we [friended] him, because he first [friended] us" (1 Jn. 4:19). If you want to take a more sophisticated approach to the curriculum, this will help you study.

Anyway, here's that old post, exactly as it appeared almost three years ago, except with some updated links.]

I went home for Christmas and had a great time with my family. Two solid weeks of food, folks and fun (the first of many fast food slogan references in this post). Only one downside: my parents still use dial-up. Seriously. I had built up some good blogging momentum in December, but that was all lost in the series of tubes I had to go through to reach the Interwebs while in Utah.

But I saw something today that I knew I wanted to write about. Isn't that a phenomenal idea? For hours, I debated internally what was more important to me: friends or burgers. Ultimately, I decided I could spare ten of my 488 sanctioned-by-Facebook friendships. Alas, I waited too long. For some reason, the 'book put the kibosh on the entire operation.

I'm disappointed. I had envisioned an entire series of posts on this, a friendship tournament to determine which of my pals brings more to the table than a sandwich with flame-broiled beef, pepper jack cheese, and "angry onions." Or maybe I would've gone for 48 free whoppers and only kept the most elite of my amigos.

Even though it's now strictly a theoretical exercise, I still wonder what approach I would've/should've taken in deciding which friends get the axe. Should I get rid of the ones I know least well, the ones that are more "friends of friends" than actual friends? Should I eliminate ten of the many who I added as friends but have had no contact with since? Or should I go with an opposite mindset, and figure out who my very best friends are, figure out who would sacrifice their spot on my list so that I can enjoy a free burger? What do y'all think?

(In all honesty, I'm glad I didn't have to choose which friends to dump. I know people who have pruned their Facebook friend tree, and that whole process just reeks of effort. It's not for me.)

However, I'm hoping Facebook can still help me get free meat. Here are some other potential promotions I've come up with:

• "If It Doesn't Get All Over the Place, It Doesn't Belong In Your Facebook"--free Carl's Jr. Six-Dollar Burgers to anyone who has a messy face in their profile picture
• free Big Macs for life to the guy who has the most female friends (get it?)
• "I'm Lovin' It"--a free sandwich for anyone who updates their status to say they are "in a relationship" with a McRib
• a free Wendy's Frosty for anyone who gets rid of all their friends
• an unlimited Sonic gift card for guys named Jeff (I love that place. And their commercials. But they need to bring back the pancake on a stick)

If you think of any more, leave them in the comments. I'm glad we're still friends.