Ask the Tech Answer Guy About Happy Happy Joy Joy [ARNS]

Yo, Tech Answer Guy,

OMG! OMG!! OMG!!! OMG!!!!

Allow me to explain.

My parents fiended me on Farcebook.

OMG! OMG!! OMG!!! OMG!!!! EWWWW!!!!! WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT TO ME? I THOUGHT THEY LOVED ME!!!!!!

They would post questions to my timeline like: "Hey, T, wassup? Have you walked the vacuubot yet?" Or, "T, my man, needs help with yo algebra homework? Cause, I's a whiz, fo shiz!" Or, "Hey, Mistah T. How u b so chill?" Quelle embarrassment! You don't want to know what my friends said about me because of it (although Billy is collecting the best jokes to publish in an ebook)! I wanted to kill myself with toner fluid, but I was never good at tying knots.

OMG! OMG!! OM

Okay, so, I closed my Farcebook account. No biggie - I was spending far more time on Twitherd, anyway.

OMG! OM - you know the drill.

So, of course, my parents found me there and started sending twerps with my hashtag. The worst was: "hey, #bubbabeelzebub, yer laundry's done. did my best with underwear - may have 2 get u some new ones".

Billy thinks this one could be a TV movie.

OMG! TAG, is there anywhere on the Internet I can go to hang out with my friends where my parents won't be able to follow me and ruin my life?

Yo, Thomas,

I think the whole good news/bad news dichotomy has run its course, but sometimes there is no better way to structure an argument made up of only two points, so let me say, with reservations, that there is good news and bad news.

The bad news is that no matter where you go on the Internet, your parents will find you. You know how, when you were an infant, your parents had some special baby ESP and knew everything that happened to you? It's sort of like that. Unless it's because they pay for your Internet and have access to everything you do online. There are convincing arguments for both positions.

The good news is that there is an app called Happy Happy Joy Joy that will solve this problem. To anybody unfamiliar with it, the app looks like a Bejeweled knockoff using the faces of German philosophers. Did you just line up five Wittgensteins, or is the game just an illusion created by language? Who cares! When you type in the right key combination, the app actually creates secret profiles for you on your favourite social networks! How cool is that?

The Happy Happy Joy Joy app was developed by Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service to give their agents masks for online communication. Then, it was hacked by an 11 year-old Ukrainian, who sold it to a British MI6 agent. While the American CIA was convincing the British government that, being the leaders of the free world and all, they deserved to have the software, the 11 year-old (he may have been 10 with a birthday in a couple of weeks) reworked the code to mask children's online identity from their parents; he sold the new programme to a Canadian app development company for $250 in Canadian tire money and a yak. A female yak.

Of course, being a parent myself, I completely disapprove of this. In fact, the only reason I'm telling you about the Happy Happy Joy Joy app is that it is very expensive - it would cost the average child his allowance until he was 27! Sorry about that. But, don't worry. When you have your own children, you'll embarrass them on whatever media they will be using to communicate with their friends.

It's the Circle of Strife.

Yo, Tech Answer Guy,

I'm not gonna do that to my children when I'm older.

Yo, Tomtom,

Every kid says that, but every kid does it.

Yo, Tech Answer Guy,

Not me.

Yo, Toms,

Even you.

Yo, Tech Answer Guy,

No way.

Yo, Thompson,

Way.

Yo, Tech Answer Guy,

I'll be the exception.

Yo, Sir Tomsalot,

There are no exceptions.

Yo, Tech Answer Guy,

I'll be the first.

Yo, Tom-o-Shanter,

It doesn't work that way.

Yo, Tech Answer Guy,

Shut up!

Yo, Tomdelaya Breckenridge,

No, you shut up!

Yo, Tech Answer Guy,

You suck!

Yo, Tomrad Black,

No, you suck!

Yo, Tech Answer Guy,

NO, YOU SUCK!

Yo, Tom…ato Pastie,

NO, YOU

The Tech Answer Guy

[EDITRIX-IN-CHIEF BRENDA BRUNDTLAND-GOVANNI: Jesus Begesus, you both suck! Do you have any idea how much slapping I would be doing at this very moment if there wasn't a minor present?]

Yo, Tech Answer Guy,

Actually, I'm 27.

[EDITRIX-IN-CHIEF BRENDA BRUNDTLAND-GOVANNI: You're a minor character in my life - and getting more minor by the second! Suck it up, bowtie wearer! And, don't tell me you don't wear bowties! They're a metaphor for just how much you suck!

Oh, and, Tech Answer Guy? The next time your inner five year-old comes out to play, try and remember that you are being paid to do this. If it helps focus your attention, be aware that I recently purchased slapping glove extenders. I don't know if they would reach all the way to your desk from my office, but do you really want to risk it?]

If you are a dude with a question about the latest technology, ask The Tech Answer Guy by sending it to questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Just remember: Thirteen pound pink bowling balls. Oooooooh! Iiiiiiiiiiick!