Even though I only really have a few real friends, my MSN list is populated with dozens and dozens of “buddies” who I never talk to. I don’t even know who half of them are. The most interesting of these people, however, are the ones who got on my list somehow, maybe I talked to them a few times, then they disappeared forever. The thing is, they are still on my list, and still labeled as whatever their last MSN username was.

Given peoples’ tendency to include updates on how their life is going (see: this guy) in their MSN names, perhaps they left clues as to where they disappeared to. Here are some such people on my list (actual names changed, in case they’re still alive and want their privacy):

• theworldisalie. A lot of people accuse their friends of lying, or politicians of lying, or big businesses of lying, etc. This guy accuses the whole planet of being a lie. My guess is that he left this lying chunk of rock, either with a rocket ship, or with a shot gun. Wherever he is, he no longer has internet access, because he hasn’t been online in years.
• Sally – what a disaster! At least this person had time to let her MSN contacts know that she was involved in a disaster before disappearing off the face of the earth. Maybe her disappearance had something to do with the disaster.
• ~M!zty~ [I wish everyone I fucking knew didn’t go to jail] :~( . Obviously this person doesn’t hang out with the right crowd. Since she hasn’t been online since, oh, about 1998, I figure she was either a victim of one of her jailbird friends, or tried to fit in with everyone she knew and ended up in the slammer herself, drawing little crying frowny emoticons on her cell walls.
• Alice – ate too many nachos. OK, unlike the other people on this list, I actually know who this is, and know she’s not dead (if you’re reading this, hi! Glad you’re not dead). Still, it’s funny that the last message she left to the internet before going missing was “ate too many nachos”. Those interviewed about her disappearance would have to be like “wait officer, there is one thing. The last thing she told me was that she had eaten too many nachos. Do you think that could help locate her?”

  Then, of course, they’d find her in the bathroom of Joe Kool’s, with a burst belly from eating way too many nachos.

In conclusion: Joe Kool’s has really good nachos.