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If you use facebook, Myspace or any of those other “social networking” websites, you probably already know the dilemma of accepting a friend request from that special kind of person. You know the slightly creepy guy who used to sit behind you in Maths, the one with the eternally clammy hands? Or the incredibly chatty girl who worked with you for a few months many years ago? Or maybe your flatmate from your uni years, the one whose room always smelled kind of funny?
Or even worse, your mum.
So let’s imagine for a second that you feel guilty/naive/careless enough to accept that friend request. It happens to the best of us. And then you realise that, for whatever reason, you don’t actually really want that person to see all the stuff you’re sharing with your proper friends. Because, hey, sharing stuff is what facebook is all about eh! Just not with everyone…
In some cases it’s just the amount of information that they are pouring in to your world; sending you PandaHugs and throwing sheep at you 24 hours a day, or posting endless pictures of their 16 kids can get a little annoying. That is simple enough to resolve, facebook will let you filter whose info you see easily enough.
However, if you don’t want them to see your stuff, you will be confronted with the most dreaded action known to man after giving your granny a sponge bath. Unfriending someone on facebook.
I’m not talking about someone you hate, someone you have had a massive argument with, or anything like that. This is just someone you don’t like that much. Someone who wasn’t part of your life for a good long while, and who not only did you get on fine without, but you didn’t even notice they weren’t there! How hard can it be? Just click that button, remove them from your friends.
But you can’t. Because you don’t actually dislike them, and you don’t want them to notice (even though they don’t receive any notification of unfriending) and feel bad. Worse still, you don’t want them to think less of you. Because let’s face it, it doesn’t matter who you like or not, what matters is that they like you. Because for some stupid reason, other people’s opinion does matter. Call it vanity or lack of confidence, it sucks either way.
So you’re stuck.
Throw a panda at them, it helps.
Disclaimer: If any of my facebook friends pass this way, I would like to make it quite clear that this whole post is nothing to do with my own use of facebook, but is based on several conversations I have had with other people who have facebook creep/stalker problems, and I love you all, even the ones who throw sheep at me.
Remember Dallas?*
I know this is going to seem like a bit of a lazy post, but given the amount of hilarity that these have provided for my esteemed workmates (during break hours, of course) over the past year, I figured I should share them for the greater good.
The Frenchies who read this (you know who you are!) will probably not see what all the fuss is about, but for anyone who grew up watching the original (lyric-less) versions of these theme tunes, this should be worth a good laugh!
Dallas
Hart to Hart (L’amour du risque)
Starsky & Hutch
And my all-time favourite: Pacman
I would provide the lyrics and translations of them, but I’m rather afraid of being sued for causing laughter-induced heart attacks…
*Please don’t say no. Even if you weren’t even born when the series ended, just pretend you know what I mean so I don’t feel too terribly old. Thank you.
Hi, I’m Kathy, and I’m an addict.
A couple of years ago, all I wanted from a phone was for it to make/receive calls and send/receive texts. And that was a good thing because I am under a particularly virulent curse when it comes to picking phones. If I choose a phone, no matter how long I spend perusing specs, benchmarks and user reviews beforehand, the moment I buy it, it will become the most uncool phone on the planet, production will be discontinued and every single accessory ever made will become incompatible with it. I am only barely exaggerating, I promise.
When I started my new job, just over 18 months ago, one of my first projects was around the launch of the iPhone. It was a top secret project too, so it was very exciting. At first, I treated it with the awe and worship that I have for all other Apple products. I loved it on sight but knew that I (and my bank account) would never be worthy. Then 2 things happened in quick succession: I tried it out, and then we were told we could get an employee discount and use the iPhone on our work account. So I flung caution to the wind, saved up and bought one.
3 weeks later, Apple announced the release of the iPhone 3G.
See what I mean?
Anyhoo, although mine is a “First Generation”, it’s still an awesomely cool plaything, and quite honestly, between the messes it’s gotten me out of (lost hotels, missed trains, forgotten appointments…) and the amount of work I’ve been able to do on it while commuting, it has long since paid for itself. But the problem is that I am now very slightly addicted to it.
Hmm. The word understatement springs to mind.
Not even waterboarding* would get me to admit to anything so low as using it while on the toilet, because nobody does that, that would just be wrong. However, I must say I do have a real problem putting the damn thing down. Twitter doesn’t help, being hooked on that too, and there being plenty of apps for feeding one addiction with another. Hell, there are apps for EVERYTHING. Yes, even that.
And that.
The withdrawal syndrome from this addiction rears its ugly head whenever I’m out of the country, when data roaming is automatically cut off to avoid creating black holes in my pocket. Funnily enough, I don’t miss the emails too much, but whenever I am unable to instantly check the answer to any random and usually unimportant question that may arise in conversation, I get a prickly feeling in my fingers and find myself reaching for my fix.
Whatever did I do before I had that instant access to the sum of all knowledge at the touch of a screen? How did I prove to people that I was right (because I am right) and they was wrong (because they always are)?
They say that the first step to curing an addiction is admitting you have one, the main problem in this case is that I’m not sure I want to get better. I like having a second brain in my pocket, it’s much smarter that the one in my head. The only thing that’s slightly worrying is that I may lose it or it may break in some way… The iPhone, I mean, the squishy thing in my skull went missing long ago. Haven’t missed it yet.
*That’s some water sport thing like surfing but different, right?
It has been widely acknowledged by major scientific authorities* that the measure of a civilisation’s cultural and spiritual advancement is defined by their recognition of the concepts of right and wrong.
A simple test of this is to ask them to drink water from a mug. If they roll their eyes in horror and flatly refuse (unless of course all the glasses are dirty or broken), they can be considered to be an enlightened society. If they accept without hesitation or question, they should all be shot.
For centuries now, the great minds of the scientific world have pondered and probed this fact of life, but until today, nobody had cracked the Great Question: why? Why is it so wrong to drink water, or, say, fruit juice, from a mug? We all agree that it IS, no-one would dare question that. No-one. But why, exactly is it wrong?
The key to today’s groundbreaking discovery is milk. For a long time, it was thought that the simple question of the temperature of the liquid was the defining factor for mug acceptability. Not so. Cold milk can be drunk from a mug or a glass. And yet there is a difference between these two recipients in the case of cold milk that provided the Answer.
Dunkability.
When given a glass and a mug, both containing cold milk, and a number of suitably dunkable biscuits, a batch of test subjects consistently dunked their biscuits in the mug of milk, rather than the glass. Cocoa, coffee, tea, all dunking liquids, and all mug-compatible. You wouldn’t dunk a biscuit in water, Ribena or juice, would you? Would you? Of course not. The very idea is quite tummy-wrenching!
In case any further proof was require of this indisputable theory, here is a table:
| Beverage | Mug | Glass | Dunkable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coffee | x | x | |
| Tea | x | x | x |
| Cocoa | x | x | |
| Horlicks | x | x | |
| Water | x | ||
| Fruit juice | x | ||
| Fruit squash | x | ||
| Milk (warm) | x | x | x |
| Milk (cold) | x | x | x |
.
*See the 2009 edition of the Almanach of Sweeping Generalisations, Chapter 7: justification of random scientific bullshit.
Ok, so there was no actual accident, no deadly virus, and not only was I not on the train but I sure as hell am no Sophia Loren. All the same, a railway bridge did collapse.
I guess that’s as far as I’m going to be able to push that analogy, eh? Oh well, at least I got a title out of it.
I usually get the 18:15 train home from work, except on Fridays, because Fridays is early leaving day. Yes they is, my precious. So on Fridays, I sometimes head home earlier, and sometimes I pop into town for a spot of shopping. The thing is, being incredibly lazy, I quite often manage to find excuses for only getting the train home when Husband is around to pick me up from the station. Otherwise it’s a 15-20 minute walk home. Mostly uphill. Yes, I know, I’m pathetic.
Last Friday, for once, Boredom won the fight with Laziness, try as I may, I couldn’t think of anything to do that required less effort than the walk home, and it was a nice day, so for once, I hit the early train.
At 18:20-ish, the driver of a train coming the other way noticed “some subsidence” on the tracks over the Malahide estuary. This is a strip of railway that runs over a series of dikes/bridges across a wide estuary. It’s one of my favourite bits of my daily train ride, speeding along with water on both sides, the views are amazing. Anyhoo, he reported what he had seen to Rail HQ and all trains on the line were stopped pending investigation. A few minutes later, a whole chunk of bridge collapsed into the water. The next train going across that bridge would have been my usual 18:15 train.
So luckily, and thanks to the driver of that train, no-one was hurt and a major catastrophe was avoided. Now all we have to do is put up with the ridiculous replacement services that Iarnrod Eireann have dreamed up for at least 3 months while they repair it. Rather than just laying on a replacement bus service that follows the same route, they want us to travel North to Drogheda so we can get a direct bus to Dublin. Which is stupid and will more or less double the journey time of most people.
Lets just focus on the fact that it could have been a lot worse, shall we? Why are the newspaper titles never “Thousands not dead in dramatically avoided accident.” ?
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
Once upon a time there was a princess.
Well, obviously, not a real princess, but no-one ever starts a story with “once upon a time there was a thirty-something web designer”.
Anyhoo, this particular princess must have had a whole bag of Bird’s Eye frozen peas under mattress because she just couldn’t sleep. While she was tossing and turning, her poor tired brain got hit by a freak ray of inspiration, and she ended up muling over what seemed to be quite a good idea. So she got up and wrote it down and went back to bed.
The rule for insomnia-induced good ideas is that if they still seem like good ideas the next day, they are worthy of further research. This one did, so much so that for once it has actually made it to the realisation stage. It should be launching soon, so this is a slightly preemptive Pick of the week. Let’s just say this is your exclusive preview to thank all 3 of you for reading my blog…
So, the big idea is called Tweet Side Story. It’s like that game you play where someone starts a story and then you go round the campfire, and everyone adds a sentence or two to the story until it spirals out of control and starts involving pot plants and aliens. It’s exactly like that, but on Twitter. Go take a look at the website, and follow @tweetsidestory on Twitter, so you’ll be the first to know when it starts up!
Thanks must be given to my partner in crime, Damo, whose main job in this venture is to prod me and ask me if it’s ready yet, and when we’re going to be rich. Soon, Damo, soon…
I had a long rambling post all lined up to post today. And then I went to the toilet. And this happened.
Enjoy.
Janet Street-Porter is a twat.
Some of you may already have come to that conclusion by yourselves and are now wondering why I am stating such an obvious fact. Well, up until last week I pretty much had no idea who she was. I had heard the name and knew she was some kind of “sleb”, but exactly what – if anything – she had done to deserve it, I had no idea. In fact, I still don’t.
I was going to at least Google her before writing this, just so I wouldn’t be dishing dirt on a subject I don’t really understand. And then it struck me that that is exactly what I should be doing in this case. Because more than the actual person, what I’m really writing about is the crappy little column she wrote about Twitter. From the first paragraph in, it was blatantly clear that she really had no idea what she was talking about. Also, she called me and everyone using Twitter a twat, and was mean to Stephen Fry, and there really is no call for that kind of thing. I guess she heard the name Twitter being bandied about and decided to give it a bash because it’s the thing du jour*. Everybody’s bashing Twitter, it’s popular, therefore it must be evil. I’m sure the Daily Mail will soon find proof that Twitter gives you cancer. Probably gay immigrant cancer. Of the balls.
Right, so, to write an article about something you know nothing about, you need a few random and preferably unverified facts to throw in to make it look like you’ve done plenty of research. Ok. Well, how about the latest Twitter-related wonderstat: 40% of tweets are “inane babble”. Wow, that sounds good doesn’t it! Based on that alone, we can easily conclude that Twitter is Really Badly Rubbish, eh?
I’m sorry, but 40% of life is inane babble. Twitter isn’t some miracle content generator, it’s a tool, a means of communication, nothing more. What the hell do you expect? If you were to analyse all phone calls made over a week, or all emails sent, I would be very surprised if you found less than 40% inane babble. Although I guess that also depends on what you define as inane babble. I’m guessing they mean things like people chatting about how they’re feeling today, how they had a burrito for lunch, or that their hamster is just back from the vet and the poor thing has a discoloured vulva. The hamster, not the vet.
So what? Isn’t that exactly the same kind of stuff we talk about round the coffee machine? And yet nobody publishes shocking stats on how 40% of all human interaction is pointless crap, do they? I’m actually surprised that anything as high as 60% is actually deemed to be interesting content!
Anyhoo, back to our quarry. JSP decided in this case to quote the age stats of twitter users, and went on to conclude that only the 25-50 year-olds were using it, meaning that Twitter is a boring place for old, untrendy people. I’m sorry, Jan, remind us how old you are? How old are the people who read the inane babble you write for the Independent? How funky and down with da kids are you exactly? How on earth is the age of the people using it any reflection of how valuable or relevant it is? If it had been mainly used by teenagers, I’m sure the argument would have been that it is not to be taken seriously.
The other argument she made was that nobody could possibly convey anything of any interest whatsoever in 140 characters or less. Well, for a start, you are allowed several tweets. You can actually still be talking about the same thing 3 tweets later and amazingly, people will be able to put them together! Unbelievable, I know. The other thing is that, well, sometimes having to think about something and make a little effort to sythesize can be a good thing. You can fit plenty of sense and wisdom into 140 characters, if you give it some thought. Just as you can fill 4311 characters with utter bull poop. Can’t you, Janet.
*In fact, I have since googled her, and it seems that she wrote a similarly bilious article about how facebook was killing all real world relationships a while back. Oh well, at least she’s consistent.
Before I begin to expose what may just be the most important advancement in modern science since the discovery of peanut butter, I should explain how this whole thing came about. A few days ago, the eminent Dr. Fluff P. Glitter (PhDJ) raised the question of how much creaking was normal for a 6-month-old hard drive. This question – and the difficulty of providing an accurate answer in text form – somehow sparked my poor overworked brain into activity, and it came up with the following results. I’m still wondering whether or not to submit this to Wikipedia.
The Edna scale
Creaking is defined as an annoying sound, often produced by the friction between two physical surfaces. However, while everyone will agree that there are different types and intensities of creaking, there was, until now, no scale by which to measure them. Mere volume of noise could be measured in decibels, however, creaking has a particular creakiness that cannot be solely measured by its loudness alone. The proposed scale is the following, measured in Ednas:
0.1Ed – Quasi-imperceptible creaking that may or may not have happened, but that you most certainly heard, coming from somewhere up there in this unfamiliar house as you try to get to sleep.
0.2Ed – The strangely satisfying creak of a new book opening for the first time.
0.3Ed – The upper limit of acceptable creaking from an HDD/CD/DVD drive before it becomes alarming. Also minimum level of creaking required for spousal approval for replacing said drive for a much better but rather expensive one.
0.8Ed – Sound produced by a mildly concerned spouse/parent/significant other.
1 Edna – Amount of creaking produced by a whalebone corset. Natural materials and moderate tension should be used in order to produce the true base unit of the Edna scale; a synthetic corset under high tension could produce up to 2.5Ed, therefore compromising the whole system.
1.3Ed – Creaking produced by regular old people.
1.5Ed – Creaking produced by a bed or mattress while occupants are having sex and no-one else is around to hear it.
1.7Ed – Creaking produced by loose floorboard or step during the daytime.
1.8Ed – Creaking produced by a regular, non-oiled door, during daylight hours.
2Ed – Creaking produced by particularly creepy old people. Like the old man who runs that antique shop and seems to know everything about everyone.
2.3Ed – Creaking produced by loose floorboard or step when burgling a house or committing any other legally reprehensible activity.
2.5Ed – Creaking produced by loose floorboard or step when sneaking to the kitchen for a late night snack, or after just having got the baby to sleep at last.
2.7Ed – Creaking produced by a wooden chair when confronted with an unusually heavy load. Yes, you. Can increase to up to 5Ed if the room is full of slim people on non-creaking chairs, and there is a sudden gap in the conversation.
2.8Ed – Creaking produced by the average public toilet door lock (when available)
3Ed – Creaking produced by a bed or mattress while occupants are having sex and there are people around to hear and be embarrassed by said creaking.
3.5Ed – Creaking produced by happily jumping on a well-sprung bed.
3.6Ed – Creaking produced by the average playground swing.
4Ed – Creaking produced by a bed or mattress by simply turning over or adjusting ones position, but that will be perceived by disapproving ears as the noise of occupants of said bed having sex.
4.8Ed – Creaking produced by the average trampoline.
5Ed – Creaking produced by a taught gallows rope, swinging in the breeze.
6Ed – Creaking of the average playground swing when sat upon by the Antichrist.
6.5Ed – Creaking produced by rubber soles crossing the floor of a supposedly silent place (library, cathedral, exam room…)
7Ed – Creaking produced by David Hasselhoff’s leather trousers on a hot day.
8.5Ed – Highest level yet recorded. Produced by the front door of that sinister mansion on the hill when opened by faithful yet horribly disfigured manservant. Requires much upkeep of door creakiness and a particularly steady hand, not to mention years of door opening practice to achieve such a level. Works best during thunderstorms.
The above are but a few examples of creakiness to give you an idea of how the Edna Scale works. As you may have noticed, creakiness not only varies depending on the physical objects in question, but also depending on the situation. In fact, creakiness is one of the elements affected by the Universal Rule of Exponential Awkwardness (UREA). The Rule states that if a given situation can in any way be made worse for a person by them experiencing Awkwardness, it will, hence causing further and greater Awkwardness, and so on, until the Maximum Awkwardness Potential is achieved.
As recent research has shown, every human being emits particles of Awkwardium, some positive, some negative. Cool people emit high levels of negative Awkwardium, which is absorbed by the Uncool, and their bodies process it by turning it into pure Awkwardness, and by-products Embarrassment and Inadequacy. On the other hand, Uncool humans emit higher levels of positive Awkwardium, which reacts not only with other humans but also with their surroundings, causing Awkward Situations. They also emit negative Awkwardium, as do certain objects or combinations of objects, therefore perpetuating the occurrence of Awkward Situations.
I will stop there for today, as you have no doubt drifted off to sleep by now, and I will save the rest of the theory for my book, entitled “A brief history of Awkwardness”.
My thanks go out to Dr Fluff P Glitter (PhDJ), Stephanie Friend and Damien Hopkins for their invaluable help with the research that led to this article.
My book(s) on lulu.com
