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Saturday, October 13, 2007

Face-off with Facebook

So the FB Addictometer measured and reports I'm "19% addicted to Facebook". So does that mean I'm 81% non-addicted? People love numbers for numerology sake, but they otherwise don't tell you very much.

I've always been a slow adopter of technology, what with online social networking sites. I thought Facebook would be just like F....ster when my wife first brought it up in a conversation. I discounted it as just 'another one of those', but I was wrong. It's riveting! The word 'rivet' sounds about right; clamping secure the person who signs up with two heads at both ends that there's almost no way to get out of it.

I hate to admit but I start and end most days of labour with the site. Don't even go anywhere near asking me about the frequency of re-visits inbetween. In under two weeks, I've tracked down friends from near and far, friends that number two shy of a hundred. There's Donald & Benjamin whom I'd lost contact with since secondary school. Then there's my best friend for most of my ten years of compulsory education Jonathan. I also got re-aquainted with my uni mate Katherine. Suddenly all your long lost friends are found, some needing more searching than others. Facebook has proven I'll make an excellent PI.

The Facts of Facebook Addiction and why YOU...
- Absolutely want to know who's doing what, what they're doing, how they're doing, where they're doing it why they're doing what they're doing
- Believe that there's a race to see who hits adding three million friends in three weeks and the prize is free bonus friends addition of another 3 million random characters
- Check the mood of other so you know if you're feeling better or worse than them
- Deliver gifts (a scorpion?!)and kicks below the belt (ouch!) Can't you be nicer to friends?
- Engage others in violent battles which you know you'd get arrested for on the streets
- F
- G
- Hatch eggs (ah-hah! your harboured ambition is realised) in just four days without having to 'sit' on it any longer
- Invite friends who don't want to be invited onto Facebook. Maybe they really DON'T want to be re-aquainted with you. C'mon! Why can't you let bygones be bygones?
- J
- K
- Look through the friends of your friends to see who else you haven't added into your list. Remember there's that contest to hit 3 million?!
- Make people simplify the complex and dynamic individual that you are into a few measely words to define you.
- Network with others of the same drive, cause and purpose
- O
- Poke others and hope to get poked back. I don't see the thrill in this.
- Question others on the most trivial matters when you could have just done a Google search
- Resort to retreating to the virtual world with friends who're having happy hours at all times of the day
- Sink your teeth into others evn though you're going for steak tonight
- Tweak your profile so
- Update your status to tell people your present state of mind and emotions
- Volunteer to sign up for some obscure cause in a far fetched community
- Work hard at seeing more and more gifts, growing gifts and hatching eggs so you get upgraded to the next level. It never ends you know
- X-out and click 'Ignore' the people who want you to add them as friends, but you don't feel you'd like the same treatment from them
- Y
- Z

Since Facebook is such an interactive platform, Blogspot cannot be outdone. Please offer your suggestions for the remaining 7 letters I've left blank in the Comment Box, I promise to give you credit on your entry the next time you check back here. Tell you what...I'll even go one step further by sending you 'Today's New Item' in Facebook!

The Married Life...8 Weeks On

The ring sits snuggly on my finger exactly 8 weeks on. I haven't lost weight nor put on, at least not around the fourth finger on the left hand. Elsewhere? You've got to ask my wife who keeps telling me I'm skinny. For the umpteenth time to all who mis-used this word, I am NOT skinny. There's a world of a difference between skinny and lean. I am of the latter; 'lean' only has positive associations. Try as I might, high metabolism and good genes keeps me from growing to gargantuan proportions.

Back to the ring on the finger, it's the good work of the goldsmith that makes the fit perfect. To have a snug fit in marriage, the relation-smith is God. It's been weeks of settling in married life. The gives-and-takes, finding the balance, learning how to complement each other, learning what makes the other tick and ticked-off (haha). We've begun cooking meals at home despite poor economic reason to seeing how it's cheaper to eat out or buy back. Plus eliminating the need to spend time preparing a meal and washing up after. But there is some kind of satisfaction that it's a home-base activity you can share and also prove you aren't completely hopeless in the kitchen. Our cooked rice is still soggy, but you should have been around when we first put the rice to cook and when it was ready, I was looking at a staple more porridge-like. Things can only get better and soon, we'll open a restaurant. Any sponsors out there? You can relegate me to being a service staff - I always had ambitions to being one and serving up excellent Aussie service with the food.

For more photos of what my colleague has described as 'The Wedding of The Year' (mine's probably the only one she's been and will be invited to this year. Hahahah), they've been uploaded at http://www.flickr.com/photos/12391952@N03