The Cabbage Patch

Maybe I’m just an ageing fogey…

…but somehow, Dave’s last post has struck a chord with me.

MySpace is a disgrace. To make matters worse, all of the 13 year olds have begun the emo-diaspora and are making their way over to Facebook which was once the exclusive play-pen of the Undergraduate classes of society. Bringing with them, not just teen angst and, like, shit grammar. Like. But (see, I started the sentence improperly. Like, totally ROFL-copter) also the same flashy, gaudy on-screen shit that MySpace became so notorious for. It’s almost like all of the programmers and developers eking out a living in Estonia or some other newly established country in Eastern Europe have realised there is an as-yet undervalued market for all things flashy and gaudy amongst users of Facebook and have focussed their attention on giving everyone virtual kittens and virtual emoticons. Indeed! Virtual emoticons… apparently because they aren’t used in real-time, they’re not real, and thus, are virtual.

Now, I do use Facebook. First of all, for poker. I’m bloody crap at it, but I can’t just can’t stop. Plus, seeing as it’s betting the online equivalent of matchsticks, there’s no harm in it. Secondly, I use Facebook as a diary and let people dictate to me when and where I should turn up with a bottle of grog and say “Happy birthday!” or “I’m sorry for your loss!”. It is also amusing to see just how small a social circle we, the bourgeoisie, move around in. For example, Courtney Tight, a friend of mine from Uni, went to a 21st birthday party at the weekend which was also attended by Rowan Spitt Witt, a boy I went to school with. That interested me for all of 8 seconds, however, it was a welcome distraction from my overdue essay and the tepid Butter Chicken I had bought for lunch.

While, following enough peer pressure, I will succumb to the latest juvenile fancy (at the moment, Facebook), I like to maintain an air of dignified, out-of-touch superiority over the plebs. It’s kind of like how Bentleys don’t have Satellite Navigation yet. If your chauffeur doesn’t know where he is going then you need a new chauffeur. To this end, I refuse to use emoticons, I haven’t exchanged money for a video game since Doom 2 came out, I long for the simplicity of Windows 98 and I couldn’t be bothered to work out the difference between Windows Vista Ultimate and the other version… is it Penultimate?

That’s not to say I don’t understand it all. Back in the days of yore (as in, before your time sonny) I sent an sms to myself just to see what happened. It was 1997 and nobody knew what it was, or why you’d use it. “Sounds alot like a pager to me” or “25c? Just to say hello?” were common reactions. Now, everyone’s on the bandwagon. They’re even having sex on it. Back in my day, sex was something you coerced from someone with statements such as “I love you” or questions like “Will you marry me?”. At worst you negotiated a cash price with her boyfriend on a corner in Kings Cross. Now you just text ’slunt’ to 19 55 11 for a bevy of beautiful babes on your mobile now! ‘Now’ is invariably 2:30am and the ‘beautiful babes’ seem to look a lot like that guy from Big Brother. Or is it just because in the drunken haze you mistook ‘Up Late with HotDogs’ for ‘Girls Gone Wild’ ?

Anyway, I’m going to go and put a blanket in the dryer for 20 minutes so I’ve got something to warm myself with when I sit down to watch Lateline on the ABC.

You Know it Makes Sense.

I’m TomHB.

Tags: article, rant, TomHB

The Internet is Stupid, but We Love Her Anyway

So, I’ve come to the realisation that I hate the parts of the Internet that everyone else loves.

Take “social networking”, for example. I absolutely hate MySpace, but not for the reasons everyone else does. Others cite its hideous controls and mid-nineties-style flashing, squealing profile pages as reasons to exorcise the website from the social-consciousness. Me? I just hate the people who use it. And the inane comments they leave. And fact that one can’t possibly use it to liaise with one’s peers in private and are instead forced to broadcast to the entire world all the pointless drivel that takes place.

And don’t get me started on Facebook. No, I don’t want to spread your stupid vampire/zombie/whingeing harpy crap. And no, I don’t want to install the fucking Super Wall.

I think I’m genetically designed to not understand sites like MySpace or Facebook. I don’t want to broadcast everything I’m doing and everyone I’m associating with (that sounds… saucy) to the whole planet. I don’t like having conversations that take days to happen. I don’t like the implication that everyone I’ve ever met, however briefly, is my “friend”.

Of course these networks have their uses. Facebook has an awesome Poker game on it. MySpace provided an outlet for the awesome Sugarshock. And, if ever I decide to leave this little cave of mine and interact with others, I know where to find them. I just don’t get all the rest of it.

All that being said, I’ve found a “social network” I actually don’t mind using. This thing called Twitter is everywhere you look on the Internet, so I recently checked it out. It’s been variously described as “micro-blogging” or a kind of broadcast SMS. To put it in a way the rest of the world seems to understand - it’s like the status line under your name on Facebook, without the rest of Facebook. It’s a whole site dedicated to that single-line statement. This appeals to me.

I don’t know about everyone else (and I am fully prepared to admit that I am not like everybody else), but things often happen to me or occur to me that I wish to acknowledge in some ironic, witty or simply noteworthy way. If you’re a friend of mine, you’ve probably received an SMS or two from me along the lines of “I’ve just seen…” or “Did you know…?” or “Ever wonder…?”. You know, those things that happen in daily life that you really feel like sharing with, well anyone.

That is, in part, why I started this site those years ago. I wanted a place where I could say or show anything that occurred to me. However, in reality, these little types of thoughts usually don’t warrant an entire blog post to themselves. That’s why Twitter is useful. It is designed for little thoughts. In fact, it is exclusively for such a use, as each posting can only be 140 characters long.

Now, having used the site for a couple of days, I have noticed that this is another example of me not quite getting it the way everyone else does. A large part of the Twitter user base uses it in two other ways that I don’t think I ever will. The first, is to broadcast not the thoughts and opinions of the author, but the detailed minutiae of their lives. “I’m going to work now”, “I just ate lunch” - that kind of thing.

The other common use is to have those MySpace-style conversations where the reader can only see one side of any exchange. This just shits me to no end. “@ThoughtlessDrone Yes, I agree completely! HAHA!” means nothing to me, and I shouldn’t have to read it.

Nevertheless, I’m going to try using this Twitter thing and see how it works out. Knowing me, I’ll probably have abandoned it by next Tuesday.

You can see my most recent “tweets” (why does everything on the Internet have to have such a stupid name? But that’s a rant for another time) over on the newly-reinstated side-bar.

Or here.

Tags: rant, twitter, Web Sites

Grey Ghosts

What an efficient group parking inspectors are. So efficient it’s hard to believe they work for local council. I can’t count the number of times I’ve slipped into a newsagent or a two hour lecture and come back to find a yellow envelope flapping under the Peugeot’s wiper blade. Looking back over my receipts, I realise in the month of August for example, I spent $480 on parking fines. September? $310. In October, $290. I haven’t bothered to pay November’s fines yet.

So a big congratulations to the parking inspector. Now if only you were doing something useful rather than impeding business…

Why don’t you chase real criminals–illegal immigrants, heroin addicts–or find a cure for cancer, rather than skulking around in the shadows with your dyke haircuts and ill-fitting uniforms waiting to stuff the day of busy people doing important tasks?

Look. I’m as broadminded as the next person and I’m sure that there is such a thing as an attractive lesbian, but what is it about parking inspectors and bad uniforms? It’s like they’re taking it out on the world because they’re too short to join the police force. Once I would have said too stupid, but let’s face it, there’s no such thing as too dim for today’s police force.

And don’t they like a fight? You might as well use logic and a well-formed argument on a brick. At least with a brick you’d have something you’d be happy to take home. I struggle to think however of the sort of home which welcomes a Parking Inspector. Not only are they professional narks, but they wear beige 5 days a week and the tool of their trade is a piece of chalk on a long pole. I’d rather clean the private booths at $2 peep-shows.

I say, let’s turn a weakness into a strength; give the Grey Ghosts guns and let them loose on teenage gangs. Neither group will be missed, so whatever happens, we win.

TomHB.

Tags: rant