Facebook, Twitter, Ham and Cheese

July 17th, 2009

You know what really grinds my gears? Those that seem to lump Facebook and Twitter in the same bracket. Yes, they’re both forms of social networking. Yes, they’re both pushing boundaries in the way we communicate and share information. What they aren’t, is the same bag of kittens.

First off, I’ll admit that I’m not Facebook’s biggest fan. It used to be the clean and simple alternative to MySpace, social networking for those that dribble. Then it made itself more open, then a bit more, and now one zillion applications later it’s no longer the sweet little monkey it once was. It might have more technology behind it, but it’s like buying a Pagani Zonda to run the kids to school and back.

So no, I don’t want to be a bloody pirate, I don’t want to start a Mob War, and I don’t want to play Scrabble. Well, not often. Not so much social networking anymore, it’s just one site to sit at and waste time.  But, I digress.

The fact is, Facebook is what it is, it’s a site to sit on and waste a bit of time. Play some games, chat to someone you never really liked at school but happened to turn out incredibly attractive, the list goes on and you can pretty much do it on Facebook.

Twitter however, is highly portable social networking. It’s the equivalent of Facebook statuses, without the guff surrounding it. If you just want to tell the world about the lack of Frijj milkshakes at the petrol station, then you can, without being told how Joe Bloggs, the person you added out of pity just scored 100,000,000 on Super Mega Mega Blocks.

What they do share in common is the likelihood they’ll both be replaced by the next big thing, whenever that should be. They’re also both not MySpace and that’s got to be a good thing. I also use both, I just find one more irritating than the other.

I like Twitter, so I am biased. This is my blog, so I also don’t care. For the “too long, didn’t read” brigade, my point is simple. They’re not, and never will be the same thing. Saying, “Oh, I hate Twitter because it doesn’t do what Facebook does!” is no different from saying, “Oh, I really hate Ham because it doesn’t melt like Cheese!”

If you’re reading this when it’s published on Facebook (and god damn I hate that it makes it so hard to see it came from this blog) then hello.

Tweet me @danfiveoh.

dan Jibber Jabber, Rants , ,

Chennai. It’s like Kettering, only more civilised

June 23rd, 2009

So I was packaged off to India for 2 weeks to test the new patient administration system we’ll be using next year. Business class we went, that was nice though I’m off the opinion that a 6 course meal on a plane is overkill.

Chennai was our destination, and it’s fair to say it’s pretty hot, 30+ in the morning, rising to 40 give or take a degree. Not so different to the Midlands, for every posh house there’s some slums in between. Most of the people don’t speak good English and the cars are heavily dented. It was just like being at home.

It was hard work though, long days, didn’t get to see much in the way of sunlight due to the 6pm sunsets and the aforementioned long working hours. What I did see, in my limited spare time, I would recommend to anyone. Just avoid the water.

Anyway, it was a productive trip and now i’m fully recovered from the jet lag normal business is resumed. Apart from the limited pictures I got to take, all I’m left to remind me of those fun two weeks is my slight tan and the weight I put on from drinking Kingfisher in a moderate quantity every night.

If I had the chance to return, I would gladly take it.

dan Jibber Jabber , , ,

The Never-ending story

April 26th, 2009

Okay, so I found this on my desktop, it’s dated but amusing. Seems I wrote this for a challenge some time ago. Enjoy…

The adventures of Colin and Friends

Once upon a time there was a young boy named Colin. Colin lived in a little town called Wellingborough, which as we all know readers, is a town that would have been better if it had been sectioned off by a series of dams, then flooded, in 1982.

One day, Colin was walking through Wellingborough’s Queensway district with a spring in his step, when suddenly, out of the corner of his eye he spotted something shiny and glowing in the distance. He ran as fast as his little legs could carry him, onto a grass verge to inspect this shiny wonder.

“Wow!” he exclaimed, “It’s a brand new 50 pence piece! This is surely the luckiest of days. Best I get home and show my friends, Loz and Dan!” Colin often talked to himself, in full sentences, due to growing up in Milton Keynes, where generally you’re better off talking to yourself if you require any kind of intelligent banter.

Colin got back to his house in record time that day, so excited at the prospect of this shiny new fifty pence piece.

“Loz! Look at this,” he shouted on entering the house, “I’ve found something and it’s brilliant!”.

“What is it, I’m busy writing the pseudocode that’ll form the basis for Web 3.0.”

“Look!” and Colin showed Loz the shiny new fifty pence piece, “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Actually mate, it is. Quick, get Dan, Web 3.0 and international recognition can wait.”

Colin went upstairs to Dan’s room, and found him busy organising his music collection into varying types of rock and roll.

“Dan, I’ve found this,” and Colin showed him the fifty pence piece, “I can feel something brewing in my hand, this is going to be big. Do you have any idea what powers this holds?”

“Right, let me have a look,” Dan said, grabbing it from Colin’s hand, “Well, what this looks like, is a portal to some kind of space-time continuum, cunningly disguised as a shiny new fifty pence piece”.

“Brilliant!” shouted Colin, raising his hand in the air, “to the garden!”.

Grabbing Dan’s arm, and yanking him from his chair, they made their way to the garden. Sitting down at the table, Colin carefully placed the fifty pence piece in the middle of the table, and each with one arm extended, they held a piece of it between their thumb and their forefinger.

“Right,” Dan started, “If I remember correctly, there’s only one way to open this. We’re going to need to recite the lyrics to Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ – are we all familiar with that?”

Luckily, they were all massive Simon and Garfunkel fans, in particular Colin, who had bought an iPod that could hold forty-thousand songs, only to fill it with Art Garfunkel’s ‘Bright Eyes’ thirty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times, leaving one space for ‘Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall’.

They began to recite, and as they began the last verse…

Sail on silver girl,
Sail on by.
Your time has come to shine.
All your dreams are on their way.
See how they shine.

… the table began to tremble, and the fifty pence pieced began to hover in the air, omitting a feint orange glow. They all jumped up quickly and stepped back, with Loz forgetting the decking wasn’t particularly expansive and falling onto the barbecue.

“What’s happening?” Colin yelled, “This doesn’t look good!”

“Don’t worry Colin, we’re opening a portal. Keep a little back, I’ve forgotten most of the laws of thermodynamics, but I’m fairly sure there might be a little bang.” Dan stepped back a little further, “Oh yeah, and whatever you do, don’t look into the light.”

Meanwhile, on the floor, Loz had noticed several small balls of light appearing from the now bright glow coming from the fifty pence piece. These little balls of light were all congregating near a gap in the decking, at the base of the hot tub.

“Erm, guys,” Loz began, “I think I’m going in now… this looks ba…” Suddenly, a bright blast of white light shot out from the fifty pence piece, knocking Dan and Colin onto the ground, and sending Loz back into the barbecue.

28 seconds passed.

Colin opened his eyes first, “Loz, erm, Dan, are you guys okay?”

Dan and Loz started to move slowly, “I’m okay,” said Dan.

“Not too bad,” murmured Loz, “my head hurts a bit.”

Suddenly, a gruff voice from behind them called out, “Gentleman, arise from your stony ground and face me now.”

Turning around slowly, they cast their eyes on the most ferocious looking beast they had ever seen, more ferocious than the shabby kitten that had found it’s way into their living room one night, with a scent to rival any Wellingborough-based blonde travel agent.

From head to toe this beast was covered in coarse black hair, with 3 large, scaly fins protruding from it’s back, and claws a foot long.

“I am Rogan, and I am a Carnifosaur. The last in a line of great warriors, and heir to the throne of Raunds.”

“Erm, Raunds? But you’re from another dimension,” Dan interjected.

“Shut up human, we have a Raunds too, and it’s magnificent. A Spar on every corner and roads with no bumps.”

The Carnifosaur jumped down from the table and towered over the boys, glaring at them with each of his four eyes. “Follow me. We have work to do.”

Colin, Dan and Loz all got up and followed Rogan into Wellingborough, they were surprised that no-one was even taking any notice of this beast walking nonchalantly into the centre of town, but then, as they realised, it was nearly midday, most of them would have been drinking for the last few hours.

“Wait here,” Rogan demanded, “I’m hungry.” Without hesitation, or thought, Rogan walked up to a wandering child.

“Oh no, he’s not going to… is he?” cried Colin. But, totally surprising the boys, Rogan waited for the child to pass and walked into Greggs, grabbing himself a sausage roll and a danish pastry.

On returning, Rogan issued his latest directives, “Right gentleman, you must take me to the place you call HMV, we are looking for the holiest of cinematic delights, the Annie / Oliver boxset. I could have bought them seperately in my world, but I won’t allow them to make me succumb to that kind of thing.”

“Seriously, is that all you came here for?” asked Dan, clearly a bit disappointed.

“Well, yes, what did you expect, world domination?”

“I was hoping for something a bit more interesting than a shopping trip to buy a couple of camp musicals, are you some kind of…”

Dan didn’t have time to finish his sentence, in two strokes of Rogan’s claw, he was dead. Very dead, in pieces, most of which had ended up in a nearby clothes shop.

“Oh my god! You killed Danny!” cried Loz.

“You bastard!” finished Colin.

“Shut up, infidels!” boomed Rogan, “I will be back in one minute with my DVD.”

With that, Rogan disappeared into the shop, leaving Colin and Loz to think about their lost friend, all the good times they had, the adventures, the laughing. They were almost about to shed a tear when Rogan reappeared, with an HMV bag and a smile upon his face.

“Time for me to go boys, I need you no more.” and with that he disappeared down and escalator. They knew he was going back to the house to enter the portal, but they were in no mood to follow him.

“What do we do now?” asked Colin.

“Not entirely sure mate,” began Loz, “I guess we go back to our lives, like nothing ever happened. Might be best we don’t tell anyone about this.”

“Good call. Do we need anything from Iceland?”

Loz and Colin walked off into the abyss of freezer cabinets and cheap processed food that was Iceland. They had survived another adventure.

Meanwhile, a magpie sat looking at a shiny fifty pence piece with a feint glow, lying on a table, in a back garden quite familiar to us now, readers.

It swooped, and picked it up, flying to the nearest telephone pole to inspect it’s find, just as a hulking beast appeared in the garden where it had just flown from.

This wasn’t over.

THE END.

dan Stories

Thug Kitteh vs. dem mowses

April 8th, 2009

Thug KittehOh hai, welcum an fanks fer teh readins. Mai naem is teh Thug Kitteh an iz want to tawks to u bowts teh mowses. Fer too long dem mowses be messin wif teh kittehs. Steelin r noms an stuffs. Srsly.

We kittehs mus rise up aginst dem nawty mowses an iz be proposin dis five point plan fer teh uprisin:

  1. Twentee-thowsand mowses mus be turminated. On toosday.
  2. Thug Kitteh to be maed rooler of teh mowses and teh kittehs.
  3. Hoomins hu own teh mowses as pet mus enshure dat teh mowses r kept inna lockt mowse-howse. Mowses mus neva be let owt. Srsly.
  4. Mowses mus haf one leg cut off. Feed teh leg to teh starvin kittehs who iz too por to buy own nomnoms.
  5. Free milk n cookies fer teh kittehs who kill teh most nawty wild mowses.

I fink yoo will agree dat dis is teh bestest ways to go. Fanks fer readins, n iz hopin dat teh Gorden Brown will be readin dem wurds an stuff.

Veev la revulooshun.

thugkitteh Thug Kitteh

Dust, anybody? Dust.

April 6th, 2009

So, devoid of a subject to blog about today, I’ve been allowed to write about Popeski’s new fangled anti-diet. This is essentially a weight-gaining, BMI increasing exercise. A 2700 daily calorie intake is the target, and sadly that can’t be achieved by gorging on Wispas and cheesecake.

This site explains the concept fairly well, but I was sidetracked slightly by the warning “This is not suitable for pregnant women.” – Do they need any help putting weight on in the first place, I thought the whole baby growing inside thing sorted that out? Not that a baby provides much nutrition, I guess, I’ve never eaten one.

Basically however, if done maturely it’s all good, but I have been reliably informed that the “special” milkshakes don’t taste very nice.

In other news, I finally found a subject for my book. Looks like it’s going to be fiction after all.

dan Jibber Jabber , , ,

And on the first day, Dan created nothing

April 5th, 2009

So today was my first proper chance at brainstorming ideas for my book. Enlisting the help of Popeski, we discussed a few ideas from the bizarre to the workable.

My idea of a writing a book about how hard it is to write a book was largely mocked, though it would have a decent chance at spawning it’s own sequel. It was pointed out however that I would have to think about what book I’d end up writing after all the thinking, should the first book have a productive ending. Confused yet?

The IT professional leading a double life had potential, though I’m not fond of writing fiction. Not that I can’t, I just prefer to write stuff fluidly off the top of my head, planning isn’t something I enjoy when writing. But still, we explored the possibilities of the conflict arising from this double life, and it was largely workable.

The final idea of the evening was converting one of Shakespeare’s plays into lolspeak. For some reason I chose Hamlet, thinking that would actually be easier than any of the others. Looking at Hamlet again I think I may have made a fairly bad choice. Currently this idea is winning, but it hasn’t exactly got much to compete against it.

Still, it’s a start, and we all have to start somewhere. At least the title of the blog is actually relevant now.

dan Jibber Jabber , , ,

Wikiballs

April 3rd, 2009

So at some point myself, Popeski and the Tom decided to create our own encylopaedia. We named this Wikiballs and it became a collection of  irreverent articles which contain mostly ramblings, lies, opinion and ridicule.

Don’t know your Coldplay from your Michelle McManus? Confused about the difference between men and women? We can help.

There’s only around 70 articles to date, there’ll be more added as the world turns. No subject is safe.

We’re going to hell, and we’re comfortable with that.

dan Plugs ,

The April Fools collection

April 1st, 2009

Okay, so had moderate fun today. Successes were:

  1. I’m moving to India for 3 months. Victims = 1
  2. I’ve found out i’ve got a long lost sister. Victims = 2
  3. I’m being made redundant. Victims = 1

All of those came with associated stories, but yes, I’ve caught out a grand total of 4 people that probably should know better than to trust me on April 1st.

It’s the way I tell ‘em.

dan Jibber Jabber

Paris, you’re mental aren’t you?

March 31st, 2009

So me and my housemate decided to watch the last five minutes of the Paris Hilton’s British Best Friend thing that has been gracing our screens for the last few weeks.

It was agreed the last five minutes was all we would be able to handle, so we sucked it up, switched it on and prepared ourselves. We weren’t quite expecting what we saw.

Yes, the outcome was pretty obvious, that gay bloke won. What worried us was the incident with Tinkerbell. Having your dog brought out in a Louis Vuitton handbag and asked to provide an opinion on the three (un)lucky finalists is quite odd, but finishing the segment with the line, “Thanks Tinks, I really value your opinion” in a perfectly serious manner, makes me believe she’s too far gone for help and should really be put down. With or without the dog.

The conundrum is this, is Paris Hilton possibly the most pure example of a celebritard the world has ever seen, or is this all an act, making her an absolute media-genius?

That’s hot, I love it.

dan Jibber Jabber, Rants , ,

The irony, and the hero

March 30th, 2009

Okay, so it’s Day 2 (in regard to press coverage) of this wonderful Porngate scandal that seems to be rocking the country at the moment so I’ll comment a bit further after my short post yesterday.

Well, it seems karma has finally caught up with Jacqui Smith, a woman with more expenses than Paris Hilton. It seems appropriate that our Home Secretary be brought down by the same lack of personal freedom that’s she’s been trying to take away from us.

Of course, her husbands hand-shandying to some £5-a-go porn isn’t the real issue, but it’s serving a valuable point. It’s not nice when your rights to a free and personal life are shared, is it?

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

I salute Richard Timney, and wish him well in his future pocket-shuffling. We, the country, don’t blame you one bit. You’re a hero amongst men. You might be getting an ear-bashing from your wife and you probably won’t be getting any for a while, but that’s okay, there’s always porn. However you might want to save yourself and the taxpayers some cash by hitting up YouPorn.

dan Politics, Rants , , ,

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