Just desserts or bad taste?

Can't decide whether this is brilliant, or a frightening vision of the future and the lack of privacy that Facebook type sites result in.

MELBOURNE restaurateur Peter Leary has used Facebook to track down bill dodgers in his up-market establishment, Seagrass. Full Story

Check out the story yourself, and let me know what you think....

On a scale of 1-5...

Where 1 is not-so-bad and 5 is back-away-from-the-internet

Which is worse?

1. Trawling the Facebook profile of your ex-bf
2. Trawling the Facebook profile of your husband's ex-GF
3. Trawling Facebook profiles of people you barely know
4. Trawling Facebook for acquaintances of old (which may or may not include old hook-ups)

(why do I always end up doing this on Friday afternoons?)

More Netscape News

In an issue Re and I have been closely following, there is hope!

ONLINE auction site eBay has failed in its bid to force its customers to use PayPal - a company it owns - to pay for items on the website.

Last night the ACCC said it proposed to revoke eBay's application to enforce the use of PayPal for all transactions, saying it was a threat to competition.

"The ACCC is concerned eBay (would) use its market power to substantially lessen competition," ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said.

Woot Woot! Power to, well, the ACCC I guess, and not the people.
Its all good though. A good thing that has come out of this debacle however, is increased traffic to alternative Australian Auction sites. Yay.

------------------------------------------

In other news, a new social networking site called xt3.com has been launched by Cardinal George Pell in Sydney overnight, billed as Catholic Facebook.

Xt3.com - representing "Christ in the third millennium" - aims to connect young Catholics before, during and after next month's World Youth Day (WYD) in Sydney.

One of the site's founders, Robert Toone, said Xt3.com could also provide a useful tool for dialogue between faiths - one of the stated aims of Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming visit to Australia.

"I think it's a wonderful opportunity to break down some of the barriers that may exist," he said.

WYD co-ordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher also highlighted this potential.

"All sorts of young people will come in and out of this site ... they won't necessarily be Catholics or high-octane Catholics," he said.

Hmm, (Moving RIGHT past the concept of rev-head catholics LOL) not knocking Catholicism or anything, by its one of those religions that isn't neccessarily quite SO attractive to those not of the faith. Before marrying a Catholic I thought Catholics were rather strict and secular. Of course now I know that isn't true, but one of the hurdles Catholicism faces in the future is that it isn't quite as attractive to newcomers, as say, the Evangelical churches like Hillsong (nor is it as corrupted-wait did I say that? No...)
So I find it difficult to go with the idea that non-catholics will be interested in joining a Catholic Social networking scene. I could be proven wrong however.

Dataceptionist...what are you doing right now?

Ever wanted someone else to read the jargon when you join a site? Dale Clapperton won't do it for you, But he has broken down the "Terms of Use" for Facebook, from a legal standpoint about whether it constitutes a real and binding contract, in Australia. In short, it appears, Not... Dissecting the Facebook 'Terms of Use'.

I found Dale's dissection after reading DeusExMacintosh's account of her Facebook profile being deleted. Deus requires a "seeing-eye dog" or Registered Assistance Dog, and I imagine he's a very big, very real part of her life, so it was a "joint profile" with a picture of her beautiful black labrador.
Facebook shut down her profile, telling her dogs could not have profiles. Sadly enough, not surprisingly she didn't have the energy to fight with them.

Facebook is also developing a new design to streamline profile pages, which have become cluttered with applications. Here here I say! I hate over crowded profiles! On the flipside though, I don't know what other people do, but I rarely actually look at other profiles anyway, I mostly only read my news feed. Clever though (on their part), that to operate under this method, you need to check your news feed at least once a day, otherwise you get behind and miss the updates, because once they fall off the bottom of the feed, they're gone unless you go to every page of every friend. Lame.
To preview the new design layout, and provide feedback (yeah we Love you Facey! Wank wank) you can check out the group and "become a fan"
http://www.facebook.com/FacebookPreviews?ref=s

Amazing undiscovered tribes

These are thought to be the very first pictures of a previously undiscovered tribe in the Amazon Jungle. How amazing is it that there are still cultures like this surviving in the world? In the first picture, tribesmen are attempting to shoot down the helicopter with arrows (bless their little cotton socks) (well, if they had them).
It is estimated that there up up to 100 undiscovered peoples like this throughout Africa and South America. And here we sit, sipping our lattes, checking Facebook and living our technological lives.
Is it us, that don't know what we're missing, or them?

Reasons NOT to drink at work

1- End up trawling Facebook.
1.1 Which leads to....
1.2 becoming nostalgic about old School friends and trying to find them on Facebook
1.3 starting dialogue with old high school friend who just got engaged. (this is ridiculous as if I passed her at the shops I would avert my gaze and pretend not to have seen her)
1.4 Looking at profiles of people you went to Primary School with, and reminiscing. Should I add them?
1.5 thinking about whether I should have been less of a bitch to School Friends, after School finished
*whines* why don't I have many Facebook friends?

Oh that's right, I hate all those people.
Damn wine (from wake next door)

2 Cousin calls, try to monopolise her time with idle chit chat.
She is not interested as she's seeing me tomorrow. Probably can tell I'm pissed. After I tell her. Politely palms me off.

1.6 Still considering trying to find Year 10 crush. Has annoyingly foreign surname though, if I spell wrong I could be here for hours trying.

1.7 Ha. Just found Year 7 "boyfriend".

1.8 Goodness, this girl has almost the entire year as her friends.

1.9 Resent ex friend, she appears to be friends with loads of people

1.10 When did I become such a cow. Was it organic? Or did I hate everyone right away

Back at work

laughing, laughing laughing.

Thanks to Re for pointing out that I am back at work as of yesterday.
I was hoping to have a killer post for my recommencement, but you can all thank her for forcing me to return, with douchey post.

LOL

So I'd been off work for a week, came back yesterday with a heap of work to catch up on.... and it was completed by 3.30 yesterday.
I'm going to go ahead and say this is because I am a fabulous worker bee, and has no reflection whatsoever upon my job.
I remember in my last role, I would be on leave for a few days, come ack to work and I would have hundreds of emails to deal with.
Thankfully its not like that here. Hehehe

Things I have learnt in the last week

• Holidays are considerably less fun without Sunshine.
• It actually is possible to forget how to ride a bicycle. That saying is a load of bollocks.
• When it rains on holidays, your day revolves around eating, from breakfast all the way through to 4.30 wine and cheese and beyond to dinner and midnight wine and cheese
• Poker is more fun when drunk.
• No 1st birthday party is complete without fairy bread. Ryder celebrated his first birthday last week :) Yay! They grow up so fast....
• leaving the house a mess before holidays, means you come home and since the pixies haven't been, house is still a mess. I'm trying to find the motivation to tidy I really am, I just feel so defeated when I look around. We really need to have people over, then we tidy real good!
• Facebook is sucking the life out of me. This is how I feel.

Now heres a random funny

Brothers & Sisters, Joan Sauers ****

A woman who gave birth to a baby for her sister...Brothers who fought each other in the Supreme Court for the family farm...Two sisters who survived Auschwitz together, one convincing the other to choose life over death...A famous actress and her not-so-famous sister...Five loving siblings of whom four are adopted from different racial backgrounds....

....Sometimes sad, often quite funny, Brothers and Sisters is a book for everyone, and especially for those who still have arguments about who was the favourite child...

**Couldn't find the cover art, I tried! So here is cute pic of random brother and sister. :)

Great book. I really enjoyed the perspectives it offered on sibling relationships. My only criticism was that there was no summation at the end of the issues raised and theories offered.

The book finishes with Sauers' own siblings and their answers to the same questions asked of the included parties, but it is delivered in the same interview style as all the other chapters. I would have liked Sauers to have offered opinions and theorems on the subject and the "why's".

4 / 5

It did, naturally, make me reflect on the relationship I have with my own brother and sisters, and others that I know. There's also a few interviews with Single children, or "only children". {Hmm, has anyone thought about where that phrase comes from? Only Children? Only what? When you actually go to write that down you realise it doesn't quite make sense....}
One of the things I have speculated about often recently is my sisters. As they are both overseas presently, it does make you reflect more on your relationship with them, people are ask how I'm "doing/going". And I do miss them, a lot. Interestingly the way they interact with us while they are away affects how much we miss them.

At least I think it does, it's hard to say. I miss Beeb a lot, and I think the fact that she's constantly texting has an affect on that, but then its possible that it feels like I miss Eca less only because she's been gone so much longer. By the time she's home she will have been gone 2 years. I do think the time she's been gone though, has only been bearable because she's actually been back twice in that time for visits (which were fab!). I was definitely a lot sadder the last time she left, and when Beeb left everyone was a blubbering mess so I totally lost it.
In Eca's defence also, she's been way more communicative in Philadelphia where she can just sit at the computer at home and chat away :)

I actually think Facebook has helped a lot too. Its as useless as tits on a bull for friends that live in the same city as you (you remember them, the ones you actually SEE)
But it's been really great for communicating with my sisters.

My brother has always been a little left of centre. I hope as we get older we can relate better to each other. Interestingly I've always clashed the most with him of everyone I think, and yet, of the four of us, we've the most in common now as we're both married.

Hmmm....

More weird dreams

Ok so yesterday I had this weird dream where I was at one of M's football games and it was getting dark and when the game finished for some reason the lights went off and so me and all the spectators were sitting there in the dark until; the players came out of the dressing sheds again..... weird in itself, and just as I was sort of waking up I decided to go to the bar and get more drinks, and for myself I got either 2 or 4 drinks (massive pisshead, even in my dreams clearly) and for M I got two beers, and then I think his alarm went off, and my brain incorporated it and I thought "oh no, he's not going to have time to drink those two beers" I tried to explain this to him as he left for work but strangely enough he didn't find it as vexing as I did. He said something about virtual beers, like in Facebook. *shrug*

Last week I had a horrible dream that M and I were seperating (I specifically remember this being the term used). I think I heard M say "I'm Leaving" as in he was going to work, and my brain took that sentence and ran with it. That was awful really, as I felt conscious and like I was thinking, I had an internal monologue happening. I woke feeling relieved this was not the case. I hesitated to tell M right away though, as I didn't want him to think I was using my dreaming time to fantasise about getting divorced.

So this morning I dreamt we had had a baby! Literally woke up one morning, went to the doctor and discovered I was pregnant and gave birth. {actually, maybe this is a subconcious hope that I haven't gained weight from over-eating, I'm simply pregnant. Hmmm, think about it.....} Anyway, my dreams lately have been incredibly vivid. For example I can still feel the vomit on my face from the baby puking all over me. I wanted to highlight this as it wasn't like I was dreaming of babies and bunnies and rattles and fun.
I still have a residual feeling of awe though. Its amazing really what the brain can conjure without any prior experience. Having not yet had children, I can't actually draw on experience for a dream like this, and yet it felt quite real, and I really felt immersed in a realisitic way, not in the emotional caricature you can sometimes experience when dreaming about quite foreign things.

I actually woke from this one slightly disappointed it wasn't real.