Dear Facebook,
I’ve got something to tell you, I’m leaving you. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m just too busy right now. We want different things. I don’t think I can give you the commitment you’re looking for. OK, that’s enough clichés, the bottom line is that it’s over.
We’ve been together since 2007, when someone first told me there was this new site where I could ‘network’ with my friends, write on their walls, and occasionally look at their photographs of another drunken night. Ho ho ho, it was all so simple, so new, so different. I was hooked. But then it got too serious facebook, you wanted to know everything about me, you wanted to share my information with every free and loose application on the net, you made it so difficult to change my settings, you kept suggesting ‘friends’ to me I’d never even heard of, you changed my privacy settings without my permission, I could go on. You got jealous when I started flirting with other, newer, more exciting social networking sites. You told random people what I was doing all the time, where’s the mystery gone! You always want me to join groups, such as ‘Can this Hedgehog get more fans than JLS’, do I really give a shit! And facebook, you always want to know what I’m up to and the events I’m planning, why can’t you let me have my own space!
Basically, I’m a rat leaving a sinking ship. Facebook, I think you’re the new Friends Reunited, the new Napster, the new Hotmail, the new Altavista. You’re old news, and I’m getting out while the goings good. You have got too big headed and too popular for your own good, you’ve lost sight of whats important.
In all seriousness, the final straw has been whenever I hear the tragic news of a young person passing away, newspapers show scant regard for their privacy and go on their Facebook accounts, and then reprint the comments in the Morning Rag. I think this crass and insensitive journalism is both lazy and an abuse of the right of a family to grieve properly in privacy. For all the self-righteous hypocrites who cry about their privacy being violated, this ability by newspapers to easily and readily abuse this privacy is the real reason I’m leaving.
So Facebook, we’ve had some good times and some bad times, but its over. I’ll see you around. If you see any of my friends, let them know that they can keep in touch, see below for details. However, Facebook, I’d prefer not to hear from you again.
Yours,
Rob
twitter - http://twitter.com/robb_n_roll
LinkedIn – search ‘Rob Melling’
Email – robmelling@gmail.com
Post – Ask
Mobile – 07507823140
My blog - Ask
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
a traumatic time
Here is my second post, some time after the first. This is due to the fact that there have been some traumatic occurances since the first.
Shortly after I wrote the first blog, Molly, the source of my inspiration (& lost shoes) sadly died. I say died, more appropriate would be bitten by a poisonous Brown snake then left to fester in 40 degree heat until I found her. Burying that dog was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, literally, have you ever tried digging a hole in Australia, its drier than a mouthful of cream crackers! 2 hours and 5 beers later I was finally able to lay her to rest. Her grave, should you ever wish to visit and pay your respects, is a little wood facing east so she can watch the sun rise every morning. I loved that little dog and when I get my own dog I will name her Molly 2, in Molly's honour.
I think this event was the final straw for me with living in Australia. Well, that and the student loans company were threatening legal action if I didn't return to start paying my debts. I made the incredibly difficult decision to give it all up and head home, back to Blighty, to what the Maori's call Te Gunhtba Aoernaona - Land of the Traffic cone hotline. It meant saying goodbye to ALOT, my pals, my job, travelling, sunshine, and not facing up to the real world! However, having said this there are a lot of draws to the UK, namely some culture & good music. Australia is stuck in 1987, you can't move for the mullets. Also, a 4-year gap year is starting to stretch it a little bit!
So here I am, back in this wet and windy Isle, dodging chavs and tutting whilst stood in queues. I cam back just before Xmas, and was luckily here to experience the 'Big freeze', where society in the UK crumbled in the face of heavy snow and frozen pensioners, witnessing people killing each and feasting on the brains. Seriously, the English do make a natural disaster out of the least bit of unseasonable weather!
My first priority on my return was to consume a beer from a pint glass. In Australia, beer is only available in tiny half pint glasses called 'pots'. That's what the missus should have, I hear you shout. Australians will give you some half-baked story about it keeping the beer colder in a hot climate, but I like to think they just can't hanlde beer in pint format, ipso facto are not real men! I'll leave my Aussie bashing there for now.
Second priority on my return was some decent food. When you travel you come to the realisation that the English cuisine, specifically the Northern English cuisine, is the most fantastically diverse and delicious you can find. The Yanks just eat burgers and fries, the Canadians put maple syrup on everything, Kiwi's eat lamb chops, and Aussies eat anything as long as its BBQ'd or covered in breadcrumbs. However we have delicious pies, barmcakes, chorley cakes, Tunnocks caramel wafer bars (and indeed anything made by cadbury), sausages, black puddings, roasts, Hotpots, fish and chips, curries, and a million and one other treats. The food has been fantastic since I've been home, and the choice is fantastic. Don't ever let it be said by sneering continentals that our food is inferior, as I can assure you it is superior!
So despite the traumatic times and the big move, I am now home, loving it, and consuming any pie that comes within a 6 foot radius of my mouth! All I need to do now is steal a dog as a replacement for Molly.
Shortly after I wrote the first blog, Molly, the source of my inspiration (& lost shoes) sadly died. I say died, more appropriate would be bitten by a poisonous Brown snake then left to fester in 40 degree heat until I found her. Burying that dog was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, literally, have you ever tried digging a hole in Australia, its drier than a mouthful of cream crackers! 2 hours and 5 beers later I was finally able to lay her to rest. Her grave, should you ever wish to visit and pay your respects, is a little wood facing east so she can watch the sun rise every morning. I loved that little dog and when I get my own dog I will name her Molly 2, in Molly's honour.
I think this event was the final straw for me with living in Australia. Well, that and the student loans company were threatening legal action if I didn't return to start paying my debts. I made the incredibly difficult decision to give it all up and head home, back to Blighty, to what the Maori's call Te Gunhtba Aoernaona - Land of the Traffic cone hotline. It meant saying goodbye to ALOT, my pals, my job, travelling, sunshine, and not facing up to the real world! However, having said this there are a lot of draws to the UK, namely some culture & good music. Australia is stuck in 1987, you can't move for the mullets. Also, a 4-year gap year is starting to stretch it a little bit!
So here I am, back in this wet and windy Isle, dodging chavs and tutting whilst stood in queues. I cam back just before Xmas, and was luckily here to experience the 'Big freeze', where society in the UK crumbled in the face of heavy snow and frozen pensioners, witnessing people killing each and feasting on the brains. Seriously, the English do make a natural disaster out of the least bit of unseasonable weather!
My first priority on my return was to consume a beer from a pint glass. In Australia, beer is only available in tiny half pint glasses called 'pots'. That's what the missus should have, I hear you shout. Australians will give you some half-baked story about it keeping the beer colder in a hot climate, but I like to think they just can't hanlde beer in pint format, ipso facto are not real men! I'll leave my Aussie bashing there for now.
Second priority on my return was some decent food. When you travel you come to the realisation that the English cuisine, specifically the Northern English cuisine, is the most fantastically diverse and delicious you can find. The Yanks just eat burgers and fries, the Canadians put maple syrup on everything, Kiwi's eat lamb chops, and Aussies eat anything as long as its BBQ'd or covered in breadcrumbs. However we have delicious pies, barmcakes, chorley cakes, Tunnocks caramel wafer bars (and indeed anything made by cadbury), sausages, black puddings, roasts, Hotpots, fish and chips, curries, and a million and one other treats. The food has been fantastic since I've been home, and the choice is fantastic. Don't ever let it be said by sneering continentals that our food is inferior, as I can assure you it is superior!
So despite the traumatic times and the big move, I am now home, loving it, and consuming any pie that comes within a 6 foot radius of my mouth! All I need to do now is steal a dog as a replacement for Molly.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Local Fauna
At this moment I live with, or in the vicinity of, 2 dogs, 2 goats, a family of feral cats headed by a renegade Ginger Tom named Tiberius, and a noisy possum.
The dogs. Once upon a time there were two dogs. There beasts were brother and sister, and grew up together from pups side by side. They were free to come and go as they pleased and did so, their favourite past time to take a run down to the irrigation channel for a leisurely swim, then chase some rabbits and back home for tea. It was an idiyllic existence. Unfortunately one day, they mistook sheep for rabbits and ended up with quite the appetite for roast lamb. Living on a farm, this sort of thing is slightly frowned upon. We had two options, keep them locked up, or it was doggy heaven. We opted for the former. A prison of sorts was constructed, dubbed Guantanimo, the dogs could usually breach the walls with 4 hours. Very intelligent. Bodie, the female, was the brains of the operation, Butch, the male, the brawn. Just before Xmas last year Butch chased a snake, the snake didn't like to be chased, the rest is history. We were all very sad at his passing, such a lovely, if mischeavous, character. None was as sad as Bodie, she had lost her companion and she developed a sorrowful look in her eye. However, every cloud has a silver lining, and this lining came in puppy-shaped form. Despite her mother also being her half sister and her father also being her uncle, Molly came into this world as one happy little dog, despite obviously falling a little short in the brains department.
Molly loves life. She loves chasing rabbits. She loves going for a walk. She especially loves stealing my boot off the verandah and then hiding it in the woods. Especially when it has just been raining so I have one wet shoe, one dry shoe. Bodie is still sad, she sees Molly as a distinct inconvenience, an interruption into her life. I think she still misses Butch too much. At least we now have something to remember him by.
The goats are new arrivals. They are still kids. I had to collect them on Thursday. Due to reasons of bad planning, I had to pick them up in the van. Our van is only a small transit with a tiny cab. The goats had to ride in the front with me all the way home, 55 minutes away. They tried to eat everything, including my ipod. I had to pull over. I looked them in the eye and gave them 3 grounds, 1 - no shitting, 2 - no pissing, 3 - no shitting AND pissing. It took Goat One 3 minutes to break the first rule. It took Goat Two 15 minutes to break rule one. Unfortunately, he had just climbed onto my lap so broke rule one all over me. Voices were raised, assurances were given it wouldn't happen again. Luckily when i passed the police car in Barham with one goat with its head out of the window, and another on my lap trying to eat the indicator, he didn't see me. Made it back to the farm, dusted myself off and checked for droppings. Introduced the goats to their new home. My goat is all white, like an albino but without the crazy red eyes, I called him Barney, as he is AWESOME. Goat Two, black and white and shaggy, was named Mr Tumnus. Not by me. I don't think it will be long before this is changed. I've only known them for two days, I like them already, they follow me around, eating grass as they go, like organic lawnmowers.
The cats. Haven't seen them for a while. I used to learn gone-off tuna out for them and they'd come and snaffle it in the middle of the night. I always thought to myself, I wonder what a cat that lives 500km from the sea thinks of the taste of tuna. They must have liked it though. One time we caught one of them, a ginger tom named Tiberius. He was a mercurial fellow. One moment it was all hssing and scratching, the next he was running all over us and as tame as a pet. Turns out he didn't like us, he ran off after two days.
The possum, Julian. I don't have much to say about him, apart from he is a creature of habit. Every night, approximately 7.15pm, he jumps from the roof onto his favourite tree for his nocturnal adventures. I like to think he glides around the treetops , throwing pinecones at unsuspecting owls. He lives above my room. Sometimes he gets lucky and brings home 'company'. Those nights I don't get much sleep.
These are the animals I share my life with.
The dogs. Once upon a time there were two dogs. There beasts were brother and sister, and grew up together from pups side by side. They were free to come and go as they pleased and did so, their favourite past time to take a run down to the irrigation channel for a leisurely swim, then chase some rabbits and back home for tea. It was an idiyllic existence. Unfortunately one day, they mistook sheep for rabbits and ended up with quite the appetite for roast lamb. Living on a farm, this sort of thing is slightly frowned upon. We had two options, keep them locked up, or it was doggy heaven. We opted for the former. A prison of sorts was constructed, dubbed Guantanimo, the dogs could usually breach the walls with 4 hours. Very intelligent. Bodie, the female, was the brains of the operation, Butch, the male, the brawn. Just before Xmas last year Butch chased a snake, the snake didn't like to be chased, the rest is history. We were all very sad at his passing, such a lovely, if mischeavous, character. None was as sad as Bodie, she had lost her companion and she developed a sorrowful look in her eye. However, every cloud has a silver lining, and this lining came in puppy-shaped form. Despite her mother also being her half sister and her father also being her uncle, Molly came into this world as one happy little dog, despite obviously falling a little short in the brains department.
Molly loves life. She loves chasing rabbits. She loves going for a walk. She especially loves stealing my boot off the verandah and then hiding it in the woods. Especially when it has just been raining so I have one wet shoe, one dry shoe. Bodie is still sad, she sees Molly as a distinct inconvenience, an interruption into her life. I think she still misses Butch too much. At least we now have something to remember him by.
The goats are new arrivals. They are still kids. I had to collect them on Thursday. Due to reasons of bad planning, I had to pick them up in the van. Our van is only a small transit with a tiny cab. The goats had to ride in the front with me all the way home, 55 minutes away. They tried to eat everything, including my ipod. I had to pull over. I looked them in the eye and gave them 3 grounds, 1 - no shitting, 2 - no pissing, 3 - no shitting AND pissing. It took Goat One 3 minutes to break the first rule. It took Goat Two 15 minutes to break rule one. Unfortunately, he had just climbed onto my lap so broke rule one all over me. Voices were raised, assurances were given it wouldn't happen again. Luckily when i passed the police car in Barham with one goat with its head out of the window, and another on my lap trying to eat the indicator, he didn't see me. Made it back to the farm, dusted myself off and checked for droppings. Introduced the goats to their new home. My goat is all white, like an albino but without the crazy red eyes, I called him Barney, as he is AWESOME. Goat Two, black and white and shaggy, was named Mr Tumnus. Not by me. I don't think it will be long before this is changed. I've only known them for two days, I like them already, they follow me around, eating grass as they go, like organic lawnmowers.
The cats. Haven't seen them for a while. I used to learn gone-off tuna out for them and they'd come and snaffle it in the middle of the night. I always thought to myself, I wonder what a cat that lives 500km from the sea thinks of the taste of tuna. They must have liked it though. One time we caught one of them, a ginger tom named Tiberius. He was a mercurial fellow. One moment it was all hssing and scratching, the next he was running all over us and as tame as a pet. Turns out he didn't like us, he ran off after two days.
The possum, Julian. I don't have much to say about him, apart from he is a creature of habit. Every night, approximately 7.15pm, he jumps from the roof onto his favourite tree for his nocturnal adventures. I like to think he glides around the treetops , throwing pinecones at unsuspecting owls. He lives above my room. Sometimes he gets lucky and brings home 'company'. Those nights I don't get much sleep.
These are the animals I share my life with.
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