Facebook is a good way to keep in touch with friends

For the Calton Avenue Boys, a.k.a. Kings of Banter.

To establish the rules of Facebook profile pages, one point must be made before the rest can follow: if you are on Facebook to make friends, stop reading, you’re an idiot, make friends by actually meeting/talking to people an’ all that; if you are on Facebook to keep in touch with existing friends or re-establish contact with former friends, read on.

First rule: do have a photo. The attraction of Facebook, apart from its ease of use, is that it puts a face to the recipient. Not having a photo shows a lack of effort. Even worse is to have a cartoon image of yourself. This tells friends which you haven’t seen in a while that you’ve gotten fat.

Second rule: give your phone number. Some friends may not have your number. If you don’t want some of your ‘friends’ to know your number then they’re not your friends.

Third rule: Don’t allude to your relationship status or sexuality. Clearly a pattern is emerging. If your friends don’t know if you prefer the penis or the vagina, they’re not your friends. And stating if you’re single or not removes all sense of mystery and excitement. It can also lead to problems when you start a relationship with someone on Facebook and you can’t gauge when the best time to change from ‘single’ to ‘in a relationship’ is.

Fourth rule: bit controversial this one – It is acceptable to un-tag yourself on a photo. We, as aging lifeforms, age. And as such, a timeless image could depict a person badly, i.e. we are not supposed to be viewed as a still image. A good example would be the way the media shows politicians and celebrities pulling funny faces and then builds a caption or headline around it.

Fifth rule: adding applications and joining groups – you shouldn’t do it. When I first joined Facebook I received an invitation from a close friend to join the group ‘Bring back Fifteen to One’. I did, naively so, but in reality all I was saying was I liked Fifteen to One, it was a good show and I’d like to see it back on the telly. But you can keep that sort of stuff to yourself, really.

Sixth rule: don't remove friends. Somebody did it to me and I noticed. It hurt. I've recently spoken to the lady in question and we've sorted it all out now.

Shout out to Jacinta for this seventh rule: don't make an album with less than ten photos, says Jacinta. Well done love.

The ethics of watching porn (re-edited).

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The ethics of watching porn

For Jewart Gaywood, a man who, deprived of a video or DVD player, borrowed the case to a porno I had, and in doing so, proved his dedication to the cause.

The ethics of watching porn – tricky one this, given the difficulty in telling if a girl is willing, unwilling, or enjoy being slightly unwilling. Don’t listen to people who tell you watching porn is bad. Their logic is this: some of the people in porn are pressured or even forced – given their monetary status or pressure applied from someone – to be in pornographic films.

Utter shite logic. This argumentative ‘template’ is used in other forms - gambling, drinking, drugs, etc. For example, Bill Hicks described the warning that you shouldn’t take LSD because you may believe you can fly and jump of a building, and he flipped it on its head, calling people who do this dicks. “If he thought he could fly, why didn’t he practise taking off from the ground first?”

The point being this: yes, some of the people in porn are taken advantage of, but some people who drink alcohol become alcoholics. Harold Shipman, the GP from Hyde, England, was the biggest known serial killer of all time but we haven't ban this tried and tested medical profession.

How to avoid this. First of all, if a person in a porno is under aged, stop watching. You’re watching child porn. Get out of the room; turn off your computer. Better still, burn the bastard.

Cheap porn is often a bad sign. Go for the upmarket stuff starring the bigger names, i.e. Gina Wild, Jenna Jameson, Chasey Lain (a personal favourite; she had a blonde streak in her hair which I liked). Alternatively, turn full circle and go for ultra-cheap, home-movie stuff. If the man getting fellated is holding the camera in one hand, I doubt he’s got a gun in his other.

I think men like me watch porn just to see other people have sex. A form of compensation if you like. I hardly ever have sex but God damn do I wank one off every now and then. Why should I miss out on penetration etc.? I never hurt no body, raped no body, or robbed nobody. Well the last one isn't quite true. More on that another day.

I know this blog was badly structured and none of my arguments were well constructed. Sorry. I think I'll edit it next week.

The OCB papers system

Dedicated to K.J.Wood, a.k.a. the Queen of Camp. Puts Inman, Clary, Williams and myself to shame, and knows how to have a good lunch.

Anybody know these? Bloody good rolling papers, with one drawback - the two seperate piles of papers within one case, meaning one pile often runs out before the other. The papers in the remaining pile then slip towards the space left empty by its former aider and abetter, partner-in-crime, fellow cancer criminal. This makes the papers difficult to remove unless you have fingers like pincers.

A simple system prevents this: If the top papers of each pile point in different directions, take from the upper pile; (in the picture, for example, though it's hard to make out, they point in the same direction), if the they point the same way, take from the lower pile.

Yeah? Think about it. Different direction: top; same way: bottom. Yeah? Came up with that all myself.

A good way to remember the rule:

"Face the same way, bit gay, in a way, like bottom today;
Different directions, early preventions, then he mentions, the top pile's pretentions."

iTunes on shuffle mode.

Dedicated to MM, who has been sick of late; Paul Martin, for giving me the idea; and Damien Seaman, a friend and a real writer – look.

Given the enormity of the average iTune-user's mp3 collection, it can often be difficult to settle on some music to listen to. I am, for example, forced to choose between some 70 GB of music. As such, many people opt for 'shuffle mode'. But there are several rules I follow in order to maximise the listening experience.

1) If I like the song and it is less than four minutes long, I must listen. This prevents repeated skipping of tracks until you settle on one you're in the mood for, which brings me onto my next point.

2) The rule comes before mood. Moods are silly and short-lived. They can't be expressed in a song, at least not one single mood, contrary to popular opinion. For example, when feeling blue (fucking stupid mood that), putting on a song by The Smiths, Johnny Cash or Radiohead – and other such musicians labelled 'moody' - can have the reverse effect or no effect at all. It is silly and distorting. Life, and especially music, isn't that simple – what mood are you in right now then, eh? As such, if a five-minute song comes on, which would validate a skip, it should be not be ignored if it turns out to be hard house, disco, a hip-hop anthem, etc. and you wanna get high and chill, yeah?

3) If I know and like the artist/band but don't know the song I can listen to the first five seconds or so before making my decision. However, under no circumstances may I skip to the middle/end of the song to see how it progresses. This is shit. I'm pretty sure Jorge Bolet never pictured some spotty-arsed lump of shit, lying in his little wank hole, skipping to the middle to see how his piano transcription of Wagner's Tannhäuser overture develops.

To those of you who read this to the end, thank you and sorry. I'm still not sure what the purpose of a blog is, other than to go on about yourself and act like people care.