Tag: twitter

#oneaday, Day 321: Charities Have No Use For Your Avatar

Are you morally-conscious? Feel like you should be doing more to help your fellow man, but feeling a bit strapped for cash at the moment? Don’t feel like putting together some sort of fund-raising event because, after all, it is a bit cold outside and it might snow.

Never fear! Web 2.0 is here to allow you to assuage your guilt without any need for financial or time outlay! All you need to do is change your profile picture and/or status to something vaguely related to the charity that you would like to support and that counts as you having Done Your Bit when it comes to Judgement Day. Me? I like the Cats Protection League, so I shall be donning a LOLcats avatar for the day.

Grumble, moan etc. I know. And I have a sneaking suspicion I may have mentioned this before.

The above piece of sarcasm is proudly sponsored by today’s Facebook and Twitter campaign to get as many people as possible to change their avatars to their favourite cartoon characters of the 80s or 90s. This, apparently, counts as you “joining the fight against child abuse”, and has been attributed to the NSPCC by several people. Go look at the NSPCC front page right now. Do you see any mention of any campaign “not to see a human face on Facebook until Monday, December 6th”?

No. I certainly don’t. Probably because it actually has nothing to do with the NSPCC whatsoever, and probably because the NSPCC would rather you got off your arse and either did something to raise money for them or just reached into your pocket and sent them a tenner.

“Donating” your Facebook status or a tweet means nothing. And the “it’s just a bit of fun” defence is bollocks, too; there are plenty of people out there who feel like changing their avatar (a task which takes, ooh, a minute at most?) and/or copy-pasting a status is absolutely “doing their bit” and absolves them of any sense of responsibility, putting them on the same level as someone who has diligently, say, organised a sponsored run, bake sale, 48 hour Desert Bus marathon, three-week charity wankathon, whatever. It doesn’t.

This isn’t a rant saying that everyone should donate to charity. I don’t—at the moment I can’t afford to. It’s up to everyone whether they would like to support a charity that deals with an issue they feel strongly about. But “supporting” that charity means just that—supporting them and the work that they do. That means giving them some money, or some of your time, or just walking into one of their shops and buying a dodgy velvet jacket for a 70s night or something.

It doesn’t mean changing your fucking avatar. How many people out there copy-pasted that status and changed their avatar and then felt all smug and self-righteous before going on to do other things, forgetting all about the fact that they hadn’t actually donated any money to the charity in question, who probably had nothing to do with the campaign in the first place?

So don’t let me stop you changing your avatars to your favourite cartoon characters. If you do, though, at least be honest about why you’re doing so—perhaps you think Superted is awesome, in which case, say so and don’t hide behind some kind of false altruism—or actually follow up what you’re doing with a donation.

Rant over.

Actually, no it’s not.

Girls, next time you feel tempted to post something that the “men won’t get” in an attempt to “promote breast cancer awareness”, realise that we all know what you’re doing and would again much rather you just donate to a worthy cause like MacMillan, rather than supposedly “raising awareness” by being deliberately obtuse. How the fuck does that even work?

Rant over. For reals, yo. Take care of yourself. And each other.

#oneaday, Day 307: Wait. Terry Wait. Overwait. Call The Wait-er.

How much time do you think you waste every year waiting for things to happen? Whether it’s waiting for the phone to ring, the response to an email, the answer to a question, an alarm to go off, someone to call you into their office or for your delicious improvised curry sauce to thicken, chances are you spend a good proportion of your time waiting for things to happen or for other people to do things.

Just think how much more we could all get done without all this waiting. Consider how long it takes someone from any Government agency to write back to you, drawing out what is usually an unpleasant process (why else would you be writing to an arm of the Government, were it not to complain about something?) even longer than necessary. Perhaps your question was a simple one that can be answered with one word—the words “yes” and “no” were invented for exactly this situation—but no. More often than not you’ll receive a letter back informing you that they’re “unable to action your correspondence” or, in English, “not able to reply to your letter” and demanding further details that you’ve already given them at least fifteen times.

This sort of thing is annoying and, in this age of instant communication, bordering on inexcusable. Who writes letters any more, anyway, for starters? Wake up and smell the electronics.

The trouble with taking this attitude, though, is that it starts to filter into other parts of your life. You find yourself wondering why the text message you sent thirty seconds ago hasn’t been replied to yet, without thinking that the recipient may just have better things to do than respond to a message that simply says “COCK! PISS! PARTRIDGE!” because they might, in fact, have a job to do. You forget the context of a reply on Twitter because someone replied to something you posted four hours ago. And in the meantime, you sit staring at your computer screen, iPhone or, in the worst possible scenarios, your wall or ceiling. Because you might get that response you need in the next thirty seconds/minute/half an hour/hour/day and you couldn’t possibly do anything useful in the meantime. But of course you can’t send another message following it up because that’s pushy and rude and you don’t want to look like an asshole.

Well, bollocks to it. We need an inversion of this situation, where “important” things get resolved quickly rather than are “endeavoured to be responded to within 72 hours”, and where it’s okay for your friends, family and/or that hottie you texted to be quiet for a few seconds/minutes/hours/days at a time. Because let’s face it, staring at a wall is marginally less productive than staring at a toaster waiting for it to pop.

Because at least if you stare at a toaster, you end up with some delicious toast. What’s your wall ever going to give you?

#oneaday, Day 298: Did You Hear The One About The [REDACTED] And The #TwitterJokeTrial?

If the name Paul Chambers doesn’t mean anything to you at the moment, then take a moment to read this summary of the day’s proceedings, courtesy of The Guardian.

The TL;DR version (God, I hate that phrase and wish it, and everyone who uses it unironically, would die in a f… would, err, live a long and happy life filled with kittens and/or puppies, whichever they preferred, really, because it’s up to them how they live their lives and I love them, whatever they decide) is this: Chambers made an (arguably) ill-advised joke on Twitter about blowing Robin Hood Airport “sky high”. It was a throwaway comment that got blown (pardon) out of all proportion and, thanks to some very, very silly people, has been treated as something roughly approaching a mid-level terrorist incident.

The conclusions of the judge today were that Chambers’ original comment was “obviously menacing” and that any “ordinary person” would “be alarmed”.

Funny, then, that Twitter itself has been full of bomb threats, incitements to violence, discussions of inflicting bodily harm on individuals, and no-one else (save Conservative councillor for Birmingham, Gareth Compton, who made some similarly ill-advised comments, got bollocked and then promptly released on bail) has been arrested for it.

The long and short of it, though, is that Chambers’ appeal was unsuccessful, meaning he is now lumbered with a mounting legal bill and fine which—bless him—Stephen Fry has offered to pay, but members of the public have been generously donating to, also. (Find out how you can help too here).

Chambers has lost his job as a result of one silly comment on Twitter that clearly wasn’t intended to be “menacing” in the slightest. What sort of incompetent terrorist hatches their plans via social media anyway? Everyone knows they still use cassettes and VHS tapes. But the fact stands; this poor chap has had his life pretty much destroyed as a result of an almost total abandonment of Common Sense.

I like to think of myself as a fairly ordinary person, and I certainly wasn’t menaced by Chambers’ tweet. I wasn’t even aware of it until this whole legal fiasco started—but I follow plenty of people who make comments which could, according to Judge Jacqueline Davies, be interpreted as “menacing” and “alarming”. Are they all going to be arrested now? Or was Chambers set up to be made an example of? Certainly if the authorities are intending prosecuting everyone who has made mock “bomb threats” on Twitter today, they’d better get started now, because it’s going to take a good long while, and lots of courthouse space to get it all sorted.

Or perhaps they could, you know, focus on some actual crimes. Perhaps they could take some steps to deal with kids carrying knives, youth gangs, burglaries, assaults, murders, even fucking traffic incidents carry more weight than a ridiculous comment on Twitter.

Or even—here’s a thought—they could invest some resources into tracking down actual, genuine terrorists and foiling their plots before they happen. But perhaps that’s too difficult, and it’s much easier to make a scapegoat of a poor fella who was simply excited to spend time with the love of his life, and was frustrated by the fact that the airport’s closure was making that look more and more unlikely.

So, moral of the story, kids? Be careful what you say. Otherwise Big Broth—

[THE REMAINDER OF THIS BLOG POST HAS BEEN REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND. PLEASE DIRECT ALL ENQUIRIES TO [email protected]]

#oneaday, Day 285: Questions You Probably Never Wanted To Know The Answer To

[Yes, I know I forgot to rename this comic. Deal with it.]

Sometimes topics come up in conversation that make you wonder how on Earth you got onto that subject in the first place. Such was the case when I had a conversation last weekend about whether or not any of us had taken a piss in the shower.

Thanks to the wonder of the Internet, though, it’s possible to get answers to these burning questions at any time. Everything from Twitter to Formspring is set up in such a way to make asking stupid questions very easy.

Sometimes, though, you can’t think of a decent question. So with that in mind, I present to you the answers to five different questions which I have thought up off the top of my head. And if you’d like to ask me anything else, please feel free to do so in the comments or via the “Ask Me Anything” link at the top of the page. Or by clicking here. It’s anonymous and everything.

Have you ever had a wee in the shower?

No. No I haven’t. But I was alarmed to discover that quite a few of my friends – both male and female – have. One friend, who shall remain anonymous, said that “there’s no reason not to, apart from the fact your shower smells a bit of piss afterwards”.

Me, though, I tend to prefer bathroom activities to take place in the receptacles for which they were intended. Piss goes in the toilet. Dirt from your filth-encrusted body goes in the shower or bath.

Have you ever cross-dressed?

Yes. I made a beautiful fairy. See?

So pretty.

What is the strangest thing you have ever put in your mouth?

Deep-fried garlic at some Japanese restaurant in St Marks, New York. (I think.) And yes, deep-fried garlic is exactly what it sounds like. Take one lump of garlic. Deep-fry it. Eat. Surprisingly tasty, but definitely odd.

How many fingers am I holding up?

Four, because you’re too rockin’ for one hand.

Would you rather die from chronic flatulence or ebola?

Chronic flatulence. At lease you’d entertain people as you passed away. And you’d have a priceless moment of everyone you were with looking around slightly uncomfortably, not sure whether they should giggle or call an ambulance.

Of course, you wouldn’t be around to see it. But the sentiment stands.

What is the most horrible noise you can think of?

I have two horrible noises that I dislike. First is that nasty sound polystyrene packaging makes when you pull it out of a box and it goes all “scrapeyscrapeyscrape” and sets your teeth on edge. Second is the sound of people chewing noisily. I know it’s a natural bodily function. But it inexplicably bugs me.

Also, Tinie Tempah is pretty horrendous, too.

Where is the strangest place you have ever slept?

On my birthday during my first year at university, some friends and I went to local “wine bar” Clowns. Calling Clowns a “wine bar” is something of a stretch, as it is actually one of those places with a sticky floor and toilets which regularly leak all over the building. They were offering four-pint jugs of Juicy Lucy for £4 at the time, though, so it seemed like an excellent idea for all of us to drink as many of these as possible.

When we finally got back to our flat, one of my flatmates wore a pair of my (clean) pants on his head for some time. Then another friend who didn’t live in our flat fell asleep on my bed. I fancied a nap too, so the appropriate thing to do appeared to be not to wake up the person in question, but to open up my wardrobe, use my laundry bag as a pillow and fall asleep.

A couple of hours later, the person in question sat bolt upright, walked to the kitchen, ran his head under a tap and then left.

So, to answer the question in a slightly less cumbersome manner… “my wardrobe”.

Want to ask me something else? Do it! I like to think we’ve learned a little something about each other via this process.

Or perhaps you just learned more than you ever wanted to know about me.

#oneaday, Day 257: Away Message

I’m away for the weekend. Specifically, I’m attending the Eurogamer Expo, the UK’s answer to gaming conventions like PAX. It’s been running for a good few years now apparently but I only really became aware of it this year. I decided to attend, as I thought it’d be a good opportunity to get hands-on with some of the latest hotness that I’d missed out on at PAX, as well as catch up with a few friends from Twitter.

Eurogamer Expo has a way to go yet before it can even think about competing with PAX in terms of scale, but it’s certainly got potential. There are plenty of high-profile companies in attendance with their big games, and tickets sold out completely, so people are certainly interested in events like this. They need to sort out their non-existent press provision and look at more in the way of “special events” to make it a truly excellent gaming convention, though. Some evening concerts wouldn’t go amiss; or more in the way of the few developer talks and presentations that they do have already.

Day 1 has so far passed in a most pleasant manner and I am looking forward to tomorrow. I wrote an article about Fable III today, you should totally go and read it, as it’s awesome. Here’s the rest of the day in one-word summary format:

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Multiplayer: Tense.
Killzone 3: Loading.
Killzone 3 in 3D: Migraine.
Gran Turismo 5 in 3D: Cardboard.
Peter Molyneux: Entertaining.
Fable III: Amusing.
Dead Space 2: Frightening!
Gears of War 3 Beast Mode: Multiplayer?
Fallout: New Vegas: Fallout.
Saw II: Bloody.
3DTV: NO.
Rock Band 3: Realistic.
@jenjeahaly: Yay!
@shoinan: Fun!
@lewisdenby: Brief!
@LinkYeah: Freshers.
Eurogamer’s press provision: Horseshit.
Being told off for taking a coffee while wearing the wrong wristband: Bewildering.
That redhead girl I saw at one point: WOW.
Tonight: Surprise!

So that was my day. Tomorrow will be another day and hopefully I’ll get a chance to try out a lot of the things I didn’t get to see today. There’s a lot of really good-looking games on offer, most of which will be well familiar to people who went to PAX, in all likelihood. Fable III in playable form was the big deal for those who like that sort of thing, and it’s looking lovely. Peter Molyneux’s talk on the history of the Fable series and its influences from movies and games was particularly interesting, as you’ll know already if you’ve read this like I suggested earlier.

It was great to finally put a face to some Twitter usernames, too, and meet a few new ones as well. Hopefully over the next couple of days there’ll be more of that until we’re all one nice big happy games-loving family of awesomeness.

And, of course, tonight. Surprising a very dear friend was totally worth it. Even if I got called a few rude names along the way.

For now, I bid you good night.

#oneaday, Day 247: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

Twitter broke earlier today. This in itself is nothing unusual, as the existence of the term “failwhale” will attest. But this time it was partly a result of some new changes that the service made, particularly with regard to posting links.

Twitter recently launched its own link-shortening service, called “t.co”. This is one of the shortest link-shorteners out there, and when characters are a precious commodity as they are on Twitter, that’s really important.

Unfortunately, some clever young person discovered that by using t.co it was, in fact, possible to embed HTML code and, worse, JavaScript in these links. It was also possible to format tweets, change their colour and black them out.

Said exploiter quickly discovered that by blacking out a tweet and adding a “mouseover” JavaScript event to automatically retweet the exploit, post giant text on the screen or in some cases, redirect to websites you wouldn’t want anyone to catch you on ever whenever a user moved their cursor over the blocked text, they could cause absolute chaos. Thankfully, most people got wise to the exploit pretty quickly and retreated to the safety of Twitter client apps, as it only affected users on the website itself. Of course, there were a few people who started screaming “OMG VIRUS!!!” and panicking, but most of them were put in their place pretty quickly with a simple, calm explanation (hah, right) that an exploit and a virus are two very different things. And Twitter stepped in to plug the security hole reasonably quickly, too. So the whole thing was over within a matter of hours.

The main point of this, though, is that it wouldn’t have happened at all without the new functionality that Twitter was offering. It seems that every single time something new and potentially awesome appears, there is at least one person out there who wants… no, seemingly needs to break it. Why? Because they can.

This explains the existence of “glitchers”, people who deliberately play video games in order to break them. It explains the existence of software pirates, who are out to break copy protection and DRM on software. It explains the existence of hackers, people who write viruses and spammers. And, indirectly, it’s the reason why every single time you turn on Windows you have fifteen bajillion updates to install.

This is all getting a bit tiresome now. It’s such a shame that things that are new must seemingly go through the “initiation” of being broken by some idiot sitting in his pants in his basement, probably masturbating furiously as he watches the chaos unfold before his eyes. Because you just know it’s a “he”, too. (I’m all for equality, but when it comes to stupid, pointless and inconvenient things to do with computers, it’s always a guy.)

Thankfully, the world seems adequately set up to deal with such dribbling idiots these days. We have spam filters, virus scanners, scripts to clean out malicious code from websites. Companies have teams to fix broken functionality like we’ve seen here. And of course, it’s easy to say that things should be tested more thoroughly before release. But there’s no way you can predict every single possible stupid thing that some member of the human race will try and do. If we could, no-one would ever go outside and the world and everything in it would be covered in sponge just in case we fell over and hurt ourselves and/or tried to kill someone else with something.

So if you know anyone who’s ever come up with one of these exploits, or anyone who’s ever ruined a Nice Thing for anyone else, do the world a favour and go and punch them really, really hard in the testicles.

#oneaday, Day 169: Wrong Again, Internet

If you’ve been on the Internet at all for the past couple of days, you’ve probably seen at least one person make the assertion that at some point in Back to the Future, Doc Brown sets the clock in the DeLorean to a date 25 years in the future. That date is supposedly today. Or possibly yesterday.

This rumor is a nice thought, so everyone has been retweeting it like crazy. Pity it’s unlikely to be true, since the BTTF movies were set in 1985, 1955, 2015 and 1855. None of those are 25 years in the future from the film’s original release date. The closest is 2015. But that’s clearly 5 years away.

The interesting thing about this is how quickly it spread across the Internet without a shred of proof to back it up. No-one, at the time of writing, has posted a still from the film. Not even a bad Photoshop job. But somehow, everyone’s just accepted this blindly.

I know that ultimately it doesn’t really matter in this case, but isn’t it a little scary that thousands, possibly millions of people across the world blindly stated this as fact without bothering to question it or research it?

Twitter is like a global game of Chinese Whispers sometimes. All it takes is one influential tweeter to post something contentious and the world will jump on it. Sometimes this is a good thing – the huge display of generosity from the public upon the death of Frank Sidebottom’s creator Chris Sievey, for example, raising well over £20,000 for his funeral costs.

And sometimes this is a bad thing. How many times has Twitter been swept by false announcements of someone’s death? It’s a common joke now that any time someone’s name comes up in the Trending Topics that they might have died.

What happens if something seriously untrue spreads this way though? Serious accusations about someone in high office? Reports of a disaster which never happened? Earth-shattering news which is just an outright lie?

It’s an alarmist way of looking at things, of course. But the Internet has proved time and time again that it can make the most stupid shit into a star, or the most outlandish fact seem like reality.

So think before you RT, kids! Winners don’t use Wikipedia!

#oneaday Day 117: Justifiably Short Post

Hello. I’m not at home. Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know exactly why I’m not at home right now. It’s, shall we say, a difficult time, but I have been graciously put up for the night by the lovely Amy Walker and her family, who have helped distract me a bit from the unpleasantness rattling around my head. Said unpleasantness is largely due to the fact that the crystallised memories in my flat were exploding in my face and making my eyes leak almost constantly. I was so angry, then so upset, then upset and angry. It was impossible to focus. Having got away from that for a little while, though, it’s marginally easier to face everything. So thank you, Amy, for being awesome and taking me out of a situation that was sending my mind down some dark alleyways.

Someone else I need to thank for being awesome is Allie Brosh, who left a really, really lovely comment on this post. I’ll let you go read it (and my gushing, emotional response) at your leisure rather than recreating it here. I knew that today was going to be unpleasant (I underestimated quite how much, but that’s beside the point) but Allie’s heartfelt gratitude for my post (and a similarly gushing email I sent her) truly made my morning.

Difficult times come and go. Sometimes really, really difficult times come and feel like they’re going to stick around forever. That’s how I feel right now. But when the difficult times go away again, all you’re left with is awesome.

So to everyone who said something nice to me on Twitter today, to everyone who sent me a text message or an email of support today, to Amy and her family putting up with me coming over, talking crap, drinking their booze and sleeping on their sofa, to Allie Brosh for making me smile, to anyone who comments on this post – to all of you I say one thing.

Thank you. You are the things that make it worth not giving up. You are the things that give me at least a little hope for the future, even as dark as the place I’m in right now is. And once all those crystals have finished shattering, once I’m reborn as someone new on a brand new path, you are the ones who are going to still be there for me.

Keep being awesome. Good night.

PS. Sorry this post is so disjointed and stream-of-consciousey and doesn’t include any stickmen. (Yet.) But at least a few of you understand exactly how I’m feeling right now. Others of you are sympathetic, empathetic, whatever you want to call it. Whatever. You hopefully all understand that my brain’s a mess right now.

So on that note, I’m going to stop talking. Good night.

#oneaday, Day 114: Social Peril

My good friend Mr George Kokoris had this to say about people and social media earlier. Go read it. He has some very valid concerns, especially in light of Facebook’s increasingly cavalier attitude towards personal privacy.

I used to like Facebook. I used to like it because it wasn’t like MySpace – I remember saying this to several people. I tried MySpace and didn’t really get it. It seemed to be a friend-collecting competition with some of the most hideous web design you can possibly imagine. Facebook used to be different, though. It used to limit you to people you actually know. In fact, you used to have to say how you knew the person you were adding as a friend, much like immensely boring but practical professional networking site LinkedIn still does. As a result, it became a great way for keeping in touch with family and friends. Everyone felt confident and secure in the fact that your information was yours, and that the only people you were sharing it with were people you had specifically approved. In short, it felt like a secure means of communication. I liked it for this.

As time passed, we all know the story. Groups. Applications. Pages. A dwindling sense of security. Employers using employees photographs of drunken nights out as grounds to mistreat them. Until we reach today, when a large number of people I know are seriously considering ditching their Facebook accounts altogether in favour of alternative, more secure means of communication. Or, ironically, Twitter, one of the most open and public means of communication there is.

But at least on Twitter it never claims to be anything other than public. Your profile on Twitter consists of your avatar, your username and 140 characters of “bio”. Your conversations are public (unless you specifically choose to protect your tweets, which kind of defeats one of the main objects of the service) and anyone can chip in at any time. It’s a simple, effective means of asynchronous communication which means that people speak frankly, briefly and candidly.

This gets people in trouble. Sometimes, a lot of trouble. Paul Chambers found this out the hard way.

“Robin Hood airport is closed,” he tweeted as his trip to Ireland to meet a girl he’d been talking to on Twitter looked threatened by the UK’s complete inability to deal with a bit of snow. “You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”

A flippant, offhand remark. But a flippant, offhand remark that recently landed him with a thousand-pound fine and a criminal record on the grounds that his message was “grossly offensive, or of indecent, obscene, or menacing character”. A flippant, offhand remark that gave him the dubious honour of being the first person ever to be convicted of a “crime” (and I use the term loosely) in connection with remarks made on a social networking site.

I mean seriously. His comments weren’t in the best taste. But by successfully prosecuting this case, it sets a dangerous precedent that has made everyone rather more conscious of what they say. In effect, it’s stifling free speech, a concept the Internet is built upon – not to mention the fact that the life of Chambers, who was training to be an accountant, has now been devastated.

See also: Gizmodo’s behaviour with regard to the new iPhone that was left in a bar. Gray Powell, the engineer who misplaced the phone, lost his job, perhaps understandably, given that he left an immensely valuable trade secret just lying around. Gizmodo reported on the new iPhone. They ripped it open and looked inside it. Perhaps not the best thing to do when Apple were already pissed off. Then they ripped open Gray Powell’s life, using information from his entire Internet presence to make him a global laughingstock. Was it not enough that the guy fucked up and lost his job because of it? Apparently not.

George points out that there are people out there who hate success and will do anything to destroy the efforts of people with ambition. It makes me sad to think that in a world where our exchange of information should be free and open that incidents like the above can happen. Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done. The fact that we can communicate instantaneously with anyone in the world should be a wonderful, life-affirming thing that brings the global community closer together, builds bridges and draws us closer to a peaceful sci-fi utopia. But instead, shit like this just gets people paranoid and worried, until we’re going to find ourselves even more closed off and isolated than we were before the whole social media thing started. And that’s sad.

Is it just human nature to use things that should be positive for evil, deceitful purposes?

#oneaday, Day 111: Post-Mortem

Good morning! Lovely day, isn’t it? Who am I kidding? It’s grey and miserable outside and I woke up at midday. Rather than just lying there stewing in my own self-pity and the stench of a night out, though, I decided to get out into the fresh air and locate some decent coffee before I melted into a puddle of apathy on the floor. Now I’m back and not actually feeling too bad.

After any drunken night out, it’s always wise to take stock of anything stupid you may have done in order to prepare yourself for any potential repercussions. As technology has advanced, the number of ways in which one can humiliate oneself has exponentially increased. Pre-mobile phones, you could just make a twat of yourself in person. Then there were phone calls. Then there were text messages, emails, tweets, Facebook, blogs and all manner of other media with which to do something dumb. Fortunately, the evidence seems to suggest that I only used a few of these last night. This was largely due to the fact my iPhone battery ran out partway through the evening thanks to us all playing with the Omegle app in the pub before moving on to nightclub “Unit”, where ChatRoulette was playing on a big screen, cocks and all.

So, let’s look at the statistics, then.:

Friends getting lost: 1
Friends unable to open their own front door because they were turning their key the wrong way: 1 (the same person)

Phone calls made: 0
Phone calls received: 2 (from the above person)

Voicemails left: 0
Voicemails received: 1 (from the above person)

Text messages sent: 18
Text messages received: 11
Text messages sent to people I shouldn’t have: 0 (whew)
Text messages I regret sending: 0 (double whew)
Text messages along the lines of “I LUV U UR SO AWESOME LOL”: 4
Text messages containing spelling errors: 17
Text messages containing perfect spelling: 1
Text messages containing errant punctuation: 1
Inadvertent mentions of sadistic/masochistic sexual practices: 1

Tweets tweeted: 13
@replies: 1
Mentions of friends trying to kill me: 1
Aspersions cast on friends’ respective sexualities: 2
Aspersions cast on friends’ respective sexualities based on their taste in music: 1
Twitpics/yFrogs: 3
Tweets containing the same picture inadvertently posted twice: 1
Tweets containing hand-drawn “artist’s impressions”: 1
BAP!s: 1
Tweets in ALL CAPS: 0.75
Tweets attempting to quote Annie Lennox songs and failing: 1
Tweets using the hashtag #drunk: 2
Perfectly spelled tweets: 2
Unnecessary requests for readers to fuck off: 1

Blogs posted: 1
Spelling errors in blog: 0
Blog lucidity: 95%
Mentions of men masturbating on webcams being horrifying and compelling at the same time: 1

Not bad. Could be worse. Let’s see a few highlights then, shall we? I hasten to add, these are all ones I sent, not received. Let’s start with some text messages:

Typical post-drunken “THANK YOU FOR AN AWESOME NIGHT!” text. Note the time. I’m impressed I managed to somehow insert a web address and misspell my own name. And what “sebsexbexsusecim” means is anyone’s guess. It’s probably not what you think. Let’s do itcagsin sometime.

The top message covers several of the above bases. We have the “I LUV U UR AWESOME” (“I need to ve ariuvs awesome people and you are awesome. :)”). We have errant punctuation (“..23@@”) and a whole lot of misspelled words. Then underneath we have a beautifully lucid one, proving that the nonsense was more a product of typing too hastily rather than complete spastication. Also, watch out or o can come koj you.

I wasn’t aware my mam was there. Nor do I remember any S&M going on. But it’s all right, because I apologies forcant errors. Note that I appeared to have given up attempting to type “Pete” by this point.

Here are the tweets. I think I can let them speak for themselves. Click for a close-up and read from bottom to top.

And I’ll leave you with my “artist’s impression” of ChatRoulette, drawn using Brushes for iPhone while this very situation was unfolding on the big screen a few metres away from us:

NEXT! NEXT! OH MY GOD! CLICK THE NEXT BUTTON! QUICK!

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