I found my digital camera. I have a new battery. I am now ready to take evidence photos at the weekend!

Read the story, I don’t think I need to elaborate.

I’ve previously written about social networking, but didn’t cover a certain scenario that was presented to a friend and myself very recently. What happens when someone you don’t like sends you a friends request? To clarify before I go any further, using the term don’t like, I am choosing the wide spectrum of dislike, from never wanting to see them again all the way up to “We bump into each other every now and then, exchange some small talk and then go and chat to someone we’d much rather converse with”.

On Sunday I popped into a friends house on the way back from Cheltenham, and the subject of facebook cropped up and rapidly went to the conversation of what to do with friends requests that you don’t want. Facebook presents you with 4 options (well 3, but one has a modifier): Accept, Accept but only allow them to see my limited profile, Decline or Send A Message. The Accept variations have obvious consequences, Send A Message allows the other party to view your profile for a month, but what happens when you decline? This is where being English is suddenly very important. As a culture we don’t like confrontation, we don’t like to complain or even make a scene. So the very idea of declining a friends request fills us with horror and a sudden issue of how to deal with it particularly when everyone knows the fairly low barrier of entry to be a friend on a social networking site. Images such as large red letters telling the person they have been declined coarse through our mind for fear of upsetting someone. The conclusion very rapidly reached the decision that it’d just be best to ignore it.

It was about this point I had to leave. I arrived home, got various stuff out of the car (amazing what you need to visit your dad for a week). When all done, I sat down with the laptop, dance anthems on in the background and went though my routine: read RSS, forums and then finally end up on facebook. I had a friends request from the ex-girlfriend. Someone I’ve only really had a maximum of one or two conversations with in the last 22 months or so since we broke up. Suddenly, my gut English reaction was one of “What do I do?”. After a few minutes of deliberation, not sure if the friends invite was some sort of high-brow joke, I declined the invite and phoned my friend to let him know what I have done, and he can get his answer to the “What happens?” from her.

From what I gather, nothing will be presented to the declined. It was during this whole thought process that I noticed that a couple of people had silently ‘evaporated’ from my friends list. This is no great loss because to be fair – they were only on the bottom rung on the friends ladder. I can only assume that Facebook takes the English route in problem solving, keep it quiet and don’t make any big song or dance about things.

The only thing I wish Facebook had was an enemies list, so you could elect to never see certain people.

You know. For sanity reasons.

I have changed the RSS feeds on darkrock to deliver the entire story through each feed rather than a brief summary. This will mean those who are subscribed via RSS wont have to come to the site to read it.

GEOGRAPHY OF WOMEN …

Between 18 and 22, a woman is like Africa: Half discovered, half wild, naturally beautiful with fertile soil.

Between 23 and 33, a woman is like Canada: Well-developed and open to trade, especially for someone with cash.

Between 33 and 43, a woman is like India: Very hot, relaxed, and convinced of her own beauty.

Between 43 and 50, a woman is like France: Gently ageing but still warm and a desirable place to visit.

Between 51 and 59, a woman is like Great Britain: With a glorious and all conquering past.

Between 60 and 65, a woman is like Yugoslavia: Lost the war and is haunted by past mistakes.

Between 66 and 70, a woman is like Russia: Very wide and borders are now unpatrolled.

After 70, she becomes Tibet: A mysterious past and the wisdom of the ages…. only those with an adventurous spirit and a thirst for spiritual knowledge visit there.

GEOGRAPHY OF MEN

Between 1 and 80, a man is like America:

… ruled by a dick.

HOW MEN AND WOMEN DIFFER

NICKNAMES
* If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
* If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla and Four-eyes.

EATING OUT
* When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in £50, even though it’s only for £115.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
* When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

MONEY
* A man will pay £2 for a £1 item he needs.
* A woman will pay £1 for a £2 item that she doesn’t need but it’s on sale

BATHROOMS
* A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel from Dischem.
* The average number of items in the typical woman’s bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

ARGUMENTS
* A woman has the last word in any argument.
* Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

CATS
* Women love cats.
* Men say they love cats, but when women aren’t looking, men kick cats.

FUTURE
* A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
* A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

SUCCESS
* A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
* A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

MARRIAGE
* A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
* A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, but she does.

DRESSING UP
* A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the bins, answer the phone, read a book, and get the post.
* A man will dress up for weddings and funerals

NATURAL
* Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
* Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

OFFSPRING
* Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favourite foods, secret-fears and hopes and dreams.
* A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
* Any married man should forget his mistakes. There’s no use in two people remembering the same thing.

* What a woman says: C’mon…This place is a mess. You and I need to clean.Your trousers are on the floor and you’ll have no clothes if we don’t do the laundry now.
* What a man hears: C’MON … blah, blah, blah YOU AND I blah,blah, blah, blah, blah ON THE FLOOR blah, blah, blah, NO CLOTHES blah, blah, blah, blah, NOW

I took some other footage that shows some other activities that went on – boarding, paramotoring and paragliding!

You can download the video by right clicking and selecting ’save as’, or ’save link as’ or ‘download link target’ (depending on what web browser you use) this link:

http://www.mirrordemon.net/data/EKS_newfield.mov

You will need Quicktime to view it. Thanks again to mattah for the hosting.

Google Video Link: http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?…79374511106550

Hope you enjoy. Any comments or feedback always welcome.

It is VERY important you wear headphones!

Virtual Haircut Put your headphones on (audio).

I’m older. Perhaps not at all wiser. But I can’t really remember exactly what I have been up to. But there are some brief moments in time.

Elle and Dan came up to Birmingham for the weekend for some cheeky beverages.

Then there was Webbies stag do. A good issue of alcohol consumed with a sprinkling of paint balling, dress wearing and no cling film involved at all. Which was a shame really, I know at least two people wanting to deploy cling film. We also managed to find the worst post-drinking munchies shop known to man. The sort that would die a death within a week in Birmingham.

Having sold my 9 and 11 G2s, I picked up a new set of lines and a Zero7 bar for my 16m Venom.

I picked up a video camera and some pro editing software and managed to do a little project for the Lickey Hill Flyers. In the end I recorded 7 days of footage and put it together to create the ‘7days’ video about the LHF. It includes mental winds, low winds, EKS visit, beach run and general humour. Running at about 23 minutes, you can view it here:

Then it was the weekend of Webbie and Lauren. The whole thing was amazing and even had the groom blubbing whilst saying his vows. At the turn of midnight I turned 26. There was a lot of turning. During the day it was a fairly sedate affair due to hang overs. We had some lunch, watched Casino Royale and attempted to use the pub in the evening to no avail. I received a few gifts from people with the most impressive being this metallic kite surfer:

I picked up a RASTA 8.5 blade4 to add to my quiver of kites. You can see some photos here. It was also Dawns birthday at some point the week after, I know it did happen because I have photos. At the weekend EKS and various related people headed to Aberdovey for some kiting action. In the end there wasn’t much wind except for the Saturday afternoon. The weekend was a good laugh, and if you follow the instructions within this thread you can view the video I made from it. Please note the special effects!

Week was busy. Did some flying. The weekend saw the checking out of the new EKS field which was amazing. Shame about the wind but was nice to be out side again. There is a video from that weekend that ChrisL made here.

The week has been mostly spent in Buckinghamshire keeping my dad company whilst he spends most of his time on his back. He is suffering from some back problems and is going to see a consultant on Friday. I should be back in Birmingham at the weekend for a quiet one Saturday and some more flying on Sunday.

That’s about it really