I can proudly admit that I have spent the entire weekend (from Friday evening that is) doing absolutely NOTHING! What a great achievement and I have honestly not moved a finger, except the usual few bits and pieces that really need doing ( hang up washed clothes, tidy up the room, cook some decent food, a quick supermarket trip…). Long live lazyness, and I loved every minute of it!
I spent a few creative hours in front of my laptop, surfing the net, playing some games and funnily enough looking at all those different networking websites there are. have you noticed how many have appeared over the last couple of years??? I am member of a few of them, but decided yesterday to drop out of a few others, because it’s just geting annoying. My Inbox is filled with e-mails saying something like: xyz wants to connect to you, check out your messages! Rubbish, I have never seen you before and to be entirely honest I don’t really care, especially if the message I find is something like (this is actually a true quotation) : “Hey Bebe, I want to collect you flowers”. Very disturbing if you ask me. So, out of that one, don’t want to hear about it again. There are however, a few others which are fun and a very good chance to catch up with old friends or network for business reasons. One of my favourites is A Small Word, where I gained access through a friend of mine. Yup, this one is probably the most particular one, because you can only be accepted if invited by an existing member – and once a member yourself there are certain criteria that you need to fulfill before you can invite others yourself. Sounds complicated? Well, somehow it is, but definitely worth it. It allowed me to connect with old friends and also get to now new ones through the forum.
Then there is My Space, probably one of the better known ones. Here I found a friend who I lost contact with some time ago.. he now runs a Pub in Southampton and I get notified of all the events they’re holding there. Very funny. Another friend is now part of a band and it gives me a chance of checking their progress and the location of their next concert. The only slightly annoying thing about Myspace is that the searching function often does not bring the desired results, but then it’s probably me entering too many or the wrong criteria. 
There’s also Xing, but this is definitely more for business contacts and networking. I had several work related enquiries coming in this way and also found friends from School and Univeristy times. By coincidence I got contacted by an old classmate of mine from the 2nd grade! We haven’t seen each other in 20 years, and yet…there’s the e-mail and I remember her very well. Who would have ever thought this possible? It was a fantastic surprise though!
Another one that seems to become more and more known around the good old Net is Flickr, probably the most amazing and variable selection of pictures from all over the world. Set up your own account, upload your pictures and you can choose whether to share them with the rest of the world of just a few selected friends. Some of the images I have found there are still accompanying me today, as background or simply stored on my hard drive for an enjoyable viewing. Search by theme, by name, by feeling or anything else you can think about and you’ll see…..
I am aware of the fact that I sound a little like a total Internet geek, I guess somehow I am. It’s the best way of keeping contact with my friends and family all over the world. This web blog has helped me sharing my day-to-day stories with some of those that I can not see every day and it has been going on for almost 1 year. What would I have done without it? As you may have noticed, there are no interesting stories this week…I blame the lazyness…but there will be more to tell over the next couple of weeks. Watch this space…..
Date to mark in your calendars: Friday 30th March 2007 – Birthday Party
Location to be confirmed.
Tine
