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Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Asking for 200 grams of Bauspeck is not social interaction


Harvelina? I don’t think so.

I have been trying to increase the numbers of my ‘friends’ on Facebook. This involves indentifying people I know on Facebook and sending them a prompt asking them to be my friend.

The flaw with this is that I have to tell them who I am and they can look at my profile.

This would put most but the hardiest souls off – the remainder look at my Blog and then put me on their banned list.

Why do I want more friends?

Because I have been reading that this is a trendy thing to do and that Facebook is being taken over by older people – and I am certainly one of those.

And some people have hundreds of Friends.

By offering financial inducements and leaning on family members, and Muffin, I have gotten up to 20 but I think that’s probably it.

However, I do have two famous Australian actors as friends – and interestingly one of them knows who I am. He signed me up despite this - which is encouraging.

This makes me feel as though I am part of a privileged network as I shiver in the chilly wind of the disinterest of the Facebook community generally.

Look, I have always been at the cutting edge of trend setting and to lose my grip after all this time is quite sad. I feel like the old Lion who is being circled by the young, strong one and I know that it won’t be long before I am vanquished and sent into the Serengeti to be eaten by animals such as Zlotzer and Fritzy.

Or I will get a message from Facebook.

“Leaping Lizards – we just found out how old you are – you can’t be a member of a social networking site like this. Who would want to know…. YOU?

Well….quite…. very few people actually.

Steph has some very firm views on social networks like this but then she doesn’t live in a foreign country where the only person she has to talk to during the day is a very small but perfectly formed cat.

Well I guess that’s not quite true as I can do most things in German now and have some very stilted and often quite bizarre conversations with shop assistants. But I don’t think that buying 200 grams of Bauspeck and asking to have it sliced actually cuts the mustard as social interaction.

Anyway – when the kittens arrive I will set up Facebook accounts for them and will get my numbers up to 22.

Of course this raises the issue of names for the new cats and we were thinking of naming them after those two legendary cat lovers in Brisbane, Liz and Darryl.

But if we did this we could probably not realistically expect the Brisbane Liz and Darryl to visit us in September - and if they did there would be two of each in the house and this would cause massive confusion.

We will go further afield for names.

Incidentally, you may have notice at Harvelina’s feet there is a small Rhinoceros. This animal has not yet been named and if you would like to send a suggestion along with your Frog Farm prospectus request please feel free to do so.

Rozalin the KAP Officer has identified some likely prospects. They are in Germany but are apparently moving to Austria. I just can’t imagine why this would be the case but I am sure she will tell me soon enough.

Perhaps their father is an Auslander and they are being deported – the Germans are very strict about this.

They are very, very small (the kittens not the Germans) so it will be a while before we could get them but it is very exciting that there are kittens in the pipeline – so to speak.

This will mean absolutely nothing to people who don’t like cats – but probably no one like that reads the Blog.

Well – yes – one does. Will in Washington very occasionally - but he puts on rubber gloves before he does so and has a good wash afterwards.

I have taken some moving pictures of ducks and these will have you perched on the end of your respective chairs. I am having some difficulty getting these pictures out of the camera and into the computer.

I am going to keep at it for a couple more days and then I may have to open the instruction manual (which astonishingly enough is in English – although I also got them in German, French, Dutch, Italian – and a couple of Eastern European languages. The manuals weighed more than the camera).

My problem then will be to edit the movies. For this task I have a piece of software which will be (I am assured by those who know) ideal for the task – but once again it may be impenetrable and I will have to consult the online manual.

8 comments:

  1. Do you know how old the kittens will be when you finally get them?

    I'm not a fan of naming inanimate objects, but in case some crazy jumanji stuff goes on, I'd call him Gammon.

    Have a good one.

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  2. I think you should call him Merlin. But I think everyone should be named Merlin. Or Melissa.

    You should also trawl through all the friends of your friends on facebook. You are sure to find people you have met for at least five seconds, and that's all you need to be facebook friends. I like how friendships are so low maintenance on facebook. Just send a friend request and that's it. You never need to make any further contact.

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  3. That's all very well Keegan, but John Howard had a name.

    Probably 6/8 weeks I guess

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  4. I don't think you can name a Rhino Melissa or Merlin!

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  5. Steph has some very firm views on social networks like this but then she doesn’t live in a foreign country where the only person she has to talk to during the day is a very small but perfectly formed cat.

    It's worse than that. I'm a native southern Californian living in Oklahoma. To be in a same-sex relationship in the buckle of the Bible Belt, in the most conservative state in the union, is about as expat as one can get!

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  6. I have only six friends on Facebook, mostly from our wonderful trip to the South West Heritage Area of Tasmania this time last year. You're making me feel inadequate with more than three times as many. Finding more friends has got to go on my To Do list.

    Am confused by the thought of you naming two little girl kittens Liz and Darryl. But then again, my aunt named a foal that appeared to be a filly after my mother, Lib, and later had to reverse the spelling when it turned out to be a colt.

    What was the film or TV show that had a rhino rushing around chasing people? Was it in The Gods Must Be Crazy, one of my favourites? Otherwise, you need a name for the thick-skinned. Tony springs to mind but I guess you don't want to be reminded of Little John's offsider.

    Please tell Muffin that Tortie, who lives in Earlwood with our friend Imogen who you were meant to meet that day at lunch, is also 17. Two days ago got her nose badly scratched defending her territory. Imogen has no plans to implement a KAP while Tortie still hogs the bed and lies all over her paperwork!

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  7. how about ryan the rhino? or george after george gregan ( he was born in zambia ) i only have 8 friends on facebook and one of them is a horse. although i am a dog so i cant be picky.

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  8. So you want to be ready for the next "Dump 10 Facebook friends, get a free Whopper"? ;-)

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