Why MySpace is like a Nokia 5190

I have a MySpace Account and a (new) Facebook account. Before setting up Facebook I honestly had lost all hope in social networking. MySpace is such a wasteland of animated gifs, 2000-pixel wide images, and broken sound files. It is unfettered customization run amok. Facebook is the exact opposite. The basic functionality is the same but the interface is so much cleaner.

If you give me the option of "pimping" my MySpace account I will probably do it. However I don't have particularly good taste and I am not a professional CSS designer.

This leads me to why MySpace is like a Nokia 5190. You remember the 5190 right? It was that ubiquitous brick phone that also happens to be my first cell phone. It was one of the earliest phones to offer interchangeable faceplates. The "factory" faceplates were pretty tasteful in a few bright colors. However the market was soon flooded with cheaply made, retina burning designs available at every mall kiosk.



Have you noticed that most new cell phones no longer offer interchangeable faceplates? The closest you can get is one of the limited stock color options. This is a good thing. It's like new cars. They don't let you pick out your new Honda with a shoddily painted 49ers logo in hot pink slapped all over the place.

To make a long story longer, Facebook is rad. It lets you (wisely) customize your content and the location of widgets but it doesn't let you directly customize the primary layout and CSS.

In summary, go sign up for Facebook and look me up. I need more friends.

P.S. Simon... thanks for pushing me to sign up. You win. It is better than MySpace.

Guy Pictures

All couples pose for pictures in a standard way. They lean in close, the guy puts his arm around the girl, and they both shine million dollar smiles at the camera while fake laughing so the smile doesn't look forced.

This is not how guys want to pose.

We do it because we love our wives/girlfriends/mothers and that is how they want us to pose. What guys really want to do is throw out two fists of metal to the camera. The juxtaposition of these two opposing poses has never been caught on film... until today.

Ginette's sister Danielle just brought us these two pictures taken at her wedding rehearsal dinner in Victoria, BC.

The Girl Way


The Guy Way


rock and roll

Nobody Likes Zingers

I work at a large company with almost 1000 people spread across 3 buildings. However we don't have a cafeteria. At lunch time you get to choose between the local fast food restaurants, the sketchy lunch truck, or the vending machines.

With these limited options people take their vending very seriously. I was nuking my coffee this afternoon and saw this typed up plea taped to the front of the candy machine.

Dear Mr. Vending Machine Man,

Only 6 people in the entire Western Hemisphere actually enjoy the pink coconut Zingers. Sadly, none of these 6 people work here.

Sometimes we are willing to waste a dollar just to get them out of the way to get to a package of donuts or something worthwhile hidden behind them. But to have two rows of your limited vending space taken up by pink coconut Zingers is unacceptable.

Kindly remove them and replace with a snack or pastry that would be appealing to the other 3 billion people on this side of the world.

Most Sincerely,
Your Snack Buying Customers