The perfect social network

...is not Google+. Har Har. ;P

Years after the party ended, and everybody had left, I joined Last.fm back in March. It's pretty neat. It stores records of all the music that you listen to quietly in the background and gives a running commentary on your profile page. Everything is neatly categorized, and every artist (even the more obscure ones) have an artist page. It's kinda a wiki, in that it allows users to tag artists and put up descriptions. And for old time music fans, it's a place for you to discover that the kid with a nice voice you're listening to from back in '66 just died a few months ago. :/ (I personally found of about Gerry Rafferty and Alex Chilton through Last.fm comments)

But seriously, for such a small time social network, the programmers have paid enormous attention to detail. Every little stat or arrangement you can imagine is available. It's a geek's dream. For someone who's trying to build a social network of sorts, it's an eye-opener about how creative you can get with a few more lines of code. For example, you can look at someone's library, go to an artist, and go to a particular album by that artist and look at their listening trends on that, like so:

The title track is amazing. And too short. :/

And Last.fm doesn't pretend to be something it's not. It's not Facebook pretending to be Twitter, or Google pretending to be social (don't kick me off G+, Sergey and Larry!). It's always been about the music. And they say the best way to discover good music is to look through someone else's library, and Last.fm allows you to do that in every way you can think of, without being an annoying babysitter. Power to the people, yo! :)

The 'Cute' Beatle??? $^#%!!!

So I did my first FB quiz in like a zillion years and I got that ^ up there... a definite 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!' moment really! Both Makuluwo and GG got George, hmph! :( I think it's the romancing bits that I got wrong, since George never took the slow and gentle approach. (seriously... his exploits with the ladies are infamous!)

Also noteworthy is Papare Boy taking the "Which Tolkien character are you?" quiz and getting "Arwen"! pure hotness! ;D

So, in celebration of this glorious quiz result, I'm going to skip over Macca's good songs and post the most disturbing and distasteful song of them all... enjoy! :P

Pokerface

I've developed a brand new addiction to playing poker on Facebook... which is kinda strange, because back when I was in school (during the last two years of A/Ls) everyone was playing Facebook poker in the computer labs and real poker in the classrooms during off periods, and I wasn't! :S I was more interested in playing Counter Strike in the labs (we'd switch to the easier-to-conceal-behind-your-work Deluxe Pool when the teacher started breathing down our necks!) and wandering about around the school during off periods... man, those days were fun! :D

St. Fallen shared a cool and lightweight application called Screamer Radio that enables you to listen to a wide range of webcasts from radio stations around the world... what I like most about it is the ability to save the tracks onto your hard drive, something that I used to do by manually going through my Firefox cache, but is now only one click away! so we're basically using legal radio webcasts to illegally download music... niiiiice! lol ;)

My favourite station on it at the moment is Radio Luxembourg, which is the descendant of a famous station situated in Luxembourg that used to broadcast rock music to the UK back in the day... something like the offshore pirate stations in the movie 'The Boat That Rocked' I watched sometime back. That movie was good! The soundtrack was awesome! I'd definitely recommend it for lovers of '60s music! :)

My two cents on social networking

The Whackster wrote about twitter some time back, and these past few days of twittering non-stop has made me appreciate why we fall in love, and out of love, with social networks. Does anyone remember the day you first joined Facebook? I do... It was at the school computer lab sometime in Mid-2007... a long long time before Facebook became popular with the average Sri Lankan school kid (and that explains why it wasn't blocked at school, unlike Hi5, the dominant social network among us at that time) and I remember just why I joined (yes, it involved a girl... duh! hehe) and I have been through a lot with Zuckerberg's contraption: 3 major design changes, the rise and takeover of applications, pokes, superpokes, walls and superwalls, threads, groups, photo tagging (something I had never seen before that, although I believe it had existed much earlier) and yes, the relationships and the breakups that took place on Facebook. And when I first heard about twitter, I was confused as to how a social network could grow based solely on 140-character updates and messages. Then Facebook changed it's design to mirror twitter, and I was furious that this had happened. The homepage became cluttered and all sorts of bull started appearing on it.

So it was with very low expectations that I joined twitter, and that too only to follow 'famous' people... Now, one month and 1057 updates later (mostly @ replies though), I have gone through making new friends, finding out stuff (did anyone else know about fingermonkeys?? I sure didn't!), analyzing Kottu bitchfights (that was fun!), sharing hugs and other 'moments', debating television shows, movies and music, being at the receiving end of quite a number of old 'Thomian jokes', and of course that one instance of getting caught twittering at a class! The sheer number of updates show how addictive twitter is, and it doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon! :D
So, all-in-all, If you were a guy who should be studying for his final exams happening in less than 5 weeks (!!!), I wouldn't never never never ever never ever never (even if I hated you!) suggest you join twitter! Don't!!! Seriously! :P

Edit: St. Fallen shared this video poking fun at twitter-culture with me, and I wanted to post it here

Funneh Pic!

I'm not sure whether I'm violating a copyright or something by posting this up, but it sure grabbed my attention and is kinda funnier than most of the "tag your friends" pics that people upload on FB these days...

Mada Greetings

One of the fastest growing applications on the Sri Lanka network [ok... citation needed here] is the "Mada Greetings" and "Sinhala Flirt" apps. Although the code is nothing new (you can even make your own gift application using the program used to generate these apps) the content is fresh and 100% Pure Sri Lanka!

I especially like the fact that they've included some of the most memorable characters from Sinhala dubbed cartoons of the past, most notably from Doctor Hondahitha! :)

Here are a few screenshots:

adding applications should be done at your own risk. most of the apps on FB are data mining apps used to buildup a hude database with your personal data! consider yourself warned! :P

Knocking on Heaven's Door

Disease has a post dedicating all the bloggers a song each, and it reminded me of this old thing that I had posted sometime back on facebook, something like what Messiah of Madness did in this post. So since you're supposed to "Tag 10 friends." I tag all my fellow bloggers who have enough time to do this thing... and I know most of yall do! :P haha

1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4. Tag 10 friends.
5. Everyone tagged has to do the same thing.
6. Have Fun!

IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?
9999999 tears - dicky lee

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
name - goo goo dolls

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
revolution - the beatles

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
i'll be back - the beatles

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
speed of sound - coldplay

WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
one tree hill - u2

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
complicated - avril lavigne

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
dare you to move - switchfoot

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
breathless - shayne ward

WHAT IS 2 + 2?
shiver - coldplay

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
money, money, money - abba

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
i will follow - u2

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
heaven forbid - the fray

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
rain - breaking benjamin

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
voodoo child - jimi hendrix

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
collide - howie day

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST??
what is life - george harrison

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
mrs. robinson - simon and garfunkel

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
rain - the beatles

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
peggy sue - buddy holly

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
the shock of the lightning - oasis

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
knocking on heaven's door - guns n' roses

And guys! No cheating ah? :D

I screwed up 69% of my teenage life!

This was floating around in Facebook, but I decided to fill it up and post it here coz Facebook is truly screwed up now that it's become a twitter clone or something. As someone aptly put it "Facebook's got a personality disorder!" ;D

[x] Gotten detention.
[ ] Gotten your phone taken away in class.
[ ] Gotten suspended.
[ ] Gotten caught chewing gum.
[ ] Gotten caught cheating on a test

Total: 1

[x] Arrived late to class more than 5 times.
[x] Didn’t do homework over 5 times
[x] Turned at least 3 projects in late
[x] Missed school cause you felt like it.
[x] Laughed so loud you got kicked out of class.

Total : 6

[x] Got your mom / dad etc. to get you out of school.
[ ] Texted people during class.
[x] Passed notes.
[x] Threw stuff across the room.
[x] Laughed at the teacher.

Total : 10

[ ] Pulled down the Fire Alarm.
[x] Went on Myspace , Facebook , Xanga , etc. on the computer at school.
[x] Took Pictures during school hours.
[x] Called someone during School hours.
[ ] Listened to an iPod , CD , etc... During class.

Total : 13

[x] Threw something at the teacher
[x] Went outside the classroom without permission.
[ ] Broke the dress code.
[ ] Failed a class.
[x] Ate food during class.

Total : 16

[x] Gotten a call from school.
[ ] Couldn’t go on a field trip cause you behaved badly.
[x] Didn’t take your stuff to school.
[ ] Gotten a detention and didn't go.
[x] Stuck up your middle finger at a teacher when they were not looking.
[x] Cursed during class loud enough so the teacher could hear

Total : 20

[x] Faked your parents signature
[x] Slept in class
[ ] Cursed at a teacher to their face
[x] Copied homework

Total : 23


MULTIPLY BY THREE : 23 x 3 = 69%

I don't think any of those were screw-ups! I was just a boy being a boy!! :D and yea, I am regretting getting detention and not NOT going! ;D hehe

A Bad case of blogger's block...

I'm not much of a spontaneous person, so unless something big happens and I feel an urge to write it down, you wouldn't find any posts from me which I hadn't carefully cut and chopped and made as non-offensive to anyone as I can. The post about the news presenter was a kinda joke so it doesn't count... :)

Anyway, since overthinking is my thing, I thought about many things to blog about. My adventures with my friends was the obvious first choice, until I realised that I never accompanied my friends on anything adventurous. This is big match season, and all of them must be climbing over walls and getting chased by angry cops... and I, a free man, a school child no more, can just join 'em right? no problems from school, no suspensions, no scene! But I don't. and I don't know why. It's simply inexplicable.

The second thing I thought about writing was chicks, and how Facebook has changed the mating game. Well, it hasn't for me. If not for the internet I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have missed so many real world opportunities. Here's how picking up a girl with Facebook goes: You see a girl, you find out her name through 'other' sources, you search her up on Facebook, see she's not a member, slap yourself hard and begin to cry... This IM/Facebook culture has destroyed the art of meeting, greeting and getting the phone number. Damn... :S

The third, obviously veering into political territory, was a condemnation of the attack on our cricketers. Here are 15 kids that every freaking Sri Lankan loves... no matter how divided we are, we'd all watch the match on the TV together. We'd cheer together when our boys did well, but would never go and burn their houses if the lost, would we? Unlike some of our neighbours. And according to what Mahela was saying on the Telly yesterday, if that one rocket had hit the bus and not some lamppost, we would've lost them. Our heroes, our symbols of unity... gone in a few seconds! imagine that... I sure don't want to.

Yep, well atleast I blogged about not being able to blog and got a rather decent post out of it. woot! :)