I miss Orkut

I used to be a happy member of a networking community called Orkut. I logged on once every week or so, bade friends hello, pointedly ignored any slimes who had oozed out of the woodwork and wished to 'make friendship' me, exchanged snippets of gossip and oohed over photos of wrinkly newborn babies. It was a nice, relaxed lifestyle. Then blew the winds of change. Friends and acquaintances alike starting dropping off the edge of Orkut. There even appeared to be an unprecedented dearth of slimes on the horizon. The mails started to make an appearance, first a trickle, then a deluge, rapidly swelling to an ocean - all requesting one to make oneself available on Facebook. The party had moved. Bother, I thought. How annoying. Annoying it may have been, but one tires of talking to oneself in cyberspace, even though one's company is rather scintillating. So off to Facebook-land I went. I may or may not have been tripping merrily along at this point, but that is neither here nor there.
All merriness soon went its merry way down the toilet. Facebook turned out to a bewildering and belligerent. It was the rave party response to Orkuts English high tea. I had been tagged in photos, I was informed. People were considering poking me, some of them who not above a week ago would have politely offered me a muffin. Someone had sent me a 'how kinky are you' request! I was not sure I wanted to explore what that meant. Did I wish to calculate my bmi? Would a grammar test interest me? A vampire had bitten me. I was encouraged to join someones entourage. Werewolves tempted me to join their pack. Someone threw a sheep at me. One sympathizes with the poor, woolly nitwit. At this point, I felt like its dumber cousin. Had I ever considered becoming a pirate? Did I wonder if friends and neighbours nursed secret, stalker style crushes? Now was the time to figure out my 'true name'. And my personality type (I already know the answer to this one - the type that prefers having their toenails pulled out rather than spend time in Facebook). And the kind of drink I am. Also the kind of dog I am. And would I like some flowers? Or a drink? Was I suddenly possessed by an urge to impersonate Santa Claus?
I fled. I sneak in, every couple of months, dodge the sheep and leave hurried and somewhat incoherent scribbles on people's Walls. I never go at night. The vampires scare me.

Dantes Inferno

I'm being very good about blogging now. You know that old saw - strike when the guilt is hot. Good wisdom, that.
I have decided that I am going to be very good from now on, angelic even. What brought on this determination to turn over a new leaf, nay an entire tree, you ask. I glimpsed hell. And I don't want to go back. Hell is a twenty two hour economy class flight replete with screeching babies and seats that stubbornly pretend that the concept of angles other than ninety degrees is alien to them. Hell is being infernally sleepy but unable to drop off because you might just miss your next meal and the good Lord knows when more food is to be had. Hell is dying to go to the rest room but feeling so terribly awkward about discussing this pressing, personal need with the sleeping stranger next to you who is playing the role of the boatman when your bladder is filled with the Styx. When you do finally battle your way to said restroom, you will be charmed to discover that it was designed for the Lilliputs and you, in fact, are Gulliver's cousin on steroids.
Abolish hard labour, I say. Just sentence those hardened criminals to a lifetime of coach travel. God help me, if I have to do this again anytime soon, I will turn into a hardened criminal with the blood of a smug business class traveler on my hands. And no, I will not feel guilty. There is just so much we can be called upon to bear and my middle name isn't Job.

All my bags are packed

Yes, I know. Its been months. I have a brilliant excuse though, this time around. I have been consumed by the logistics of moving from one country to another. You have to admit that thats a good one. Worth being consumed by.
Lets start at the very beginning, I've been told that thats a very good place to start. Visa stamped, it was time to get organized about the Big Move. I started by doing my world renowned headless chicken impersonation. The next step was to make a List. This started out well enough. When the list started to run longer than the begats in the Bible, I reverted to said headless chicken impersonation. This time around I went for the grander production - 6 headless chickens lashed together smashed out of their scrawny, spouting necks.
Eventually I calmed down enough to start to frantically do things - crack-addict-like I lived for my next hit, a nice, juicy tick mark on the List. Days sped by in a blur of happy ticks. Miraculously though, the list of things stubbornly unticked got no shorter. The only possible theory was that every time I turned my head the lascivious items on my list went at it like bunnies and produced millions of baby unchecked list items.
Oh and lets not forget the packing. It seemed simple enough. Pick up an item (or stare at, if said item is large and you are not unduly prejudiced towards hernias) and decide if parting with item will cause you cry a salty lake. If so, add to pile 'a'. If not, reject to unloved pile 'b'. An excellent formula. Right up until the time that I found this little black plastic rectangle encased in a little white plastic case. I had no idea what it was. It looked important. Smug, even. I created the I have no idea what to do with you pile (aka 'c') and moved on, rapidly discovering that his black smugness had brothers, sisters, second cousins and grouchy aunts.
So, my bags were packed (with pile 'a', now fondly called mountain 'a' and pile 'c', not so fondly called the what the f*** are you pile) and I was ready to go.
And so, following in the shoes of Marvin K Mooney, I went.