Apparently it is Spring outside, which, although chronologically bogus by default, brings with it the constant reminders from everyone and their dog about the very fact that it is Spring. And that’s all fine and dandy, I’m perfectly happy with people going outside, enjoying the weather and such other things that your average healthy air breathing individual does, but I feel the need to remind people to leave me out of it, thank you very much, do not pass go, do not collect £200.
I’m reminded enough of the general indecision inherit in this dreadful time of year enough simply by the fact that my drive in to work now consists not only of relocating penguins and eskimos from my windscreen,
but also staring at the sun for 20 minutes, no matter how much I move my head from one side to another trying to line said gassy ball with the rear-view mirror in a futile attempt to keep some form of visibility, impaired as that may be by the puffiness my eyes are showing thanks to a sudden and unexpected return of allergies to some unknown substance that could range from dust to a variant of space fluff from the outer rings of Saturn.
But enough of my meteorological belly-aching, lets talk about Facebook, a wonderful next installment in the legacy of online networking sites that, due to the pressure of the mass of users with the “ooh shiny!” mentality, fall ever more into the cycle of continually removing user-friendliness and functionality from their ethos and replacing them with sickly sweet eye candy. It sits on the fine line between utility and time-wasting toy, because although it has huge potential for people to share their thoughts, status, pictures and findings, it is bogged down by the hundreds of people just wanting to expand their werewolf army by virtually biting everyone and their dog, or most of the time both at the same time. If I want online games, I’ll go to Kongregate, thank you very much don’t let the door throw your hips out of alignment on the way out.
Their latest and greatest layout leaves a lot to be desired. Clearly they are now going for the Twitter look, which is fine, I can understand that you would want to try and imitate to the nearest possible pixel the look and feel of the web-based illegitimate child of IRC and mobile text messaging, but sometimes certain sites need to stick to what they do well and try and improve on that, rather than jump the shark and kill off what little tangible individuality is left. It may just be a case of “getting used to it” as so many people keep telling me every time the newest fad comes round, but they said that about synthetiphonetics and lo and behold I correctly predicted the end of literacy and spelling upon its arrival, a subject I will endeavour to tackle on the next occasion I feel my cynicism reaching critical mass and in dire need of externalisation via the wonders of digital venom spewing that is the internet rant.
I had more to talk about, but my train of thought just got derailed by a Lemming on the tracks. A more positive outlook will follow when I am not quite as tired, and my brain doesn’t hurt as much.
