Crossing the Rubicon

After weeks of not posting, I'm typing this, feeling strangely guilty, but determined to start somewhere...

Because I had got sucked into Facebook. 

I had my reservations, but it seemed a great way to contact those who weren't easily contactable by email or phone. Plus there were various associated applications, ranging from recommending music and beer and books to throwing virtual chickens at people, not to mention the whole network thing, which allowed you to get in touch with old friends...

Ultimately though, it's a shallow tedious medium of communication.

And having news updates from friends who have decided to treat facebook as a diary makes you realise reading other people's diaries is not the big deal it's cracked up to be. Just as getting news updates that friends of mine were watching Superman on the telly and eating scampi & chips was mindbendingly unimportant, so my various comments of whatever remarkably insignificant personal experience I was undergoing were also a complete waste of time and energy, and no matter how many Mars bars I planted, I would never offset them...(thank you, Rowan)

Sure - you can post photos, but then Flickr.com does the job more effectively. 

And we have email, text and pen and paper.

And of course we have blogs.

I guess the whole thing with Facebook is the fact it offers unlimited scope for publishing the inane, banal drivel that lies within us all...while blogs are about sticking to some (de)finite subject matter that can be ranted about/discussed/ignored at will.

I strayed from the blog because I also thought that I had to little to contribute.

But the drivel from Facebook has taught me that any topic raised on Bendythree is a valid one, because it will inevitably provoke comment and discussion and, let's face it, will allow us to vent spleen and raise a smile, whatever the subject matter.

So hurray for bendythree, now in its fourteenth month.

Boo to facebook. Log on, experience it, and see how long it takes before you feel like an extra in Coronation Street.

I'll be posting more often from now on. I look forward to Colin's air raid shelter plans, more from James on Booze Nation, and publishing satire from Rowan...