Monthly Archives: July 2007

I ♥ Facebook gifts

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Facebook, which is awesome, has a function that lets you buy a “gift” for another user. Gifts are cute little icons and they cost one American dollar.

I’ve been having fun spending my hard-earned money on them, and I’ve become quite familiar with the available gift icons. So I came up with a list of my 10 favourite icons on the Facebook gifts.

(Non Facebook users can look away now, or alternatively read social-network expert Danah Boyd’s thoughts on Facebook gifts.)

Cupcake
One of my workmates recently brought a really nice cupcake as a thank you for her team leader. Cupcakes are the best little gifty thing ever so it makes sense that Facebook would have cyber cupcake gifts. But here’s the thing – you can’t at a Facebook cupcake. It is but a hollow promise of the real thing.

Engagement ring
I really like the idea that at least one person has gifted their sweetie a Facebook engagement ring and nervously composed a message to go with it. (ur my life i <3 u will u b my wife????) But the diamond on the Facebook ring is gigantic, which sets up an expectation that is sure to disappoint the ring-having fiancee.

Two champagne glasses clinking
This one is so awesome. It’s not just two glasses of bubbly, but two glasses clinking together like something out of a hip-hop music video. “Girl, I will buy you champagne and treat u like a lady in the way in which you will be accustomed to bcuz ur my princess.”

Handcuffs
The ‘cuffs serve a dual purpose. If you have a Facebook friend who is a law enforcement official, you can send him a pair to show your appreciation for his hard work. And also if your have a Facebook friend who is a teenager who has a passing knowledge but no experience of sexual bondage, you can send her handcuffs for a laugh.

Ninja
See PIRATE SKULL WITH EYEPATCH AND HEADSCARF

Empty shotglass
There’s a full shotglass, but this one is far more interesting. See, it’s an empty vessel. If you gift this to someone, you are saying, “I am empty inside. I need you to fill me up.” If a woman sends you this, she is likely desperate to have babies. If a man sends you this, he wants to have drunken sex0rs with you.

Panda
OMG! Everyone loves pandas! They are so cute with their white bits and their blacks bits and their roly-poly furry bits! I love pandas! I want a pet panda. I will call him Mr Xiu-Xiu and we will play in the garden and have tea together!

Pirate skull with eyepatch and headscarf
See NINJA

Red plastic cup
This is the kind you see in American college comedies where the students are having a “kegger” party which involves drinking beer in red plastic cups, and lots of yelling and general hilarious debauchery. This would be a good Facebook gift to give someone if you wanted to give them a booze-related gift, but didn’t want their profile to be sullied by an obviously booze-related icon.

Lei
Another double meaning gift. A lei can either represent flowery, tropical loveliness, with pretty colours and golden sunsets, or you can make a pun about “getting lei’d”.

Blue vodka jelly shot
You could get into trouble with this icon. If you sent it to a wild young student person, they would go, “A blue vodka jelly shot! All right!” But if you gave it yo your mum, she would go, “Is this a cup of Mr Muscle window cleaner? I don’t understand. Do you want me to come over and clean your windows? I really think you’re old enough to do your own cleaning.”

omg ur nickd sunshyn lol

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You know there’s that cliche about how you know you’re getting older when policemen start looking younger? Well, not so long ago I had an experience that was that cliche come to life in horrifying proportions.

I was walking along Hobson Street, near the Auckland Central Police Station. Walking towards was a uniformed cop. I glanced at him. He looked about 19. I chuckled at the cliche. But then it got worse.

The cop had a cellphone in his hand and he was texting as he was walking. Not only that, but he was doing that little smile when you read a teh funny text in public but you don’t want to laugh too much.

He didn’t look at all look like a serious officer of the law going about his business. He had the demeanour of a teenager on his way to his McDonald’s shift, texting his girlfriend to see wot she woz up 2 l8r that day.

I tried to imagine what sort of text messages a cop of today would be sending on his way to work, but I gave up after my imagination started to horrify me.

But every cop has to start somewhere. No doubt in years to come he’ll have a fine moustache and be out there busting up P rings with finesse. (omg i busted up a p ring lol!!! yay me!!!)

If it’s expensive, it must be the good stuff

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New Zealanders sad at their country’s team not winning the America’s Cup boat race (again) may be pleased at their fair country’s placing at the top of a different table.

I just came across this recent article in The Economist looking at the price of cocaine around the world.

Not surprisingly it’s cheapest in South America. Britain and the US pay around US$100 a gram, Australia and Japan pay around US$250 a gram, but here’s the truly awesome bit – right at the high end of the scale is New Zealand with US$715 per gram. Yes, Aotearoa New Zealand is home to the most expensive cocaine in the world.

That explains why it seems the only people who seems to use coke in these parts are vile property developers.

The article blames this on New Zealand’s relative isolation from South America, which sounds right. And of course what this means is that when Kiwis want to get their uppity up-up highs, they turn to methamphetamines, usually ones made from over-the-counter cold and flu remedies using that good old-fashioned do-it-yourself, number-eight fencing wire Kiwi ingenuity mentality. Go Kiwi!

Or maybe we should be embarrassed and ashamed by this. I mean, along with wide footpaths with outdoor dining, isn’t one of the hallmarks of a world-class city the prevalence of cocaine? What sort of sophisticated high society doesn’t have uppity up-up cokety coke-coke parties? If we want to lose weight, we have to do so by diet and exercise instead of abusing stimulants. What sort of Third World existence is this?

Actually, in a peculiar way, I think having the most expensive cocaine in the world is something that New Zealanders should be very proud of.

I’m going to paint a 10

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There’s a post over at Boing Boing that’s turned into a bit of a roll call of clips on Sesame Street that scared today’s grown-ups back when they were little kids in the ’70s and ’80s.

This reminded me of the Sesame Street clip that scared me: the Painting Man, aka the Mad Painter and the Number Painter.

He went around New York City painting numbers from 2 to 11 on things or – hilariously – people. What scared me was his beard, his staring eyes and that he never spoke, except in voice over. Mum had to come and turn the TV off whenever the Painting Man was on.

So sought him out on YouTube and faced my childhood nemesis. Watching the clips, I realised he was the actor who played the faux Guffman in “Waiting For Guffman“, and that the clips often featured Stockard Channing as a lady who gets numbers painted on or about her.

And then there’s my favourite part – the Robert Dennis’ jazzy tack-hammer piano music that accompanies each clip. (My favourite version is on number 4)

The Painting Man no longer scared me (which is just as well, cos my mum is currently on holiday on a tropical island and not available to make the bad man go away).

Watching the Painting Man clips now makes me yearn for New York City and hangin’ out on a street corner with some Puerto Rican guy called Ricky (or whatever ever it is that people do in New York – I should go there and find out).

Bonus! While I was searching through YouTube, I found a clip from 1973 of Stevie Wonder riotously singing “Superstition” on Sesame Street, and James Earl Jones counting to 10 – an acting tour de force.

Three things the recent stormy weather did

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  1. It moistened a bunch of posters stuck to a fence, causing the posters to peel off. This revealed “FUCK” written on the fence in black paint – a reminder of a simpler time before the fence was a medium for poster ads. The stormy weather then finished things off by blowing the fence over. Man, the wind is so puuuuunk.

    Peeled posters, hidden meaning

  2. It broke off a bunch of branches from trees. Every park I’ve seen is covered with branches. It gives inner city parks that gnarled urban wasteland look that was quite fashionable in the mid to late ’90s. Obviously this is incredibly naff, so they should be cleaned up asap.
  3. It put a pine tree twig in my bath. I’m not sure how it got there, but somehow a twig from a tree two properties away ended up sitting in the bottom of my bath. Logically it seems that the wild wind blew it in through a gap in the bathroom window, but I suspect that actually the branch fled from the bitter outdoors and sought refuge in my bath.