Getting a bit of perspective.

So I was massively stressing about revision, and the ever growing pile of frantically highlighted notes that seem to be taking over my room. Then I started thinking about Jerry Springer, and I realised there are people who are a lot worse off. Some people have no idea who their baby daddy is, for example.

I've just had a massive epiphany

I have no idea why I social network. Seriously, I know its nice to have a little nose. And the amount of scandal that goes down on that news feed is hard to argue with. But is a little bit of mindless online stalking really worth putting up with an annoyance of epic proportions. I am referring, of course, to the archetypal Facebook douchebag. I've been thinking, I might be a bit more choosy with who I accept as a friend. Maybe that way, I'll avoid things like this (seriously, if you've answered 'yes' to one or more of the following, please don't add me. or anyone. just, stay off the internet):

1. People who put song lyrics in their status. Especially anything remotely resembling Coldplay. You might think it makes you sound all deep and meaningful, but its just embarrassing for all involved.

2. One word: Farmville. When will it stop dicking all over my newsfeed? There is literally nothing in the world I care less about than how your imaginary wheat is harvesting on your imaginary farm. And I will never send you the 'free gift of an apple tree', so stop asking.

3. The generic 'I hate my life' status update. Especially when followed by 'I don't wanna talk about it.' Well, the trick there is probably to keep your problems (and I use this term very loosely) off the internet. This is precisely the reason that Facebook NEEDS to introduce a 'nobody gives a shit' button.

4. Anybody who writes the following in their 'about me' section: "I'm like Marmite, you either love me or you hate me". Seriously, I don't even mind Marmite, but saying that will definitely make me hate you. These are the same kind of people who wear kooky hats, and make it their 'thing' to hide the fact that they have absolutely no personality. Everyone's like "Oh yeah. I know John, always wears that hat." Have you ever properly spoken to this John character? My guess? Not so much going on upstairs.

5. Quite a lot of people don't fully understand what the word fan means. Generally it means to like and support something. So, why then, is my homepage plagued with people 'becoming a fan' of ridiculously cringe groups like 'I wish I could erase you from my life.' You're a FAN of that feeling are you? You LIKE it? Really?

6. Facebook can be a bit of a sarky twat sometimes. Like, my Mum just joined 2010 and got on board, so she's got about 15 friends at the minute. The other day, a little message popped up saying she 'ONLY has 15 friends'. God, rub in why don't you?

7. So. many. spelling. mistakes.

8. People who take photos of how much alcohol they've drank like it warrants some sort of medal.

9. Similar to number 4, but people who's 'about me' section contains the phrase "I always say what's on my mind." Yeah, that doesn't make you 'real', it actually makes you a sociopath.

10. People who put involve their middle names in their user name. Or even worse, some shit little nickname, like Joe 'Nutter' Bloggs, that they are under the impression everyone calls them . In reality, it's probably more like that episode of Friends when Ross tries to make everyone call him 'The Ross-a-tron' and nobody does and its really awkward.

11. People getting all mental because somebody denied their friend request. Look, just calm down, realise its only Facebook and just move on with your life.

12. 9 year old joining groups such as 'I FORT HE LUVED ME BUT HE JST BROKE MY HART'.Come on, go and listen to some Justin Bieber and get over it.

All this douchery aside though, Facebook can be a source of comedy gold. Have you ever been on Lamebook.com? Seriously, go on it. Right now. It's dedicated to all the massive fails ever to grace our newsfeeds, and it single handedly ruining my chances of ever getting a degree. Amazing.

Do we really trust a man who looks this much like a slice of ham to run the country?

seriously, it's uncanny.

So I saw this thing on TV, right?

It was about offensive jokes, and how far people go to get a laugh. This is always been a bit of a polarising issue. You've got team "nothing is 'too risqué' when it comes to comedy", then there's team "too far". But I was thinking, we can hardly take the moral high ground when we obviously enjoy a below-the-belt joke or two. I mean, someone must be laughing, otherwise comedians wouldn't bother. Life's full of shenanigans that are more that suitable to crack a joke about, so what it is about the dodgy territory that really gets us?
Here's my theory: it's the age old "I was just saying what you were all thinking" dynamic. When it comes to punchlines that makes us cringe, I reckon we laugh out of nervousness, in a "did I just hear that right? way, a little bit shock and because most of the time, they shed a little light on topics that we wouldn't have the guts to joke about. The one thing that pisses me off though, is when people are just offensive for the sake of it. Those kinda people are like Jedward; unnecessary and the opposite of amusing. I personally think comedy has to be clever for it to work. People say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but have they forgotten about 'your mum' jokes? So simple. So unfunny.
Well anyway, my point, in a roundabout way, is that in the big pie chart of life, the proportion of serious to satire is way off. We need people to spin a little light-heartedness on things. Besides, maybe people will stop being offensive when we stop laughing at it?
Did you know as well, laughing for 15 seconds adds 2 days to your life span? Can't argue with that.

Dragons denning this shit.

My Mum had one of those moments earlier, like all Mums do where they just get things completely wrong. But Mama C's little senior-citizen glitch actually turned out to be a massive stroke of genius. My Brother was on about buying a morph suit (you know, those creepy lycra suits that cover your whole body? kinda like if the blue man group decided to partake in a cheeky bit of bank robbery), but she thought he was talking about buying a suit made out of the inflatable stuff you use in zorbing.



which made me think, the sooner zorb suits are invented, the sooner my life will become exponentially better.
gone are the days of waiting approximately 3 days for a rickety bus, which smells strangely like burger king and that stale smell which lingers after a house party, where 9 year olds play shit music at the back of and crazy people seek you out like some kind of missile, despite the fact there are hundreds (ok, 5's and 5's) of other seats.
you could just whack on your zorb suit and roll.
amazing.
duncan bannatyne is going to love it.

Losing the blog-ginity

So basically, I've recently started a Journalism course at uni. Well OK, not that recently. Six months ago to be exact. But my grasp of recent is pretty loose. To me, 'the other day' could be anything from today to 5 years ago. Also, I've well and truly conformed to the student stererotype and spent the last six months in one of three states:

i) Inebriated.
ii) Sleeping off effects of said inebriation.
iii) In a pro-plus enduced frenzy, desparately cramming some last minute revision.

Anyway, now I'm home for Easter, and i've decided to try my hand at this blogging malarky. I promise I will try and take my time out of my busy napping and super-noodle consuming schedule (god, i am such a cliche of a student) to update it with tales of my shenanigans, pondering the big issues in life (such as why do you never see baby pigeons? seriously.) and other things taking up my brain space.

I guess this isn't the best day to start a blog. I've done pretty much nothing. Well, that's a lie, i thought about going for a run, which is basically the same as going for one. It didn't really happen though, the con's outweighed the pro's in the end, the con's being it is raining and i don't want to go and i run like a twat, the pro's being...hmm. I've been surgically attatched to the laptop for the last few days trying to get me some work experience, which is about as easy as cracking the davinci code. I've written a few fashion articles that I'm hoping to send to a few magazines in the next few weeks. Yes, I am a member of the growing would-be Suzy Menkes army, but I can't help it. I just really want to be a fashion journalist. Ick. Hello shameless self promotion.

I had a bit of a mid-teen crisis, for want of a less cheesy phrase, this week. Had a major freak out about my course, and whether I was going to end up where I want to be at the end of it. I've never been unsure about what I want to do or how i'm going to do it before, so the fact that in two years time i'm going to be thrown into a highly competitive industry at the oh-so deep end scared me a bit. A lot. So I started looking at a few other options, mainly speech therapy. My best friends reactions were not that reassuring, namely "hahahaha Erin, you couldn't be a speech therapist, you're way too mean". Beautiful. But psychology has always been my back up, and speech therapy looked right up my street. But after a LOT of to'ing and fro'ing, frantic googling and chats with the muvs, I decided I was being a douche, and I needed to stop worrying about whether I'll get a job or not and just enjoy my course. I've wanted to be a journalist for as long as I can remember, theres no point in backing out just because I don't have guaranteed access to the bottom rung of the career ladder when i graduate. Who does? And at least I have speech therapy as a fully fledged plan B.
Sorted.

Anyway, I have lots of pressing matters to attend to.
I think Ricky Lake might be on.