So I've always prided (wait...yes, that's a word) myself on being able to find ANYONE online. Is it a valuable talent? Probably not, though @Conner_G will most likely be able to think of some way to monetize it with me. Brain storm later? But today I did a little snooping to try and find out the goss on a young lady I had a brief Twitter chat with yesterday. 

Sadly...despite my best efforts, this was all I could come up with...

Crystal Whittaker- Along with an accomplice, Whittaker stuffed $300 worth of clothing in a shopping bag inside of the JcPenney’s dressing room and ran off. Only problem was Whittaker left something behind- her 10 month old baby. While making her dash through the parking lot, she also threw her purse which had her identification in it.

Ohhhh dear :)

I thought I would share with you all a brief email that my old man sent me this morning. Personally I think it probably arrived because he's been at the Melbourne Cup all day, enough said.

Enjoy...

"This is a very good idea - to show tolerance. 

I am perplexed that so many of my friends are against a mosque being built near Ground Zero. I think it should be the goal of every society to be tolerant.  The mosque should be allowed in an effort to promote tolerance.

That is why I also propose that two gay nightclubs be opened next door to the mosque, thereby promoting tolerance within the mosque. We could call the clubs "The Turban Cowboy" and "You Mecca Me So Hot".

Next door should be a butcher shop that specializes in pork and have an open barbeque with spare ribs as its daily special.  Across the street a very daring lingerie store called “Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret” with sexy mannequins in the window modelling the goods.

Next door to the lingerie shop, there would be room for an Adult Toy Shop (Koranal Knowledge?), its name in flashing neon lights and on the other side a liquor store; maybe call it "Morehammered". 

If you agree in promoting tolerance and you think this is a good plan, pass it on."

Dad, you are awesome!

Today I intend to introduce a new term into the Internet lexicon. I have been prompted to do this for number of reasons.

1. I'm writing everyday about Social Media faux pas

2. I am purging my Twitter following list

3. Apparently, it's been a while...

Defining a SDA

The term we're going to examine today is "Social Display of Affection" or SDA for short. It refers to the "cute" or "sweet" things that you and your significant other happen to post on social media. These phrases are clearly intended for consumption by an audience of your social and professional peers, why else would they be posted here? SDAs can be anything which is aimed at someone personally with whom you are romantically involved, whether this be bluntly obvious or deliberately cloaked is not really the issue. The bookends of SDAs might include:

"Had such a wonderful time last week with a special someone"

to...

"Can't stop having orgasms, your tongue drives freight-trains of pleasure through my quivering body baby doll."

The Tworld as we know it

Twitter is a very sterile environment. My business partner Conner_G has described it this way numerous times. By that, I'm sure he means, Twitter is not the place for you to be over-critical. Twitter is not the place to bash your competition. Twitter is not the place to air out your dirty laundry and expose your office intern as an alternative-porn addict. Now you might think of this spiel as being fairly obvious (even gospel?), or you might not. But in our experience, that's pretty much the way things are going with personal branding on the social web.

(Note: If you're a celebrity this doesn't apply to you. You're all special flowers who can do and say whatever you like for our amusement. As you were...)

The line in the screen

For the past 36 hours, one of the people in Vancouver that I have been following on Twitter has constantly been updating his/her followers on the state of his/her body through the course of recent sexual escapades with a visitor. I ask you, is this appropriate? This person uses their Twitter profile for personal as well as professional image development. Now, I appreciate that perhaps all of this is the result of MY shortcoming. I chose to follow them and as a result I am beng punished. Granted. But how personal is too personal when it comes to Social Media?

Share and Share alike

Now, I have come up with one very simple solution and one that is significantly more problematic. #1 - I have stopped following this person (another Twitter faux pa). #2 - I am proposing that if you want to discuss how fantastic your partner is on social media. If you choose to share information updates about them with us, why stop there?

I officially suggest to the Social Media world that: If you want to talk about your sexual escapades, don't keep it so simple. We want Multi-media!! NewTwitter is out. That means we can all view Images and Videos right there next to all your updates. There could be a poll running which we (your Twitter followers) could easily use to assess and rank your technique while viewing YouTube videos of your bedroom encounter. We might even be able to provide live tips on positions and thrust management if you're able to stream your romp?

Let's take it one step further, if you're going to share info about your lover, why not share your lover? Heck, we could have a silent Facebook auction, create a poll, I'm almost certain there's some kind of Groupon application here that we could take advantage of, tell me I'm wrong?

Ultimately and Finally

Social Displays of Affection are in short, just plain mean. We get it, "You're having a fantastic time at the cabin ;)" That's just dandy. But for the sake of those of us who might not be getting laid every 30 minutes (Which begs the question, if the sex is so darn good, why have you still got time to be Tweeting about it? Huh, huh? Maybe you're not doing YOUR job!) keep it at least relatively PC. The world does not need a running tally of your climaxes.

So something occurred to me this evening during a fairly lengthy walk home from a party at Davey Hall's place on King Ed and Ontario. (Thanks for the evening folks, I had fun, wish I could have stayed.) I was flipping through my phone, calling and deleting people intermittently just as a matter of cleanliness. Then it occurred to me, why am I not more ruthless with both my calling and deleting?

Here's my humble explanation, that there are three types of people in your phone:

1. The people you contact

They might be friends, family or co-workers. There's probably not more than 100 of them and that's if you're stretching it. I don't care how popular you are, how well known, how well connected, how much of a celebrity...day to day and week to week there's probably not more than 100 people in your life that you have those genuine relationships with. There just aren't enough hours in the day to keep enough contact up in order to remain close, that's just a reality.

These are the people who you're excited to get messages and calls from but who won't ream you out when you're an hour late with your reply. The people who care enough about you to say hi once in a while without wanting anything from you. Perhaps even the people who do nice things for you without being asked.

For all intensive purposes, this may as well be your entire address book.

2. Inbound contacts

We all have them. Those people who just so happen to be stored in your phone for one explicit reason, so you know who they are when they call you. Often the result of a drunken evening or two and some light petting, you share phone numbers not for contact, but in order to avoid it. Now I understand why we do this, it's easier than simply manning / womanning up and asking that person not to contact you. Yes that's right, you are a shameful human being for doing this, we all are.

Suggestion: Ask them not to contact you.

I'm not quite sure the best method for doing this and I can remember only 1 instance when I actually did it.

Reanna - "Hey sugar plum, do you want to hit the beach today?"

Tim - "TBH, not really. I didn't have much fun the last time we hung out so I don't really want to do it again."

Reanna - "WOW, harsh...ok"

Success! In this instance. But my question is, was that the best way to go about it?

3. Outbound contacts

This is somewhat more complicated. In this instance, you're on the opposite side of the above relationship. You have a phone number, you call...no response, so you text...no response, so you wait...are you waiting right now?

Let's try something here. Deleting the numbers that don't give you a response. Why do it? Obvious, you're saving yourself considerable heartache when the calls and messages are not picked up. But let's add a step today, just for fun. You know all those inbound contacts (see above) that we mentioned? Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to store them?

Suggestion: Tell people that you're not going to contact them.

Again, this is a work in progress, but try something like this...

Tim - "Hey (insert one of potentially 1000 names), feel free to delete my digits if you like, I'm going to do the same. All the best in life and anything you happen to do, you're awesome and I hope you do well. No hard feelings :) cheers."

One of potentially 1000 names - (action button, delete).

Shake mobile hands and depart. How civilized. You've both just saved space in your phones for an extra 4 bars of California Girls by Katy Perry. Congrats.

*NOTE* I'll be testing this out this weekend and seeing what happens, purely as a social experiment. Check back for feedback :)