I used to really care about Facebook, now not so much

I'm much more about the Twitter now. Facebook has just got too full of other crap. I don't want to know that people have received fortune cookies, which awkward moments they identify with, or what their daily horoscope says.

You don't get as much of that on Twitter. (Spam followers, yes, but I'm developing a strategy to deal with those.)

So as I become a post-Facebook web-user, this cartoon resonated with me.

Toniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight I'm a rock and roll star

(That song should so be on one of these games...)

Lego Rock Band for the Wii is my new addiction. It's basically Guitar Hero in another guise, but better than the most recent Guitar Hero editions as you can have more than one 'band' on there, meaning you can play your own game.

One thing I like is that every so often you get to record 'albums' and name them yourself. I have resurrected my old band name, Cadmium, and have recorded two albums so far: A Kind of Heavy Metal and Elementalists. (There's a theme there if you can spot it.)

I will shortly be recording my third album and need a name for it. I'm tempted to call it The 'difficult' third, as a reference to the common problem bands face with their third album. By then they have usually run out of material they worked on in their gestation period and have to write something new.

Their are some third albums that buck that trend - the Killers and the All American Rejects managed it. And Bon Jovi made their name off the back of their third album (Slippery When Wet).

But it is weird how the third album is problematic. Dan Piraro makes an interesting comment in his book that I'm currently reading, when he says that people's perceptions of cartoonists is usually that they are in decline from past glories rather than improving with practice. I guess the same is true of many bands.

But really the reverse should be true. Great bands should get better with time and experience. So, why don't they? It's an interesting question.

Who failed who?

Although he is overly self-effacing to the point where I almost think that he really does believe he's amazing, but thinks it's better to say he doesn't, Dan Piraro is one guy who often manages to come up with something that makes me think.

In this recent blog post he makes some incredibly insightful points about the whole Catholic priest child abuse scandal. It's probably the best, most even-handed commentary I've read, and from someone who has wandered out of that particular flock. And he may have a point - did people join the priesthood hoping it would protect them from their own sinful natures?

He's left me wondering whether when a scandal breaks like that, does that mean the person has failed the church. Or has the church in some way failed the person too?

Beanless

Went out last night after building furniture and shunting boxes round at Dr Nicholl's behest to Nandos, only to be greeted by a sign that said: 'No bean patties today'. So I had to have a veggieburger instead, which wasn't too bad actually.

Now you might be asking 'Why didn't you just have the piri piri chicken and be done with it?' And I guess that's the thing. Since coming back from the States, I've harboured a secret. I've become a vegetarian.

There were plenty of reasons to do it. The farming industry is notoriously cheap and animals are mistreated badly. And I actually quite like animals. Sheep and cows not so much, but pigs are cute. Maybe I like grunty, snorty creatures who don't care much what anyone thinks because they remind me of me. Is it hypocritical to think pigs are cute and feed them in petting zoos and then chow down on some bacon? And, incidentally, what is the difference between eating pigs and eating dogs? It all seems very arbitrary to me.

So, reason 1: I like animals.
Reason 2: I'm fortunate to live in a society where I have a choice in what I eat, and I believe when you're given a choice it's your moral duty to make an ethical decision. I disapprove of people who prioritise their own tastebuds over the human rights and dignity of tea-pickers (in fact, deliberately choosing not to drink fair trade tea or coffee is a good reason why some people will go to hell). So, if I have the choice, and I should make an ethical choice, surely the ethical choice is to not eat meat, on so many levels.

And then there's the third reason. As I've already said the farming industry is shabby and cheap. We'll feed animals dead animals and then watch people's brains turn to mush. We'll pump our chickens full of oestrogen and wonder why men are growing boobs. I've put on some weight, and my man-tits are getting weighty. But they've shrunk since I stopped eating chicken and turkey.

And finally, in New York we met up with Dan Piraro. He's an artist I respect and he's passionate about animal rights. We chatted a bit around the subject (he's a vegan) and much of what he said made sense, but unlike many vegetarian prosetelysers, he didn't try to put me on a guilt trip, he didn't try and disgust me by telling me jelly babies are made from horses' hooves, or that pork sausages are full of pig eyeballs, and he didn't judge me. And that convinced me you can be a vegetarian and not be a swivel-eyed loon.

Plus you have to look at the ridiculous things people say to justify eating meat:
1) Hitler was a vegetarian. No, he wasn't, unless vegetarians eat Bratwurst. But it is true he was prescribed a vegetarian diet in order to treat his chronic flatulence, presumably because his doctors wanted it to get worse...
2) The Bible says we should eat meat. Really? Who's got the theology degree here?
3) Biologically we're built to eat meat. I'm not a biologist, but I have seen proper carnivores and we don't look much like them. Sorry, at best we're omnivores. Like hedgehogs.
4) Vegetarians are weird. Well, I was weird a long time before I became a vegetarian. If you don't believe me go for a trip through my blog archives.

A busy Tuesday

We met one of our cartooning heroes - Dan Piraro, creator of Bizarro. He was as pleasantly weird as you'd expect a cartoonist to be, and graciously gave us an hour and a half of his time at the Atlas cafe on 2nd Avenue. The pic is taken outside with Dan holding his scooter helmet even though (ssshhh) he claims he doesn't have a licence for it...






This was after a walk round Chinatown, Little Italy and the Jewish quarter. We capped off our day with more shopping and in the evening I pigged out on a Froot Loops marshamallow confection. Those who know my passion for Froot Loops won't be surprised to hear that I forced myself to eat it all! (I have got a photo but it's on Cath's camera and it's too late for me to work out how to get stuff off that onto here.)