Facebook membership is something of a must these days, as compulsory in being a part of society as owning a phone, mobile or otherwise. Shutting my account seems to be a controversy akin to tattooing a swastika on my forehead.

On declaring on Facebook that I was to deactivate my account (it's not possible to delete it) I had comments ranging from a simple ":(" to someone struggling to reconcile the news with a, "what's going on?!"

The following day at work a few colleagues asked me why I'd left, defaulting to office small talk mode I merely suggested that I don't use it much anymore, so saw no point in keeping an account. This is maybe an eighteenth of the actual reason.

Let's remember that Facebook is just an evolution of those websites such as Hi5 or Faceparty, the membership of which was (rightly) an embarrassment, and supplied a big badge with 'stigma' written on it. The burden of proof should be with those who are on it, not those who aren't. The very fact I attracted strange looks and questionning eyes marks a huge shift in the part the internet plays in our lives compared to just a few years ago. 

Many cite privacy concerns as their reason for leaving, but for me it was a much simpler social realisation. I've been in debates in the past where it has been contended that social media makes us more social rather than less, but I have come to disagree. "I don't use it much anymore" actually equates to scanning the news feed a couple of times a day and checking the app on my smartphone when I'm killing time. This means I absorbed the activities of more or less every friend, acquaintance and family member I had the capacity to recall. An efficient way to catch up perhaps. The flipside is that I had no need or desire to communicate with any of them, I knew everything.

The ubiquitous way of keeping in touch with people who you barely care about and who barely care about you also bought out the worst in me. Vanity and ego I didn't know I possessed crept up on me. I find I have less of a desire to have my soul stolen by cameras.

Facebook adds another facet to relationships and for someone who finds them as complicated as I do, it is the last thing I need. Then there are those awkward friend requests that you're not sure if you should accept, and the friend requests you send that aren't fulfilled. 

Since leaving I've made more of an effort to contact people, I have actual, real life conversations with people about their lives. I value this face to face contact over any facsimile of affection that appears on one of my many screens.

One of the benefits of buying lunch from an expensive food market is that the stallholders are obliged to be polite and make conversation. This is not something that you encounter regularly, if at all, as a Londoner. 

These interactions are a good opportunity to push the realms of acceptable conversation; a chance to test dialogue before using it on people that matter.

Here's a recent example (to the best of my recollection):

Me: Enjoying the rain?

Pastry seller: It's terrible, the rain keeps everyone away.

Me: I'll have a brownie please.

Pastry seller: I much prefer it when it's sunny.

Me: I don't think London was ever meant to be sunny.

Pastry seller: [Silence]

Me: Well, thanks for this, bye!

From this I can either surmise that my statement about a suitable climate for the capital was so profound that there was no response worthy of my perceptiveness, or that it was simply such an odd and obtuse thing to say that she didn't know what to say.

I'm leaning towards the latter.

After stumbling upon the lovely Lara O'Reilly's problems with Virgin Media on her blog I thought I'd take a similar tack and whine about my recent experiences with Overclockers UK.

For those of you who don't know, Overclockers UK (or OcUK) is an online computer parts retailer based in Staffordshire. They tend to stock the higher-end of the components range and are happy to charge you a small premium for doing so.

Back in the day of the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD format war, I bought an LG drive for my computer from them on 29th July 2008AD. As I’m sure you’re all aware, the cool thing about the GGC-H20L was that it could play both formats, and burn DVDs. To be honest, the purchase was partially driven by the fact that at the time, it was possible to buy HD-DVDs for around £5.99.

Seven months of sporadic high definition viewing pass when horror of all horrors, I get Quantum of Solace* through the post on Blu-Ray and it doesn’t work. After much fiddling, soul searching, and praying to various gods I got in touch with Overclockers. They accepted it back, but then as a kind of hilarious gag, replaced it with another faulty one. I contacted their technical support to let them know, but through a mixture of grooming and hypnosis, they managed to convince me that my computer was at fault.

For the next few months I experienced what it was like to be without a HD video source, a post-apocalyptic existence with only Mad Max and the guy from Waterworld able to understand how it felt. This was until (or so I was told, despite the fact it wasn’t a problem before) I purchased a new HDCP-compatible monitor. That day came in the middle of July when my then trusty Acer screen would no longer co-operate with me or the power button. Indeed, it prompted me to upgrade to a brand new shiny widescreen number from Benq. But what’s this? It still doesn’t work? Oh.

The drive went back to Overclockers again. This time they kept it for testing, then proceeded to send it back to LG themselves. A month passed with no sort of optical drive at all, but then I received a message from Staffordshire: “Please do not reply to this automated email” it read.
I was being shipped a different drive. “But what about us?” I heard my HD-DVDs cry. The material difference here was that it would only play Blu-Ray discs. Naughty. I head back to the very familiar sight of their ‘WebNote’ system to ask what was going on. Without a timely reply and on the good advice of @MerseyMal I refuse the delivery.

But then some good news came in the form of a reply to my WebNote query, “I think that you have been sent the wrong drive sir I will raise the RMA on this for you and get the new drive sent out.”

Half a month passed with no contact – I felt lonely so chased them up. The reply reads, ““Please do not reply to this automated email.”
It said I was being refunded, but for substantially less than I forked out, and under the title of a drive I’d never owned.

I was quite unhappy with this, so I called Overclockers themselves, then LG, who both placed blame with the other party. I also called Trading Standards who told me about a clause in the Sale of Goods Act which says that things you spend good money on should be durable. A life span of 6-7 months does not a durable optical drive make.

The lesson here is that a warranty in this sense may not offer you as much protection as you may have come to expect. Where a high street shop such as HMV would replace or fully refund electronic goods on the spot after making sure it was faulty, somewhere like Overclockers UK won’t, in fact, they’ll just ignore you.

I sent them a letter of complaint the same day of the refund notice (3^rd September 2009) but 14 days later I am yet to hear a response.

*Apologies to those who feel animosity towards the Bond franchise

As I have a massive 3 subscribers to this blog, a substantially higher number than the other blogs I actually update, I feel obliged to write something. That and the fact that Leila Makki is threatening me with unsubscribing if I don't.

As I've got a home for things I want to blog about I think I'll just use this as a platform to argue with myself, or to just share the tiny elements of thought processes that most people would regard as too mundane or pointless to recount.

Tonight, instead of being social or doing anything vaguely interesting, I've managed to stay in and listen to novelty 12" mixes of 80s tracks with some glee. The inaccurately named 'Jazz Mix' of ABC's Poison Arrow was played several times. I would like to pretend that this was solely in an effort to describe it to Twitter's @louisebolotin but that's not really true. 

I also had the rare treat of catching up with with a friend on MSN's Messenger. It seems almost vulgar to use this client at my age, and it has to be said only approximately 4% of the people I used to converse with in my youth still turn up on it. This particular friend has appeared since my youth and is therefore an erroneous statistic. I've digressed a bit, the point I was going to make was that they provided a couple of opportunities for punning. It's a black art, and certainly one which shouldn't be practised often but it is still good fun. A couple of highlights from the conversation went thusly:
Friend: What mix are you listening to?
Me: Bombay mix.
bud-dum-tish!

I lied when I said there were a couple.

Anyway, the message you can take from this wholly improvised and unprepared post? Pun more.

Keith.

[Dictated but not read]

So, a blogging platform recommended by Leila Makki? Worth some due consideration at least.