Thanks for the memories, but it's over

This is a bit of a different blog. It's not a detailing of my life as such, but instead, it's the closing of one door in my life. Admittedly, this is a door that's been left open for far too long, and I fear that behind that door, there are plenty of skeletons. In fact, I can prove this quite happily by having a quick look through. There aren't skeletons as such, but there are definitely messages from my past.

In case you hadn't guessed, (admittedly, I doubt you have...this has been a bit cryptic so far) I'm deleting my Myspace account. I imagine there may be one or two of you thinking "Why is this worthy of a blog entry?" and to an extent, you'd be absolutely right. BUT...think about it, Myspace was a big deal 4 or 5 years ago. For many people, it was the beginning of the social networking revolution that started off in dark corners of universities in America and whatnot. Admittedly, there was Bebo, but that was a pile of crap and I don't think anyone really figured ou what the purpose of Bebo was apart from to prove that Myspace was easier to use.

So like I say, Myspace was the beginning of the social networking revolution for many. A quick look at my page suggests that I had 119 Myspace friends. I knew most of them, but by the end, a good sized portion of them were wrestlers and bands. A good mixture, and I guess that actually reflected who I was at the time.

One last read through the wall posts. There's nothing there of great significance to me that is worth saving. There's stuff from exes, a girl who was in love with me and people I haven't spoken to in a long long time. If I'm honest, I can live without reading that again. I've gone the last two years without reading it, I'll manage the next few decades.

Myspace really died a death when Facebook took off. I took quite a long time to make the switch, and if I'm honest, it probably wasn't until around mid-2008 when I got Facebook and started using that instead. There was a brief transition, but I guess once you realise once you've made friends on Facebook with the people on Myspace that you actually knew, there was no reason to keep using it. Of course, Twitter has now come along and that's HUGE stuff. I'm on Twitter (@tkayll) but I still use Facebook. There are many people who don't really like Twitter for various reasons. I like it, I've had interaction with famous people and I've discovered loads of interesting stuff. I mean, without it, I probably wouldn't have read as many interesting articles as I have done, I wouldn't have enjoyed the recent Ashes series as much and I wouldn't have discovered as many new bands/podcasts as I have.

So Myspace has been something that's lay there a few years, a bit sorry for itself. It's tried to evolve and keep up with Facebook, but if there aren't people using it and continuing to make it relevant, it'll die out. There was news earlier this week or last week that Myspace was closing its Germany sector. People in Germany can still use the website (if they want to) but there isn't anyone running the site from that country. It'll effectively be left there to die with an occasional glance from the American admins.

Anyway, on with the actual point of this blog, which is the deletion of Thomas Kayll's Myspace page. I'll be honest, this is a difficult process. Myspace clearly don't want anyone to leave and they're making it as difficult as possible. You have to know exactly where to look: Account Settings. Then, there's a button to cancel your account. Once you tell them you want to cancel your account, they ask you WHY you're leaving. I kid you not, this is directly from Myspace:

We're sorry to hear you want to leave. Please let us know why. You can really help us improve Myspace!

Bored
Spam
Privacy
Email

It then asks you if you want to keep your account, just in case they can trick someone who is deleting their account for a reason that isn't listed there. Personally, I've gone for "Bored" because well, I'm writing a blog about it. When I click to tell them I'm bored of Myspace, I get another box:

Myspace works best when you are connected to things that you are into. Go discover some cool stuff:

Listen to Music
Checkout Movies
Play Games
Browse People

They REALLY don't want people to leave, do they? I've discovered cool stuff like music, games and people. It's called Twitter and Facebook. Please, I'm begging you now, let it go. Please. But no, looks like there's one last hurdle to overcome. They want comments as to why you're leaving. You know something, I'll give them credit for trying, and I'm almost tempted to keep the account as a reward to Myspace for their efforts. I won't though. That's it now, surely? I've told them why, I've told them I don't want to find new stuff on Myspace and I've left them a comment. That's enough.

No. No it isn't. Apparently, this is only a request. They've sent me an email saying that I've got to now confirm my request to cancel my account. Holy shit. They're making me work for this. I'd be reluctantly sat by the door, offering to fetch my coat and maybe save my favourite photo or something while I'm at it. Since I've shared everything else, here is that final apologetic email from Myspace.

You're… leaving us?

Sure you're ready to let go of your friends, music, and that profile design you spent so much time creating? Canceling your account means your profile and all your content will be removed from Myspace and you can't get it back!

Why not preserve your profile, playlists and photos by deleting your friends and changing your privacy setting to "Only my friends?" That way, you can still enjoy using Myspace Music and Video and if you ever want to come back, it's here waiting for you!

If you're sure you want to let go, confirm the cancelation of your account by clicking the link below. Once clicked, we will schedule your account deletion, which may take up to 24 hours.

We hate to see you go, but we hope you have fun out there.

See you around,
Your friends at Myspace

Yes, I'm leaving you. Move on. If Myspace makes a return like 80s dance music, the Mini Cooper or Michael Schumacher, I'll come back with my tail between my legs and sign up again. I'm pretty confident though, so it's gone. Clicking the link (which I removed) then asks me to enter my email address to confirm my request and again reminding me that I'll lose everything on Myspace forever. Seriously, I get the point. I'm sure you do too. I'll live though. With my email address entered though, I've FINALLY reached the end of the line and cancelled the account.

That, ladies and gentlemen, was one of the most tiresome and frustrating things I've ever had to do. Neil Young's song Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black), and perhaps more famously Kurt Cobain's suicide note, said "It's better to burn out than to fade away". Myspace should have heeded these words and have sold itself to a Bolivian drugs baron or something and gone out in a blaze of glory. Instead, it sits in a darkened corner of the internet next to dial-up and is forgotten about.

Thanks for the memories Myspace, but it's over.

Tom

A two parter, and it's not the most cheerful of blogs

It's been a while since I last made a blog entry. In fact, looking at my blog, it's been the best part of a month since I last sat down with this website open to scribble down some thoughts. So...I hope everyone who reads this had a very good Christmas and an enjoyable New Year. I know I certainly did. 2010 was a bit of a heavy year, and quite a lot of stuff happened throughout the year so that it was certainly one of the more eventful years I've had. The month I had off from university was a month from December-January that I was quite thankful for. It just gave me the chance to do nothing and recharge my batteries. With a bit of luck, the batteries are charged up again and I can have a pretty good year.

We'll see though. I'm considering changing the old set of AAs in me. Who knows how I'd go about doing that though. With a bit of luck though, I'll have a productive year with university, friends, home life and the world in general.

It's a crazy world at the moment though. I mean, there's the floods in Queensland which have wreaked absolute havoc to the people there. They've ruined so many lives, though I have to admit that it really is awesome to see so many people doing their best to try and help out in any way they can. The cricketing world has stepped in, and at the first T20 with England and Australia,, they raised well over $20,000 among the thousands in attendance. There's charities and donation sites set up which are getting press all over Twitter and Facebook to try and boost their status and raise as much money as they can.

Then there's floods in Sri Lanka which have left hundreds of thousands people homeless. Of course, Sri Lanka isn't as strong a country in terms of economy and whatnot, and they're having major trouble. As if that weren't enough though, there have been floods and landslides in Brazil as well.

EDIT: I'll stop you here and fill you in on some stuff. I wrote this on Monday afternoon but didn't get round to posting it because it wasn't a complete entry, or so I thought in my eyes. It's now Wednesday morning, just after 8am. I've woken up and there's new stuff on my mind which I feel needs writing down. Back to the blog...

I've just had one of the most bizarre sequences of dreams I can recall in a long time. I guess this is why I wanted to write this down so quickly because often, people can forget dreams ridiculously quickly after they remember having them.

First one was about being at uni and getting an email sent through about having not sent in any work over the last semester. I'm not sure why this one bothered me so much, but it really did. Maybe it's because I know that I did send in all of my work last semester, and it was always on time...in some instances, it was comfortably in on time with a day to spare. Of course, I'll now be incredibly paranoid about the idea that I should have actually been sending in all of my work online as well as in person for the entirety of my first semester, but that's something that I'll just have to live with.

This second one is the one that's really bothered me. I'm not even sure why I had it and couldn't tell you what it means for the life of me, or what I think it should mean. Essentially, I was grown up...maybe another 10 years older or so and was in a different building (we'll call it my home) and there was a woman there. Obviously, I'm not so bothered about this. If there's a woman living with me in my future (forgetting the fact that this is a dream and not realistic at all) then that's surely a positive sign. What bothered me though, is that there were no traces of my childhood or youth to be seen anywhere. Nothing remotely fun, and perhaps the thing that really got to me the most is that there was no trace of Froggy or anything like that.

It got me thinking...when do people decide they have to grow up and let go of their younger years? I'm trying to avoid saying "childhood" as much as possible because Froggy isn't part of my childhood at all, I got him when I was 15 or so. It was August 2007...so that's 15, right? But that's completely beside the point. To me, he's still one of the stronger links to being young and the excuse and opportunity to be a bit ridiculous and have a laugh. Being completely honest, I really don't want to grow up. This all sounds a bit ridiculous at quarter past 8 in the morning, and there's a strong chance I'll come back to this later on today or something, read through it again and go "Dude, what the hell were you thinking? People already think you're strange enough as it is..." That, however, is a risk I'm willing to take.

I don't though...well, that's not completely true. I want to grow up in the sense of having independence and whatnot, and being able to live on my own or with other people, which is what I'm already doing to an extent. The part of growing up I don't like the idea of doing is having to become really mature and act my age. I don't want to do that. I'm not completely immature, but I like having my silly moments, and they're something that I cherish. I think everyone does and if they don't, they should ask themselves why they don't.

There'll be another blog coming later on this week. I know exactly what I'm writing it about already, it'll just be a matter of sitting down and doing it and publishing it. A rather suitable quote to finish things off though:

“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.” (Tom Stoppard)