middledigit.net | jonathan hopkins

A slow worm. Oh joy. I have a real fear of snakes and even though this is technically a lizard of sorts, it’s very much a snake to someone that doesn’t like snakes.

Although these lizards are often mistaken for snakes, there are a number of features that differentiate them from snakes. The most important is they have small eyes with eyelids that blink like lizards. This is a feature that is not found in snakes. They also have visible ears like lizards do, which snakes do not have. They also have a notched tongue rather than the forked tongue of a snake. They shed their skin in patches like other lizards, rather than the whole skin as most snakes do. Also, the pattern of their ventral scales is totally different from that of snakes.

Oscar (our cat) has been bringing in quite a few of these lately and every time it fully freaks me out. Also, “Slow worms are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 from being killed, injured or sold “. Random post over and apologies for the slightly crappy photo - didn’t wanna go too near and leaning made it hard to keep the camera still.

Ages ago I came across the image of a white cat wearing blue swimming goggles and I chose to adopt it as my avatar and profile image for Facebook. I now use it everywhere I’m online (look at the top of this blog or click through to one of the other places I am) and I’ve even just got some Moo cards printed up with ‘the cat’ on.

So, it was a bit of a shock this morning to be emailed a link to a massive picture of ‘me’ in the Daily Mail this morning - included in a feature on LOLcats. It just felt strange.

I once tried to get in touch with the owner of the original image to find out more about the cat and check he/she doesn’t mind me using their image, but the website I took it from didn’t reply. Seeing ‘myself’ this morning has made me realise how much I do really want to now more about the cat in the blue goggles so I’m going to get on the case with finding ‘my owner’. Hopefully I’ll be able to update on this soon and I might need your help in doing so!

So, another load of time flies by and I don’t post anything. I don’t think I’m one of those bloggers that naturally likes to write a lot about something and offer up my opinion. Maybe if I had more time I would be but right now I’m not and don’t seem to be able to even if I want to. Instead, I’ve been on Twitter a whole lot more recently and also enjoying Facebook as more and more people emerge from the shadows and get really enaged with it (Disclaimer - I work with Facebook).

Anyway, here’s Kitty Wigs which Ged sent me (via Twitter, which is down for planned maintenance at the moment and I’m really mising it). My favourite is Pink Passion (pictured below). I just couldn’t face another Monday with no new stuff.

More to come this week as I’ve got lots to share - Le Web, amazing customer service, awful customer service, being human on the web and a whole load more stuff that I don’t know about.

Normal service to resume shortly.

Wow. A bit of a radio silence there. Sorry about that. I blame the perfect storm of being hugely busy at work, being away at the weekends and having a lot of other stuff to do and on my mind.

So, as by means of a bit of a catch up - here’s some stuff I’ve been doing and thinking.

1. Bite won the Facebook pitch. I’m on the team and am delighted to be working with the guys at Facebook. Especially when you read stuff like this. PR Week said it was “arguably the most sought-after retainer of the year” and that “Tech PR insiders agree that this was one of the most competitive pitches in recent memory”. Enough said. Very chuffed. Hugely excited.

2. We bought a car, our first (nearly) new one. One a bit like this. After polling my mates and colleagues before buying it, I already know that some people hate it. I liked it and then I drove it - just plain fun and reminded me of my 1972 VW Beetle that’s still waiting for me in a garage back home.

3. I met with Lloyd and talked about the Social Media Cafe he’s currently planning. Nice cup of tea and a pleasure to have a chat about something so completely logical.

4. I’ve been watching a lot of TED talks. Can’t get enough of people talking about stuff they are so incredibly passionate about. Here’s a directory of them all.

5. I’ve discovered MarsEdit via Chris Green. Looks like it’s going to be very, very useful indeed to write this blog (need all the help I can get right now as I’m struggling a bit to find my inner-blog-strength).

6. I’ve still been enjoying the constant feed of amusing cat photos from Esaba. This is where I found my Facebook profile pic that seems to get a lot of comment. There’s a little widget you can add to iGoogle that generates a new pic with every refresh. (see example below)

7. I’ve saved another 100 links or so to del.icio.us since my last post. All manner of stuff in there. I just can’t get enough of del.icio.us and am finding it increasingly hard to see how people who spend a lot of time on the web can manage without it. If I ever have to use a PC/Mac that isn’t one of mine I feel very, very wrong.

8. I’ve been drafting a monster post about “being digital”. One day I look at it and think it’s shite and another I can’t stop writing it. Hmmmmm, we’ll see.

9. I went to my Grandma’s funeral. Nothing more to be said on that other than this.

10. Sam at Glide told me about journa-list.com - a really useful site that allows you to track what different national and BBC journos are writing about and track their output as feeds. Much time saved. Nice simple tool that needs to be expanded upon.

Also like to see files being named nicely. Nice one b3ta.

Have to resist the urge to post stuff about cats pretty much daily. Here’s one that a) caught me just in the right (but wrong) frame of mind so it instantly became much more meaningful b) Freaked me out a bit as I’m not quite sure if it really is a cat.

From the wonderful Funny Cat Photos widget I have sat on my iGoogle main tab.

So, Facebook is everywhere now. I’m now in the strange position where I have friends, colleagues, journalists and clients all in one place. It could all go horribly wrong.

More people are talking about Myspace than Facebook on Twitter (see TweetVolume graph below) but everything is aligned nicely for it to go bigger with recent news and the word “poke” about to enter the mainstream with a different meaning - even if there seems to be some weirdness surrounding the launch - “Some of the behind-the-scenes stuff makes the young company appear a bit naive; one source said Facebook had said partners were not allowed to use the terms “MySpace” or “social network” in their discussions of the launch”

PS - Interesting to see that cats and dogs are fairly evenly represented on Twitter but the dogs have it by 20 tweets. I prefer cats so I’m going to go and try and tip the balance.

I love cats and especially pictures of cats when you’ve got a pretty good idea of what they are thinking. Katy sent me this today. You may have been sent it too. Wonder what it’s thinking?

This is what happens when you:

1) have nothing to do, 2) own a sharp knife, 3) have a large lime, 4) own a patient cat and 5) drink too much tequila