Meeting of the minds
Posted on January 25th, 2008 by Richard Catto 2,190 views
I’ve recently met, in the flesh, two young woman bloggers that I first encountered online last year via their blogs.
On July 28 2007 11:54 AM, Candy Tothill wrote a blog entry about FaceBook:
What started as simple curiosity has turned into a full-blown fascination. Appealing to my general interest in the human condition, my narcissistic tendencies and my fundamental need to network, it has consumed hours – no – days of my life of late. Facebook is that of which I write. Face-F-ing-Book!
Two days later I found Candy’s post via a search for ‘facebook’ on amatomu and made a casual decision that, little known to me at the time, was to have profound consequences for me.
I wrote a comment on her blog entry:
Richard Catto said on July 30th, 2007 at 7:35 AM:
I created a facebook login months ago to post some comments on a facebook forum. I had no intention of developing a profile or amassing friends or etc.
And then somehow, people found me. How / why I don’t know / care to know.
They sent me invitations to friend them. I accepted, lest they be offended.
Now THEY are demanding I put a picture of myself up there!
When will this madness end?
At that time, back then in the Dark Ages of Ms. Tothill’s wonderful blog, I had to wait 5 days for her to reply. Today, that is unheard of! Inside Candy is now so popular and so well trafficked that it is hard competition to be the first to comment on her blog articles, and one can expect to hear back from her within hours at the most.
Sheena Gates and I, collected Candy from Cape Town International Airport yesterday afternoon and we proceeded to discover that Candy is just as interesting and exciting in person as she is online. Sheena is the other woman blogger mentioned above.
On September 7 2007, 13h35, Sheena wrote a blog entry on Wibble:
I’ve just heard on the news that the mother of Madeleine McCann has been hauled in for questioning on the suspicion of her involvement with her daughters disappearance.
Bitch. If she’s guilty, I hope they hang her.
Two days later (again), whilst browsing wibble, I found Sheena’s post there and was inspired to write the following comment to her (which also had profound consequences for me):
On September 9th, 2007 name: Richard Catto says:
The woman has been declared a suspect and you all are already baying for her blood!
Honestly, I think that is a sick opinion to express publicly. Hold it privately if you must, but spewing hate online offends.
Furthermore, I’ll have you all know that even if (and that’s a BIG if) she is guilty, The European Union does not have capital punishment because it is BARBARIC.
Pat yourselves on the backs, you all, for being barbarians.
After posting that comment, I went over to Sheena’s blog, which at that time was still hosted on blogspot, and read some of her posts. It was there that I discovered the reason why Sheena was so emotional about Madeleine McCann – she had lost an infant daughter herself. So I felt a bit bad about what I had written and contacted the administrator of Wibble and asked her to convey an apology to Sheena, which she duly did.
The next day, Sheena replied to my comment saying that she had received my message from the wibble admin via FaceBook. So I went over to FaceBook and searched for Sheena’s profile, and sent her a message there.
This is the message I sent her on 12:43 AM Sep 11 2007:
Is this Sheena the Barbarian?
Cheers,
Richard "Conan" Catto
I got a sassy reply from Sheena, and so began an online friendship that has lasted several months and led to her coming to stay with me on January 10 2007 when I collected her from Cape Town International airport two weeks to the day before Candy joined us for a brief visit yesterday.
So what I’m saying here is that it is through the medium of blogging that we three strangers were able to get to know each other and form online friendships that translated comfortably into real life, face to face, friendships.
We knew each other before we first laid eyes on one another.
It was quite a heady and exciting feeling laying eyes on Sheena for the first time as she waltzed into the visitors lounge of Cape Town International Airport. She had a ready smile, a bouncy gait and even bouncier boobs. 
We were slightly late collecting Candy and Sheena went in to meet her while I waited by the car, lest it be clamped in the Stop and Go zone. So my first glimpse of Candy was of a slight, incredibly thin long-haired beautiful brunette woman in the distance, holding the long extended handle of an elegant and compact travelling case.
And then began the ride home in my cantankerous car, now dubbed Bartholomew by Candy. We fell into conversation and I acted as tour guide, pointing out various spots along the N2 and regaling them with (true) tales of my exploits in those regions.
Our amiable visit was threatened to be cut short by the looming meeting between Candy and someone she would rather avoid, but felt obliged to see. At the last minute, en-route to her hotel, the person cancelled (via SMS) and so Candy invited us in to dine with her in the hotel’s restaurant.
Time sped by as we enjoyed each other’s company which was briefly interrupted by a giant cochroach whose speedy dartings under quaking legs terrified my companions. It crunched satisfyingly under my Nike shoe, after a brief chase around the restaurant. The Dutch party adjoining us, applauded.
Around 11PM we finished off with coffee and was amused when Candy ordered ice cubes from our waiter to put in her cappuccino to cool it down. Now that’s an interesting quirk and something I would probably never have discovered via online chat alone.
She’s flying back to JHB today, but promised that she would come see us again soon.
I can’t wait.
Tags: Candy Tothill, meeting online friends, Sheena Gates
Filed under Candy Tothill, Online friendships, Sheena Gates | 3 Comments »
Friends for sale – my new best friend!
Posted on December 6th, 2007 by Richard Catto 3,637 views
I’ve discovered that in life, I derive an exquisite pleasure from buying and selling and trading my facebook friends for various favours, sexual and otherwise.
You must absolutely straight away, go directly to this link and sign up RIGHT FUCKING NOW!
And then you must buy me and make me do… things.
I’ve discovered I have a real knack for auctioning off my friends. This is what I wrote about a lovely hunk of a man, named Rupert:
Stunning man who loves ABBA. An absolute must buy for Christmas!
Surprise your friends by showing off Rupert as your new pet. Get him now while, he’s cheap, this one is sure to reach over $10 000 within 7 days!
And another, Duffman III, I wrote this about.
Ladies and Vampires, put your teeth together to welcome this absolutely perfect specimen of BLOOD ON TAP!
Do I hear $200?
Just look at the fine porcelain neck? smooth as marble, soft as silk. Very inviting, no?
Yes, I have $500, do I hear $600?
Lady in the back, I see your $1000. Going once, going twice. SOLD! To the hooded lady in the back.
Will the mystery woman come forward to claim her prize?
Absolutely wicked fun! And the more you buy and sell your friends, the more expensive they become and the more you earn along the way.
Ultimately, I foresee this facebook app being responsible for the dissolution of marriages, but who cares, because it is so much FLIPPING FUN!!!
Tags: Candy Tothill, facebook, facebook appllications, william f de vault
Filed under facebook, Facebook Applications | 14 Comments »
Inside Candy’s hot new site design draws them in!
Posted on October 20th, 2007 by Richard Catto 1,637 views
It’s a simple concept to grasp, really. Give your blog a fresh new makeover, and watch the visitors pour in to enjoy your new eye candy.
I like Candy Tothill, a lot, but despite liking her and enjoying reading her writing, I enjoy it so much more now. I found the previous version of her Inside Candy blog quite difficult to read, and that obstacle proved enough to put me off reading some of her longer entries.
I discovered how much I was missing out only recently since she’s had her site completely redone. Everything about the fresh format is a joy! The unique font she uses is very easy on the eye – it simply dissolves away the strain of reading text on a monitor.
But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself. 
One last thing, in the interests of full disclosure – I was the one responsible for overhauling her site. I also registered her blog’s domain name and I host it for her.
Tags: author, beautiful friendly intelligent woman, Candy Tothill, Inside Candy, poet, South African blog, writer
Filed under Candy Tothill, Inside Candy | 1 Comment »
Whose the DADDY of social networking sites?
Posted on September 26th, 2007 by Richard Catto 4,535 views
It’s not Digg, neither reddit, nuh uh del.icio.us, nor muti, amatomu is not-the-mama, afrigator who?
It’s StumbleUpon!
If you want traffic, get onboard StumbleUpon today!
I discovered this yesterday when I installed Alex King’s beautiful WordPress plugin called Share This. It’s a thing of total beauty. Customising it with your favourite social site is child’s play. I added Muti to it in under 5 minutes, including the little muti thumbnail graphic.
Ironically, the first site I shared one of my posts with was StumbleUpon which produced a very healthy flow of traffic. Seeing that, I was encouraged to stumble more of my posts, and I experienced a sudden rush of people from all over the world. A heady experience when that happens.
Share This doesn’t spread a whole row of tiny little graphics across your web site (that no-one can decypher), instead it places a simple green distinctive Share This icon to left of the words. Clicking on it, brings up a window which allows your visitors to share your posts with all the social sites you have installed, as well as send your post to friends via email.
Alex King is working to integrate his amazing plugin with ShareThis.com who offer a very useful service. It integrates with facebook, so I was able to share a site with a friend directly onto her facebook wall. I think it would be better, though, if it went to her facebook email.
Okay, so now I have to thank Candy Tothill for introducing me to StumbleUpon. Thank you, Candy! She is a published South African author and she is also an avid blogger – insidecandy.blogspot.com.
Tags: afrigator, Alex King, amatomu, Candy Tothill, del.icio.us, Digg, Inside Candy, muti, Plugin, reddit, Share This, StumbleUpon, Web traffic, WordPress
Filed under StumbleUpon, Web traffic | 6 Comments »
