Ah Facebook.

What a wonderful idea it is. It's a great idea and you can tell it is because it's such a simple idea, like Toilet Duck, that everyone thinks that they could've invented it. And it's so novel to. Who'd have thought that revealing little titbits of your personal life across the Internet would've been so popular?

One line of text does limit my ability to fully psychoanalyse the minutiae of my life. If only there was some way that I could write more than 255 characters to dissect every detail of my life? I wonder if I could come up with an idea to solve this. I'm thinking something on-line where people could type random things in about their lives and not be limited to one line of text……

Until I do that here are some of my favourite status updates from Facebook.

• MB really needs the loo but thanks to some dodgy plumbing he has to walk to another building. Crossed legs it is.
• MB is legend
• MB is America and so can you
• MB is watching football at 3pm on Saturday and not working for Sky Sports anymore
• MB can't quite put his finger on where that smell is coming from
• MB cannot see out of one eye. Time for new contact lenses.
• MB wants one of Vince Noir's Silver Jump-suits
• MB feels like he's about to pass out on the keyboard. rupppppppppppppppppppppppps\n djkafsr
• MB is Jenny Hope
• MB is embarrassed that he's just mixed up the search box and the update box on Facebook Mobile
• MB is on the tram approaching a tun…..
• MB is the confuser. Is he a man? Is he a woman? Does he care?
• MB nearly slipped on the wet floor while trying to avoid the "Caution Wet Floor" sign.
  
• MB needs a shave as he is only day from being declared a wookie
• MB is cooking quality food - under pressure!
• MB is thinking. That Facebook needs more Haikus. Do you think that too?
• MB is looking for a Gold Benfica Third Strip
• MB likes making phone calls while walking to the way to the tram because that way he has an excuse to hang up
• MB is now on the toilet
• MB is currently leaping from life to life striving to put right what once went wrong

Beep! Beep! Beep!

I hit the off button. Sixteen minutes past. That's two snoozes and it's time to get up. I jump up and head towards the shower. My showering has become pretty mechanical - I can even do it in my sleep. I start by standing back to the shower head and begin by twisting my back from side to side and pushing each shoulder back like I was doing a Manual Dexterity test on the Krypton Factor. The water flows over each shoulder.

I reach for my shampoo and pick up the conditioner. I wash and rinse my hair. I reach for the conditioner and pick up the shampoo. I condition my hair using a massage technique I learnt from a 16 year old girl. I suppose I should come up with some form of system to identify which bottle is which. I could stop taking two bottles into the shower although technically I don't "take" them into the shower as they are already there. I resolve to keep the conditioner on the left hand side.

I turn to face the shower head. I later up my left pec first. I don't know how I got into that habit but that's what I do. I wash. While washing, I consider my schedule for the day. I am seeing Becci who seems to have got lost on her way to California and spells her name with an "i" and a heart above it. Then I have to see the woman with tiny little shrimp eyes and sit there while she tells me how to do my job. I rinse and use my face scrub because today is shaving day.

Shaving has been my bete noir ever since I hit puberty, turned 28 and had to start shaving. As my father has had his beard since he was 3 he was never a source of much help. Everything I have learnt about shaving has been through trail and error. Mostly error. However, I would recommend using a face scrub before shaving as it has dramatically reduced the number of 999 calls I've had to make because of shaving accidents.

Suitted, booted and freshly shaven I head to the lounge and turn the computer on. I take my bagel from my bagel butler, cut my bagel using my bagel slicer and put it into toaster choosing the bagel setting. Oy vey!

I go to check the computer time, today I think I am running a little bit behind schedule. My Canadian Girlfriend still sleeps. I am never quite sure what to do. If my Canadian Girlfriend doesn't get enough sleep then she gets grouchy in the mornings. If my Canadian Girlfriend gets too much sleep then she's late for work and grouchy in the mornings. But on the plus side Grouchy Canadian Girlfriend is better than when she has the exact amount of sleep and is Hyperactive Canadian Girlfriend.

It's twenty to one. 00:40. Fourty minutes past midnight.
What the fudge?

I stumble back into the bedroom and pick up the alarm clock. Sure enough, at some point during the day yesterday, my alarm clock has decided to reboot itself. The time is OK because its radio controlled but the alarms have reset themselves to midnight. I turn the light on and set the alarm to 6AM.

My Canadian Girlfriend sits up and is neither grouchy nor hyperactive. She enquires as to what I am doing. I explain. She laughs and falls back to sleep. I get undressed. Lay my suit out on the floor and recline in bed.

I spend the next three hours trying to get back to sleep whilst thinking about what a twat I am.

Post Script: Everyone I have told this story to finds it hilarious. I do not.

Everyone has a plan for winning the lottery. Most people would quit work immediately and start buying a car-a-day. Not me, I'd stay around for a bit, although I would start buying cars. I'd mainly stay to see how much money it would take to get the other two guys in my office to kiss each other and do some crazy Jackass style stunts.

Of course, the long term plan would be to open some sort of fitness / sports / football centre, for the kids. I'd love to be able to give something back to the people of Manchester and this would be the best way to do it. I'd like to give people something to aspire to and take inspiration from. Is there a better way to touch kids than through sport?

In fact, you give me any amount of lottery money and I know exactly what I'd do with it. £500,000 - still carry on working but live in a big house mortgage free, buy a new car for all the family, have a big party and take all my friends and family on holiday. £200,000 - I'm probably moving, living mortgage free and buying a new car. £10,000 - I'm buying a car. Hell, I reckon I'd even know what to do if you gave me £250.

So this Christmas I was bought a table top dish washer by my parents. A very thoughtful gift that they'd co-ordinated with My Canadian Girlfriend on and something I was surprised to get but really needed. There was a big problem or to be more exact a 2cm problem. It didn't fit in the space that I had reserved should anyone read my thoughts (or my letter to Santa) and buy me a table top dishwasher.

A quick exchange for a smaller one and we're fine. Except the brand new plates I have been bought My Canadian Girlfriend (see I told you it was co-ordinated) are too big for the dish washer that was too big. As strange as it seems I would prefer to keep the plates than the dishwasher - partly because of the sentimental value that I'll always attach to the plates and partly because I had already started eating off them.

The next step of course is to try and think of things that I would prefer instead. I'm getting tired of having to spend 30 minutes a day trying to put the left lens back into my glasses so a new pair would be nice. I could maybe get a new leather jacket? I hate having to think of things I want or need. It's hard enough when I have the pre-Christmas TV adverts telling me exactly what to buy.

24 hours after leaving the dishwasher with my Dad, I get a phone call.

"I've got a gift card for you to pick up." My Dad says.
"Cool, that's very kind of you" I say.
"It's for Comet - we returned the dishwasher and got a gift card instead. We've also rounded it up!"
"Wow, I don't know what to say!"
"Well we thought you could use it to get a big screen TV"

While I already have a big screen TV, a bigger screen TV is always an option. But then that saddles me with the problem of finding an extra few hundred pounds to make sure that I get a really big screen. Shortly after I hang up to my Dad, my mobile phone rings again. I have now had more phone calls in 2008 than I did during all of 2007.

"Hi" says my little sister "What's up?"
"I'm OK - I'm just out shopping in Tompan"
"Have you spoken to Dad?" she asks leadingly.
"Yes I have - they've exchanged the dishwasher and got a gift card."
"Great! Now you can buy that big screen TV you've always wanted."

The cogs begin to tick over in my head.

"When you get your new TV" she asks building up to a four-question-mark question, "what are you going to do with the old one????"

I see. So this is who is responsible for hatching this diabolical scheme. So just to spite her I need something else to spend the money on.

• Laptop / Computer - Like this TV, this gift card would simply be a down payment on the laptop and leave me with a massive shortfall. Plus if I got a new Laptop or Computer it would probably be an Apple. Don't ask me why because I don't know but it would.


• Xbox 360 - I can already feel My Canadian Girlfriend's icy stare hitting me on the back of the neck as I type. And she isn't even in the same post code as me.


• Wii - I could appease her and get the woman's version of an Xbox 360 but the lack of Halo 3 wouldn't really sell it to me.


• Slingbox AKA the watch your TV over the Internet thing - This would be good but to make it work I'd really need Sky. And if I'm getting Sky, I'd need Sky Sports. And if I'm getting Sky Sports then I'd need a friend who lived abroad to chip in so he could watch the Premier League matches. But since my friend is tighter than Wayne Rooney's NikePro under-shirt, this isn't going to happen.

We'll call this the "Comet Conundrum".

I need more friends.

And not Facebook friends either. Real, live, in the flesh friends - people who I can talk to, buy overpriced coffee with and who can give me the justification for buying a Wii. I should get out more and meet new people. I should talk to those people who nod at me in the gym. I should make more of an effort to turn my work friends into every day friends. And I should see more of the friends I do have.

Depressed at these thoughts, I slump further in my seat as the tram approaches Crumpsall.

I wonder if the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius who created the Georgian Calendar in 1582 and the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria in 45BC knew that in creating a calendar where there was a distinct point where a new year would begin, that it would eventually lead to so much angst and naval gazing while travelling through North Manchester.

I shake it off, reminding myself that I don't believe in New Year. I will not be a slave to consumerism and will not let these new fangled things rule my life. No random set of numbers that seem to have no grounding in reality will ever dictate my mood, apart from my body fat monitor.

I always tend to lose my grip on reality when I'm forced to go further north than Victoria Station. Being this far north and travelling through an area where they still eat their first born and own a Betamax has always made me uncomfortable and plays with my mind.

I do not like New Year's Resolutions, I don't like the idea of setting myself annual goals - it will only lead to disappointment. If I did do New Year's Resolutions, "Writing a Book" would still be up there, as it has been for the past three years. The farthest I normally like to plan ahead is what I am going to eat for tea tonight. (Defrosted Jerk Chicken if you must know) Despite this, my internal devil and angel begin arguing as they try and decide what my plan should be:

"We could quit carbs and only eat protein!" the devil says.

"Yeah I'd agree to that but I'm not sure I could persuade the kidneys." the angel replies.

"I want something wild. How about adventure racing? It's like running but with maps. That way the brain will get to use its Geography degree."

"Sounds dangerous," the angel says. "Plus all the brain can remember from the Geography degree is something about the social construction of space and that the Urban Geography lecturer looked like Dr Marvin Monroe. What if we got lost in the moors? We'd probably just have Matt to keep us company and he worries more than a Limo driver after picking up a rowdy hen night."

"C'mon, we'd get to wear Under Armour. I want a challenge - something to shake us up from the dreary trudge of day to day life!"

"We could learn ASP.Net 3.0"

"Let's start hacking! We can even pretend we're doing it to learn more about 'computer security'."

"How about we just agree to blog more often." says the angel looking for a compromise.

There is much laughter.