I'm on this whole social networking kick lately. It's a lot of fun and a GREAT way to kill time unfortunately.

In fact, I stayed up all night last night just typing away, signing up for sites and talking live to guys in Algeria, Morocco, Syria and Israel through Skype. Needless to say, most of the guys (except for two that I met on there) weren't there for casual conversation, if you know what I mean.

I answered one call, and this guy immediately pipes up in this Arabic accent very loudly, "You like SEX!!??" And I'm thinking 'duh, who doesn't like sex?' So I disconnected him pretty quickly. No "Hi, how are you doing?" Nothing like that -- just YOU LIKE SEX??? It was pretty funny, actually.

I did actually have a nice, soul-warming conversation with a computer engineering student in Syria who said:

I had dreams, dreams about.......
Everything becomes all right.....

Time to share love and peace.
Time to have freedom keys.

Time to get the peace and rest.
Time to unite East and West.

Isn't it nice to know that even though the U.S. media and fear itself has us feeling far distant from the people in the Middle East, that some of them feel the same as we do? That put a smile on my face to know that others want peace as well.

Anyway, I surfed on and on, not knowing where to end my quest, as I found and signed up for LibraryThing (a truly cool site for bibliophiles like me), Orkut (once I got my invitation from a kind guy in India who sensed my desperation in my posted pleas - so let me know if you need one from me now that I'm one of the chosen ones - it's by invitation only), Multiplicity, MySpace, Bebo, Yahoo 360, People Aggregator, Facebook, Ryze, Friendster, LinkedIn, Friendtastic, Tribe.net (of course) and TagWorld. I also found www.wayn.com for travelers (it stands for Where Are You Now?) and www.gaiaonline.com, which looks a little cheesier than MySpace to me (I think it's for kids), so I did not sign up.

Does anyone know of any more social networking sites besides these and the ones listed at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...g_websites It's a fun way to kill an evening and longer, so beware once you start. You may NEVER find your way out of the maze. LOL.

I also just found out about one called .. on my private OpenDiary blog from a friend's note. Gosh, it seems I have nothing better to do with my time lately, and yet the clutter that is my extra room full of packrat finds beckons to me to move into action.

Namaste!

Jen