To those of you who follow me on facebook, you may no longer find me there. Here's why:

When I registered by facebook account I decided that I would register with the name Timothy Jedi McDonough. If you are familiar with my online presence than you understand that "Jedi" might as well be my middle name. This account and many other accounts I use online are a play on "Jedi" (Idej is Jedi spelled backwards). This is what I saw when I tried to log in earlier:



Facebook pinned me as having a fake name. Is this right? People have said to me upon first IRL interactions "oh, I've seen you on fb, you're Tim Jedi, aren't you?!" I checked the facebook Terms and only once do they come anywhere close to making an argument for rightfully disabling my account. These two sentences are written under the User Conduct heading in the Terms section of facebook.com:

"In addition, you agree not to use the Service or the Site to:

...impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent yourself, your age or your affiliation with any person or entity"

AND

"use or attempt to use another's account, service or system without authorization from the Company, or create a false identity on the Service or the Site."

This is especially annoying because all sorts of new shit is being added to my account from my recent trip to England. I fired off this angry email to privacy@facebook.com as soon as I learned of their transgression (and not mine):

"Dear Facebook Staff,

To start, forgive me if this was sent to the wrong address and please forward it
to a department which is concerned with these issues.

Earlier today my facebook account was disabled under what I believe to be false
pretenses. When attempting to log into the account a received a message stating
that my name was in fact fake. I referred to the facebook terms of use in order
that I may further understand why this happened. Only twice in the extensive
terms page is there any mention of using a fake name. They are as follows:

In addition, you agree not to use the Service or the Site to:
- impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent
yourself, your age or your affiliation with any person or entity
AND
use or attempt to use another's account, service or system without
authorization from the Company, or create a false identity on the
Service or the Site.

If you can prove that I have done any of these things I would appreciate how and
under what circumstances you decided to delete my account. I have been
completely honest about who I am and the relationships I have on the site. I am
recognized by the name I registered with is by my family, friends and peers.

I understand the need for you too keep the site clean and free from from people
taking advantage of its anonymity but arbitrarily deleting accounts without
provocation seems over the top. I put years of work into maintaining my page
and creating friendships through your service and it would be sad to see that
all go to waste. I know that one person isn't going to matter all that much to
you, but If you cannot restore my account I will not be creating a new one and
will refuse to recommend your site to anyone."

I am not creating a new account if my old one can not be restored and I encourage everyone to find new means of keeping your friends up to date. You only really have 10 friends anyhow, those 1,492 other people are hardly even acquantiences. Leave those shmucks in the dust and start taking full advantage of your email and blog.

Meanwhile, this is the best place to find me. You can get stumbleupon and twitter updates and soon a link to my picasa web album. Enjoy.

The Crosier

It is completely worth the 2 pounds admittance to see the beautiful quadrangle and chapel at New College of Oxford University in Oxford England.

There are some really incredible things to see. Even the small, winding street that lead to the front gate of the campus is charming. Despite the bike lane yellow lines and the tourist types wandering these small side streets you still feel immersed in the old world feel of the city.

The college is probably most well known for the Bridge of Sighs which crosses over New College Lane and connects two portions of Hertford College.


New College, which was founded by William of Wykeham in 1379, piqued my particular interests when I entered the chapel. Within the chapel is the crosier of William of Wykeham, who presided over New College as Bishop after it was as established. A crosier is the staff which the bishop carries and resembles a shepherd's cane that has fallen into a bucket of awesome and then adorned with some of the most rediculously heavy ornamentation and sharp edges. It is unlikely that any innocent little lamb would survive evisceration of the throat or spontaneous compustion upon contact with the surely magical item. I so incredibly wished I could have taken a photo of this thing but there was no photography permitted within the chapel of New College. Furthermore, despite all my faith in Google's infamous image search I was unable to turn up any photographs snapped by anyone, or even an adequate illustration. I am unsure why I am somewhat obsessed with this fancy man of God's crosier, but I have an overwhelming desire to share it with everyone. Unfortunately, this post falls short of its initial intention.

Check back later in the week for another update on my Oxford adventures!

The Kings Arms

I arrived in Oxford, England yesterday at about 8:30 local time (GMT) and was the first person to receive my room key, room 10 of The Kings Arms. I clumsily dragged my luggage through campus, eventually lifting it up three stories a very narrow staircase only to discover that I was in the wrong staircase. I lugged my things back down, found the proper staircase, and again oafishly managed my way up to my room while carrying the 70 lb checked luggage.

I thought being able to tell people that the dormitory I was staying in is called "The King's Arms" would be pretty diesel name for dormitory, but really was only understanding about half of the coolness of the situation. After some orientation meetings and dinner, myself and a couple of new friends set out on further exploration of the city in a nearly too late attempt to find a liquor store which was open on a Sunday evening. On the return we passed the "King's Arms" pub, which I had already new existed beneath my dormitory. I didn't, however, realize that my window was directly over the entrance to the pub!

My room is on the 3rd floor. That open window in the center of the building is mine, along with the window to the left of it.

Google Alerts

I have my gmail sent to send me an alert whenever a new site is added to the google search engine which includes the keyword "idejmcd". "IdejMcD" is a commonly used alias of mine and its use extends far beyond this blog and into the netherregions of the world wide web. Check it:

http://www.google.com/search?q=idejmcd&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Today I recieved an alert from gmail which included a link to a Japenese version of my YouTube account profile. I think this is amazing and is probably the result of my hosting a video of the Japanese pop-punk band Toy Missile.