Hello, Mom? I'm In Jail!!

Since I'm an Orkuholic, I had been in Orkut Jail a half dozen times my first month at Orkut. Recently, however, I'm starting to see getting thrown into and sprung from Orkut Jail as Orkut's most interesting form of Orkutainment. You never know what's going to get you arrested, and you never know what's going to get you out... or when! To wit...

First entry, 2/28/2004 at 9pm. Joi Ito wrote:

I was making fun of Marc Canter because he kept on ending up in Orkut jail, but I got this message today when I tried to invite a friend into Orkut. I haven't invited very many people and have only sent three private messages. I wonder what the triggers are. Maybe approving too many friend request. Hmm...

Well, I'm sitting here in Orkut Jail too. Why does it feel so good to be so bad?

I'm looking around the Orkut Jail cell right now and I see several of my favorite people: Tim O'Reilly, Randal Schwartz, Cameo Wood, Joshua Schachter, Ryan Lackey, and (of course) Marc Canter are all currently here in Orkut Jail with me. I really appreciate the company while I work off my debt to (Orkut) society.

Update, 2/29/2004 at 2pm. Joi, Tim, Randal, Cameo, Joshua, and Ryan have all been let out of jail on good behavior. Marc's still here in Orkut Jail with me. We must have done something really bad this time. Rumor has it if you're rilly rilly rilly rilly rilly rilly rilly rilly rilly rilly ru-heeeeeely bad in Orkut then you get liquidated and achieve Nirvana, like my friend Huy Zing, who wrote,

Life In Post-Orkut Paradise. Hey guys, it's not so bad out here. Life is remarkably simple in paradise. No session timeouts, no service unavailables. The food's only ok without the Pho Freaks and Banh Mi communities, but the virgins are fly. Who am I kidding, I miss my Fly Chicks for the Geeky Guy!

We miss you, buddy!! You're a martyr for the cause:

During this infernal countdown, I had time to look back at my 30-day [Orkut] life, what I had done, my good deeds, my sins, my regrets, the people I had known. Ultimately, I only wished I had said "I love you" more often.

He has the patience of a saint and the love and wisdom of someone who was too good for this world. Much like Pablos 2.0:

I thought I had it all figured out, but eventually discovered that I had just been plagerizing a long line of people who thought they had it all figured out. Not only does nobody have it all figured out, they can't accurately figure out which parts they do have figured out. I've given up in figuring it all out. Now I just do whatever I want.

Amen, brother Pablo. "Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare."

Update, 3/1/2004 at noon. I'm out of jail. For now. Thanks to (some) good behavior, and to the cake-with-file-in-it that Jeneane baked for me...

Update, 3/1/2004 at 5pm. Ok, I'm back in jail. Don't cry for me, Argentina.

Update, 3/2/2004 at noon. Ok, I'm back out again. And I got a nice email from the Orkut folks apologizing for some of the eccentricities of the automated Orkut Jail system. Which I really appreciate. Now let's see if I can be a productive and helpful Orkut citizen as a newly free man.

Update, 3/3/2004 at 10am. Ok, I'm back in jail. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen.

Update, 3/4/2004 at noon. Ok, I'm back out again. My Orkut Parole Officer (or MOPO, as I call him in The Joint) says he's going to keep me on a very tight leash. Sure, I'm an Angry Young Man, but that's ok; my father used to tell me that it is far better to be pissed off than to be pissed on.

I do think back nostalgically about my SlammerTime. So many cards and letters from great people. My favorite was from Keli, who wrote, "Dude! WHY are you always getting sent to Orkut jail?" She's like my Socrates; thanks to her question I have begun to question everything. Of course, what I usually find is that when I question authority, the authorities question me. After all, we're all guilty of something when you look hard enough.

Update, 3/6/2004 at 3am. After a day and a half Jail-free, I'm back in The Big House. A bunch of my homies are here, too -- including Martha Stewart, and boy is she appealing! -- so it's like a homecoming for homies! (A homiecoming? That sounds obscene... :)

...

Update, 3/20/2004 at 3pm. I'm in, I'm out, I'm in, I'm out. At this point, I couldn't tell you at any point whether I was in or out of Orkut Jail. This is my 35th time in, and I'm bored to tears by this whole process. As I said in one Orkut community, everytime I'm in Jail, I want out, and everytime I'm out, I want in -- therefore, I must be a cat. Which makes me happy. I've always wanted to be a cat.

By the way, Huy has been resurrected in Orkut World. And there was much rejoicing.

...

Update, 3/27/2004 at midnight. In Orkut Jail for the 43rd time. I'm not bad, I'm just drawn this way.

...

Comments

[jeneane sessum]

shhhh. cake coming.....

[Adam]

Thanks, Jeneane, you're wonderful!!

[Marc Canter]

Where are you seeing all this? Is there some sort of admin/dsiplay back door?

[Adam]

Nope, I just surfed from Orkut page to Orkut page seeing who's in jail from their pictures.

[Randal L. Schwartz]

What I find odd is that my "get out of jail" ack message actually came about 18 hours after I got out of jail, and contained not a hint of why I had been put in jail in the first place.

[Adam]

The same thing happens to me. It must be an automated system. It seems that, in general, certain parts of the automated email system of Orkut (for invites, at least) are throttled so that such emails are sent out after a delay so as not to tax the system for important messages that need to be delivered right away, like the Friends-of-Friends spam. ;)

A friend of mine notes that Orkut is set up so that if enough people click the "report as bogus" button on your homepage, that you automatically get put into jail.

So the recent jailings could just be a small vigilante group having some fun.

Without explanations of why we're in jail, the imagination does run wild... but it's cool, I get to feel like an outlaw. And if having many friends is a crime on Orkut, then only outlaws will have many friends.

[Elonka]

I just got jailed myself this evening. It was a normal surfing evening: read a message, reply to a thread, add a friend, join a community, attempt to post something and then suddenly *bam* the celldoor slammed closed on me.

Oh well, at least now I can document the jail system from *inside* the bars. ;)

[Keli]

Still. Dude. WHY?

I certainly don't have the time to stalk all 459 communities you belong to to see if you even posted anything slightly antagonistic, so fun links to your badness would help a sister out.

[Adam]

Keli, I think the whole point is that it's Orkut World -- what bad things can one actually do there?

I mean, I could defend a martyr, or play semantic games, or be super promiscuous, or shout at The Devil, or even make fun of the Orkut prison system... but are those really bad?

As Elonka noticed, often we just get jailed for using the system too much. Ya gotta love a system that forces its users to step away from the machine from time to time. :)

[Keli]

It is a fine day here. I'm in jail!

[The Dude!! Dean]

Hey Adam, Orkut jail is no more. Go crazy man!!

[Stuart]

[email protected]

If an Orkut invite is sent to the above address, I will be eternally greatful