When is a friend not a friend?

Today is my birthday, and I've got several birthday wishes via the Uni of Queensland ITEE dept alumni social networking site.... so I went and updated my profile there today, and added a bunch of "friends" to my friend list. I always find the term "friend" offputting in social networking sites, because I find myself incapable of hooking up with people who might well be legitimate, or useful contacts for a particular site, but I don't think of them as friends. e.g. I wouldn't add some academics as "friends" on ITEE, because they're not... they're former teachers or colleagues who I respect (but don't really like) and would be good contacts on that kind of site.

I also sometimes want an "enemy" (or anti-friend) feature. There are just a couple of people on the ITEE site who I could happly tag as "enemy", and hope for a feature that (at least) makes me invisible to them. Not naming any names... but one has a hovercraft connotation.

Amplifier trauma

Having got my little 70s beauty home from the post office pickup point I plugged it in, and found that it only gave a very small fuzzy amplification, regardless of how loud I turned it up.... so I emailed the vendor in disgust (and luckily was very polite). They emailed me back a couple of hours later to say "did you find an RCA cable in the box? You need to run that from the pre-amp out to the main amp in." Guess who's never owned that Hi a HiFi before? Of course I've seen the little metal hoops that are lodged in the back of some other people's amps, but never thought to ask what they were for...

Anyway.... I played all my new German records to myself VERY LOUD, and then the next day plugged in the computer (via a very long RCA cable), and shortly after plugging it in (after hearing the usual crackle that comes from pluggin an RCA into a mini-headphone jack), the bloody thing died..... $100 and 5 days later, at a very rustic hole-in-the-wall repair shop, I now have my amp back working - and it sounds GREAT.... but I'm not game to plug in the computer again. (And I'm reflecting that this is what might have caused the demise of my previous amp.)