Ten years after graduating from Taylor High School in Katy, Texas, Tina Lee Naro learned some surprising things about her former classmates.

One committed atheist became a Mormon. A tightly wound "business school" type became a laid-back bartender at a Montana ski resort. And a formerly hirsute friend is now completely bald.

Naro, now a consultant in New York City, learned all these things not in person, but on the social networking site Facebook - enough that she now plans to skip her 10-year reunion this September.

"I already had all those reunion moments: 'Really? You're gay? You're married? You joined the military?"' she said. "Actually going back to Katy holds a lot less appeal now."

Sites like Facebook and MySpace are now competition for the class reunion - that time-honoured tradition of dressing to kill, choking down rubbery chicken and gossiping about old classmates. Many far-flung graduates say the ease of exchanging pictures and memories online makes it hard to justify expensive trips home.

The idea resonated so deeply with Chris Farmer of Vancouver that he created a Facebook group entitled "Facebook Has Eliminated The Need For A High School Reunion."

When he signed up for Facebook, Farmer was flooded with messages from high-school classmates: jocks, nerds, popular kids, even people he was pretty sure he'd never spoken to before.

"It was overwhelming, this feeling of running into everyone I'd ever known," he said.

Farmer quickly sorted out what he calls "the good stuff" - which former party-girl now teaches Sunday school, who gained or lost 200 pounds, which high-school sweethearts broke up spectacularly and which went on to get married and have kids. But after reconnecting, "seeing people in real life seemed a little pointless," Farmer said.

What did Cuizinier do that made you want sing about him having a small dick?
Nothing. I didn’t even know him. It was just funny to do a track about someone who represented French pimp rappers.

Was he mad about it?
Yes. He's pissed off because we got a record deal with that song. He thinks we are successful because of him. But it’s not a hate anthem. I am a fan of his. He's an MC and he should be able to answer a beef. He didn't.

Leaving work around 3:30pm this afternoon, cycling west on Dundas past McCaul, I was nearly run off the road and clipped by a side-view mirror. The vehicle was a tan mini-van which swerved abruptly from the left lane to the right lane to make a last-minute turn onto Beverley. While doing so, he either didn't see me or just horribly misjudged the space and clipped me. With my heart in my throat, somehow I managed to holler at him and regain my balance, but he obviously didn't hear me and continued driving up the street and out of my sight. Considering the amount of time I've wasted chasing reckless drivers, I chose to forget about it and get to my destination. But to my surprise, I found myself behind that same van a few streets up and decided to follow them to their parking spot.

By the time I pulled up to the van there was nobody in the driver or passenger side, but I saw movement in the back and ended up confronting the wife of the driver. Blinking at me while I shakily insisted I speak with the driver, she just kept saying that he "must not have seen me", which should never ever be an excuse. To add to the mess, I saw that the driver had two toddlers in car-seats strapped in the back. Not only was he endangering me, but potentially his children. When he came out, I told him as much, adding angrily that he should really be considering the safety of those around him as a parent. I don't know if I got through to him but he listened to me and apologized all the same.