The Twitter Effect

Never afraid to be behind the curve on something, I'm going to be the 3rd person on my blogroll to post about Twitter in 24 hours.

In short, I realized that what used to be my 'short, funny, incidents-type posts' have now been largely transfered to Twitter. It's a stupid name but the concept of "micro blogging" is interesting and I like to use it for certain things (especially easier posting of pictures). If you are used to reading my blog only for the main text posts, you might think about visiting occasionally to check out the Twitter stream in the right column.

You can click through to see all my recent thoughts.

LotD - darthvader

The number one topic on Twitter at the moment is 'Alderaan' (Princess Lea's home planet in Star Wars) thanks to a user called... darthvader. Best line to commemorate Earth Day.

"Just be glad I don't celebrate Earth Day the way I celebrated Alderaan Day"

LotD - James Lileks

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make ironic: [Former Chairman to the Federal Reserve] Ben Bernanke's childhood home sold - after foreclosure.

-Lileks

I caught this from him via Twitter. If you're a Tweet, I recommend you follow him... he's brilliant.

Redundency

When Slick made the point that facebook is a self-centered medium, I begged to differ and yet here I am making a blog post on pretty much the same information that I posted to facebook and Twitter.  If this redundency doesn't exemplify a silly sense of self-importence, I don't know what does...  touche sir, touche.

So me and Sergey are in the train stop city of Jankoy at an internet cafe (though there is no hint of any edible food products or coffee) getting caught up on things in which I really hadn't fallen behind.  I desperately needed to put in my predictions for the English Prem games today and take a look at the new facebook.

So I have now updated you on how I have updated you on the non-events in my current travels.  Pathetic, I know.

Boredom leads to inovation

I was messing around this evening and was looking back into Twitter.  I know, returning to an old addiction like a dog to...  well, you know the Proverb.  Anyway, I figured I'd mess with tinyurl.com to see how much I could manipulate the output urls.  I put in my page on the GA site (the one linked to at right) which is a little awkward - http://www.global-act.org/web/guest/ukraine_support and turned it into http://tinyurl.com/ukraineorphans.

They both go to the same site but one is a bit easier to type into a browser.  Any thoughts on that?  I honestly don't know if it's more or less confusing that the original URL.  Oh well, it's not like it cost anything anyway.

Liverpool - CCCFC; Champions League Semis, Game 1

I just wanted to warn you that I will be "live twittering" the Liverpool - Chelsea game that starts in just over an hour and a half.  Slick, if you're recording it and don't want to know the score, don't visit the blog starting at about 12:45 your time.

GO REDS!!!!!

Convenient Conservation

Today I was reading some blog where the writer had added Twitter on her sidebar.  I liked the idea enough to give it a shot (see right), but that's not my point here.  One of her Twitters (is that even what they're called?) was regarding how sites with black backgrounds hurt her eyes.  As a dark-screen type of guy, I immediately got defensive - my natural cyber reaction.  I recalled that on Earth Day or Vegan Day or Organic Day or one of those enviro-days Google had gone black screen because it apparently uses less electricity than a light background.  In stumbling over myself to defend my current blog settings, I realized something...

When was the last time I used the "Well at least I'm environmentally friendly!" defense?  Not that I don't care about reasonable conservation measures - as a hunter, I count on natural habitat to be protected - but I am not a Nazi about it.  Yet, there I was jumping on this typical, negligibly beneficial, energy-saving bandwagon.  Why do you think that is?

I think that this may be a prime example of convenient conservation.  I like a black background on my blog, but the choice of colors is really me saving the planet from imminent destruction.  Were I not to like that layout, well....it's not really that useful anyway.  Plenty of people will drive a Prius despite its being pointless in comparison to its sibling the Echo, which gets virtually the same milage for 1/3 the price - without hybrid technology.  What's important is to LOOK green.  A relatively small percentage of the population recycles (outside the states with enforced 10 cent deposit laws) because very few people think better of a person for collecting, sorting and temporarily storing their garbage.  Same with low energy light bulbs.  They are not exactly taking the market by storm despite the advertising blitz and their purported 10 year lifespan.  No one expects to be praised for what's under their lampshades.

It must be human nature to analyze something that you're already partial to and parading any ancillary benefits as proof of your sterling character.  We truly are pathetic creatures.