Twitter [or: the masses of ignorance]

Okay, you guys gotta help me with this Blog Every Day in April thing...if I miss a day I have to make a video blog. I won't be blenderizing any happy meals, but you could come up with something interesting for me to do.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Yes, I have a twitter account. I tweet. And yes, I do feel silly every time I say that word.

Twitter is an awesome way of keeping tracks of all the hilarious things my brother says, like:

Mike: You going to the bank?

Mom: Yeah, did you want me to deposit?

Mike: I want a lollipop.

I've also begun to tweet some of my flickr photos. This is why I use twitter, I also like the interconnectivity with the 100 or so people I know who also...tweet, and I follow a lot of celebrities (because they are amusing) and I follow people who are extremely clever or post awesome links or who are fantastic photographers.

But there's a lot more to twitter than that, let's do a quick overview:

The "Following": Yeah, prima facie it seems a little creepy. I'm "following" my friend Devin. Does that mean I am stalking him? No, not really, what he writes on twitter, he writes for the people who follow him. It's like consensual stalking.

The Users: Practically every company and their mom has a twitter. That means you can get "exclusive offers" and updates from your favorite stores and companies. You can follow Walmart or the SyFy Channel (who have giveaways all the time, dude) or bands, bands are big on twitter. Anyone who has a name on the internet probably has a twitter. That means big youtube stars, webcomic founders and websites like hulu or CLASH Entertainment. If you want, you can even follow Lady Gaga.

The Lingo: Twitter has created its own subset of the English language. Words like "retweet", "twitter" and "fail whale" have become common monickers online. There are "tweetups" and "twitdowns" and Tweety Bird isn't just a cartoon character anymore. Man, I love Tweety Bird.

I feel like this post had an excessive amount of links. Also, no real point.

I can't really "defend" myself for having a twitter, I don't go around tweeting about my daily life every second, or posting only when I want something from my followers, but I'm not particularly profound on twitter either. Some have said that twitter and text messages and short emails have contributed to the downfall of prose and poetry in the everyday. But beauty can be found in 140 characters, like: "I believe that God does everything for a reason. I believe that God's timing is perfect. I believe He is wonderful beyond all imagination." [@dinologist]

I leave you with some of my favorite tweets:

"in honor of ken burns, please slowly move your head from left to right while reading this tweet" [@StephenAtHome]

"It is not the business of the law to make anyone good or reverent or moral or clean or upright. -- Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995)" [@LibertarianMike]

"...Just realized that fruit loops is actually spelled "froot loops." Consequently hate them forever." [@annalisa2]

"@katiemacmull you're COOLER than Captain Kirk" [@asilannax]

Tomorrow: Identity.

BEDA

My April Fools was that I was not doing Blog Every Day in April.

Unfortunately, that meant I had to fail the very first day.

Oh well. It was worth it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"The thing you fear is impossible. Well and good. Can you therefore cease to fear it? Not here and now. And what then? If you must see ghosts, it is better not to disbelieve in them."

I've been reading That Hideous Strength for the past week. & I've been fearing things...all my life.

Fear is a powerful motivator for demotivation. Especially irrational fears. Even when we recognize these things as irrational, why do we continue to fear them?

I think it's like The Wizard of Oz.

I can't believe I just said that. But, bear with me, it makes sense (sorta). The wizard isn't really a wizard at all, he's a professor from Kansas. But the fancy of the story isn't broken when you learn this, you still believe in the magic; the scarecrow found his brain, the tin man, a heart and the lion, courage. Their self-motivated success is a replacement for the belief in the all-powerful Wizard, when he turns out to be just a man behind a curtain.

So it is with irrational fears. Are we afraid of monsters in the dark, or tripping and falling flat on our faces...in the dark? We may say there's no reason to live in trepidation of the bogeyman or alien invasions, and yet we are sometimes unable to stop our hearts from beating quicker at the thought of approaching darkness or unidentified flying objects.

Perhaps we have replaced our knowledge of our total inadequacy to fight anything in the dark with an impossible monster. Monsters are smaller than our weakness.

Maybe I'm so scared of stupid things because I don't want to face the fact that if I rely on myself I will never overcome anything. I am so weak.

I have a feeling this isn't making a lot of sense, so that's obviously the best place to leave off.

[click to see the picture, if my blog layout is being lame again]

Song I can't stop listening to: Gimme Sympathy by Metric

Tomorrow: Twitter

for a blog post this turned out incredibly indecisive.

Perelandra

"Of course I realize it's all rather too vague for you to put into words."

"On the contrary, it is words that are vague. The reason why the thing can't be expressed is that it's too definite for language."

The Jungle.

"Ah, what agony was that, what despair, when the tomb of memory was rent open and the ghosts of his old life came forth to scourge him!"

Don't Bring Me Down!

I was just listening to some ELO.

This will most likely be the song I won't be able to stop listening to this week.

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, oo-oo-ooh!

Should I go to Howard Payne? Oh. I would love to.

Should I keep rhyming words? Even if they suck, it's only really for me anyway.

Will I try my best to do my best?

I'll tell you once more, before I get off the floor, "don't bring me down!"

What is it with excuses? I always think that there could never be a good one...until I have one. I never think someone could excuse themselves from something they've done...until I've heard their side. Does that mean some excuses are valid? Or are reasons just reasons, and should they not have any effect on just punishment or just reward?

Am I asking too many questions?

:)

You guys are the worm's squirmyness, the bird's flight, the piano's tune.

A page from my "LDer notebook"

I've tried writing in it, but have mostly been failing. Oh well, it's an interesting experiment in self-reflection, and other kinds of reflections...

Here, I provide for you, an excerpt:

Harmless flirting

oxymoron?

Why must everyone be discontent?

the only one I resent

{is me}

everyone can see

my dirt

& useless hurt

Song I can't stop listening to: "You Don't Know Me" Ben Folds & Regina Spektor