Category Archives: Twitter

Raging at the rage (yes, I get the irony)


What do people get out of rage tweeting/status updates?

I’ve recently been somewhat befuddled by folks who watch something on TV (say, a particular channel or program) and then spend time posting anger filled tweets directed at said TV show. Now, I know there are “media” watchers whose job it is to blog or comment on the program’s quality (or lack thereof). I am not talking about that. In fact, the couple of people I follow who are in that field tend to tweet about them other than in a comical manner. They save their rage/real critiques for their jobs.

No, I am talking about someone like me – an accountant by day with no connection to the industry – spending my time and energy watching something that I clearly do not like and then spewing all those angry thoughts out onto the internet (either via twitter or facebook).

Why?

I read those thoughts and immediately pass judgment – not on the program you are criticizing – no, I pass judgment on YOU for being dumb. Or, perhaps for being a deliberate drama addict. You know you don’t like it, so DON’T WATCH. Or, maybe rage-watching is cathartic in some way as was pointed out to me once by a rather trusted and otherwise reasonable friend. OK, I can maybe get that – but the same friend also agreed that SHARING the rage is a mystery. So you choose to wallow in it – why post about it every single time?

Once in a while, maybe, but every single day?

Yeah, not only are you clearly ENJOYING the drama, but making other people enraged is also a thrill for you so – goodbye. In keeping with my own rule of NO DRAMA, I had to start removing people with that habit from my social networks.

However, in a somewhat similar vein, people who spend status updates whining ABOUT what other people post is also tiring. We get it. You don’t like ________ (sports/tv show/talking head/singer etc).

This particularly happens on Sundays as there seem to be equal amounts of love for certain Sunday night TV shows (Downtown Abbey comes to mind, but Mad Men/Dexter…there’s lots on Sunday night I think)…or you really really don’t like pointyball…err….football.

So then, you know what to expect on Sundays, right? Don’t log onto twitter and get yourself all irritated at people tweeting on topics you don’t happen to like. You are free to not like them! I don’t happen to watch any of those TV shows I just listed, but I know lots of my friends do and that they LOVE them. It does not offend/anger/irritate me in any way that they wish to express and share their love of those shows with others as they watch. In fact, that’s kind of the POINT of social media. Just because I personally do not enjoy that topic does not mean I should then spend equal amounts of time raining on their fun.

And now you are thinking – hey – first you are critical of people who rage tweet about TV, now you are telling people NOT to rage at people who tweet about TV. Double standard!

It’s subtle, but not really. In the first group, the hate TV watchers are sharing just that – hate & rage. In the second example, people are having FUN and then you get the haters who rage AT the fun. In both cases what I am lamenting is the people who are spreading anger and irritation on a regular basis.

I get that there is never going to be 100% peace love and understanding. But there should be a balance.

If you don’t like something, don’t watch. Scroll past tweets of people talking & enjoying a topic you don’t happen to like. If those tweets are coming too fast & furious on some particular days, log off. It’s easy to turn the TV or twitter off and avoid the irritation, right? Read a book! Listen to a podcast or music that makes you laugh and smile.

Just don’t knowingly walk into a situation that you KNOW will make you mad and then scream at everyone else about it.

No whining and no gasbags!

Oh Hi


February is the Monday of months according to the always currently relevant Garfield The Cat. It’s also clearly Blogging Prevention Month around here.

My writing energies are all used up by the pergola site. With the ebook on sale – one book sold last week! – I have to ramp up the promotion which means article writing to drive traffic and then updating some of the old pages of the main site.

Then there’s Pinterest. I’ve been ignoring that latest trend. I noticed a few folks posting from it on Facebook. OK, so in reality I got pissed off by friends flooding their timelines with stuff. It was a deluge! Yuck. Too much Pinterest spam and I was about to block that app. Then…as I was watching stats on the pergola site, I noticed an incoming link from there. Hey now! Someone had “pinned” our site! That’s cool.

So, I joined & started playing. And as I set up my boards for fun and trolled for those aforementioned Facebook friends to connect with them, I pinned the site & put it in the Gardening category. That pin? Was “liked” & repinned over 25 times in an hour. By total strangers! I clicked on the website stats and? 5 hits in 5 minutes. 1 signed up for our email list! No book sales, but I suspect now that the email series I write previewing the book is rolling, I think those will convert.

Meanwhile, I already found two recipes I want to try on other peoples boards.

IOW, when I am not working, writing for PDIY, monitoring the teen study habits, running, doing taxes, or driving oldest around to his job & appointments…well, I’m having deep debates on Facebook & the Aug Moms email list, watching my tv shows piling up on the dvr, and I’m pinning crap.

But I turned off the Pinterest Auto feed to Facebook & Twitter – that shit was annoying as hell.

PSA for my twitter friends


Ways to avoid my personal Fail Whale (muting/blocking/reporting/unfollowing)

I was going to tweet this, but it would have taken up over three tweets & my friends and I have an agreement that anything over three tweets is a blog post.

MHO (My Humble Opinion for you longhand readers) on rules for twitter. Take them for what they are worth (free!), but know that I am not alone.

  • If it takes more than 3 tweets to make your point – it’s a blog post! (see above) :-) Seriously, the point of twitter is to say something about what you are doing or to drop some wisdom on a current topic in less than 140 characters. When you launch into a long winded rant, you’ve missed the point. Also, it’s nearly impossible to follow it properly unless I click out of my main time line & go on your page individually. You see, I follow a few hundred people & they are all pretty yappy. You launch into a rant on bad customer service and in between I’ve clicked on an interesting link, a cool twitpic & I’ve laughed at some clever hash tag threads. I’ve long since tuned out your point.Trust me. Blog it! **The ONLY exception to this is @WestWingReport who sends along fascinating This Day In Presidential History posts which often take up over 3 tweets. He crafts them well enough that they can also stand alone effectively**
  • Do NOT fill my time line with enormous FF posts! Heck, I’m pretty much over FF altogether. For the uninitiated, FF started out as Follow Friday. It now also means Friend Follow and it’s way to recommend interesting or new twitter people. It was a great way in the early days of twitter to introduce people and to fill your time line with like minded tweets, but now three years in (almost four for me!), my time line is pretty much filled thankyouverymuch. When you send a post that starts with #FF and is followed by tons of @ screen names, I’ve scrolled right on past & if you do it too much, you are muted.
  • If you want to do FF right – send ONE name at a time, and just a few on any day. With a quick description as to WHY. @Barantunde does this best. He sends out about 5-10 single FF posts and tells you just enough about who he is recommending to make you look.
  • Related to FF – if you spend all day sending tweets thanking each & every person who sent a FF recommendation about you – and you post that in your main feed by either putting a . in front of the @, or by burying the @ in the middle of the tweet, STOP IT!! (it looks like this: “Thanks for the FF @xyz! You rock!”) Really, stop the bragging about how many FF recommends you get. No one else cares!
  • If all you do is ReTweet, I’m outta there.
  • If half of your tweets are from Blip.fm, I’m outta there. (ditto foursquare & just about any other 3rd party application).

Feel free to add your own complaints :-) Mine are somewhat driven by the fact that I read exclusively on my iPhone. The screen holds, at most, 3-4 tweets before I have to scroll and if any of the above is happening, then it’s just like being spammed & I have less patience for it.

Notice I didn’t complain about people posting boring “Lunchtime” tweets like some others do. I like those :-) For whatever reason, I get a kick out of imagining what all my tweeps around the world are doing. A voyeuristic glimpse into your day. Just don’t spam me with mass #FF, RT’s & Blips & we’ll be cool :-)

Happy Tweeting!

Blog Post of the week with bonus (we love Twitter) edition


Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

May you be blessed with good weather and the time to enjoy some of the beauty around you. Remember to give thanks and honor those who have served and given the ultimate sacrifice for all we treasure here.

As my political friends pointed out – nice timing for taking a giant step towards repealing Dont Ask Dont Tell – just before a weekend when we honor those who’ve served & died. Don’t kid yourself that they were all straight eh? :-)

Well, there was lots of big finales on TV this week, but the one show that call all my friend’s attention was not even a season finale yet. Glee busted out probably it’s best episode of its short run – and there wasn’t even any Sue Sylvester in it! No, what made this episode an instant classic for many of us was one, critical scene. No, not even a song, but a fantastic rant by one character on behalf of another.

Erica dedicated a post just to this episode along with video of The Scene. I think she summarizes it certainly much better than I can :-)   BGAI Together – He is my son (with special video clip from Glee)

She is right that if you have a heart, you will need a tissue.

The bonus blog post of the week is more personal – plus it has to do with Adam Lambert which makes it automatically glittery  :-)

Making a Teen Girls’ Dream Come True unfolded last night over Twitter.  My connection to Debbie is through DailyKos. I have never met her, but we have mutual friends who I have met. Clearly we all don’t tweet about just one topic though. Debbie has mentioned her niece’s love of Adam before and I’ve mentioned to her that I can relate! But then that switched from fun banter to – hey, she’ll be back in CA when Adam is in Orange County and where can I maybe get tickets for her? Well, I knew from experience that the initial online sales had been almost impossible through. The scalpers got nearly everything and were now re-selling the originally reasonably price seats for double. I got lucky because I had connections to someone who DID get through and grabbed tickets at face value. But I also knew there were still a few folks out there with extras so when Debbie asked, I immediately thought of swan2029 who has been on my Adam buddy list for a few months now and had face value tickets. Well, as you can see from Deb’s post, the hookup worked!

So now when I drive up to Orange County on July 28th, here is who I will be meeting or going with:

  1. My son (MM who has been completely corrupted with my Adam adoration)
  2. One of my young buddies from the Padres blog, who also has a love of Adam will be riding along
  3. Meeting Jan & Kathleen there (Fantasy Spring, Jan originally from American Idol tour stop)
  4. Meeting Swan2029 (might meet her before that actually as now there is a San Diego date & she’s driving in to get tickets onsite)
  5. Meeting a gal from Malaysia who I chat with a lot on twitter
  6. Meeting the lady from the Adam fan site who sold me my son’s ticket.
  7. Meeting Deb’s niece & whoever brings her to the concert.

All people who (other than my son & Padres pal) – I would NEVER have met if not for Adam Lambert! Crazy huh?

What I loved about 2009


Ah yes, the dreaded end of year list. Hey, be happy I’m only doing end of year, not DECADE – gawd, those are already gnawing at my sanity!

Also, since I am totally a Power Of Positive Thinking (POPT forever!) kind of gal, and because I already did my airing of grievances, well this is just stuff I love from ’09. I knows there’s a lot of reason to say SUCKIT09! but sometimes you just gotta focus on the bright spots.

And it’s not obvious stuff like my son’s entire football season (sob) STOP IT FOR CHRISSAKES! (oh fine), or my dream come true trip to Washington DC, or getting to meet so many awesome people in Pittsburgh (did I mention Coach Gruden in all that stuff? Yeah, I got to shake hands with the man who perfected The Scowl). No no, I shall avoid all of those personal things & obviously heart filling things like family & boyfriends blah blah blah. You all know they rock already.

I’m thinking today of all the things that ’09 provided that will keep me smiling, laughing, dancing, singing on into 2010. Not one time moments, but things that have brought and will continue to bring me joy no matter what else is going on.

In no particular order…ok, I’m going alpha since that’s how the pics are stored:

Adam Lambert - whether it be the first version we met on American Idol:

American Idol Adam

Or the current glammed up Glittery Alien Adam:

Glittery Alien from the Planet Fierce Adam

I’ve loved everything he has done. His For Your Entertainment CD is constantly being played in my car. SportsBoy walks around humming tunes from it all the time :-) I’ve seen every tv appearance and performance and this man is just a musical, entertainment monster who I know will keep me smiling and dancing for years. It is rather fitting that the opening song on his CD is called Music Again and the chorus is “You make me want to listen to music again” Oh yes, Adam, you did indeed do that. For the first time ever I have an itunes account and I’m exploring more new artists (such as Lady Gaga & Kings of Leon) based on Adam’s tweets and I feel like a whole new world of music has been opened up to me.

GLEE!!

The single Best New TV Show of the year hands down!! It’s not just me, friends from all walks of life are watching this show and loving it. Of course I see a connection between the rise of Glee just after Adam walked onto the AI stage. A product of years of Glee Club and youth theater productions himself, it was just perfect that the show debuted right after his season of Idol. He is the ultimate Glee Club success story. And he MUST appear on this show!! Although, I must say, that the cast is just brilliant as it is.

The only one I knew really well previously was Jane Lynch – and lord knows her character was an instant classic. I think by now we all know how Sue C’s it! But the rest are all legitimate Broadway level stars (many coming straight from Broadway to Glee). The covers of the songs they have done are just fantastic revivals of some classic songs. Shoot, some are right from this year! I used my itunes gift cards from Christmas to download the two volumes of songs and I am LOVING them! The Musical genre is BACK and I am dancing and singing and laughing (and sometimes crying) with these characters. I sure hope they keep up the high level of work in Season 2. Which starts in April. Because of that damn American Idol show and haven’t I already mentioned that they can just stop that already because I already HAVE my ultimate Idol?

iPhone

You don’t need another picture of that. But my little orange and black buddy is my constant companion. It carries the music of the two prior honorees, pictures, and access to all my social media that keeps me connected to all of you guys. During the week unless I really do have work to do at home, I don’t even open my laptop anymore and I love it. It’s made my life more relaxed just having it around. While I should not be spending money on anything extra, this one was worth it Big Time.

Twitter (and Facebook)

While I was on these back in ’07, it was ’09 that saw the explosion amongst the general (non geek) population. Thanks to Facebook I was able to see a high school buddy twice this year. My experiences in Pittsburgh were enhance because I felt less nervous around some of the public figures since I follow them or have them as friends. The rise of Social Media sites such as these has made the world even smaller still. I’ve maintained closer connections with far away friends than I could have EVER done via phone or snail mail or even email! No matter what your religious beliefs or non beliefs may be, it’s a very warm fuzzy feeling knowing that if needed, I could enlist the power of prayers,  good vibrations & healing thoughts from literally hundreds of people should *anything* go sideways in my life.

Working out

Thanks to my friend Asa (need a Swedish keyboard to do this properly, but that’s pronounced Oh-sah) who invited me to her 40th birthday party in April, I’ve gotten myself into the best shape of my life. Sitting here on the precipice of 45 & I gotta say I’ve got some pretty nice abs :-) I’m sorry if it sounds braggy, but I have to sing out the praises of these workouts. Shoot, I gave up getting my nails done in order to pay for them! My nails gals!! You old timers know – I’ve been getting those done forever and then some, right? No more. At least once a week and maybe twice I go to the group sessions and sweat my ass off. You all know that I didn’t make it through that first session. Had to sit down & stop the room from spinning. But now? Well last night, class was canceled but I was ready to move so I did a home version of their exercises and I damn well kicked my own ass with it! 4 lb hand weights turned into 10 here at home. I’m regularly using 12 at the gym and sometimes 15.  15?! That’s nuts!! But I feel noticeably stronger in my upper body – my arms always were my weak spot. I’ve got more aerobic stamina (tho still not great with running) and my energy levels are way more steady overall throughout the day and I sleep like a rock at night. I also don’t feel like I *need* 8 hours every night. 6 or 7 does just fine I think because I am sleeping more deeply overall so I’m rejuvenated more easily.  Shocking, I know, but I’ve stayed up past 10pm quite a bit with no ill effects!

So there you go – a few of my favorite things from 2009 which thankfully will NOT go away in 2010. They better not, because I need them ALL to keep the joy flowing and the sanity in check :-)

Focus


focus

Last year I posted a theory that we are all pretty much immersed in the ADD way of living thanks in large part to the internet (and having too many bazillion channels on TV). Given the recent explosion in Facebook and Twitter activity/friends, it’s really only become worse since that post.

Well, one of the reasons I am posting here a little less often is because I am trying to reign in the ADD. I am trying to FOCUS again. It’s not easy! I takes a very concsious effort to CLOSE the laptop in front of the tv when a show comes on that I really want to watch. A nice side effect of that is that I am more apt to get stepping on the Wii fit while watching instead. No, that is not quite an ADD thing as my attention is still really on the TV show. It’s very repetitive/rhythmic stepping so doesn’t take a ton of brain power. At least, lots less than continuing to surf the ‘net while “watching”! If I decide that I *want* to fiddle around on the computer, then I must turn the TV off. If I have a set task, I must stick to it before I can check any of the social media sites (including other folks blogs – I felt horrible how I was skimming those!) ONE THING AT A TIME! That also means that rather than spilling out 4 lines of crap here because I feel guilty, I will actually set aside TIME to write a post because I WANT to. Like this one. Which was my planed afternoon break from work today :-)

Of course, I would have been a lot easy to wake up with this new found FOCUS goal if a) I had actually slept all night vs waking up at 2:30 and never falling back asleep. and b)

nosignal

if AT&T service had not completely bombed out Sunday night thanks to a cell phone tower crapping out – when you have ONLY cell phones that gets a little creepy. What was worse is that AT&T’s web site is USELESS! One would think that a large cell phone provider like that would KNOW how many folks have ditched their land lines and also KNOW that the internet is going to be their only means of seeing what is up with service. So, like the cable company, one would THINK there would be a place where they would post a notice of a known outtage right? But NOOOO. I have to start emailing other friends who have AT&T to see if THEY were down.  Everyone was having intermitent issues. Then this morning it was still out and there is still no word on their web page and I don’t like that Sportsboy cannot call out so I call tech support when I get to work and finally find out that YES, a major tower was down. Argh. It’s all back up now, but really, c’mon AT&T! Get your website up to speed with something customers actually NEED!

Oh, and thanks to Twitter after I got off the phone with tech support I thought to search there and found running conversations about the outtage though no one (for some odd reason) had bothered to call AT&T directly! So I twittered for about 10-15 minutes sending out the word and replying to some posting questions. Stopped a few people from making the trip to one of the stores at any rate. Which just shows you when Twitter addiction comes in VERY handy!

The mess in my head – twitter, McCain vs Ingram, American Idol et al.


messycloset

If you follow me on twitter, then you saw me post about some of the new people I started following in the last week. They were (gasp!) Republicans!! :-) Now now, I hope you’ve figured out from reading what I do write about politics that while I am very much dedicated to progressive values, I am not in the least anti-anyone or anything. I’ve always tried to be reasonable and respectful and try to keep my sources of news balanced. So really it is not that much of a stretch for me to have been curious about John McCain joining Twitter. But really, it was his daughter who drew me in. Meghan appeared on Rachel Maddow’s show to talk about her brewing battle with the hard core right wing women in the GOP – Ann Coulter and Laura Ingram. Now, the irony here is that Meghan was initially commenting on Ann who has not responded at all. Yet Laura decided to have Ann’s back and started dissing Meghan. Did she debate ideas? Oh, heck no. She went straight for the cat fighting jugular by criticizing McCain’s physique. Classy Laura! But, I will stop here and direct you to this blog post which I think sums up all that is so wrong about this fight. So I am following John and Meghan and today was kinda fun because George Stephanopolous did a Twitter interview with John McCain and since I follow both of them I saw the whole thing :-) Yeah, I know, utterly geeky eh? I can’t help it! It’s like I am getting to peak behind the curtain with the media and politicians. It’s more personal and makes you feel more connected to them. It’s breaking down barriers and in that way Twitter is really something awesome. It’s not for everyone for sure, but I love the links that are shared (Meghan McCain pointed me to the blog post I just told you about) and the twitpic snapshots into their lives (Shaq and Ana Marie Cox send the best ones) and just the running commentary and conversation.

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I’ve decided that I don’t like March at work. There are too many administrative deadlines which have nothing to do with crunching numbers. It’s all writing crap. Writing process guides and control procedures for the auditors (shouldn’t they do that??), writing justificaitons for the budget requests, writing about my employees for the annual evaluation process. Business writing does not come easily to me and I am really struggling with being motivated to start the tasks and then stick with them. IOW, if I am sending more inane tweets than usual, it’s because I am trying to avoid the crap!

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It was country night on American Idol which always sucks for me (and Simon!). My favorite, Adam, was…umm…Unique? I love him, and he sure did put his own take on Ring of Fire, but it was little TOO Adam tonight. Vocally he still kicks ass, but…..yeah. I still voted for him of course!

Update: the morning radio show played back Adam’s performance from last night and I am back to 100% wow. Brilliant. There is something different just hearing the vocals. He is a blend of Freddie Mercury (how did I miss that??), Axl Rose and the Led Zeppelin version of Robert Plant. A total glam rocker but with the ability to take a song inside out and just roll in it. Simon was right that last night was indulgent, but it didn’t matter – it was still brilliant.

Anoop was the best tonight. So so so strong with his tender vocals. Beautiful. I’m throwing a few votes his way too.

That is all. It’s been a loooong day.