So I don’t use Twitter. Maybe I should. Maybe that’s the missing ingredient in my blog fame and fortune stew? It’s not enough to read a daily update of the stupid and inane crap in my head: I should be spreading it hourly!!!
Oddly enough Twitter is on my mind today because of the recent ‘scandal’ around it. “What’s that?” you ask. Well, if you led as boring of a life as I do, you would have seen the blurb about certain ‘celebrity’ Twitter accounts (I put celebrity in quotes as I highly doubt the actual people are doing the updating. If I were Obama’s PR rep, I would strongly advise against it. What if he got drunk or had a fight with Michelle and posted something he shouldn’t? Or imagine George Bush on Twitter? “The fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there’s jobs at the machine-making place.” Oh, wait. He already said that during a speech in Arizona). Anyway, what I was trying to say was that several high-profile Twitter accounts were hijacked yesterday.
None of the unauthorized “tweets” were particularly clever, but I must admit, I still find it funny. I kind of wish the people behind it weren’t inarticulate and not particularly clever yahoos who can’t spell, but it’s still good for a chuckle. (Note to Twitter hijackers: Contact me next time, and I’ll write you some material to REALLY make some headlines! Remember the golden rule: Funny is better than mean!)
Anyway, in that vein I’m in no way intimidated by the recent round of Twitter phishing escapades, only because I (realistically?) realize it’s unlikely anyone would care if my ‘tweets’ suddenly turned bizarre. In fact, considering I’m slowly losing my mind a la Jack Torrance in The Shining, most likely my tweets would be nothing but alarming anyway.
Meanwhile, logging into the Twitter account that I set up this summer, I see that only one person – and not even a person, but a local music venue – is following me. I did have a local newscaster following me (I can only imagine he signed up to follow everyone local to get them to follow him), but I’ve hence been dumped. However, I don’t blame him seeing as the post I put up in the summer (whining about my job) is still the only one there!
But no more! Today I have tweeted again! Not once, but twice (in an effort to win back the follower status of said newscaster). In order to get a sense of the challenge ahead of me, I did go and look at his account quickly and saw the following Tweet, “Man arrested for 1st degree assault for shooting at a PRIVATE snow plow driver this afternoon.”
See? It’s not just me.
The snow is making us all nuts.
(p.s. I engaged in the following Twitter based conversation with the newscaster. If this single experiment is any indicator, odds are low I”ll be able to reengage him as a follower:
“Great story about firefighter’s rescuing a dog and two cats from a house fire this morning; I shot the video myself!”
I responded, “Was the fire set on purpose in an effort to get snow off their roof? I’m strongly considering a minor blaze. Pets be d@mned!”
“Noooooo, noone was home at the time… they didn’t appear very happy about losing access to their home.”
I managed to be both insensitive AND unfunny in a single interaction!)