twitter: social network or CIA spy tool...

so today . . . the first words spoken in my classroom were "i love lady gaga!"

and no, i am not the one who said them!

these words came out of the mouth of a cute little 4 year old girl. i wasn't quite sure how to respond. i am somewhat horrified by lady gaga, along with several other current pop stars. and yet there are certain current songs that make my head bob--even though the words are terrible! i don't purposefully choose to listen to these songs, but they are out there... just waiting to grab my head and make it bob. i hear them at the mall, at fast food restaurants, on t.v... and when i hear them, my head overrules my brain, and bobs.

i am not proud of this.

so as i was wrapping my brain around a four year old who even knows who lady gaga is, i tweeted. because that is what i do if i have an interesting thought. (if you follow my tweets, you will notice that there are days when i don't have even one interesting thought. my interesting thoughts seem to follow the "feast or famine" pattern...)

in less than five minutes i got a notification on my phone that my twitter account was now being followed by "lady gaga watch." less than five minutes. that is all it took for lady gaga watch to find me. and follow me...

now i am just a little bit unnerved. while i am not a conspiracy theorist, i do think big brother knows a whole lot more about me than i would like. i chafed at giving the state of california my thumbprint--i'm not a criminal--but finally succumbed when they refused to issue me a driver's license if i didn't. i don't join groups on facebook--even the guilt-inducing ones like "if you love your mom, click like,"-because that gives them access to my information. (i can't imagine what good it does for someone to know which games i play or how long i am on fb every day, but still, i don't want them to know... and for the record, i do love my mom--i just don't think i need to join a group to prove it.) i have so many different passwords that i have to keep a list--which should also be password protected, but isn't. yet. (i've got to get on that...) i try to minimize using words like gun, kill, and b*mb, because i am pretty sure homeland security could find me even faster than lady gaga watch (yes, some days it is awfully hard to blog without using those words, but i do my best...)

so being followed by "lady gaga watch" was not something i was comfortable with. because i am not a fan. and maybe they know that and were going to be watching me for signs of lady gaga mocking (although i have to say, she makes it awfully easy...) i immediately went to twitter to block this new follower. i don't need followers that badly.

although, i only have 13 followers. and i am pretty sure that at least half of them are some sort of marketing engines. or new people who will follow anyone. but it's ok. fewer followers means less backlash when i tweet something explosive--like "i need to walk my dogs," or "i think a brownie is calling to me." so usually i ignore my followers--anyone who wants to read my tweets is welcome to read them. but when i see the word "watch" in the name, then i start thinking maybe they aren't reading my tweets for entertainment--maybe they are reading them to make sure i only say nice things about lady gaga. maybe they are going to report me to someone if i say something uncomplimentary. maybe i should be worried...

...because while i did block "lady gaga watch" from my twitter account, maybe they won't like being blocked. maybe that will make them suspicious, and they will just start following me under an assumed name, like "i love puppies" or "chocolate is a food group." how would i know? how do i know who any of these people are? maybe they are all watching me... and keeping track of what i say... and reporting it to someone... somewhere...

maybe i am a conspiracy theorist after all...

:)

insanity? or persistance . . .

so today . . . the twitter saga continues . . .

rollie is winning. he tweets more often than i do, he is funnier than i am, AND after less than 24 hours, he has more followers than i do. i do not like this.

i had a rough morning at school and could hardly wait until lunch. i had chick-fil-a leftovers, but i needed soda. aaaaand just maybe a brownie. so you know where i had to go. on my way out to my car, i checked my messages and there was a text from rollie--"eating lunch at my favorite restaurant--rubio's. they have a killer quesadilla."

and i was headed to 7-11.

i could just picture him at rubios with his kindle and his soda and his quesadilla, having a lovely lunch under the palm trees . . .

. . . while i was driving to 7-11 and then eating at my desk.

you see, this is the problem with only having half an hour for lunch. that isn't enough time to go anywhere to relax and eat. which got me to thinking . . .

some days i wish for a corporate job. i wish for a job with a cubby and a computer. but today i was wishing for a job with an office and a computer. because i kind of think an office and a computer might also come with extended lunch hours and an expense account. which i kind of think i might enjoy.

and then i thought i needed to tweet that, because rollie tweeted about his lunch, and i thought mine might be more amusing. AND if i added a picture of the 7-11 sign, i would win! because he didn't tweet a picture.

hehehe . . .

so i pulled up to 7-11, wrote the tweet, and got out of my car to take the picture. and the screen on my phone was black--nothing. that was weird. so i closed that program and just opened the camera program. still, the screen was black. uh oh . . . i went in and got my soda (and 3 brownies--hey, the weekend is coming,) came back out and tried it again. still black. i tried two more times, pointed it up and down and at my face, and still got nothing.

albert einstein has said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. call me crazy, but i kept thinking, "surely this time it will work . . . " of course, it didn't.

i finally gave it up and went back to school. i ate my leftovers and finished out the afternoon.

then tonight rollie was teaching his class, and i was sitting here doing stuff on my computer and eating the frosting off of my leftover chocolate cake. i decided to tweet that, and as i looked at the remains of the cake i thought, "that would make an interesting picture to go along with my tweet." so i pulled up my camera again, but guess what? it still didn't work.

now i am thinking that i am really, really glad i have insurance on my phone, because i foresee a trip to the sprint store tomorrow for a replacement. i really, really need a phone camera that works--especially now that i am tweeting :) when rollie came home, i was telling him my tale of woe, and he said, "let me look at it."

(you know what this means, don't you--he was going to do exactly the same thing i had done, but the camera was going to suddenly, magically work.)

i handed him the phone, and a few minutes later he handed it back. and sure enough, now the camera worked. i don't know why, but i was stunned. i shouldn't be, because this happens. all. the. time.

"what did you do?" i ask.

"i just turned it off and then turned it on again," he said.

could it really be that simple? and why didn't i think of doing that? and now i have missed two photo-taking opportunities!! and what if it happens again?

i think it is admirable that rollie helped me. he could have just left me camera-less, but he is a nice guy. he knows i am electronically challenged, so he helps me out when he can. he probably should have just left my phone camera alone though, because you know, with my picture taking abilities i am probably going to win the twitter war. eventually.

unless he starts posting pictures too . . .

is it starting to get cold in hell?!?

so today . . . i tweeted. and now rollie tweets too.

rollie is not a big fan of social media. he has resisted it all. he finally started reading my blog recently, but he has no interest in interacting on the web. until today.

i'm not sure why he has decided to tweet, except maybe he wants to keep track of me. he said it was just so he could follow me and see what i am thinking. he says he thinks i am funny. that's what he says. ok . . .

i discovered this was happening when i walked into his office tonight to find diandra explaining twitter to him. she was showing him how to follow people, how to send a tweet, how to send a direct tweet "in case you want to tweet something only to mom or me."

i said, "if he wants to send either one of us a message, he could just text. he doesn't need to tweet." "well," she said, "but what if he wanted to."

huh? i mean i understand tweeting instead of texting if you are one of those people with 843 followers and you don't want them all to have your phone number, but rollie follows two people--diandra and me. and he has our phone numbers.

but whatever. anyway, when he got home tonight, i did something and he said, "i am going to tweet that!" almost like it was a threat. i said it didn't matter, because i was the only one who was following him. and i already knew what i had done because i was the one who did it. he made the "oh *&*^%$#%!!" face. and then he did it! he tweeted what i had done!

i'm not so sure i like rollie tweeting. i am not used to running into him electronically. i am used to having the last word in cyberspace. i am the one who talks about him to the rest of the world--he is not supposed to be talking about me. my world is starting to tilt dangerously again . . .

my only consolation is that i think he will not continue to tweet. he has too much to do! he is not going to sit around typing tiny little thoughts and sending them out electronically for the rest of us to retrieve. his brain is way too busy for that.

unless it becomes necessary. you know, as a "threat" :)

a techie savant moment

so today . . . i have been experimenting with twitter.

as with most things social media related, diandra got me started.

last summer when she and i were visiting my parents, she helped to convince my mom to switch to sprint and buy a palm pre. we spent the rest of the week acclimating her to the new phone. well, technically diandra did the acclimating--for two reasons. first, she already had a palm pre, so she knew how it worked and what it could do. second, i did not. my palm pre did not appear until christmas . . .

but my treo would still do quite a lot. so she got both of us set up with twitter accounts. i used mine while we were on vacation, and diandra was around to help me. then i came home, never to tweet again.

until today.

i've been thinking about it for a few days though. lately, i've been having these random, kind of funny thoughts. but they are short. however, i am pretty good at embellishing, so maybe some of them could have been expanded into blogs--but by the time i sat down to blog them, i couldn't remember what they were . . .

the brain--it is a terrible thing to waste.

i was telling rollie this, and he said, "maybe you should just make a note in your phone. that way when you got ready to blog, you could remember what you were going to write." i thought that was a pretty good idea, so i pulled out my phone and prepared to make a note--only to realize i already had a file on my phone for these random ideas. i had just forgotten.

the brain--you know.

my next thought was that instead of writing it down, i should just record it vocally. my phone will do that, won't it? hmmmm? i am pretty sure it will--i'm just not quite sure how to do it . . . so i shelved the whole idea and decided that if i couldn't remember a thought from the time i had it until i blogged, it probably wasn't worthy of my attention anyway!

and then today while i was sitting at my desk, my fish kept staring at me. i've been worried about my fish on the weekends. every monday i expect that he will be dead from lack of food. i have repeatedly been assured that he will be fine, but still i think he will be belly-up on monday morning. the school secretary feeds him a little extra on friday night, and apparently he will also nibble on the plant roots that share his water, but the weekend seems like such a long time to be without food . . .

yesterday he kept looking at me. i finally fed him a tiny bit more. today he kept looking at me. i thought, "what if he is starving to death? what if i kill my fish because i don't want to feed him enough?" (which is purely selfish, because i just don't want to have to clean his habitat--but that is a story for another blog . . . ) and then i thought "i should tweet this!"

i don't know why i thought about tweeting. maybe i thought someone would read it and give me some insight into fishy thinking. diandra is probably the only one who follows me on twitter though, and she would probably die of shock if i actually tweeted something. but i decided to risk it. i was actually hoping it would show up on facebook. other people's tweets show up on facebook. (why didn't i just post it on facebook, you ask? because i wanted to include a picture to prove the fish was staring at me, and i couldn't figure out how to get the picture onto facebook from my phone. there! are you happy now?!?) i guess i was hoping it might just magically appear, and i needed some answers, so i gave it a try . . .

. . . and i not only tweeted, i tweeted WITH A PICTURE! yes indeed! i figured out how to tweet a picture. i was pretty darn proud of myself! i rarely accomplish any electronic or internet milestone without the help of someone more tech savvy than me. but today i did!

as i thought about it throughout the day (because i did, you know--i thought about it all day and about how smart i was and about what else i could possibly do . . . ) i decided that a tweet is just a tiny blog in 140 characters. the truth is, some thoughts just aren't big enough for a blog, but that doesn't mean that they might not be amusing or entertaining. so i am going to be tweeting more often. i think.

and since you may not all have twitter accounts, i spent some time figuring out how to post my tweets onto my blog. so you don't even have to sign up on twitter to follow me--you can just catch up when you read the blog! isn't that clever? at least, it will be clever if it works like i think it will.

now if i can just figure out how to get my tweets to post on facebook . . .

julie wonders about rollie . . .

so today . . . i was sitting in the family room doing some computer work and watching tv, when i got this message from rollie, who was upstairs in the man-room.

"rollie had leftover subway for lunch."

huh?

first of all, it is not uncommon for us to text each other from different rooms in our house. our phones are always with us, and it is a much more pleasant way to communicate than to try to yell up the stairs, or worse yet, WALK up the stairs when you need to get someone's attention. but i knew he had eaten leftover subway for lunch, because he had actually told me that in person when he came down to get his sandwich. and he was talking in the third person--i don't believe i have ever heard him do that before. so how to respond . . .

i texted back, "ok?"

he replied, "rollie wishes he could be watching the USC game."

i also knew that--he had been bemoaning the fact that the usc game was not going to be on tv today. and he was still talking in the third person. i wasn't quite sure what he was up to . . .

so i said, "yes, he told me that this morning."

and the conversation continued . . . "rollie is considering a nap."

"that would probably be a good idea--a nice long nap--maybe in an institution . . . "

"rollie is ignorning negative feedback and preparing for imminent unconsciousness."

so i decided to give it a try myself and see what happened.

"julie is going to drink the rest of the pop and eat half a cheese sandwich. how exciting is that!"

"rollie just sneezed, disturbing the stealthy approach of probable somnamulance."

huh? "bummer," i replied.

"undeterred, rollie is trying to attain blessed unconsciousness once again."

"good to know."

"he's just oozing consistency and integrity!"

"ewww--oozing?!?"

"metaphorically. rollie has recently added a canine nap enhancement accessory to his journey toward nirvanah."

"good luck then--at least the canine isn't trying to eat my puny sandwich."

"rollie has discovered that tweeting can sometimes inhibit continuity in his daily pursuit of productivity."

and then i got it. he was pseudo-tweeting. i say pseudo, because he is not signed up for twitter. he is just not that into all the social networking stuff. he says he socially networks with real people all day long, so when he comes home he is looking for peace and quiet--not more 'chatting.'

i wondered how long this game was going to continue. but i did my part.

"especially when he uses such a vocabulary!"

"rollie is distressed at the pedestrian vocabularial attainments of his followers." i guess that would be me . . .

so i decided, fine--i would not subject him to my 'pedestrian vocabulary' and i stopped texting him.

a few minutes later he said, "the attainment of oblivion appears to remain equidistant, as rollie communicates his journey toward that end."

my response? "hmmm. shut up and take a nap!"

he continued. " . . . and yet my canine accessory appears oblivious to my distress, and has preceded me to my objective!" i took that to mean that milo was sleeping . . .

i said, "canines are like that--of course, they don't have phones!"

"seems to be a somewhat unfair advantage . . . "

"having a phone? or not having one?"

"the absence of the communicative accessory."

as entertaining as this had been, i was starting to get tired of thinking up responses. so i just said, "ahh."

but he wasn't done yet. "rollie requests that his multitudinous adherents refrain from response so that he can continue his quest for oblivion."

did he not understand 'shut up and take a nap?!?' i was not the one keeping him awake--it was his 'twittering.' "okey dokey," i said.

finally, phone silence. my brain settled back into it's vegetative state. and then several minutes later the phone beeped again.

"rollie has abandoned his fruitless quest for restorative somnambulance and has embarked on a mission to relieve excretory urgency." ok then. more than i needed to know, but ok.

"well, at least he is adaptable."

and then a few minutes later, "so what do you think--should i twitter?"

let's see, how can i put this . . . NO! NO!! NO!!! PLEASE DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!

but instead i said, "i am going to take a short nap. and this will be my final communication about it."

"okay." he said. "hope it works out better than mine."

it did--i was able to nap for about 45 minutes. of course, i wasn't laying there thinking up enormous, obscure words to "tweet" with . . .