BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Hi.

My name is Murv, and I’m a “Twitterer”… Or a Tweep… Or Tweeple… Or Twipple… Or, maybe just a Twit. Who the hell really knows? I’ve seen so many monikers applied to folks who spend time on Twitter, that I’m pretty much lost. All I can really say is that you’ll notice that I didn’t say I was a Twitterholic. Because I’m not. Recovering or otherwise.

Yes, I do have an account on Twitter, and I do have a tendency to use it. Primarily I do this for purpose of alerting folks to new blog entries… In fact, there’s probably a Tweet floating around out in the ether about this very blog post. How weird is that? But, my point is, I really just use it to update folks about really important crap. Like the aforementioned blog post thing… Fiery balls of molten rock falling from the sky… Whether or not I am out of Braunschweiger… Whether or not to call 9-1-1 when E K is beating me… Like I said… Important crap.

But, yeah. I spend a little time there. And, since I do that, I also follow some folks too. I mean, hey, why play follow the leader if you’re always the leader. It gets a little boring. Sometimes it’s nice to follow someone else for a change.

However, this is where I started noticing things about “Twitter People”…

First off… There are definitely some -aholic’s out there. How do I know this? When I check my page in the evening and there are 487 tweets from @MisterSpankMe or some such… This is on the heels of 1792 tweets from him throughout the day. Okay, so he’s a little busy… But then, when I check it in the morning while having coffee, I log in to find another 3653 tweets from, yeah, you guessed it – @MisterSpankMe… Apparently his “Mistress” is into torture by sleep deprivation, because the dude hasn’t yet been to sleep. What’s more, he’s still tweeting his little heart out. In fact, 15 more tweets show up within the span of time I type “Good Morning All” and hit send.

Well…Actually I never type “Good Morning All”… That’s a little too generic for me. I like to greet the day with something amusing. Usually about coffee. You know, things like:

And when my hand opened the third seal, I heard the bean say come and see. I beheld and lo a black liquid; the name of which was Coffee…

Or…

Coffee is great, coffee is good, let us thank it for our mood…

But then, you all know I can only be serious when A) Writing a book or B) Ummm… Well… I can’t really get into that here…

Still, ya’know, if being a Twitterholic is your thing, more power to you… BTW, I should take this opportunity to point out that I made up  the ID @MisterSpankMe for the purposes of this blog post. If there is someone out there who actually goes by this handle, well, I neither follow him, nor is he following me, so no harm no foul. It’s all kind of one of those “names were changed to protect the addicted” sort of things…

But, this tiny, pale blue bird thing is not all that I’ve noticed. You see, a lot of these folks “follow chickens” even more than me. Yeah… I think maybe they have Twitter Attention Deficit Disorder – or as we like to call it here in the lab, TADD… You know, as in, “@MisterSpankMe is a TADD bit off his game today…” or “That was just a TADD silly, don’t you think, @SillyBastard?” (Yeah, I made up @SillyBastard too. Same disclaimer applies.)

So, anyway, this TADD thing… Those of you who have had any sort of brush with Twitterpation are probably aware of the “@ reply” tag. For those of you who aren’t, it is a process by which you direct your tweet at someone. Yes, you can do a private message, but if you just want to make a comment to someone publicly, as you would at say, a crowded party, you just put an @ symbol followed by the persons handle, then type the message.

I bring this up because I think the @ symbol may well be the source of the infection. You see, folks end up with so many @ replies flying across their screens, all interspersed with the plethora of tweets from @MisterSpankMe, that they end up following a whole coop full of chickens at once.

I’ve only a small amount of experience with it myself, but it seems almost like trying to pat your head and rub your belly at the same time, all while Caleigh dancing, chewing gum, and threading a needle.

Kind of like the epitome of TMI… You just can’t keep up.

Oh well… Maybe it’s just because I’m too old. It could be that this whole Twitter thing is really meant for the youngsters. I guess I’ll stick to my coffee commentaries and blog posts…

Now, if you’ll be so kind to excuse me, @GibsonGirl is @tweeting me about @Framistat posting to #wingnuts #monkeybrains via tweetberry, and she wants me to look at tinyurl/XiPL&/WoyQ because twitterpic is down. And, of all things this is going on while @SkippyHead and @CaptainObvious are adding her to #followfriday and sending me a direct message about it… Can you imangine?

All I know is that I really don’t want to miss my chance to @LOL before the screen is full.

More to come…

Murv

Note: All @names in this post are intended as fictional handles, and are the product of my incredibly warped brain. If someone out there actually uses one of these, well, sorry about that. Fellow “Twits” can follow me at twitter.com/mrsellars. Just try not to follow too closely. I make frequent stops and wide right turns.

I like to sing.

Now, please take note – I did not indicate in any way that I am good at singing. I simply said that I like to do it. Therefore, you aren’t about to find me in a Karaoke bar, belting out Bon Jovi or Heart tunes and downing Kirin with a bunch of visiting Japanese businessmen. For one thing, I never have occasion to be socializing with the aforementioned Asian moguls. Just doesn’t happen in my line of work. Maybe someday a Japanese publisher will pick up the foreign rights to the Rowan Gant Investigations and do a translation, but something tells me by the time they were done, he would end up being a Mystical Samurai Pokemon or something of that sort, so I’m not really sure how I feel about that prospect. I guess it all depends on how much Kirin I’ve had, and how much money is on the table when the offer is made.

But, let’s get back to the story…

The truth is, it really doesn’t matter if they are Japanese businessmen, or a visiting friend from the FBI, since the latter actually does happen. You still won’t find me hanging out in the Karaoke bars, because even though I like to sing, I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, even with help and I know that. I didn’t used to have this problem. Once upon a time I could cart a tune around in a brown paper sack with no backup whatsoever, and sound pretty good. But, at around age 13 I was afflicted with a bad case of swimmer’s ear. (I bet you thought I was going to say hormones… Well, that’s a different blog…) At any rate, both of my eardrums were perforated by the blistering, which left behind a whole mess of scar tissue. As I have grown older the extent of my frequency hearing loss has worsened considerably. So, no matter whether we are talking brown paper sack, plastic bucket, or galvanized pail, I can’t carry a tune.

Still, I like to sing.

Just ask Anastasia, good friend and co-founder of the “Murv’s Stalkers” fan club. She and her husband are regular visitors to the “Murv Cave,” and were here for the Yule Bash 2007. They were also here for Yule Bash 2008, but 2007 has more to do with the singing thing… You see, that was the year of the 14 inch snowfall type blizzard storm that struck on the very day and evening of the Yule bash. So, Anastasia actually got to witness me shoveling the back deck – repeatedly – while I was holding a Vodka-Tonic in one hand, and belting out my own renditions of A Fairytale of New York, Run, Run Rudolph, and countless other holiday tunes. What I’m trying to illustrate here is this – I am likely to start singing at the drop of a hat. Especially if alcohol is involved, but while it is a good impetus, booze definitely isn’t a pre-requisite.

Such was the case just the other day. And, no, this time there was no alcohol involved.

You see, I had just picked up the offspring from school. We returned home, and following the usual schedule the short person set about doing her homework while I started fixing dinner. After all, E K would be home in just a little over an hour and we all know what happens if I don’t have her dinner on the table when she walks in.

So, anyway, it had been a fairly good day, I was feeling somewhat chipper,  and I was far enough ahead of the game with fixing dinner that I could reasonably assume E K wouldn’t beat me and lock me in the closet that evening. Well, at least not on account of dinner being late, that is… Therefore I started bellowing out some Traveling Wilbury’s tunes. I happen to like the Traveling Wilbury’s. Not only are their songs catchy, but also they’re a lot of fun.  If I remember correctly I started out with Tweeter And The Monkey Man then flowed right into Handle With Care. I think Last Night might have even been in there somewhere as well, although I’m pretty sure it entered the mix a bit later. I left Margarita out of it because it doesn’t sound nearly as good without the 4-part harmony.

Somewhere around the time I was taking a breath before launching into the chorus of one of the above songs, I was cut short by the offspring calling out to me from the dining room…

“Daddy!” she yelled.

Well, it didn’t sound like anything was terribly wrong… Parents kind of have a sixth-sense about that sort of thing believe me. What it sounded like was that she was simply trying to get my attention before I started bellowing again. I made the logical assumption that she might need some help with fractions or some such. She absolutely despises math. It’s not that she’s bad at it or anything. She just hates it with a passion for some odd reason.

Anyway, I stepped out through the kitchen doorway and asked, “What’s up?”

She looked at me, and with all the seriousness she could muster she asked, “Daddy, are you going to be a Pop-Star?”

You see, the offspring is all about that Cyrus kid… The one named after a state…  And the somebody or another brothers… And Denny Tomatoes, or some such… You know, the latest Disney sensations, most of whom probably won’t have the staying power of an Annette Funicello… But, that’s just my opinion… Either way, she is so all about these “Tween/Teen Idols” in fact, that she has abandoned her grand plan to become a Doctor and has decided instead to become a “Pop Star” just like them. When I was her age I think I was planning to be an Astronaut. Shortly after that it was Oceanographer, closely followed by Veterinarian… So, my point is, I’m not worried about her current career choice. I’m sure it will change soon enough. As a matter of fact, she has such a gift for gab and penchant for arguing with us, that I wouldn’t be surprised to see her become a trial attorney. I mean, I hope not. Then when people at the old folks home ask me what my kid does for a living I’ll have to make up a lie and stuff… But, I digress…

So, the kid had just asked me if I was going to become a “Pop Star”…

I looked back at her and chuckled as I replied, “No, honey, I write books for a living. You know that.”

She pondered my answer for less than a heartbeat before replying, “That’s good, because you don’t sing very well.”

Critics. They’re everywhere. But, at least I know my kid is honest, so that gives me some hope that she won’t become an attorney after all, and it should definitely keep her out of politics.

As for me, I guess I won’t be quitting my day job.

More to come…

Murv