what to expect if you follow me on twitter

no long explanation, let's just get into it

i will talk a lot about sports. especially the Penguins, Steelers, Celtic, AC Milan, and the USMNT. i will even occasionally live tweet these games. i will also occasionally live tweet games that i don't have a particular rooting interest in, this will mainly occur for soccer games, because i can watch just about any soccer game. if any of that bothers you, don't passively aggressively make comments about people spamming your twitter feed, just unfollow, i have over 800 followers. unless you are someone that i talk to on a regular basis, and you know who you are, i probably won't miss you.

i will, without exception criticise my favorite teams when they are performing badly, this doesn't mean that i am less of a fan than you are, so please, save the "real fans don't blah blah blah". i have every right to call out what i perceive to be problems with my favorite teams, it's part of what being a fan is about. for instance, i think Tony Mowbray has done more harm than good in his short time as Celtic manager. does that mean i am going to stop supporting them? no. and if he brings some silverware to Parkhead this year then he earns a pass in my book. i also think that Marc Andre Fleury is prone to giving up a soft goal, and that Geno Malkin takes way too many damn penalties. that doesn't mean i don't like them. i just call it as i see it.

you can also expect what you may perceive as excessive updates from other services like foursquare, formspring.me, blip.fm, twitterfeed, and goodreads. i like to share what i am doing, reading, listening to, etc. with my friends. if you find this to be annoying, then please refer to the end of the first paragraph.

that's really it, i welcome comments, even the passive agressive ones. :)

peace

scott

twitter

sorry, no witty title this time around.

after more than two years of being on twitter, i have finally figured out how to use it, at least in a way that pertains to me.

i first heard about it listening to cnet's buzz out loud podcast, and as i am want to do i avoided it because it seemed like the whole tech industry was gravitating to it. i've done this before with music and movies that were too mainstream preferring to be out on the fringe somewhere.

it seemed like no matter what i was posting or how i was posting that i was getting little to no feedback or interaction from other users. i started thinking, "this isn't a very social, social network".

there was even a point over this past summer where i went a month without tweeting once.

what really changed it for me were #hashtags. for the uninitiated a #hashtag is used to track a conversation on a particular topic. they became so popular that twitter integrated them into their service by adding the "trending topics" section on twitter.com.

like the @reply, the #hashtag was not created by the developers, but rather the community as a way of making the service, some might say, more usable.

the main hashtag i follow and use is #pens for the Pittsburgh Penguins. i have met more people that i talk to on a regular basis through this #hashtag than any other that i have used on twitter.

just to name a few

@toastcommunism who i've met in person and saw Avatar with, she also tweets more than anyone else i follow, and that is something considering i follow robert scoble
@omgitsjen who i've also met in person and hung out with downtown on new year's eve
@lvallana & @rvallana sisters who are from my hometown of latrobe, they bring the funny consistently, they also love tacos, and goats (don't ask)
@FoxMists who went to my alma mater iup

as i discussed in an earlier post i've become a huge fan of amanda palmer (@amandapalmer) and the dresden dolls. sometime ago she created the #hashtag #LOFNOTC or losers of friday night on their computers. i have been a faithful #LOFNOTCer for awhile now and again have met some great people that i regularly talk to.

@kapnkaty who brings the funny more than most people i follow (along with the vallana sisters), i retweet the kapn more than just about anyone, and was once told that i am good for her self esteem. glad to help kapn.
@SheikYurbouti quality source of the out of the blue laugh which is one of my favorite kinds of laughs.
@LaurenMaeO another quality source of the out of the blue laugh.

i'm apologize to those that i follow that didn't get a mention. i love you all, but if i listed everyone that i thought was worth mentioning this post would be never ending.

i use other #hashtags on the odd occassion but these two are the ones i use the most and have met the most great people from.

avatar, great conversation, and geek cred

so i went to see avatar today, and i must say that it was as amazing and stunning as i had heard. i'm pretty sure i'll be seeing it again.

why haven't i seen it before now you may ask? well because i didn't know anyone that wanted to see and i've kind of had it with being lame and going to movies by myself. that's where twitter comes into play.

i've met some really great people on twitter but none that i have actually met in the physical world. while i was watching the incredibles with my brother and nephew last night i was tweeting, mostly about random things. i happen to see one of my numerous friends that i met through the #pens hashtag tweet that she wanted to see avatar again. i replied that i wanted to see it for the first time. so after a little back and forth we decided that we would go see it together today. i love meeting awesome people online who in turn end up being equally awesome in real life. it kind of reaffirms my belief that there more good people than bad out there.

so prior to the movie we had some time to talk. just about general things like favorite movies, music, the pens, football (of the european variety).

seriously? i met someone that likes hockey AND soccer. score! :)

some highlights from the conversation

music -  we both agree that anything tom morello touches is golden and that my musical tastes lie mainly in bands that originated out of the 70's progessive rock scene and that the combination of dave grohl, john paul jones, and josh homme as them crooked vultures is, well, epic.

sports - she is a penguins fan which is awesome in itself. but she is also a footy fan that supports chelsea which is fine because it isn't manchester united, and she has talked to ruud van nistelrooy. seriously, i can't make that up! just as a side note, i support celtic.

movies - it mainly centered around what i haven't seen. here is the short list, all of the harry potter movies and all of the lord of the rings movies. it was suggested that my geek cred is taking a hit because of this and that i can't fall back on the star wars movies to restore said geek cred. :)

so i think my goal in 2010 is to catch up on what i've missed and i think i need to turn to netflix for that. my reasoning for not seeing those, and other, movies is that they were so pervasive in the media that i tended to avoid them all together. i did the same thing when learning new songs on guitar. i avoided cliched songs like stairway to heaven and smoke on the water.

i think enough time has passed that i need to start catching up.