A Blog Not Limited

I know. I know. I've been remiss in posting a new Useful Tweets article. But I have lots of excuses:

• Twitter dropped (and still has yet to recover) a bunch of my tweets from my personal timeline over the past three weeks. So it took me a little extra time to find my "lost" tweets to reference here. Thank FSM for Twitter Search.
• Not sure if you heard, but I'm writing a book and it is taking up most of my free time.
• I threw out my back last week and then spent a day in the bathroom suffering from food poisoning.

All good excuses, right? Hope you can forgive me.

But I'm back, and here (finally) are links from the past two weeks of tweets that I (loosely) deem useful. If my recent delay had you all in a tizzy, just follow me on Twitter to get immediate linky goodness.

April 5–19, 2009

I've always been a huge fan of Greek mythology, and The Odyssey was probably one of my favorites. Imagine combining the awesomeness of this epic story with the awesomeness of Twitter and its LOLspeak: If Homer's Odyssey Was Written on Twitter.

Original tweet

Breathable chocolate? I say it is just a more flavorful alternative for all those paint and glue huffers out there.

Original tweet

So, female chimps trade sex for meat … I need to stop settling for flowers.

Original tweet

I'm a big fan of LOST, so these "vintage" DHARMA Initiative ads make me quite happy indeed.

Original tweet

It took me a rather long time to love Albuquerque. But the "Land of Entrapment" got me, and there is no other place I'd rather be. Part of the beauty of the high desert is the array of cacti, and I'm fond of the prickly pear cactus. No wonder I'm equally fond of these prickly chairs.

Original tweet

There's been a lot of chatter in the blogosphere and Twitterverse about URL shortening. I've yet to have the time to form a complete opinion but, at the outset, I agree with the potential for data and privacy loss. Lucky me, Simon Collison developed EE Shortener, a plug-in that lets you create your own custom short URLs. Easy to install; maybe took me 5 minutes. And you can see it in action on this blog.

Original tweet

Who doesn't hate those automated phone "customer service" systems? Masochists, that's who. And maybe lonely old people with nothing to do. Recently, I discovered that one way to cut through the automated system is to yell "fuck!" at the first voice prompt. Imagine my giddy joy. Profanity does have its benefits. Of course, you could also try these less offensive shortcuts.

Original tweet

I love t-shirts and Busted Tees is one of my favorite sources. They just released a new fortune cookie shirt and I bought it … even though it only came in green (my least favorite color).

Original tweet

Not only do I use Twitter for myself, I also use it for BaconTwits and Webuquerque. And for both of these accounts, I use it along with my various partners–in–crime. It has been a bit of a challenge to not only manage multiple accounts, but also accounts with multiple users. Enter Co-Tweet. And so far so good. Plus it provides click-thru stats on links in tweets.

Original tweet

I never cease to be impressed by my friend Chris Heilmann's ability to be pragmatic and practical and still remain forward-thinking. I particularly love his recent presentation, The road to professional web development, and the focus on the history of our industry. If you fail to remember your past, you are doomed to repeat it …

Original tweet

I am a new BlackBerry Storm owner. I can't tell you the number of times people ask me why I didn't get an iPhone. The answer is simple: AT&T. The company sucks major ass, and I will never again give them my business. I'm as happy as I can be with Verizon, and they don't have the deal with Apple. I'm fine with waiting, hoping … that a Verizon-Apple iPhone deal comes to fruition.

Original tweet

While the AP Stylebook is, admittedly, my hands-down favorite writing/editing resource, The Elements of Style is a close second. Happy 50th anniversary my number–two–favorite.

Original tweet

About a year ago, something strange happened: I found myself watching Oprah. Now, I'm not really a fan of today's Oprah … she's completely self-indulgent and annoying. But the episode I caught was on "lady parts" … and Oprah, for whatever reason that I'll leave open to your own conjecture, couldn't bring herself to say "vagina." Instead, her preferred monikers are "vajajay" and "hoo hah." Give me a fucking break. So when I stumbled across Sarah Haskins' Current piece, Your Garden, I laughed my ass off. Sorry, LMAO.

Original tweet

And once I discovered the hysterical Ms. Haskins, I abruptly halted all Friday productivity. Lucky I did, for I may have missed her insightful piece on Douchebaggery 101. This time, though, I ROFLMAOed.

Original tweet