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1. Does Twitter have a monopoly on "pointless babble"? I think not.
I'm now following The Drudge Report on Twitter-- by far the most prolific entity on my list. One of their tweets the other day was a link to a story about how one study (with a sample of a measly 2,000 tweets, however) determined that 40 percent of tweets are "pointless babble". (Their example of "pointless babble" was something like "I'm eating a sandwich now", by the way.)
Measly sample size aside, I'd say the findings are accurate-- if anything, they may be a little low-- but remarkably unsurprising. Haven't people known all along that Twitter is designed for pointless babble? Or at least that's what I tell myself, since babbling is just about all I do on Twitter-- usually pointlessly.
After reading something like that-- and honestly, even before reading the article-- I think twice before tweeting. This may be difficult to believe, for those of you who either "follow" me on Twitter or read my tweets right here on this blog and see my snoozy observations on weather, how tired I am, or what Trixie happens to be doing at the moment, but I've actually been holding back my most boring tweets. I frequently stop myself in mid-tweet. "Nah. That's just too boring to bother people with" Or-- "I don't want it to sound like all I ever do is grumble, so... (backspace backspace backspace)"...
I wonder how many Twitter users feel this pressure to be interesting-- to stay upbeat (or cool and dark, depending on the personality)-- to censor themselves when they begin to feel that they've been doing too much babbling. (Note that I only insinuated that I feel the pressure to be interesting and upbeat-- not that I actually achieve a high level of interest and cheeriness. Just wanted to make sure that was clear. (g))
As someone who only tweets "on the side" and really prefers a blog for the long haul, my next thought naturally is of the blog. I may curb my tongue (fingers?) on Twitter, but my blog is at least 40% pointless babble, too. I'm going to try to forget I ever thought about that, though, and just keep on blogging away, one tedious entry at a time. The good thing about my blog is that there's no fluctuating "follower" count to avoid noticing every time I log on.
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2. Trixie may not be destined for print, after all. (Oops.)
I may have spoken too soon about Trixie being in the I Has a Hotdog book. The last e-mail we got on the subject indicated that there's still some chance of the photo not making the cut. (Though they did sound encouraging.) I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
No, this doesn't really matter-- only I'll feel silly for having mentioned it at all, if it doesn't pan out. And it would be fun to see one of our dogs in a Real Book.
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3. "Island Flyover" is fun.
My current favorite thing on the Wii is the Resort's "Island Flyover" game. It's not a very structured, competitive game, which is probably a big part of why I like it right now. Just between the
For those who don't know, in this game you fly a little plane around the island resort looking for (marked) points of interest and/or popping balloons by shooting them or flying into them. I like games with a little of a treasure hunt in them, and this one is also something where you can just sit back and enjoy the view, too-- particularly once you unlock the sunset and night-time options.
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The End.
