Randomness (Actually, A Lot Of Nothing)

This has been an interesting week for me. It all began with an email from a co-worker telling me I was going to go downstairs and order a chicken-biscuit sandwich for breakfast. Huh? I guess that's what they do in the South. Maryland is South of the Mason-Dixon Line (remember that from your Elementary School History classes? No?) Well even if we ARE South of the M-D Line, we (along with Northern VA) are not 'South' like most people think. Not nearly red-neck enough for that. However, I see an awful lot of grits, greens and scrapple, so I am not so sure. But getting back to that historic breakfast, look:

This is a chicken-biscuit from Chick-fil-A. It is a piece of fried boneless chicken on a flaky, butter-laden biscuit. It contains about 3487 calories, mostly fat, and was it ever tasty. I should have gotten two.

Next up, I actually had a GOOD customer service experience at this place today! Amazing, based on my usual track record. It totally made up for the rude, clueless people in line in front of me last night at the pharmacy, but I digress.

All I wanted was a phone charger for my car and a media card for my Crackberry. Last time I was in this store they strongly advised me against coming after work, as it was a very busy time for them. I knew this, so I went in fully expecting a long wait, but nope! I must have looked helpless, because one of the guys came up to me and helped me right away! He even put the media disc in the phone for me! Then he was sad that I refused to let him get me a bag. I left the store in about 5 minutes, all happy! Yay!

Lastly, I wrote an entire post (it's not here, don't go looking for it) about the Denial of Service attack on Twitter that had the whole Twitterscape in silence for the better part of the day yesterday, and it has been mostly limping today. Then I decided I would not add another post to the heap of posts in Blogland whining about that subject, so I thought I'd show you the other side of the situation. Actually, two weeks ago, I would have been saying most of these things myself. ;-)

So, without further ado, I bring you "Things you can do when Twitter is down". This list has been gleaned from some articles I have read that will be credited as I go along:

--> From: http://www.examiner.com/x-14552-Providence-Social-Media-Examiner~y2009m8d6-Ten-things-to-do-while-Twitter-is-down

Go on Facebook, your default social scene, and write an update that goes something like this: "Twitter is down for maintenance. I need a Valium."

Send someone a "Piece of Flair" on Facebook because you've secretly always wanted to tell someone that they have absolutely none. [I have no idea what flair is.]

Plant a seed. Not a real one. A thought seed. I just saw this tweeted earlier tonight...apparently it's the fancy new term for "use your brain and come up with an idea". Plant a seed. Isn't that how babies are created? I'm done with that.

Study your new eBook "How To Be A Social Media Evangelist" that you got sucked into using the remainder of your grocery budget to buy. After you read it, tell me what the a Social Media Evangelist is. I'm curious.

Go sign up for a service like TweetLater and start typing in tweets so they will fire off like heavy artillery when Twitter comes back from its siesta. [OMG, what will they think of next?!?]

Leave your home or office. Or your home office. Go outside. Talk to someone without typing. Is it me or is that just really, really strange? [HA! I do this every day!]

Think up a list of annoying DM replies that you can use to respond to direct message Evangelists who send DMs such as: "Your Twitter followers are about to explode! You'll have 16,000 more by midnight with my proven method." Somehow that doesn't make sense. If my followers explode, they will be gone. Are the 16,000 mere replacements? That's just genius level stuff.

Take a shower. I mean it. You've taken "working from home" a little too far. It's OK to take this Twitter down time as a signal that you really need to step away from the computer and freshen up.

If you work all day, it might be a great chance for you to at least get an hour of work in. Your boss might appreciate the fact that Twitter is down and productivity is up.

Light a candle and relax a bit. Think outloud and say, "Self, we're going to be OK. It's only Twitter. I've struggled through situations that were not this tough, but I'm willing to go the distance."

Hopefully the issues will be fixed soon. Once Twitter is back it is perfectly alright to rush over to BlipFM and tweet out a song of joy. Perhaps a little Barry Manilow: "Looks Like We Made It". [Yay, Barry!]

***Update: the word on the 'net is that Facebook is experiencing issues, too. This might be the end of the world? Not sure.

-->From: http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2009/08/10_things_to_do_while_twitter.php

10 Things To Do While Twitter Is Down: A Twitpocalypse Handbook

1. Panic. Get it out your system. Indulge yourself in a solid five minutes of shirt-rending, hair-tugging, sobbing, and shaking of fists at the sky.

2. Read a book. HA! Kidding. We don't even know what a book is - is it like Facebook? If so, read that. Unless it's down too, in which case see number one.

3. Google "twitter is down" and comfort yourself in the knowledge that others are suffering the same plight. Clutch Mashable close to your bosom and whisper softly into it's ear, "Don't leave me, I feel so cold, so very cold."

4. Watch TV. It's cold comfort, we know, but perhaps the antics of Kathie Lee and Hoda on the Today Show might create a vortex of hate so great it will magically restore Twitter service. [*snort* too funny]

5. Peggle. [A game - I had to look it up - clueless, here.]

6. This. [Cat adopts baby red panda.] Seriously, we could watch that for hours.

7. Call your friends. On the phone. Not your Twitter friends, but your real friends. The ones who would lend you money or help you move. Those ones.

8. Obsessively refresh your Twitter page. You're going to do this anyway, so we might as well include it in the list. You can't argue with the weather, as Robert Heinlein was fond of saying.

9. Drink. Hey, it's 10 a.m. somewhere, amirite?

10. Porn. It's always been there for you, hasn't it? Porn never lets you down - not like that b*st*rd of a social thing Twitter. But OMG, if Porn is ever the victim of a vicious DoS attack we are all scr3wed. Metaphorically. See what we did there? [Edited slightly to keep this PG.]

Okay, moving on:

Did you know these sites exist for total addicts? (I think they are kindof funny):

http://whentwitterisdown.com/ displays random messages about what you can do instead of Tweet, or just plain old whines about what the cause might be. These people need a hobby.

http://istwitterdown.com tells you in one simple word if Twitter is down. Yes or No.

Okay, now that I have not blogged about Twitter being down (uh-oh), let me show you I really am working on something. No, really. See:

Look familiar? It has taken me what seems like forever to make 25 of these very simple cards. I am so easily distracted, and I excel at Creative Avoidance. I need a prize. I put most of these together this morning before I left for work, and I need to finish them up tonight cuz tomorrow is Caturday, and I have the market.

Oooh, now that I have rigged Blogger to allow me to post directly via email, I may have to give that a try tomorrow! (posting real-time) You just never know when there might be some late-breaking news that needs to be reported! :-)

Okay, now I REALLY need to go finish those cards, as I am pretty sick of seeing them on my table. I hope to have something better to show you on the morrow.

Thanks for stopping by!