Twit-iquette

 

When I first started Twitter this year I was a bit lost, I have to admit. I just started posting random stuff and got really happy with the "@" function. I sent a bunch of tweets to my friend Cyn (@Cynderblock), who was quick to tell me that I was using it incorrectly.

I thank her for that. There are rules to using the site, it seems, and if you don't follow the proper tweet etiquette, or twitiquette, then you're gonna suffer the repercussions, i.e. lose followers and become a pox on the internet. Once you've been marked, no one's gonna want to touch you.

One thing I was warned of was not to conduct a conversation through tweets and instead send it in a direct message. It's not nice to spam up your followers' feed by posting a tweet every two minutes that is only intended for one specific person. That's just rude. Besides, only the arrogant and narcissistic believe that everyone wants to eavesdrop in on them.

With that in mind, it's also probably not a good idea to post tweet after tweet after tweet unless something very important is going on. If you're posting 20 tweets per minute and they're all about what you're eating for lunch, you have to know that's going to annoy someone out there-- unless you're a food blogger and tweeting about your lunch is your job.

I realized today that I have committed a twitiquette faux pas when I read this dude's blog on a common annoyance among Twitter users-- the "thanks for following me" note.

Yup, I even sent one today to a nice lady on Twitter who followed me back after I had added her to my list. I didn't think there was anything wrong with acknowledging someone's interest in following your day-to-day tweets, but apparently it pisses people off. And here I was just thinking I was being polite.

While we on the subject of annoyances, one thing that bugs me is getting dissed by someone after you have either responded to their question or sent them a direct inquiry.

I understand that I'm just starting out on Twitter, and on the blogosphere in general, and may not have as much "cyber clout" as some folks, but I'm not a spambot and my efforts are sincere.

I probably shouldn't have waited so long to get into this game, but I'm here now, I'm ready for action and I promise to entertain and to engage-- isn't that the whole point of broadcasting your 140-character bits of wisdom to the world? For feedback, dialogue? I dunno.

I just don't want to be like the fail whale.

Sookie versus Neighbor Kitty!

Our neighbors a few doors down from us have a bunch of indoor-outdoor cats who we often see roaming in their yard and chasing birdies. One of the cats, a large and handsome grey and white male named Walter, is quite the adventurous kitty who enjoys scaling buildings and jumping from great heights. Before we adopted Sookie, our little black cat we saved from the pound, I would see Walter sniffing around on one of the neighbor's rooftops and call to him to come over. He would see me and climb up onto the next-door neighbor's roof and then jump over to our balcony. Walter was always a friendly little guy-- just your average tom cat with an affinity for tummy rubs and treats.



Sometimes when I was washing the dishes I would hear a mewing by the window and see Walter sitting perched on the balcony beckoning me to let him in, which I would always gladly, even if I was on my way to work. It was cool at the time because I really wanted a kitty of my own, and we had talked about it but Ben was concerned about his allergy. Having Walter as our occasional kitty was a good substitute for a while, but it wasn't really the same as having my own pet to hang out with.

Flash forward to a few months ago-- Ben returns from a vacation in Israel and asks me if we should go to the SPCA to look at kitties, which I of course wanted to do. Ben wanted to see if we could find a kitty that he wasn't so allergic to, and I wanted to find a kitty we both would love. We got there and took a walk through where the adult cats are kept and found this precious angel with her face pressed up to the glass looking back at us. I knew as soon as I saw her that she was the one we were going to take home, and we did later that day. She is a snuggly bundle of curiosity and energy and I'm so happy we have her now.



At first I was feeling sorry for Walter when he stopped by, because I had to turn him away or only greet him at the door. I didn't want to let him in not knowing how the two cats would react to one another. But one day when Walter came calling-- and I'm not sure why we thought this would be a good idea, I think we wanted to see if our new kitty could get along with our old friend-- Ben picked up Sookie and we let the cats meet face to face. Sookie was none too pleased with the invader and tried to scratch Walter's face and with that we escorted Walter out. We scolded Sookie for being rude to our guest, but I can understand why she reacted that way. This is her territory and we are her humans-- Walter was taken as a threat and Sookie got him to leave. She was only defending her mommy :)

The Hit Picker

I wish I worked for a major music company and had the job of sniffing out the hits. I truly believe that I possess an uncanny ability to determine which songs will be major hits and which songs should be left off the album completely.

When Ludacris' Chicken & Beer came out a few years back I successfully predicted "Splash Waterfalls" would be the next hit off the album after "Stand Up," which was already getting heavy rotation on the radio. The dude I was dating at the time, a bona fide music snob and all-around prick, disagreed with me, but I sure rubbed it in his face when "Splash Waterfalls" was on every 45 minutes on Power 99 and all he could do was whimper, "Whatever." What a douche.

More recently, when Beyonce's I Am Sasha Fierce debuted, I went onto iTunes to sample all the songs before deciding if I wanted to buy the whole album. As it turns out, I didn't like most of the album-- I found a lot of the songs to be too gospely, slow jams with over-singing-- I just wanted the JAMS, so I bought "Single Ladies," "Diva," and "Sweet Dreams." "Single Ladies" was already getting radio play when I bought it on iTunes, and later on I wasn't surprised at all when I heard "Diva" and "Sweet Dreams" both on the radio. "Damn," I thought, "someone should be paying me to do this!"

What, such a job does not exist, you tell me? I have to already be a high-up music executive or well-respected artist in order to give input as to which songs an artist should release? That seems unfair, but realistic. I suppose I could always just blog which songs I predict are going to be hits. Yes, I think I will do that and then you can give me my props when a song goes platinum :)

Toki and Sambu

Oh my goodness, my boyfriend is in the next room watching this wildlife special about two baby cheetah brothers, Toki and Sambu, and their struggle for survival without their mother.

It's heart-breaking-- I know because I watched it last year when Ben was out of town and I spent the morning with tears in my eyes thinking about the poor baby cheetahs.

I was even so concerned after watching it that I found the website and sent an e-mail inquiring as to the well being of the sole surviving sibling, little Toki.

The documentary showed how Toki had been rescued from the wild by the maker of the documentary, Simon King, and taken to a refuge-- a place where he could live like a happy cheetah and be monitored, but also a place where he could easily escape from (he did) and find trouble.

On December 1, 2008 I wrote in an e-mail to the contact on Simon King's page:

Hello,
I watched Simon King's special on PBS about the lives of two orphaned cheetahs, Toki and Sambu. I grew very close to them while viewing this program and would really like an update as to the well-being of the surviving brother, Toki. Would you please let me know if he is still alive? I need to know.
Very Truly Yours,
Alexandra Marie Naughton 

Here's the response from jerry@simonkingwildlife.com:

Hi Alexandra

Toki update now online http://www.simonkingwildlife.com/TokiUpdate.php

Cheers

Jerry

The update was vague and I'm not sure if they would post it online if Toki did die. I just checked the site and they haven't posted an update since 2008, and I'm wondering if they ever found Toki a mate. I love those cheetahs so much, they're such beautiful and majestic creatures and it saddens me that they are slowly dying out. Watching it again will just kill me inside.

Stop, drop & roll! Duh...

You've seen Tosh.0 right? How about Web Soup? If you've watched either of these shows, even for one episode, you've probably noticed the proliferation of videos of our youth lighting their farts on fire. While it's funny to watch these videos and laugh at their misfortune, it is at once amazing and sad to see how stupid some people are.

Didn't any of these folks go to kindergarten? They teach you to stop, drop and roll every year at school, beginning when you're old enough to use the potty by yourself, during the fire prevention assembly. If you're going to try to light your fart on fire, you should probably be prepared for, or at least aware of, the consequences.



When your ass is on fire, don't jump around and scream for your mommy like a fifteen year old mall rat who got in with the wrong crowd and is finally realizing the error of her ways. No. Drop down to the floor, betch, and roll around for mercy!

Won't Back Down-- Comments on Recovery

Cover of Recovery

Originally posted 06/26/2010, Updated 06/27/2010

Oh wow, I just bought Recovery, Eminem's lastest long-playing offering, and am floored by it. 

I listened to twice already, but I want to listen to it a few more times so I can give a more educated review. 

I'm already obsessed with the song "Won't Back Down" featuring Pink-- it feels like Helter-Skelter era Beatles meets Beastie Boys punk rock aesthetic circa 1992. 

Em is in full force with tight lyrics and impeccable flow.

I know he apologizes on the album for his two last albums, Encore, which I never bought, and Relapse, which I didn't think was all that bad. Relapse was a decent comeback album, I thought, and although a few of the tracks feel like filler there are some definite undeniable jams on that album. 

The drug-addled, psychotic love song for Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, "Same Song and Dance" is both bone-chillingly eerie and romantic, "Stay Wide Awake" is a creepy lullabye and farewell to a tortured childhood, and "Beautiful" is an inspirational "f*ck you" that actually sounds like it could fit with the rest of Recovery's track list.

I digress. This new album is hot and I could tell it was going to be on par with his earlier work (meaning, The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mather LP) once I hit "play." Some immediate favorites were "Talkin 2 Myself (featuring Kobe)" in which Em discusses trying to write diss raps about rappers that were seeing success when he wasn't, then realizes that he's hating because he needs help-- and does something about it. 

I've already told you why I love "Won't Back Down," the groovy, rocked out, head-banging anthem, but there are a few other things that make it incredible, such as calling out his haters "How you douchebags feel/knowing you're disposable/Summer's Eve Massengail..." and then rhyming that with "Shady's got the mass appeal." Who knew you could cleverly call someone a douche and not sound like a frat-rat? I also like how the volume decreases and Em yells for you to turn him back up.

The whole album is an instant classic, and I could go on elaborating how every song is a club-banger and go into detail picking apart every lyric because I enjoy doing neurotic analyses, but I think that bores people and that's not what I'm here to do. I'll finish this by saying that I'm so happy he's back on his lyrical game. Maybe my little sister won't talk so much smack about Eminem anymore. She didn't like the funny accent he was rapping in a lot in the past and pretty much disowned him. 

I was happy when Relapse came out because I could tell he was improving, and when "Forever" came out, with Drake, Lil Wayne and Kanye, and Eminem had the best verse I knew he was back for real. Thank goodness-- we've had a dearth of hip-hop with substance lately.

TI overload

I'm really happy that rapper Ti is out of prison finally, but how many singles does he need to release at once? I listen to KMEL when I'm at work and even though they do play the same top 40 list every hour or so, I swear I've heard at least three or four new songs with TI rapping on them. There's that annoying one with Keri Hilson, "I Got Your Back," but there at least three other songs featuring TI that are in heavy rotation on radio stations right now. I just noticed this trend over the weekend and had to confer with my co-worker, who knows everything about today's music, to figure out what the other songs are. TI is also on The Dream's song "Make Up Bag," as well as a song each with Usher and Puff Daddy. Sheesh!

Throw-away blogs

I discard the blogs I've kept in my life the same way I discard notebooks when I'm sick of looking at them, or when I've deemed their contents too embarrassing for me to keep. I have started a number of blogs over the years, beginning in high-school, and managed to gain a few readers with each new upstart, only to abandon them when I feel like my efforts are futile or lame. Who cares what I have to say anyway, I would reason to myself as I let yet another blog sit stagnant, never to again get updated.

So why am I so fickle when it comes to keeping a journal, whether it be public or private? As a writer I feel like I'm constantly improving and maturing into my craft and, not to sound arrogant, when something is not at par with what I consider my "work" I need to distance myself from it. This would explain why I've had a xanga page (http://hardcorefactoid.xanga.com/) a livejournal (http://hegemonster.livejournal.com/), this blog, and now I have a tumblr page (http://thetsaritsa.tumblr.com/), which I am still trying to figure out.

If you looked up the definition of the word "capricious" in the dictionary, you would probably find a picture of me.

Making goals

Nope, I'm not talking about soccer, I'm talking about setting my own goals every week and making an effort to get them done. Because I know I will soon have a lot of time on my hands due to my downsizing happening in July, I am definitely going to have to be constructive and create work for myself. Aside from sending out resumes and applying for internships (keep your fingers crossed for me!), I want to start giving myself daily tasks to achieve.

These tasks can be anything from taking a long walk and exploring a neighborhood I've never really noticed and then writing my observations, or giving myself a poetry assignment with a theme based on a Merriam-Webster Word of the Day e-mail. The point is I need to get crack-a-lackin and I need to just keep writing, no matter what it is. I have no idea how some bloggers win their statuses of being widely-read, but I do know that I have to try and I have to set myself apart from the rest.

"Well that's easy," you say to me, "you've always been a contrarian." Yes, that is true, I do like to take the opposing viewpoint for the most part, and I was a certified non-conformist from the first grade through college-- before being a non-conformist meant buying your clothes at Hot Topic. But with so many fish in this blogging sea, and with so many young writers out there doing their best to be cutting-edge and trying to get jobs, putting yourself out there can feel very daunting. I'm going to try my best to use that overwhelming feeling to my benefit and let it motivate me. Here goes...

Can a girl get an internship around here?

I mean, seriously! I WILL WORK FOR FREE!! That's how desperate I am to have a job right now, but not only that because I do want the experience that comes with an internship. Working for a magazine or newspaper, fact-checking and making phone calls, that is my dream right now. An internship will prove that I can work on a deadline and get the job done, all while a maelstrom of activity and madness buzzes around me.

So how do I make this possible? I'm going to have to sell myself to any company that will take me. I'm going to have to introduce my brass typing knuckles and knock some badass work out. I'm going to have to keep trying and trying in this crappy economy to fight against college students and published professionals for a job that doesn't even pay, monetarily speaking.

It's exhausting to think about, but I can certainly do all of that because I want it so badly. I want that job to get my foot in the door with the world of writing and publishing and actually get started on my career. I'm so sick of working at jobs that I don't care about and are below my skill set-- I want a career! I used to truly envy the people that get to do the thing that they love for a living because it never seemed possible for me. Who would pay me to write for them? But now it really isn't so unlikely that I can make it happen. I just have to work really hard for it. Wish me luck.

Alejandro, Alejandro...

Ever since I purchased the Lady Gaga album, Fame Monster, I have always liked the song "Alejandro." To me, it sounded like an Ace of Base song, something like "Don't Turn Around" or "All That She Wants" from The Sign. I don't get why so many people have their panties in a bunch about her new video for the single, it's really not as racy as some of her other work, and by now we should come to expect to be shocked by the artist. So what if she's dressed in nun garb and dancing provocatively? Madonna has done the same in the past. My only problem with it is the length-- they stretch the four and a half minute long song into an eight and a half minute-long dance fest.

I can't embed the video because Lady Gaga has special youtube power, but I'm sure you can find it yourself if you wanna watch. Be warned, it's long!!

Katy Perry's a bore.

Yup, I said it. I'll say it again: Katy Perry is a talentless bore. A hack who not only cannot sing but also steals moves from that other pop-failure, Ke$ha. I was just watching television, E! News to be specific, and they played a clip from Katy Perry's newest single "California Gurls," (ugh, she actually spells it with a "u," does she think that's feminist?) featuring Snoop Dogg phoning-in his verse. I couldn't help but thinking as I watched that I've heard this song before-- then it hit me like a grandfather clock. Tik Tok.

These two videos prove that these ladies have so little to say that they have to borrow from each other.

Exhibit A: Ke$ha, "Tik Tok"


Exhibit B: Katy Perry, "California Gurls"


They're basically the same song, with different words but the same tune and the same feel. Super lame.

My very own "I Hate" video

A face appears on the screen and starts checking off items on an invisible list. They are the things that he hates. His list includes birds, couples who sit on the same side in a booth, boys wearing skinny jeans, and people who drink out of the carton. His name is ItsKingsleyBitch and although his video makes him seem like a Debbie Downer, it has gotten him nearly three million hits. That's a lot of theoretical internet dollars Youtube's gonna have to pay up to this cat.

So I figured, if this ItsKingsleyBitch character can make a long list of the things that bug him and receive acclaim from far and wide, then "Why can't I?" So that's what I did. I made my own list of things that piss me off and made a short video (which includes a ton of eye-rolling and sarcastic looks) to tell the world. I didn't want to make my list too long and seem too negative.

Made redundant

Image via Wikipedia

I just found out yesterday that I have been made redundant at my job.

The company, overall, is in the red and despite the fact that the doctor I personally assist takes home what seems like astronomical amounts of money, it was decided that by my boss that keeping me on the payroll was becoming too costly.

It was also decided that my overworked coworkers would be taking over my duties in my absence, as if they don't already have enough on their plates.

This could actually be a good thing, though.

A blessing in disguise, if you please, and perhaps just the right kind of motivation I need to get my ass in gear and find a job that is more suited to me and also more challenging.

I would kill to work in a job where I could use my creativity. Making collection calls ain't all it cracked up to be.

Ready To Die Remastered

So, I've been buying a lot of music on iTunes in the past few years. A lot of my purchases are of albums that I already own on compact disc, but they're scratched to hell and sitting in a closet in my parent's house. I bought Biggie's Ready To Die Remastered on iTunes yesterday because I'm going to be DJing a set for a party coming up and there were some songs I wanted to add to my playlist. I'm glad to have it on my computer now, but the album is different. On a few tracks the samples, which were present when the album was first released, have been removed. I have no idea why, but it does kind of take away from the beauty of the original (pun intended) work.