Those of you who have been reading this blog for a long time may recall that in 2008 I briefly experimented with Twitter and, after a few days, closed my account as I deemed it to be a waste of my time. At the time, this was true…Twitter held no value for me. Of course, at the same time, neither did Facebook, and yet now I don’t think I would be able to function without Facebook (or at the very least, the withdrawal symptoms would be difficult for a while).
For Facebook, this changed for me in either late 2008 or early 2009, I don’t really recall which of those times it was, when a growing number of overseas friends meant that it was easier to stay in touch that way. Since then, Facebook has grown for me in to both a news source and a limited creative outlet. Unfortunately it also causes me to stretch myself a bit too thin. I am much busier now than I was in 2009 and, as much as I might try to write something of substance here on a regular basis, it just doesn’t happen as much as it should…frankly, I don’t have the time, so I opt for the easier option of writing a quick opinion on Facebook and then neglecting the blog.
It is not ideal, but it would be safe to say that Facebook has become a mini-blog for me, with a limited audience. There are some benefits to this as not everything that I write on Facebook is intended for a public audience, but there is a downside too. Despite the fact that I am not paid to blog (not even by “Big Oil”, despite my views on mythical man-made global warming…but if anyone from “Big Oil” wants to send me a cheque, I’ll gladly accept it), and despite the fact that I am busy enough as it is, whenever I let this blog sit silently for a few days, I feel guilty, and I feel guilty because I feel that I am letting you, my handful of loyal readers, down. I feel worse about this because I know that I’ve posted some thoughts on Facebook which I would have liked to blog about, but I never got around to expanding the Facebook thought bubbles in to meaningful blog posts.
This, for me, is where Twitter comes in…or at least, might come in. I have a small following on Facebook, a slightly larger following here, and potentially some people I would like to follow on Twitter. I can integrate Twitter with this blog, and Twitter with Facebook, whereas I can not easily integrate selected posts from Facebook with this blog…and given the way facebook like to mess with settings on a regular basis, I don’t really think that will ever be viable. So, to me, it stands to reason that if I can share my small thought bubbles both on Facebook and on this blog by sharing them on Twitter, and I can gain a new stream of information in the process, it may very well be the right thing to do.
That said, I am still a wee bit skeptical of the whole thing. It annoyed me last time, and it didn’t get off to a good start this time when my name was one character too long to fit properly and I had to drop a space to make it fit. I’m also not convinced that I can make my thoughts fit in to 140 character bursts (I used to struggle with the character limit on Facebook when that existed, and that was much larger than Twitter’s limit), but I’m going to give it a go and see what happens. If it works out, then it will solve a few problems, and bring this blog back to life in the process.
I still intend on maintaining this blog…that won’t change…and I won’t be letting Russian guests write more blog posts than me (you should see the column she submitted this week…if there’s a sentence structure in there, I can’t find it, so I’ve sent it back for clarification and hopefully I’ll receive a publishable version for next week), but I will also be sharing my little thought bubbles here as daily digests of my Twitter activities. If all goes to plan, that should auto-publish at about 9pm Canberra time, or 9pm UTC if the Twitter Tools plugin is as insane as it was the last time around. You can also follow me on Twitter @Samuel_SGS and I’ll see about adding one of those sidebar doohickey-thingamabobs.
At the very least, this should be an interesting ride. Hopefully a valuable one, but only time will tell on that one.
Dear Hello today on much wonderful day of electings in if the Russia.
I did have been watch of electings in of Russia and on tephlephone with Mother Of Russia.
It is very much wonderful to see Nice Mr. Vladi
It doing winnings as he is goodly man if country and can be good for to protect country from people if bad from United Nation.
I am to now ceblerate with Nice Cat Slavcatchski and also on to tephlephone with Mother Of Russia and pet mouse Squeelivich.
Please to have wonderful day of newses.
From Maritz
Ms. Maritzkrozlavsky Throrglasnishozly.
I suspect that more than a few people will be very confused today, as their dubious daily guidance from Astrology.com.au will be less helpful than usual.
It’s a bit hard to see in that screenshot of the page, so I have blown up the relevant section. See if you can spot the problem.
Did you spot it? If not, take a closer look at the second sentence.
Much of what will come to pass in 2004 is dependent on Jupiter’s movement[..]
In 2004?? But it’s 2012 now. Does this mean that a planetary alignment is going to catapult me back eight years? That wouldn’t be a terrible thing as 2004 was pretty good to me, but if it’s OK with the great fraud astrologer Dadichi (sorry, should I have crossed out the other word? Oops) who runs the Astrology.com.au website, I think I’ll stay in 2012.
Oh, and Dadichi, if you’re going to recycle predictions because you’re too lazy to write new gibberish, then the least you could do is cover your track by fixing the dates.
I will give Dadichi credit for one thing though. At least he doesn’t recycle the same predictions every week or two like 2UE’s Sharyn O’Hare (Sharina, for those of you who didn’t know).
By the way, on the subject of so-called psychics and astrologers, if you’re familiar with Karen Moregold (she’s a regular on Seven’s The Morning Show) imagine the title of this blog post being spoken by her as I had her voice in mind when I wrote it.
Julia Gillard gets what she apparently wanted from the get-go.
Earlier in the week she rang Bob Carr and offered him Mark Arbib’s vacated senate seat, and the foreign affairs portfolio, which has been his dream for years. Then she was talked out of it, and denied that there was any truth to the news reports about her phone call.
Bob Carr also denied anything was happening or that he had any interest in the job.
Today, the mind is changed again. It has been announced by Julia Gillard that Bob Carr will be appointed to the senate and to the Foreign Affairs portfolio.
I suppose this means we should look forward to the return of the “good to see you, good to see you” parodies of Bob Carr again.
I was taken aback with shock a few minutes ago when I heard on the radio about the passing of American journalist Andrew Breitbart.
Andrew was a journalist in the true sense of the word, not afraid to tell you what he genuinely believed to be the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it might make himself or others.
At the young age of 43, he is gone at far too young an age.
I present a Samuel Salute in honour of Andrew. May he rest in peace.
Alas I don’t have a lot of time to spare today, and somehow got it in to my head that today was Friday and not Thursday (I put it down to the NRL season starting tonight and causing me great confusion) so this just have to do for today. Originally I was going to post two videos in this post, but seeing as I have now worked out that it is Thursday, the second one can wait until tomorrow.
Given the events of this week in federal politics, and the fact that I don’t think Kevin Rudd’s ego will let him leave alone the idea of getting back in to a powerful position in the government, today I will share with you my favourite Kevin and Julia song.
