Twitter Tales

While not yet 100% sold on all of Twitter’s positives and benefits (although I’m getting closer and closer every single week), I still find myself totally addicted to it (and yes…I say this every time).  

The thing that keeps me coming back over and over isn’t the possibility that I could end up with thousands of followers with whom I could spam with lame money-making opportunities (seriously…are you people millionaires ore pretendonaires?) or “how-to” advice (my blog is fine, thanks).  

No, the thing that brings me back multiple times every single day is clicking on links and reading and/or seeing things I’d otherwise never get a chance to read and/or see (not to mention getting some awesome fellow blogger updates).  Thankfully, my TweetDeck allows me to truly follow whomever I want to and kinda ignore all of the spam while still increasing my follower/following count legitimately (I hate people who hit-n-run).

So once again, it’s time to check out my weekly Twitter Tales:

• 

  Depot Dad

  Jim, aka Depot Dad, went into surgery related to his cancer this morning .  I gotta be honest…I don’t know exactly what he went in for.  He has a nodule on his lung that is growing.  So I think the surgery was to test the nodules for cancerous activity…similar to what my cousin went through last year.  Obviously, my hope is that Jim’s results are much different.  I went through a hellacious year in 2008 with my mom battling a brain tumor and my cousin falling victim to throat cancer at 34 years old…so when I heard about Depot Dad’s situation, I just couldn’t help but gravitate towards it.  Gang, if you have a chance…either tweet Jim or drop by his blog and say “hi”.  Send some well-wishes his way.  You never know just how much good some positivity can do for somebody who is in a tough situation. 

• I’ve mentioned before than one of my favorite directors, Jon Favreau, has been tweeting little bits and pieces while filming the new Iron Man movie.  Well…this tweet was pretty awesome, especially for a dork like me:

• 

  Laura

  Laura had a pretty great job interview this week.  FINGERS CROSSED…something good happened and it went really well.  She is like millions of people around the world right now, doing their best to keep above water in a brutal economy that wants to drown as many people as possible.  It’s tough for everybody right now…so to read a blogger being so honest about how tough it is, especially when you’re a single mom, is inspiring.  It also makes me want to root for the underdog.  I mean, who said that life isn’t allowed to have happy endings?

• Speaking of happy endings (or at least happy right nows), MsSingleMama is riding high these days.  Not only did she pick up a new Ford Fiesta last weekend, but she celebrated by getting a tattoo.  Not only that, but she’s dating “The Lion” (shhh…she doesn’t want to scare and/or startle him…he might bite and/or run away!), she’s looking at buying a new house, and she also made a video about her tattoo  experience and threw it up on YouTube for the world to enjoy:

• There was a big story surrounding Good Charlotte member Joel Madden this week.  He made the following tweet and it ended up making international headlines:

• Now, the fallout hasn’t completely finished yet.  So British Air wouldn’t let him on the plane unless he covered up his tattoos?  I mean, WTF??  British Air has apologized since for the incident since there is nothing in their flight manuals or rulebooks that say anything about tattoos that would make them a flight risk.  Certainly a clear-cut case of personal bias, but to me what’s more interesting is that this story is just another example of the incredible power of this new social media.  Madden tweeted and immediately there was reaction around the world.  I mean, there simply isn’t any other form of media around that can cause this much of a stir.  This is where we’re going with Tweeter…and anybody who doesn’t truly understand it will learn soon enough, I think.
• I really enjoyed the first Transformers movie.  It had some silly moments, but overall it was an extremely entertaining movie.  So I’ve been interested in seeing the sequel that’s coming out this summer.  Just to whet my appetite a bit more, the latest HD trailer for Transformers 2 just came out…and thanks to TrailerAddict, I found out about it on Twitter.  Ummm…yeah…it rocks.  Hard.
• 

  T

  MY T CAME BACK HOME!!  Heh.  Ahem…sorry.  So yeah, T came back from her European Vacation.  She had quite the amazing time...eating waffles, drinking beer, watching live sex shows… Wait.  What??  Yep…that’s just one of the reasons I’ve got my huge internet crush on T: she’s just too cool for words.  I know my ex-wife would have never done HALF of the things T did on her trip, and it’s not like T did anything insanely crazy (at least not in my book).  I know what my problem is.  I just need to find myself a Canadian T…

• I totally helped DailyMomSense get to 69 followers on Tweeter.  We probably both ended up having a Beavis & Butthead moment, too.  Heh.
• Oh…here’s something that probably only I find interesting: concert riders.  Basically, these are the backstage “demands” of performers at concerts (y’know…like the old Van Halen one that asked for M&M’s with all the brown ones removed?).  The Smoking Gun has a ton of them on their site, but just recently uploaded some new ones from Pearl Jam, Jason Mraz, Filter, and Ryan Adams.
• One of my favorite tweeters is Darth Vader (how surreal is it to say that?).  Whomever is behind this guy is doing a fantastic job of staying in character and still being funny as hell (at least to a dork like me).  I think he deserves honors for Tweet of the Week:

• But on top of that, he also apparently answers parenting questions.  Here is a quick little Q & A that cracked me up and literally had me laughing out loud:

• Dr. Leah brought up an extremely interesting topic this week.  Do “mommy bloggers” (or in my case, daddy blogger…duh) take things too far with all of their kid pictures online?  How much is too much?  Where does one draw the line between honesty and TMI?  I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong answer (you obviously know where I stand on the subject by reading my blog), but it certainly does make one think.
• And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t re-post the information I first found from a tweet by Nicole, SingleMomInTheCity.  She actually nominated me for “Hottest Daddy Blogger” as part of the 2009 Blogger’s Choice Awards.  And believe me…I’ll be milking this as much as possible as the year continues on.  I’ve got six votes at last count…pretty impressive for an overweight bald dork from Atlantic Canada.   So please…be merciful and vote for me to be “Hottest Daddy Blogger”.  I’m only about 194 votes behind the current leader…so I figure if NOBODY votes for him for the rest of the year and EVERYBODY votes for me, I’ve got an outside shot:

  

  Yes…my shot at winning is slim to none and slim just left town.  But still…for my self-esteem…a vote or two couldn’t hurt.

  Thanks again, Nicole.  That truly made my day.

  Oh…and kids…I absolutely urge you to also vote for Nicole as “Hottest Mommy Blogger“.  I mean…c’mon now:

  

  Yeah.  Exactly.