Got twitter?

22Jul09

I think I am finally beginning to get twitter. I have read a little about it, but I will have to read more to finally understand, I think, if you can understand it completely. I think the best way to understand it is to follow some interesting “tweets” or whatever people want to call them—people who post a little frequently.

I was/am under the impression that what you do with it is kind of like a short (micro) journal entry, so sort of tell what I am doing. But there is more to it, I see now. I have not even gone too deep into it, yet. That’s one of the things I read, that using it as a little journal is a simplistic idea and use. It is really a whole lot more.

I found another site out there with a list of ideas as to what to put out there. It seems to me like people are sending out thoughts, announcing stuff, things like that. I think that people put a lot of information out there, a sort of tool. I saw one of those TED talks a while back where the person talking showed how people were using it as announcements. And as helping each other out—the primary example was finding good gas prices (helpful to all, I am sure).

I am trying out programs and sites and all that, but I have not gotten into a groove yet. It won’t pick up for am for real until I get a Blackberry or other similar device. But I guess not having one now will help me get used to it a little first. Have to get used to all the little nuances and other such things.


“Quote…”

18Jul09

About the journal. I usually don’t buy them anymore, though if I find nice ones that I can use for dream journals now I will get it (dream journals are so rare these days, but mentioned that earlier). And this time I did not get the one I had intended, with the tied binding instead of a regular one. When I was standing there looking at them, I noticed that the slender ones looked like they were better to use, because what I want to put in there will not normally demand too much individual space.

What I am going to use it for is to write down all these good quotes I seem to be finding around lately. I just decided that I want them all in one place, as a sort of reminder and inspirer, in a way. And because I don’t want ot forget them, or write them down somewhere on a piece of paper and run across them a long time later, then have no place to put them.

So far I have mostly got them from books, and a couple from things I have been watching, which is mainly where I got the idea from. When someone quotes someone, I kind of wonder where they got it, so I figured they had a place they kept them while they were writing the nook or speech. So that’s what I did.


I just noticed something after hearing the County Fair announcements on the radio. It is that after the 4th, things really start happening—the art fair and Maxwell Street Days, and eventually, the Taste—the big fat finish.

I guess, because the days are now getting shorter (though not my much, yet) that summer has met its apex and should now be winding down. But maybe that comes from a long time ago when I really didn’t do anything in the summer, when I was young. So the fireworks, when I actually got to go see them, were like the only thing there really was until school started, except all the heat.

I guess also that I hate to see the says get shorter, because they really do around here. Then, fall is over and there is all that dark of winter. And every year, at least that I can remember since I moved ti this apartment, I tell myself that I will go and do things I want to do while there is still light, in the day, going wherever I need to go. But then winder comes and I never end up doing it like that.

Maybe I need to rethink this. I have learned (again?) to enjoy the things you can do in the summer. I think maybe some of this is that there is that global warming thing coming around, and we may not have such pleasant summers anymore. They could be getting really dangerous, in fact. But does that mean we will get mild winters? They might feel nice, they they are as not good as too hot summers..

And I am appreciating them more and more, “using” them. How maybe people in this building sit on their patios or balconies? I hear many air conditioners go on, but few people go out. Just the loud ones on the second floor, an the loud ones on the first floor, right under them. I guess there is some need for people to be inside more than outside. Or maybe some people—I used to be one of them—are afraid that other people who are also outside are just sitting around watching what the other people are doing, but they are not, I am almost sure. At least I am not, I usually take a book with me, unless tic’s only for a few minutes. I don’t really care what people do.


But listening to them now is different, from a distance of 30 years in the future, hearing what we listened to back then. it wasn’t so difficult to at least get quite a few right, but as I listen, there are songs that I don’t remember—and know exactly why. The others are songs we know still, but when you put a date onto them, it’s hard to believe they were so long ago, or perhaps they were newer that you thought.

I don’t know if I ever thought about this back then (because I was, like many others, I am sure, waiting for the ones I like to be where I like them), but I notice now how much diversity in groups and styles there are. Maybe that is because now I have more diverse taste. We tend to want to put tags on everything, and we forget, or want to , all the other things that went on in the same time period.

Sometimes, when they play other “classic” countdowns, as they call them, I can remember almost exactly some of what was on the show. I always liked the trivia and background information. I think I almost looked forward to that as much as for the tunes.

In a way, I kind of wish we still had a show like that still going, telling us what the hits are now. Maybe they do, I just don’t know where to get it if there is. I imagine it would be hard, though, considering how hard it probably is to track all the sales figures, not to mention things downloaded from the torrent sites, like last week people looking for Michael Jackson stuff and bringing down the internet.

* the Number 1 ended up being Exile’s “Kiss You All Over” —not sure what I thought about it beck then, but it’s a little disappointing now, maybe because I know now that they would not have any more hits after that.


It is pretty complex and may take me a while to get used to it. I decided to use this book I have been working on and off again for soooo long, because that is where most of my previously made documents and other such things are. I took the chapters that were in Word and put them in the “Chapter” areas in the program. (Liquid Story Builder XE— must remember that…) I also used the “notes” feature to make a note on an unclear chapter.

Then id did the characters, information was pretty sparse, so I had to put a lot if it in manually, if you can call it that. I pulled the file out, hoping there would be mare to go on, but I think it won’t to me much good— not every much there, just story stuff.

I did find a crude timeline, so at least when I pop that part up I have something to work with. I’m not sure how I am supposed ot work that part of the program, if there really is a set way to do it— what I want is to put each character under each other, with a rough date line, and show where they were in relation to the other, when they come in (or less likely, go out). In a way it will probably help me fill out the characters’ info a little more.

I think also the storyboard feature will help with things like that, or at least to put various elements I wand in, or may want in.

I haven’t checked the checklist part, but probably should or will. There is the planner part, which I need to look at a little more before I get into it.

I’m not sure about the graphics thing, but I might grab some of the stuff I made/found for that old mind map software. And there are a few things from the web. They will not be as nice, I don’t think, as the stuff that is in the sample book.


So first I will make a sort of setting, I guess, where most of the stuff will be done or is about. Then I will create at least a few characters that will be there for the whole (or at least most of) the story. I give them a sort of base of who they are, give them jobs, all that sort of thing.

So that is, for the most part, all there is that will stay (mostly) static. The rest is more or less free-form, going where it goes, not knowing that much about where it is going. It will just develop on its own. And I have no idea when and where it will end, but that is part of what it would be.

I don’t want to do it constantly. It would just be something I would work on when there isn’t anything there to so, or when something comes to me that I think would go well with where it was going, or I think I would be good where it is at that point.

And the other rule is that I can not stop where it is and work on another part, as I so with things now. It just has to go along, one big story.


TV or not TV?

13May09

If I do have to lose a bunch of money, who needs cable TV anymore? That is kind of what I am looking into right now-well, I have been looking into it, but now more seriously. I read this article on my favorite site that said that Hulu has out a desktop program now, so you can watch their content. I went back a little deeper and discovered ted. Not TED, ted. Two different things.

So ted is kind of like a bit torrent thing, but you have a list you can pick from over on the left and when you choose it will put up info on the program. In the demo I watched, I saw that there were quite a few programs, and I don’t think they are all American programs, which is really cool, provided I learn what good programs there are in other places. Then you can download them, by episode, I know, and I think you can get a season pass like on TiVo. Since it is a torrent thing, I guess there would not be any commercials, and I think that is the big minus about Hulu.

I guess I will just have to download it and try it out. Maybe I can get caught up on Lost, since my TiVo erased last season’s finale and I couldn’t catch up. It is also good, I would guess, for getting into shows that I either forgot to watch or lose track of-or maybe even finding shows that have ended and gone away forever.


Today— I will not say what time it was— I was jerked away from my sleep by the sound of the fire alarm. So I get up and jammed myself into some clothes and went down to the lobby, like you’re supposed to. Then people started drifting down there as well, until the lobby was nearly full. Some drifted around, talked to each other, stuff like that.

So I am standing there thinking that because since it is Monday there should be no problem, that the manager would be in the office. as I stood there thinking about this, I went through the things I remembered doing yesterday, and the things I unneeded to do that day. As the fog of sleep lifted, I realized that it was Sunday, not Monday. I was glad I never said anything.

So a half an hour later we got to go back in. It seems that there wasn’t any fire, or at least that’s the impression that I got.

So I tried to go back to sleep, but that took me a while, so my whole day is a little off. It’s just a weird say.

It made me think that I have to get myself together a little better in some situations. There was another time when the alarms went off, and that time there was actually a little fire— someone left a pan on the stove. That was also in winter. It would be better if they happened in the summer, so that we wouldn’t have to put all those clothes on.