That's right, blogosphere chums, I have joined the Twittersphere. Twitterverse. East Twitter Co-Prosperity Sphere? Well, whatever it's called, here it is.
To be fair, you probably know this. There's a link over on the right. There's a feed down below. I've even mentioned it in a previous post. (What an incestuous link for me to use.) So why bring it up again? Well,
a) Why aren't you following me yet, a-holes?, and,
b) There's a mildly interesting story behind it.
To be fair, you probably know this. There's a link over on the right. There's a feed down below. I've even mentioned it in a previous post. (What an incestuous link for me to use.) So why bring it up again? Well,
a) Why aren't you following me yet, a-holes?, and,
b) There's a mildly interesting story behind it.
So, yes, there's a story behind this Twitter account beyond "I want a Twitter account!" (Ironically, it's longer than 140 characters! Zing!) Here's the story.
I guess I had always been meaning to join Twitter, except that it sounded pretty flat out stupid. 140 characters? First of all, I'm a punctuation Nazi. I use commas and ellipses when I text, and that was true even before I had a keyboard on my phone. I can't handle all the "2hot4u" bullshit and l33tspeak. It's full-bore English sentences for me or nothing. (Or nadsat.) Whenever you hear about someone using Twitter, like Kanye West or Sarah Palin, they always sound like complete morons. (Although that may be a function of other matters.) Or they get fired, like Gilbert Gottfried.
So I had sort of vaguely intended to have a Twitter account, because it seemed like then at least I could be dialed in to what other people are saying, but it just seemed so prosaic and childish. I made a sort of a pact with myself that I would only join if I had some kind of meaningful artistic reason for doing so (a la Shit My Dad Says or Mayor Emanuel.) Something where 140 character posts would be a powerful storytelling tool and not an excuse to sound like a teenage girl.
So, years pass, and one of my friends posts on Facebook how she is upset that fortune cookies no longer contain fortunes, but, rather, sayings or lucky numbers or Chinese idioms, and that, damn it, she wanted a fortune. So I gave her one, one that would almost certainly turn out to be true for her, me, and our entire circle of friends:
"You will be disappointed by your mostly pedestrian life."
And thus, a Twitter feed was born. I realized that as a Twitter feed, realistic fortune cookie fortunes would be limited to about the length of a real fortune cookie. And the field was wide open. I looked around. Couldn't find anybody else doing what I was doing. I mulled over a few directions, like realistic fortune cookies, or middle class fortune cookies. I settled on "Outrageous Fortunes" as a mildly punny name, but they still pretty much bear the wallowing misery of being in the middle class in modern America and having nothing to rely on but booze and memories of better times to get you through. So, enjoy!
I guess I had always been meaning to join Twitter, except that it sounded pretty flat out stupid. 140 characters? First of all, I'm a punctuation Nazi. I use commas and ellipses when I text, and that was true even before I had a keyboard on my phone. I can't handle all the "2hot4u" bullshit and l33tspeak. It's full-bore English sentences for me or nothing. (Or nadsat.) Whenever you hear about someone using Twitter, like Kanye West or Sarah Palin, they always sound like complete morons. (Although that may be a function of other matters.) Or they get fired, like Gilbert Gottfried.
So I had sort of vaguely intended to have a Twitter account, because it seemed like then at least I could be dialed in to what other people are saying, but it just seemed so prosaic and childish. I made a sort of a pact with myself that I would only join if I had some kind of meaningful artistic reason for doing so (a la Shit My Dad Says or Mayor Emanuel.) Something where 140 character posts would be a powerful storytelling tool and not an excuse to sound like a teenage girl.
So, years pass, and one of my friends posts on Facebook how she is upset that fortune cookies no longer contain fortunes, but, rather, sayings or lucky numbers or Chinese idioms, and that, damn it, she wanted a fortune. So I gave her one, one that would almost certainly turn out to be true for her, me, and our entire circle of friends:
"You will be disappointed by your mostly pedestrian life."
And thus, a Twitter feed was born. I realized that as a Twitter feed, realistic fortune cookie fortunes would be limited to about the length of a real fortune cookie. And the field was wide open. I looked around. Couldn't find anybody else doing what I was doing. I mulled over a few directions, like realistic fortune cookies, or middle class fortune cookies. I settled on "Outrageous Fortunes" as a mildly punny name, but they still pretty much bear the wallowing misery of being in the middle class in modern America and having nothing to rely on but booze and memories of better times to get you through. So, enjoy!
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