Two quick notes.

First, Thaumatrope published another one of my twitfic stories today. I woke up to the notification on my phone. It was nicer to wake up to that message than when I woke up to the lawnmowers out in the neighborhood. You can read it here. It doesn't take long.

Also, Jenn had a nice little incident at the treadmill at work today. It's better if you read it for yourself where she explains her klutziness. (Yes, that's a word!)

C). It was really warm here today. No, I mean it. I don't think we cracked 80 degrees, but we got awfully close. Tomorrow we are supposed to hit 81 degrees. I know it won't last too long,but it will be nice. I might have to turn on the A/C tomorrow!

This is the last time I'll talk about it.

Just in case you are not on Twitter (why aren't you?) here's what I was talking about the other day.

I hope you enjoy it.

I also hope you had a good weekend.

Good news everyone!

If you've noticed my avatar before, you know where the title comes from.

Anyway, there really is good news. I sold a story to Thaumatrope, the Twitter fiction magazine. Go check them out! I've been following them since Mary Robinette Kowal tweeted about it a long time ago so it's great to finally have something there.

If you look at their site you will see a lot of cool writers have had their Twitter fiction published at Thaumatrope. Anyway, it should be up on February 14th on their site, or you can follow them on Twitter and see it when it comes out live.

By the way, the story is Valentine's Day related. In an odd way...

Okay, time to get dinner ready for the kids.

Weekend Assignment #303: To Tweet or not to tweet

That title seemed more clever in my head.

This week's assignment comes from Carly this week with Karen putting in the extra credit. It was a true team effort.

Weekend Assignment #302: Do you Tweet? Why or why not?

Yes, I do tweet. See over there on the right? You can read all the clever things I have to say right on this very page. Well, you'd have to re-load the page a lot since it only shows the last two. Maybe it would be better to actually follow me, but that is your choice. I'm not as interesting as the great Ashton Kutcher, but if you like to read stupid comments about TV or the occasional 80's reference, come on over.

I started back in 2008 when Florinda convinced me to join Twitter. She had been thinking about it for a while as well. By letting her go first I had a guaranteed follower. I didn't want to talk to myself on the thing. (As a side note, I think that is the first time I've ever spelled 'guaranteed' right on the first try. I always screw it up.)

Now that I've been on Twitter I'm kind of addicted to it. (I can hear Jenn saying, "Kind of!?" in my head right now.) I follow a lot of behind the scenes people from TV shows, some authors, and other blogging-type people I've met through this place.

I know there are a lot of people who think Twitter is stupid or only for self-important people, and they can be right, but it can be useful at times, too. I've learned about several things first through Twitter; earthquakes, plane crashes, etc. Not to mention that J.D Salinger had died. I've never read Catcher in the Rye, but still, it was important. If used right it can be fun and informative and full of spambots, but there isn't much you can do about that.

Extra Credit: If you do use Twitter, how many people follow you? How many do you follow?

I don't follow too many people, about 150, I don't think I could keep track of many more than that. I have about 80 followers, which probably turns out to be 12 real people. Maybe 15.

If you 'll excuse me, I need to see if anyone has posted anything good on Twitter.

Weekend Assignment #258: It's A Small Web (After All)

So, this was supposed to be done by yesterday, but then I came up with the post I did write yesterday and felt I had to write it down before I lost it. That happens to me often. To top it off, I was confused on the days all week and thought I had another day to do this. But, I saw on Karen's twitter feed that she is getting some sleep before posting, so maybe I can squeeze this in. If not, that's okay, I wanted to do it anyway.

This week's topic has to do with online friends. Karen asks:

Weekend Assignment #258: In the online world, the word "friend" has become a verb. We "friend" or we "follow" people on social media sites and blogs, often forming casual connections with people we would be unlikely ever to meet face to face. Do you extend your arms wide to the online world, collecting lots of online acquaintances, or limit your web interactions mostly to "real" friends?

I certainly don't have a wide net of online friends. I don't belong to many online groups. I have this one here, and Carly's photo shoot as my only online groups. That's fine with me. If I had too many, I'd have trouble keeping track of everything I'm supposed to be doing. I have enough trouble getting to every one's posts the way it is now.

I do follow others on Twitter, and their blogs, that I don't know, but even that is relatively small. I think I follow 55 people on Twitter. Some I 'know,' most I don't. I follow people that I think will be interesting, funny, or a combination of those.

Now, because of that, my readership is pretty low. That's okay with me. Would I like more? Sure, but that might also invite some stalkers, or crazy people, you know? It's funny, I think about once every few days I'll get an e-mail saying I have two more followers on Twitter and by the time I get to look at their profile, the account has been suspended. That cracks me up for some reason. I wonder if the "Twammers" (I didn't make up that word) really get much out of Twitter. I can't imagine they do.

I am on Facebook, too. For the most part, those are people that I know 'in real life.' A lot of them are former classmates from some era in my life. But, while it's fun keeping in touch with them, I don't find Facebook as fun as blogging. Or, as fun as Twitter for that matter. I don't have my Twitter feed update my Facebook account, I'm not sure why. For some reason I want to keep the two worlds separate. I know, it's weird.

Extra Credit: Have you had much online interaction with people from other countries?

Not a whole lot, really.