Interesting times...the best reason for a Happy Hour~! Is it time for the next Great Depression or perhaps I feel that way because I am over 50.
I was married for 25 years and now I'm divorced. Two girls, ages 25 and 20, and one grandson (soon to be two!). Love politics, economics, music, friends, family, sci fi, reading, philosophy.
Wish I understood the world of high finance better. Getting quite an education on Calculated Risk, but feel like the dunce in the corner of the classroom.
Don't just lurk! Make a comment. Even if I don't know you. Especially if I don't know you. Have a conversation with a fellow commenter. That is what makes a blog so fun to read. What do other people think about what you said. What do they say to each other. Link to someone's blog because you love their comments made here.
Fury in Iran. It has been an amazing couple of hours on Twitter. The Iranian government has shut down almost every form of media in the country but they have not been able to stop people on Twitter. Students are twittering from Tehran University as the police hunt them down. Pictures are being uploaded that might not otherwise get out. Poor Twitter had been scheduled to shut down for maintenance for an hour or so tonight but so much protest came down that it would stop people from communicating. People in Iran are finding each other to see if they are still alive and where they are, so Twitter postponed the maintenance to tomorrow. All media have been asked to leave. #IranElection is the hash tag or the keyword people are using to find out what is going on.
I am not sure if it will make a difference in the long run but it is weird to see the people of Iran protesting the election and fighting for even a little bit of democracy in the face of the theocracy. The president of Iran is strictly a figurehead, the Ayatollah is the one who runs the country, but it would be nice to have this be the beginning of the end. It was not that long ago when Iran was not a theocracy. Not that the Shah of Iran was a good guy but the Ayatollahs have nothing on him.
Getty Image by Olivier Laban-Mattei. A Mousavi supporter helps evacuate an injured riot police officer.
Go watch a little bit of history in the making on Twitter.
I get asked all the time what Twitter is and why do I use it. It is hard to explain to someone especially if they don't even blog. Explaining blogging to people who don't blog or read blogs is hard, too. I loved the earthquake example Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter, gives in this clip.
On Thursday, we went to the last taping day for The Bonnie Hunt Show. BFF had her friend, ummm, trying to think up a name for her because she was absolutely hysterical. She was telling us stories about her sister meeting her new husband online, about her slightly nutty mother who dresses all prim and proper but apparently has no inner censor. She is a natural storyteller and I laughed the whole way into Culver City. I was telling her that she needs to start a blog and get these stories out there. It is hard to convince people they can stay anonymous if they want, that you don't need to use real names. Kinda like a Dragnet thing, "Names have been changed to protect the innocent" or whatever it is he used to say.
She asked me about my Facebook account because she said I was the winner for posting to Facebook. I truly have a love hate relationship with Facebook. I guess because I have no desire to find friends from my high school years, it is kind of silly to me. I love the serendipity of finding people on Twitter and in the blog world. I told her that I rarely post directly to Facebook but have my Twitters go into Facebook, which leads to some fairly strange entries. She could not figure out why someone would do that. I know if she were to start a blog, she would totally get it, but she just got rid of dial-up, so she has not played in the internet world too much.
Off to find a clip of Dick Van Dyke because he was on Bonnie's show and he sang with his quartet the Vantastics and we all got his CD~! He was such an incredible guest. It was hard to believe he is 83 years old. The man never stays still, constantly dancing or moving. And I loved that he was wearing tennis shoes.
Sorry for the lack of posts. It's not for lack of ideas, I have had one idea after another pop in but I have been behaving like I have OCD playing with Twitter. CollegeHumor made me wake up to just how silly it can be. I mean, look, at my Twitter name...sighWTF. Sigh. HAHAHA.
Twitter is definitely bad news for people with short attention spans. You only have 140 characters to say something. It is really hard to be boring when you need to be spiffy and concise. It is possible. I have deleted some people who tweet and tweet and tweet and tweet and never seem to say anything. But it is absolutely fascinating the people who are on Twitter and some of them follow you back. I follow the extreme right, the middle, the left and those in the outfield. I just started following Karl Rove. Yes, the diabolical mastermind behind Bush, and he follows me back~! (I'm going to have to see if Rahm Emanuel twitters; I need to follow all diabolical masterminds.) But I also follow George Stephenopolous or however you spell his darn name. I follow anarchists and Republicans. I follow a few musicians and some of my favorite bloggers.
Teddy Bear thinks I'm crazy. I told her that I had embarrassed myself to no end by Twittering something to Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails when he said something funny. She got so exasperated. "What is twittering?" She had no idea what Twitter was. The My Space queen. She lets me have a Facebook account, but I'm not allowed on My Space. She said it is not for grown ups. Whatever. I always assume this generation is computer savvy, but they can be as clueless as my mom. My mom still is not sure what clicking is and scrolling is an advanced concept. My daughter has never run a scan on her computer...EVER. I have to get in there on a regular basis and clean her laptop up. My brother, my computer guru, sometimes will take her computer home and he pats the laptop and tells it it will be okay. He is appalled by what she does to it sometimes.
Getty Image by Olivier Laban-Mattei. A Mousavi supporter helps evacuate an injured riot police officer.
