Bug Bears

Things that are really bugging me at the moment.

1. Men beating women, but because they have entertainment talent the public/media find ways to rationalise their behaviour. See Chris Brown, Mathew Newton.

2. Retailers hike up prices when the USD is strong to cover their costs but funnily enough those prices haven’t been lowered now that the USD is weak. Savings are not being passed on to consumers. Someone is making huge profits off us, no wonder we are all shopping online. The big retailers should stop whinging about it.

Twitter Spam

How to tell if it’s spam on Twitter. Or sure signs that link will click to something NSFW,

1. There’s no text just a link
2. The profile has less than 100 followers.
3. They say something nonsensical and unrelated to anything you’ve ever tweeted about.
4. You have just Tweeted about a) iPhone/iPad/Apple product b) jobs c) music

What do I do about it? Well, I don’t know how effective it is but I block the user and report them as spam. It definitely makes me feel better.

What signs do you use to tell if a Tweet is genuine or spam? What do you like to do about it?

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I think better in 140 characters






The Art of the Follow

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

It’s probably old hat but I just realised that following someone on Twitter is a great way of getting noticed. When you follow someone they get a direct email from a brand and service that they trust, Twitter, with your name and mug on it including endorsing you with who follows you that they follow. This can be pretty powerful when it happens to be the PM (@JuliaGillard) and ex PM (@KRuddMP). Even though you know it’s a ‘political’ follow. I have definitely been ‘followed’ as a marketing tactic. I reviewed the profile and subsequent site, saw a few articles I liked the sound of so followed back. Now I see Tweets to interesting stories but also information on domain registration and hosting deals. If you deliver on the conversation, then it can work. Give a little to get a little. 

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Jump the Shark

I’m conflicted. I think True Blood may have jumped the shark. For me anyway.

There I said it. It’s out there.

I have been denying it all season, hoping for the best. Maybe it’s just me. I couldn’t stand the wait between episodes last season so started on the books. I read pretty much all 9 (that were out at the time) in a few weeks. Maybe that was my mistake. But they were so damn good I couldn’t stop.

I understand why they have had to deviate from the books so much. The books are Sookie‘s POV and they need to have stories that are about all the characters but I feel that they lost some of the essence of what I liked so much about the characters.

Maybe I’m just sore because they seemed to have skipped over the development of Sookie dumping Bill and hanging out with Eric like in the 4th book ‘Dead to the World‘. My favourite of the books. Sorry if you didn’t want to get spoiled.

What don’t I like about this season? Russel Edgington, the whole Talbot mush in an urn is a bit OTT, and that scene with male prostitute did not resonate with me at all. Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill – nothing I’m liking about him – and the Lorena back story was boring with a capital B. Illicit V selling, yawn.

What am I liking? I thought they’d keep Franklin Mott around a bit more, the terrorizing of Tara was boring but he had some of the best laugh out loud moments of the season. “Hey, Tara, see how fast I type “motherf**ker.” Cool, right?”. Lafeyette, anything with him really, he’s great. I’m glad they kept him around (which they didn’t in the books).

One more episode to go in Season 3 and the series has already been renewed for a Season 4. Ratings are better than ever pulling in 5.39 mil for the episode before last. Maybe I’m being too harsh but my expectations were/are so high. Season1 and 2 were amazing. Who knows, this last episode may pull it all together and blow me away. Bring it on!

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Concerting

Madness in concert

Image via Wikipedia

I went out to a concert last night. In my usual fashion I missed the first song or two because I’d committed to a beer line. On going into the hall I only got so far in before I couldn’t be bothered maneuvering amongst the people. As I stood there listening, I wondered if the sound was better than listening to the album on my car stereo. Hmmm… probably not. Is it the vibe that makes you go to these things? Maybe. I thought about how I should have got there early, got a spot right down the front before the support band started and had a primo spot for the band. I remembered a time recently when I did that. I lasted maybe two songs before the crush of the crowd got unbearable and I moved back to about where I was last night. I am now resigned to the back half of the venue as the place that is best for me.  

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