Now *that* is the type of reputation I want!

So a few days ago, I got a facebook message from a friend on facebook:

"Hey I've got a couple guys up here who are going to see STAR TREK in IMAX at midnight on opening day.. would you be willing to combine groups?"

Read it again. Go on, I'll wait.

Nowhere in there does he ask *if* I'm going to the Midnight showing. He starts with the assumption that I'm not only going to see "Star Trek", but that I *allready* have plans to do so.
The movie comes out on May 8th. I got this message in early March. That's about TWO months in advance.

And you know what? I allready had my babysitter set up and the night requested off from work.

A few days ago on Twitter, I had posted a pic of a "Beam-Up Badge" from my Froot Loops box. A friend asked me to post a pic of them *when* I collected them all.
He has no doubt in his mind that I will keep eating Froot Loops until I collect all 5.

Now *that* is the type of reputation that I want.

How I like my burgers

I enjoyed a really tasty $6 Burger from Hardee's today, so I figured I'd talk about it.

Every now and then, someone wil be kind enough to pick me up a sandwhich. I love sandwhiches. But I don't love certain toppings.
So if you want to buy me a sandwhich, this is the way to do it.

Go to Hardee's (or Carl's Jr.). Seriously. You *won't* be disapointed.

And I'll understand if you're not willing to spring for the $6 Burger. Just follow the rest. (and if you actually end up at Burger King, follow these too).

Cheese, bacon & ketchup.
That's it. That is all I want on top of that pattie. Maybe some jalapeños. Not everywhere has them.

Of course, you might not remember that. But PLEASE remember this: NO PICKLES!!!

Once again:

NO PICKLES!!!

If there were pickles on the sandwhich, I won't eat it. Period.

And now on to chicken sandwhiches.

Let's say you're going to Chick-fil-A. Just tell them no pickles, and pick up a few things of BBQ sauce. Simple. And I like the "fat chicken" lemonade. I also like Dr Pepper. No ice.

Can I Move Your Comment?

So I belong to more social networks than I know what to do with.
This is why Ihave so much automation and forwarding going on.
My Brightkite forwards to Twitter which forwards to Facebook.
This blog is imported into Facebook as a "note", and a status is posted to Twitter (which goes to Facebook).
You may have noticed that MySpace gets ignored.

My photos are another story all together.

But let's say you like what I have to say. Depending on what network you're on will depend on how you reply. It'll also affect which comments you see.

If I make a post on Brightkite, someone might comment on brightkite.

The same update could get me an @reply or a RT on Twitter.

And then I could get a comment or a "like" on Facebook.

But even though I've received all of this praise, it's spread too thin.
I want to be able to scoop up all of the comments into one place.

(The same goes for this blog post. Chances are, I'll get an @reply on Twitter that my blog readers won't see that my facebook friends won't see, which will be lost in a sea of tweets.)

*SuS Qel #tlh #suess

In honor of Dr. Suess' birthday (which was yesterday), I'm posting my Klingon Dr. Suess-ish rhyme that I wrote on Sat, 13 Jan 2007 08:23:34 -0600 (accoring to gmail...)

Anyone want to illustrate?

DoS DaghoS
SoS DaloS

'aqroS HoS
ngep'oS DatoS

Qo'noS DaghoS
joS loS QonoS
qoS moS, Qo'noS ghoS SoS

choS DaloSbe', bIQoS--bIjoSbe', yoS Da'oS

SoS woS DaroS
bInoSchugh, HoS DamoS

tlhoS DungoS *voSmoSghoS

-----------

(*SuS Qel Ha'DIbaH 'oS *voSmoSghoS'e')

@replies vs mentions on Twitter; why you need to be watching both)

I joined Twitter in October of 2007. A lot has changed since then. As someone who doesn't sit in front of a computer all day, it took me a while to realize I needed to be clicking on the "Replies" tab.
Twitter is kind enough to sort all messages begining with @roneyii (my handle) (known as an @reply) into a nice little bunch. It keeps me from having to sort through hundreds of tweets.
There's a problem though, not every message to me *starts* with "@roneyii" and sometimes a message isn't *to* me, but *about* me.
For example, my friend says the following, "@ex1 @roneyii Are there plans tonight?"
Twitter considers this an @reply to @ex1, and since I don't follow @ex1, I'll never see it unless I go to my friend's profile.
Or, "Had a great time with @roneyii today!". I'll see this one in my stream, but once again, not in my @replies.

Where are these messages?
Well, nowhere special. Chances are, you're missing out.
According to Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com), these are called "mentions".
And at the moment, Twitter doesn't have a "mentions" tab.

There are a few ways to work around this.

(Twitter /used to/ have a feature called "tracking". It would send you an SMS EVERY time a tweet contained a keyword. So, if I tracked @roneyii, I'd ensure all of those messages made it to my phone. Sadly, tracking is no more.)

One, you can setup an RSS feed from Twitter Search.
Search for @roneyii (well, *your* name) and you'll see every occurance, @reply AND mention.
Click on the link for the RSS feed for these results.
Then do what you would normally do with an RSS feed.
Or, you can setup a dummy Twitter account have a service such as TwitterFeed forward the RSS directly to that dummy account. (It's best to set that account to 'private'.)

This has the drawback of only processing 5 tweets per 30 minutes.

Your second option, is to join TweetLater. Their "@replies Digest" is very useful.
I have an hourly e-mail delivered to my in-box with every occurance of @roneyii. Even if I'm not on twitter, I don't miss out.

Third, I haven't had much expierience with the various Twitter clients, but I've recently started using Tweetstats Mobile. From the name, I at first thought it was one of those "ranking sites", but it turns out to be what m.twitter.com /should/ be.
One of the tabs is labled "ego". This includes all occurances of "@roneyii" that aren't considered @replies AND all occurances of "roneyii".
I have noticed quite a few RTs without the "@".
This works fine if you have an odd handle, my wife, @dalyn, however, had a bunch of tweets about Dalyn Rugs.

I use all of these options, and I hope that at least one of them will work for you.
If you have any others, please pass them on.

I bought a meqleH off the back of a van #kli #tlh

Way back in 2004, I went to Starbase Indy. I didn't have very much money, and there wasn't very much to buy.
I browsed the tables in the dealer's room carefully, making sure that I bought just the right stuff.
There were two different booths with weapons. Neither of them had any Klingon blades. I asked table 1 if they had a meqleH, they did not. I didn't ask table 2.

Time went on, and I had spent my alloted cash.
I picked up a TNG PHASER universal remote, a Klingon lightswitch cover, and a TNG communicator for a friend.
It was about time to go when I was drawn back to table 2.
I browsed a bit, and then inquired after a meqleH.
I was told that they no longer carried them.

They then related a story:

A few conventions back, they had their table setup including *several* betleH.
Things were going along fine until the Paramount legal department showed up, with a few cops and some legal documents.

Paramount enforced their right to control their trademarked weapon, and took them all.
Hundreds of dollars of merchandise just walked out the door.

This obviously hurt their profit and their inventory.

They no longer bring such things with them--it's not worth it.

I was just about to give up ever finding a meqleH when (wait for it), I was told to hold on.

There was a private conversation to the side and then they came back to me.

"We have one in the van."

Turns out that when they were packing, a meqleH had been forgotten inside one of the totes, so when they unpacked at the convention, they left it in the van.

They gave me a price. I was estatic. (I called my wife)
A few minutes later, a man carrying a wrapped item came up. We stood around in a tight circle as he uncovered his wares. It was beautiful. Exactly what I wanted and more. I got weak in the knees.
I had seen some swords on e-bay, but none of them were right. This one was.
I agreed to the deal, made the payment, and they wrapped up my prize--tightly.
They put so much tape around the package, I thought I'd never get it out.
They told me to keep it sealed while at the Con, remove it from the Con imeadietly, and not to tell anyone where I got it.--and they meant it. They weren't going down for this.

I did as I was told.

-------
I figure it's been long enough that I can tell this story now. I don't remember the name of the company or any details not listed in the story.

That Train Almost Killed Me!!!

Yes, as some of you may have noticed, I was almost run over by a locomotive the other day.

On 2/11/09 at 2:50a EST, I updated my status:
That train scared me to death! I thought I was going to die. Wow. My heart is *pounding*!

Here's how it went down.

I was done with work early and had picked up some extra jobs
I had just left the first job, and was on my way to the second.
This onvolved crossing over a divided highway.
Since it was late at night, this was easily done, but as I cleared the other side, I quickly crossed over a previously unseen set of train tracks.

Now, I have the habbit of looking up and down train tracks to look for distant trains. My heart *stopped* when I looked right into the light of a train--not even three yards away.

I was in shock. I pulled off to the side of the road and looked behind me. The red crossing lights weren't blinking, the arms weren't down. but there was the train--parked, not moving at all.