Monday, September 2, 2013

Tortured and "Twitter"pated: Day 1: Denial

B-i-l challenged me to do go a week posting a max of 140 characters per update. He's evil; I'm intrigued. Let the self-abnegation begin!
(136)

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Clint Kimball  The worst part is it took you 6 extra characters to tell us how many characters is was. Imagine stopping at 99. You might as well take that extra character to report 100.

Gail Homer Berry Report exists outside character count. (38) <-- Sentence 38 characters, not 43.

Clint Kimball I guess I should have done a character count before making the assumption. It's a valid exception.

Carolyn Homer Thomas You do know that "Brian" and "b-i-l" use the same number of characters, right?

Gail Homer Berry Carolyn--true, but "b-i-l" explains the relationship to those who don't know his name.

Brian Thomas But "@Brian" will link to me (34)

Gail Homer Berry @Brian--just posted a comment on friend's page. 88, but 163 w/link. Legal? (74)

Brian Thomas Twitter still forces 140 characters or less. Try bit.ly next time; I'll let this one slide

Gail Homer Berry Looked it up. Fascinating. Won't use it, but next time I'll break things up as 2 posts. Thanks for absolution; you know I'm trying hard. (136)

Gail Homer Berry @ Brian--I'm even brief on comments @ friends' pages. Forgotten maybe 2x, but even those were short (200-250). Major discipline! (128)

Week 3 since Bear's disappearance. Probably sulking, supplanted by the usurper Theodore. More disturbing: Daniel refuses to mount a search. (139)

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Carolyn Homer Thomas I particularly liked this one. Drama!
Gail Homer Berry I'm worried. Where is he? Need to mount a Bear hunt! Maybe he'll switch allegiance to me, since I actually care? (109)

Commentary: Daniel came back from Idaho (and a trip to Bear World) with a new stuffed bear, whom he named Theodore (“Teddy”). I kept anticipating friction and jealousy, especially since Bear had been packed away somewhere and never actually got to see Bear World. Poor little guy! (I was in Indiana.)

Daniel kept insisting that the two bears were getting along beautifully and even that Bear was mentoring this new protégé. The impressionable newcomer certainly seemed to have picked up some behaviors from the elder Bear though he was never quite as hyper.

Slowly, though, I saw signs of trouble in paradise. At first both beaers slept together. Then they took turns in Daniel’s bed. Then Bear disappeared.

Bear has gotten lost before, and he usually turns up again within a week, claiming either to have snuck out and had an amazing adventure, or to have been enjoying a mini-hibernation.

After two weeks I was more concerned, though, and three weeks in I was growing increasingly worried. What if Bear had skulked away to see if anyone even noticed? What if he was injured? What if Teddy’s innocence was an act and the ambitious youngster deposed, or even disposed of, his rival?
Dreamt "Sound of Music" prequel. Maria abandoned @ Protestant orphanage, "apostatized" to Catholic choir @ 12. Film flopped. B-i-l is evil. (139)
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Gail Homer Berry See previous status about a week of "twitter style" only updates. 1 hr in, losing my mind. Arrrgh. (99)
August 14
"Twitter" abbreviations r like ancient Hebrew. Old scrolls, no vwls (vowels), ok. But information age? Seriously? Sad language devolution.

Translation/Commentary: “Twitter” abbreviations are like ancient Hebrew. I can understand that on old scrolls, which were painstakingly difficult, messy, and stinky to make, people lacked space for extras and were highly motivated to abbreviate. I also have sympathy for people trying to carve stone or metal, especially if their language evolved as a pictoral system for representing traded goods. But in today’s information age, with Moore’s law still going strong? Shouldn’t we have the bandwidth to do better? Between annoying space constraints and human laziness, we’ve seen a sad devolution of our language
.

[Larry Bernard re-posted this.]

Gail Homer Berry Larry--you saw that I'm doing "twitter style" updates for a week, right? Hence my abbreviations...and my rant. 1 hr in, losing my mind. (135)

Tedra Richter Isn't that MOST semetic languages, tho?

Gail Homer Berry Tdr--prbbl. Hbrw's jst th mst fms. Pls Jwsh frnds hv mntnd th mssng vwls. & 'v rd abt t n bks. Nd trnsltn? (107)

Translation: Tedra—probably. Hebrew’s just the most famous. Plus Jewish friends have mentioned the missing vowels. And I’ve read about it in books. Need translation?

Gail Homer Berry With vowels, above comment minus last two words would be 134. Saved 27 characters. Worthwhile? Nope. (100)

Brian Thomas I am quite proud for you for not devolving with the twats. (67)

Comment: “twats” is a very derogatory term for idiots. I had to look it up.

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