Obvious asks - Why do you use Twitter?
Posted on April 10, 2008
Filed Under: Personal, Richmond, Work
Tagged: connections, media, richmond, stowe boyd, twitter
Yesterday, I noticed that Twitter added a link for me to “share my story”. The team at obvious.com wanted to know who I was and why I use it.
I responded telling them that I was an Incognito Anthropologist interested in Twitter for four reasons:
1. Richmond has an incredibly smart, savvy, and downright friendly group of people when it comes to all things Internet. From our projects in citizen journalism to wi-fi initiatives to the general chatter on the blogs, we’re creating meaningful connections. Twitter serves to extend and enrich those connections.
2. Many local media outlets aren’t connecting with their audience in the way they used to - or rather, the local audience wants a different kind of connection. Adopting Twitter and using it to meet the needs of their audience (a crucial point that will be missed by many media companies) adds capital to the social connection that needs to exist between local media and the informed citizen. I’m interested in following media companies using Twitter to learn more about how they use the service.
3. My Twitter feed is much more entertaining than scanning the 5000+ new posts I get in Google Reader every day.
4. Twitter lets me directly connect, in 140 characters or less, with brilliant minds around the world and that’s a beautiful thing.
Stowe Boyd, eloquent as always, has his take on the survey here:
http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2008/04/my-twitter-stor.html
John Lewis is laughing at me
Posted on March 06, 2008
Filed Under: Personal, Richmond
Tagged: bus, grtc, john lewis, parking ticket, richmond
I had to drive to work yesterday instead of taking the bus. Despite my best efforts to thwart the meter maids, I got a parking ticket. [grrr.]
This morning, John M. Lewis Jr., GRTC’s CEO, is laughing at me.
An accidental walk
Posted on February 27, 2008
Filed Under: Personal, Richmond
Tagged: broad street, bus, glenside park ‘n ride, go-card, grtc, parham park ‘n ride, parham road, richmond, staples mill road, virginia
I made a great mistake today. I wasn’t feeling well and as a result, didn’t pay attention to what I was doing when going home.
Waiting for the bus, I sleepily looked down 9th and Broad, saw “EXPRESS” on the marquee of the oncoming GRTC bus, and thought to myself, “That’s me. The Parham Express. Bus #27.”
I hopped on, swiped my Go-Card, and got comfortable for the relaxing ride home. I even nodded off for a bit.
One little problem.
I don’t ride #27. I ride #26.
Freezing my Wii off
Posted on December 21, 2007
Filed Under: Family, Play
Tagged: christmas, richmond, toys-r-us, wii
[Teagan - I know you’re only 6 but you can read and you know how to use the internet. If you’re reading this blog post before Christmas of 2007, if you don’t stop right now, you’re going to get into trouble.]
Ok, with that out the way…
I had an early start this morning and counted my blessings for having grown up with a grandfather that was a Virginia State Game Warden. He taught me how to dress for a cold morning. While others stood shivering and stomping their feet trying to stay warm, I was as toasty as could be while standing 6th in line outside of Toys-R-Us.
Jill, one of my wife’s co-workers, tipped us off yesterday that Toys-R-Us was getting a delivery of Wiis that would be available for sale this morning.
I snuck out of the house early and found a handful of extraordinarily friendly people already in line. One woman was buying the system for her husband who’d given up on getting one this Christmas. Two other women were picking them up for their kids. I was most pleased by the story of a recreational therapist though - she was buying one for a child, a patient, who’ll be spending this Christmas at Shelter Arms.
Me? I’m picking one up because Anitra and Teagan have been talking about getting one for a while.
Although we love our Xbox 360 and play a number of family-friendly titles together like Viva Pinata, Carcassone, and Beautiful Katamari, the number of kid-friendly games are pretty limited. What’s more, many of the children’s games on the Xbox 360 either suffer from terrible control mapping, making things way too complicated for kids, or are just flat out unengaging and not fun (Meet the Robinsons, Ratatouille, and The Bee Movie Game come to mind).
Because Wii would like to play as a family, we decided to become a multi-console household. Of course, we made that decision at the same time everyone else in the world decided to buy a Wii, which made finding one a little complicated.
Mission accomplished.
