‘ju:femaiz

Well, not really, but most of my friends think I am. I first joined the ranks of the twitterers over a year ago after catching word of this new Ruby on Rails application going live and having signup options. As part of a crowd of early adopters of technology, and interested to see what it was all about, I jumped on board - with my first tweet telling the twitterverse that I was at work occurring on January 17, 2007 at around lunchtime.

Continue reading after the break…

Since then I’ve twittered to various degrees about the mundane aspects of life as well as staying in touch with friends from round the globe (in addition to a great set of local folks). It’s been particularly useful to shout out to a large group of friends for assistance with problems involving javascript and/or ruby on rails (many thanks to Dimitry, Scott, Ian, Jason and Andrew) - areas where my friends from school always look at me and raise eyebrows like I’m speaking another language whenever I start talking about such technologies.

As a result of a rampant use of twitter, and that I hook it into my Facebook account to update the statuses as my last twitter announcement, my friends and acquaintances often ask of me “what the hell is twitter?!?” - and often “erm, Joel, I think you have a problem” - not quite comprehending the fact that they’re not the intended audience - but rather a side effect of my decision to limit my time directly spent on Facebook (unlike them) and instead use my other more regularly visited locations to remotely update my profile.

Part of the side effect of this, as always with me, is that my mates have decided to take the mickey out of my Twitter updates. I would have to say that these are rather amusing little ditties that a couple of witty friends of mine (namely Nick Broadbent and Steven Foster) have managed to pen while not spending either (a) 164 hours per week at work; or (b) 164 hours per week not at work (respectively).

~An Ode to Twitter~ by Joel W. Courtney

I’m on patrol and twittering
As loud as loud could be,
Nobody understands my twittered remarks
But twitter understands me.
All you duckheads tease and hassle
But soon enough you’ll see,
You’re all living in my Twitterverse
And the Grand Twittering Poobah is Me.
Nick Broadbent

~Twitter Blues~ by Joel W. Courtney

Opening the door and onto the street I stroll
I’m a graduate engineer and I’m on the patrol,
Getting coffee in the city and i need my Twitter fix.
So i start up the iPhone and get in the Twitter mix,
I update the masses, thats what they want to hear
That I’ve seen the programming of another engineer.
“Your spelling is incorrect, you glorious fool;
I can’t believe you got to graduate, you undeniable tool”
I press on the send and the update is streaming
I keep a cool head but in my pants I’m creaming.
Steven Foster

Highly tasteful as always from these two gents, but still rather amusing for those who can take a joke.