Tweets on 2008-12-25

  • Eek, is getting dark – I have to clean the car (a bit) #
  • @helenduffett the INSIDE of the car which is unfortunately lit up by magic lighty things. in reply to helenduffett #
  • V disappointed with performance of hoover in car, and worried by damp bits. All sorts of finds, tho: 1,000s leaflets, 48 tins cat food… #
  • And have spoken to neighbours more whilst cleaning car on Xmas eve than more or less for the whole of the rest of the year! erk. #
  • Wrestling with GPS gadgetry #
  • Oh, lordy, please spare me having to listen to Christmas with Boney M again #
  • @jonxyz An hour playing World of Goo demo… hard to call that time wasted, really 🙂 in reply to jonxyz #
  • @kayray Does Santa have Wii Points? Wolrd of Goo is v v good. in reply to kayray #
  • Bah Humbug. Dean of Peterborough looks like Peter Griffin in a chasuble. #
  • @helenduffett who gets to be Rudolph? in reply to helenduffett #
  • Burning CDs for car journey tomorrow. #
  • Waking at inopportune moment in dream. #
  • Dealing with the gifts from the cats. A turd? For me? You shouldn’t have. #
  • Very long queue for only working coffee machine at Cherwell Valley Cathedral of Despair. #

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Tweets on 2008-12-23

  • Having last minute crisis of confidence. Have so far bought no Xmas pressies at all. Should I stick it out or join the herd? 🙂 #
  • Helping an old lady get some temporary heating over Christmas. #
  • Wondering whether my fingernails are growing quicker than they used to or whether time passes quicker now I’m old. #
  • World of Goo FTW! #

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Why Twitter?

Stephen Chapman asked in a comment earlier:

As you are obviously an educated guy – can you explain Twitter to me. I just dont get it!

I have no interest in knowing what my friends are doing all day (I have seen such entries as “having a coffee”, “having another coffee”, “the sandwich lady is near to my desk” etc).

And I doubt anyone wants to read about my whole day!

What am I missing!???

http://thestateofthenationuk.blogspot.com/

I don’t get what there is to get. Some other people ask “why read/write blogs?” – it’s more or less the same, but on a slightly different scale, and plenty of people don’t understand that either.

If you are reading twitters of people who are dull enough to narrate the boring minutiae of their lives, then you are reading the wrong people, as there are many more fascinating twitterers out there. In the very same way there are people who write interesting blogs and there are people who don’t, and each has their opinion about who is worth reading and who isn’t.

I was first interested in Twitter because I think it might be a useful way for elected politicians to communicate with constituents – and indeed, a number of MPs and councillors now do just that.

However, although I am a councillor who twitters, I don’t do it as a campaigning way of communicating with residents. In the same way, this is a personal blog about a person who happens to be a councillor, rather than a councillor blog. Not everyone gets that either.

Since starting to use it, it’s increased in size and the number of people who use it. It’s now a useful resource that a number of my friends are using. I can get occasional updates from people I care about the other side of the planet and I’m following enough witty people to find interesting things to read every time I log on.

The most important thing about Twitter is the way it plays well with hundreds of other web services in ways that develop on a daily basis. So Twitter can update my Facebook status, and my blog can archive them. Postcrossing can update Twitter when I send a card (jury’s still out on the benefits of that, to be honest). And there are new and interesting ways of slicing twitter feeds every day, so I think it’s safe to say that Twitter will continue to be interesting in the new year.

I entirely understand that not everyone gets it, so, thanks to the magic of WordPress, if you want to read this blog without reading the Tweets, you can do that using this link (which is also available as a feed).

World of Goo

World of Goo is just amazing! Friends were playing it on t’Wii the other day whilst the rest of us were playing boardgames (struggling with the complexity of Power Grid, winning it large in Diamant, not quite getting around to Pit, Perudo featured also too as well) and all I noticed about World of Goo then was its name.

Then I started to see the name elsewhere, so downloaded it on the Wii to see what the fuss is about.

It’s amazing. It reminds me very slightly of Lemmings – the idea is to solve puzzles using simple rules to get balls into a pipe. That sounds dull, but it really isn’t. It’s amazing. There are lots of different types of goo balls, which sing, cheer, make funny noises. They float, stretch, stick, fix, pop and more.

And now when I close my eyes I can see gently oscillating agglomerations of balls wafting gently before my eyelids.

It’s not just a Wii game, it’s on PC and Mac too, and you can either buy it on a disc in a shop, or pay and download it from their website.

The really great thing is there is a huge demo – the entire first quarter – available for free. I imagine this is because it’s difficult to explain just how brilliant a game is – once you’ve played the first levels, you’re sure to want to fork out 1500 Wii points or $19.99 for the full game. Download it! DOWNLOAD IT NOW!

The gameplay is unique, the design is superb, the music is actually… moving and stirring. I can’t praise this game enough!

Tweets on 2008-12-21

  • @owenblacker follow @markpack for a daily crepuscular bulletin in reply to owenblacker #
  • Onward with the bumper weekend of festive fun. Off to the Playhouse for this year’s panto. #
  • Bus in Angel Row has an alarm and is saying “This bus is under attack. Please dial 999” in a Nottingham accent. #
  • Widow Twankee just announced the Strictly result to a horrified audience! #
  • Making an incredibly evil dessert to take with me to festive gathering tomorrow: mince pie / stollen Queen of Puddings… #
  • @martinjansen kann Songbird Podcasts sorgen und auch mit iPod arbeiten? in reply to martinjansen #
  • Oh dear. CHF Kitty more or less better from latest bout, and now… UTI Kitty seems to be symptomatic again. 😦 #
  • Plastic box containing evil dessert sitting on stairs. Cat sniffed it and took a big leap backwards. #

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Tweets on 2008-12-20

  • Telling cat, who is objecting to hoovering, that we wouldn’t need to hoover so often if he didn’t shed so much fur. #
  • @jonxyz I always thought the water level changing in toilets in windy weather was to do with the venturi effect on the soil pipe vent. in reply to jonxyz #
  • @helenduffett is that to the tune of “still crazy after all these years” ? in reply to helenduffett #
  • Wondering who it was at our party who left a blue and yellow hairbrush in our bathroom. #

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