Whine & Cheese

All Atwitter

Because 5-ish blog entries a week are apparently not enough, yesterday I created a Twitter account!

Scott had been bugging the crap out of me encouraging me to join and I have been enjoying Jeff's "tweets" for awhile now, so I figured it was finally time to take the plunge. 

Basically it's a blog entry in 140 characters or less... that's characters not words... being a person who tends to ramble on occasion (hush now!), it may be a challenge for me to be that succinct... but I have had some recent experience with it via the Facebook status updates... over there, I have got used to referring to myself in the 3rd person... it seems to work for me, so I think I will continue that with Twitter.

It's fun and allows me to air some thoughts that aren't worthy of a full-blown blog entry.  For example, my current "tweet" ("Ed is ready for Roger Federer to start winning again... could deal with losses to Nole, Murray and even Fish... but Roddick? Ugh."), pretty much let's you know of my disdain for a certain American tennis player.  Ah yes, expect a healthy dose of snark.

If you're not on Twitter, you can still enjoy what I'm doing/thinking between blog entries via my sidebar... if you glance over you can read my latest "tweet."  I may do an occasional compilation, ala my Express Lane wrap-ups, of my tweets on a weekly-ish basis... we'll see...

Speaking of which, there seems to be as much action going on in my sidebar (tweets, express lane, birthday studs, recent blog search hits) as with my regular blog entries ... so keep stopping by... there's a good chance there is always something new going on here at W&C... I hope you like the additions!

UPDATE:  I had intended to mention this in my original post, but Jeff reminded me via his comment that I need to give full credit to my Twitter Guru (aka Scott) who lead me to TwitterFox... a very cool FireFox add-on that very easily lets one do all things Twitter right in your browser.  Scott also recommended twhirl... but I am very easy to please, so sticking with the "works just fine" TwitterFox.

Also, thanks to Jeff, I just now added the TwitterSync app in Facebook (as well as "borrowed" his colon pre-pend strategy)... so now my "tweet" simultaneously updates my Facebook status... ah, Big Brother technology... and with this, I am ditching (for now) referring to myself in the third person... we'll see how it goes. 

iTouch Myself

Although I was planning to get one with my upcoming tax rebate economic stimulus check, I decided to give the economy a little foreplay and purchased an Apple iTouch on Saturday.

While still quite content with my current iPod, it was showing its age... almost as thick as 1/2 deck of playing cards (gasp!) and no video capability... even Todd (who has the same model) said it was starting to get embarrassing to be seen in public with it.  While the iPhone got my attention, I am such an un-phone person that it didn't hold any great appeal for me... so when the iTouch, kinda an iPhone without the phone, came out, I knew it was only a matter of time.

I had concerns about the gigs... the first iTouch models were 8 and 16 gig... but, heck even my ancient iPod was 40 gig!   If this was supposed to be showcase for the more hoggy video, I wasn't sure even 16 gig was enough.  So, I waited and a 32 gig model was introduced last month... and while it came with a pretty splurge-worthy price as well... again, I was just trying to do my patriotic duty.

All in all, it is a very impressive product... and ironically enough, most of it is the non-music related stuff.  Oh sure, it's nice to have all the album cover graphics nice and big (well "big" given its a handheld device) and the cover-flow that literally does let your fingers do the walking... or should I say, flipping. 

One of the big selling points for me was the wireless internet access ... while you may think "why the hell would I want to surf the Web on a 3.5 inch screen"... it works better than you'd expect... tapping in to zoom and moving the page around with your finger.  While it certainly won't replace viewing the Web on a PC, it's a nice option to have on the go.  Pictured left, is my iTouch with everyone's favorite website pulled up on the Safari browser. 

There's also easy access to You Tube, which pulls ups and displays video surprisingly quick... and one advantage of the small screen here is all that You Tube stuff looks pretty darn good. 

I should say, we only accessed all this via our own/home wireless network... so no "real world" experience just yet.

I had to purchase a couple of videos.  As mentioned, we never had video capability so the only video we had on hand was Madonna's "Hung Up" that was included in the "bonus" version of her Confessions album.  I quickly found two particularly memorable sitcom episodes... How I Met Your Mother's "Slap Bet"... which, of course, introduced us to the Slap Bet (and its Commissioner), but this was also the episode that introduced us to Robin's past... Robin Sparkles... which you know I was particularly obsessed about.  The 2nd was Scrubs' "My Musical"... which again is pretty self-explanatory... but one of our favorite more recent episodes (and yes, some NBC shows are still available on iTunes... just not promoted or featured).

One BIG caveat and a bit of a scare... we had problems with the video.  They would play for a while, then the sound would go off... and then it would kick back to Video home screen.  After researching the Apple support boards ... and to make a long story short... there appears to be some issue/bug with video (and perhaps audio) files if you are using Windows Vista, which is where our iTunes library resides on Todd's new PC.  Everything plays fine on your PC within iTunes, but something seems to happen in the transfer... and apparently this was not corrected in the January/v1.1.4 software update.  I moved all of our iTunes files (big pain in the patootie!) to my computer which runs XP, restored the iTouch (big pain!) and reloaded all the files (big pain!)... and the videos worked just fine (relief, but whatta pain).  I am sure it will get resolved in a future software release, but it was a bit of disappointing.

But overall, a very fun and very snazzy new toy!   

Lastly, all credit to Todd for coming up with the title of this post!

Coughy Tawk

First off, Happy Leap Day!

Well, those American Idol recaps certainly take up a good part of the week huh?  It certainly takes the pressure off figuring out what I am going to blog about... and I do still enjoy blogging about Idol... which hasn't been the case with some other reality shows.  Even though it's one of my faves, I started to struggle with coming up with stuff to say about The Amazing Race... and I have made nary a mention of the first non-summer edition of Big Brother... we are watching it... but boy, what a bunch of losers... and that's saying something if that's my impression of this crew compared with previous casts.  I guess the difference with Idol is that you get to play armchair critic... and that some of the contestants do get a career out of it.

Anyhow, while W&C obsessed over Idol... since I last left you on Monday, I now have three FOUR Scrabulous games underway on Facebook.  It has been quite enjoyable and my opponents are certainly challenging me.  Though I had to shake off some Scrabble rust and (re)-learn the power of those very odd two-letter words (including the particularly important, QI and ZA).   

Until Scrabulous, I have to admit I wasn't into Facebook.  This may surprise you, but one's enjoyment of a social networking site kinda sorta relies on one having a social network.  But, suddenly I have 7 friends (no laughing!)... so I am paying it all a bit more attention and even having some fun with that "twitter"-ish / "what I'm doing/thinking right now" thing.  I suspect one day we'll have sensors that will track our every move and thought and automatically post it to the Internet... and people will think this is progress/a good thing... ha!

So quite circuitously, we arrive at the title of the post... which, earlier this week, was one of those Facebook "exclusives."  And while I am quite proud of my punny title, I gladly would have preferred not having had to come up with it as Toby has been not feeling well for about a week now. 

Toby was supposed to have a dental treatment this past Tuesday, but last Friday he started coughing and it hung around for the entire weekend.   I took him to the vet on Monday... no real diagnosis other than a doggie cough "going around" (so much for feeling good about going to the dog park!)... so he is on antibiotics and an alleged cough suppressant... and needless to say, we canceled the dental.  Likewise, we are keeping our fingers crossed/knocking on wood that Rocky doesn't get it since it's (of course!) contagious... so far, so good (probably thanks to his super-duper metabolism).

We were hoping he was getting better.  Todd correctly noted that he hadn't heard him cough at all after getting home last night... but in the middle of the night, poor Toby had 2 or 3 extended coughing fits... so it is/was kind of discouraging... though just to have to keep thinking that, even us humans, it takes awhile for a cough to go away. 

It just brings back bad memories as our Mindy hacked so badly near the end and all that is coupled with Toby eating/not eating and certainly more lethargic than normal... so it's hard to be patient... no breakfast today, just a lot of sleeping... but not much (any) coughing in the last few hours.  I'm sure he'll be fine... but he can't start getting better soon enough!   

Have a great weekend... and Happy March!  (Where is this year going already?!?)