March 2nd, 2010 — 12:50pm
1. Tweet anything about “Get more followers”
If you advertise “get more followers” you can be sure that you will only get more followers that are just like you – trying to get more followers. There is no substance in that.
2. Tweet links that go to any sort of multi-level marketing
Multi-level marketing, don’t get me started. Aside from that though, you can’t expect to get sales out of impersonal follow-at-random strategy. At least learn about hashtags, trending, and other social media tools that can help direct you toward people with money that don’t know how to spend it on good things. First tip: Search hashtags for #ispendmoneyondumbstuff
3. Have links that go anywhere other than where they say they will
Dirty tricks. Enough said.
4. No tweets
Either fill in your bio blurb or at least put an inaugural “Trying out this twitter thing” tweet
5. Duplicate your own tweets
We all have accidents or program glitches that duplicate posts something. But when I see:
XYZ is the best new supplement on the market
XYZ is the best new supplement on the market
XYZ is the best new supplement on the market
… ad nauseam, then I know that you’re a loser.
(This includes when you go to someones twitter page and see an @reply to 20 people with the same message)
6. Retweet your own tweets
see #5, it’s the same thing, really… thinly veiled Einstein.
7. Tweet at a “relevance ratio” higher than once every 15 minutes.
“Relevance Ratio” allows for more than the 1 tweet/15 mins from someone that tweets about things worth reading… or stuff that’s funny.
8. Every tweet is a link.
If I wanted to just “browse the internet” I have a BROWSER to do that. Get with the times, I don’t want just links, I want YOUR TAKE on the links. Sum up a story in 140 characters for me. To me twitter is a way to get EVEN FASTER information on the lightning speed internet.
9. Have an auto-responder Direct Message that sounds like a used-car salesman when I follow you.
“Thanks for following! I think we’ll be able to find you something to buy via my tweets very soon!” OR “Thanks for the follow! DM me any time if you have questions I can help answer!” – If you’re using an auto-responder when people follow you, chances are you don’t have time (or won’t take time) to respond to messages or mentions.
10. Chain many tweets together to encompass one thought.
They limited it to 140 characters for a reason… and that reason was not so you can see how many tweets you can overlap onto. If you can’t say it in one tweet – consider blogging! They go great hand-in-hand.
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February 20th, 2010 — 5:25am
Thanks to my HTC Hero and WordPress for Android, I decided to use the 5+ hour drive to Bull Shoals Buffalo River Nat’l River to blog about it.
I’ll be making on-going updates as the trip goes on to try to encompass the essence of… The Man Trip.
- Plan to start traveling to destination at an ungodly hour (ie 4am)
- Don’t get to bed til 2am the night before
- Sleep past “scheduled” start time by hours (reasons: see above)
- Discuss and compare new gear bought for the trip focusing especially on masculine items such as knives and hatchets
- Try to have a ratio of one GPS device per person. This is mainly for effect though
- 4 GPS devices between two cars and we still found a way to get separated and add a couple hours to the trip by missing turns
- Once at destination, take a hike and talk with knowledge about things you don’t actually know how to do
- identify and “track” animals by their paw prints
- identify and comment on the type of wood in the area and it use for fire or camp set up
- Grow out facial hair… whatever you’ve got
- Do simple man-activities
- Throw or skip rocks
- Throw or skip very large rocks
- Throw knives and hatchets at anything they’ll stick in
- Build fire (see #7)
- Build excessively large fire
- Build Fire
- If this were a ranked list by importance, this would be #1 followed by growing out facial hair.
- If nothing else is done on the trip… this MUST be done
- Discuss how well you and your buddies could survive back in “The Olden Days”
- Near the end of the trip as you begin to feel very comfortable and accomplished with your camping abilities
- nine
- ten
*Updates: 2/21 6pm
Comment » | Blogging, Ten Steps, how-to
January 21st, 2010 — 12:34pm
Aston Martin DB9 ~ $170,000
1. CARS
Drive a car that is laughably and obviously way above your government pay grade. (If indeed you are officially employed by a government.)
Q & some Bond Gadgets
2. GADGETS
If you happen to be a spy from the 60s or 70s, you absolutely must have an array of gadgets given to you ahead of time that end up being the following:
a) the only gadgets you need other than the tools lying around you at the time,
b) the exact gadgets you’ll need for incredibly specific tasks or points of danger requiring more than just the wits and dashing good looks you carry with you the rest of the time,
c)each gadget must either fit inside some unassuming object (e.g. a camera case, a briefcase panel, the heel of your Italian leather shoes), be easily deconstructed and hidden, or simply appear to be a normal item of clothing
(Note: you must carry with you a watch-based laser/grappling hook/mini-missile launcher or belt-based grappling hook/super-magnet)
Jason Bourne Bank Box
3. IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
Always have what we like to call the “MultiDuff” — a duffel bag filled with multiple passports, multiple forms of currency, multiple concealed weapons and multiple medical kits.
Bourne: Newspaper as weapon
4. WEAPONS
Possess the ability to assess which items in any given setting are viable weapons. Rooms of importance: kitchen, bathroom and office.
(Minimum requirement: we request that you carry a very small, concealed gun)
Vesper's Death
5. WOMEN
Stop thinking of women as meaningful pursuits and starting thinking about them as objects to be used and thrown away.
... and taking names
6. FIGHTING
You must possess instinctive fighting skills that stretch across all easily conversationally recalled forms of martial arts. This recall must be instinctive, in case of unintentional amnesia.
Bourne speaks the language
7. THE LANGUAGE BARRIER
You must be multilingual.
(Note: See criteria for Fighting Skills)
(Second Note: This is not required.)
Getting information, that's all
8. WOMEN, AGAIN
Shortly after arriving at your first destination, it is important to become randomly acquainted with your muse for this mission. She must be worth destroying your career for while also being easy to forget should the need arise.
Additionally, you must get close enough to her for your judgment to be clouded to the point of the mission nearly failing. Possibly muliple times.
(Note: If you are a government agent and if you’re good, this can happen on the plane en route, or even at headquarters with your boss’ receptionist.)
Vesper Martini
9. ALCOHOL
You must recognize alcohol for what it truly is. – Be able to drink it as often as an athlete drinks water.
• Possess mundane details about it (e.g. the correct temperature to serve a chilled bottle of Bollinger champagne).
• Drink it without looking like you care that you’re doing so.
• Know the local cultural specialty drink ahead of time. Order it often while there.
• Create complicated drink orders, while gambling, that get the rest of the table to order the same thing. (Note: if this pisses off your host, count it as a win.)
Perfect Accuracy
10. MARKSMANSHIP
Be deadly accurate with any weapon that isn’t a sniper rifle. Despite it’s usefulness for accuracy, you need only use its scope to spy on those looking for you from across the street, or miss your target on purpose because she eventually becomes your muse (See: WOMEN, AGAIN).
Madmen & henchmen
11. COUP DE GRAS
Appear physically unassuming, sexually dominating, mentally sharp and emotionally vulnerable all while battling to stop one of three things:
1. A madman bent on world domination
2. The government agency trying to kill you
3. Your impending death at the hands of your captors
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