Prepare to be tweeted like dirt

I’ve never tweeted.

I confess, I’m a tweet virgin. Never even gotten a tweet, let alone sent one.

Yes, I’ve thus far avoided joining the Twitter community. Twitter is a free social networking service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"-- text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to each other through the Twitter site. This way people can keep up with what you’re doing between blog posts and website updates and e-mails and phone calls.

Amazingly, Twitter touts itself as a “solution to information overload.”

On the other hand, if you join someone’s Twitter group you’re a “follower,” which has a nice discipleship-like sound to it.

Here’s the kind of stuff I’ve probably been missing:

George: Seething in anger at my coworkers and boss who are slowly draining me of creativity and the spark of human kindness. 2 minutes ago from web

Bob: This scabies medicine feels really weird. I almost don't want to put my shirt back on. Yech. one hour ago from txt

Gloria: Instead of praying today, I’m tightening up my prayer list. Just eliminated David cuz we haven’t talked in, like, forever. 9:45 a.m. June 24, 2008 from web

Alicia: Almost finished reading Thomas Friedman's NYT column. Malaise set in after realizing world is flat, and passed out. Woke up in pool of own vomit. 7 a.m. June 24, 2008 from web

Louis: Should I worry about my Dish TV spying on me after Bush signed that telecom bill? 11:35 p.m. June 23, 2008 from web

Albert: Jst gt carjacked. Mistakenly grabbed phone to twitter instd of handgun. Damn! 9:47 p.m. June 23, 2008 from txt

Steve: Hey, lightening alrt. Run for co 8:43 p.m. June 23, 2008 from txt

I’m willing to give Twitter a shot, though. Should The Door start a Twitter group? Do we really want to know what Joe Bob is up to at 1:30 in the morning? Do we?

Discuss.

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Monkey business

It's easy to overlook the obvious.

The biggest mistake many businesses and project planners make is to forget to place a deity on the payroll.

The Dallas Cowboys certainly learned this lesson back in their heyday. They were God's team as well as America's team, and it worked (until Deion Sanders sort of overdid it).

This month a business school in India was looking for a chairman for their institution. "We scanned many big names in the field of technology and management. Ultimately, we settled for Lord Hanuman, as none was bigger than him," said Vivek Kangdi, vice chairman of The Sardar Bhagat Singh College in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh. The school awards bachelor's degrees in engineering and management.

Hanuman the monkey god is one of the most popular gods in the crowded pantheon of Hindu deities. According to the report on CNN, his most famous feat, as described in the Hindu epic the Ramayana, was leading a monkey army to fight the demon King Ravana and rescue a kidnapped princess.

This reminds me of the liner notes on the Christian music album my friends and I put together back in college. "Produced by the Holy Spirit" we wrote then. We meant it in the most humble way, rather than as total presumption. But, hey, we were young. One reviewer pointed out that the Holy Spirit must have neither taste nor skill if our album was any indication.

Let this be my public apology to God. Blasphemy pops up so easily in our thoughts, I suppose, that we come to think of it as piety.


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Beastie: Bonfire of the Anglicans

An alarming report from across the pond--a motion calling for the disestablishment of the Church of England has been listed in the House of Commons as No. 666, the Number of the Beast.

As we all know from watching The Tudors, the Church of England was created so those in charge could suppress their enemies and justify their actions by using religion in order to control their own political destiny. Sort of like Church-State relations in America today, except without the torture. Well, OK, it's pretty much exactly like today.

Wrapped up in personal business as I've been, toiling like a Hebrew slave at my day job, I was shocked out of blogging slumber by this report, and decided to investigate.

It seems the proposal was registered just as Parliament debated scrapping Britain’s blasphemy laws.

Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester and one of the signatories, said: “It is is incredible that a motion like this should have, by chance, acquired this significant number. This number is supposed to be the mark of the Devil. It looks as though God or the Devil have been moving in mysterious ways."

I've visited Britain and surrounding areas, and I can assure you that the whole place is ripe for demonic mischief.

I was constantly feeding strange coins into their odd telephone boxes. I visited their pile of New Age rocks at Stonehenge and became extremely wired after drinking about 20 cups of their tea. The language makes them particularly susceptible to devilish deception. I tried to get someone to accurately repeat, "In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen" without success.

Or take this example from the BBC's sports desk: "It is the first time since 1884/5 that England have named the same line-up for five successive Test matches." England "have"? If they can't distinguish singular from plural, how will they fare in a test of wills against the Prince of Darkness?

I wheeled out the Beastie Machine and carefully wiped dust from its delicate gears as it's battery warmed up for the task.

I typed in "Jolly Old England." Calculating from my patented mix of Gematria and random quotes from NYT puzzle master Will Shorts, Beastie immediately spat out the number 251. I then tried "United Kingdom." That came to only 206. "Great Britain" only to 493. "British Empire" was too much at 866.

With trepidation I entered a word said to be the longest in the English language, and somehow seemed to apply now: "antidedistablishmentarianism." But it was way over the top at 1,683.

Many mysteries in the scriptures are said to be "sealed up" even to the prophets themselves. Could this be a secret that had no interpretation?

Worried, I mixed a cocktail of ginseng, caffeine, taurine, guarana, maca and Tang, took a nap and awoke refreshed, but still with no clear direction.

Maybe I should focus on the Church of England itself. "Church of England" came up as 633. Bingo!

"Anglican Church"--659. Getting closer. Ol' Beastie was emitting a whine not unlike the call of a lovesick wallaby as it struggled to crunch the flood of numbers.

"Unholy Anglicanism" came out as 694, over the mark.

Darn! So close-- within a boar's whisker of exposing the plan of the Evil One. Now what?

I made the sign of infinity in the air over the shuddering and smoking Beastie Machine, and typed in my very last idea: "Bad Anglican Church."

The machine squealed and lost several bolts and washers out its intake valve before the numerals appeared on the screen: 665.

665 is practically 666, if you take into account Greenwich Mean Time. So take that on your stiff upper lip, Old Scratch!


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