Twitter

10/19/2011

Chances are you got to this page because you clicked the link on my Twitter profile page. Let me tell you a little bit about me. I joined Twitter on June 17, 2007. You might be thinking, “For someone who has been on Twitter for so long, you don’t have many followers.” There are several reasons for that:

  1. I’m not a celebrity;
  2. I don’t follow many people;
  3. I don’t automatically follow anyone who follows me;
  4. My self-promotion skills are incredibly lacking.

If you want me to follow you on Twitter, you need to fall into one of these categories:

  1. You need to be an honest-ta-goodness friend of mine or a family member;
  2. You need to be a celebrity or a pseudo-celebrity that I find interesting;
  3. You need to be an organization that doles out information that I find useful, or;
  4. You simply need to engage me — respond to one of my Tweets, ask me to follow you, anything.

I will not follow you just because you follow me. There’s a practical reason for this: I read every Tweet from every person I follow. I can’t follow a lot of people because, frankly, I’m not a very fast reader.

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Okay, a little about me personally: I’m getting old. As I write this, I’m in my 47th year on the planet. Way too old to be Tweeting.

I have been married (to the same woman) for 23 years. We have three children. They are triplets — ages 20, 14, 7. (C’mon. It’s a joke. How can they be triplets?) But if you do the math you’ll realize that my wife will only have sex with me every 6 to 7 years. (Okay, that’s a joke too. We don’t make a baby every time we have sex — maybe every other time.)

By-and-large, I’m just your average middle-aging husband and dad. I work for a living and do my damnedest to provide for my family. The only things I take seriously are the things I need to take seriously.

I live at the Jersey Shore. I’ve been here most of my life. No doubt, I’ll die here. I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to do it any time soon. I want a clown to make balloon hats at my funeral.

I’m a serious student of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

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You may wonder what I Tweet about. Here is an incomplete list:

  • The weather (because it’s a rule);
  • Stupid people (that means much of my stuff is autobiographical);
  • Anything with a curse in it (cursing is fun when the kids aren’t around — so is spitting and drinking);
  • I’ll Live Tweet old movie;
  • I complain about the Yankees during baseball season (unless they win the World Series);
  • I crack-wise (because, seriously, that’s what Twitter is for);
  • I comment on the news (because no one does that on Twitter);
  • I link to things I think are interesting (including a photo that I don’t quite understand almost every evening);
  • I talk to friends (yes, I know that’s why they make instant messengers);
  • I celebrate personal accomplishments (because, as my Nan always told me, “Self praise stinks!”);
  • And mourn the deaths of long-forgotten celebrities (because I want long-forgotten celebrities to mourn me when I pass).

If you find any of these things interesting, go ahead and follow me. If you don’t, follow at your own risk.

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My personal interests include (but are not limited to):

  • Sex with my wife;
  • Golf;
  • Brazilian Jiu-jitsu;
  • Taking photographs;
  • Reading, writing (I leave arithmetic to my friend, @dbthompson);
  • Design (though I’m a design hack);
  • Early American history (Revolutionary War, Constitutional Convention, etc.);
  • Political philosophy;
  • The teachings of Jesus (though not necessarily Christianity);
  • The Yankees;
  • The New York Giants;
  • The Islanders;
  • Most of the prime-time shows and specials on the Discovery Channel;
  • Alton Brown’s “Good Eats”;
  • Alfred Hitchcock, the Marx Brothers, and the Our Gang films;
  • Foghorn Leghorn;
  • The Atlantic Ocean and the Barnegat Bay;
  • And other stuff.

Among my favorite authors are:

  • Robert Fulghum;
  • HL Mencken;
  • PJ O’Rourke;
  • EB White;
  • AA Milne;
  • and anyone else with two initials instead of a first name.

I enjoy music, except for most anything that’s popular these days. And disco (the worst song ever is “Fly Robin Fly.”) I play the guitar poorly.

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I have a blog where I’m not constrained to Twitter’s 140 characters. You should check it out.

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