I love Twitter muchly, it’s a fun way to keep track of my friends and to try and be clever on the Internet. Back before Twitter…actually back before HTTP, what we think of as blogging or microblogging was called a .plan file.  A .plan file was simply a text file sitting on a server on the Internet that anyone could access using the Finger command.  That’s right, in those days before the World Wide Web you basically got on the Internet with some type of console application and issued text based commands like “finger stepto@stepto.com”

So people would update their .plan files with what they were doing or interesting thoughts or whatnot.  After the advent of the WWW, .plan files kind of exploded in the geek community because it was easier than running a webserver and you didn’t need anything other than a text editor to write for it.  So game developers and other people would update their .plan files. Along came easy web page hosting and .plan’s went away.

I told you all that to tell you this: One day Paul Steed, who did models and animation for Id Software, updated his .plan file with an interesting story about how he missed his exit to head into work in Mesquite, Texas.  Instead of circling back he decided to just keep going.  Until he reached the ocean. 8 hours later he reached Galveston, looked at the waves, then drove back. Then went into work the next day like normal. I always thought that was kind of cool.  Unfortunately when I miss my exit at work and decide to drive to the ocean it’s a 30 minute trip.

I got home yesterday to find my Blu Ray copy of the extended Lord of The Rings trilogy had arrived early. I had made plans to watch them throughout the week, but as I popped Fellowship in with the intent of only watching the opening, Paul Steed’s story popped into my head.  So I decided “screw it, I’ll watch the whole thing.  And live tweet it!”

What followed was an enormously fun 11 hours or so as I powered through the films, tweeting as I went.  What surprised me was the reaction.  While 90% of people reading and responding were having fun with my playing MST3k to the trilogy, there was a very vocal 10% who were *furious* at me for tweeting too much.  Some even pulled my favorite passive aggressive twitter tactic: “Gosh if you don’t stop tweeting, I’m going to have to unfollow you.” as if that’s going to have an impact on my tweeting.  Does that person think I read that and go “Uh oh! @BobinFlorida226534 is going to unfollow me.  Better stop tweeting!”  I’m enormously grateful for the 21 thousand people who find what I say interesting enough to follow me.  But to that vocal 10% here’s a protip: You can make lists on Twitter!  Make two.  Put everyone you follow in one list, and no one in the other.  Then when you need to unclutter your stream from someone who is tweeting too much, just move them into the empty list temporarily!  Science! OR you can just, you know, unfollow me.  It won’t break my heart, I promise!  No need to threaten first!

It was enormous fun to do however and I think with a little more warning I will do it again with Star Wars and Indiana Jones films when they inevitably come out.  The LOtR blu rays are astounding however.  The movies look and sound better than they ever have.  I heard things in the uncompressed 6.1 DTS sound mix that I had never heard before!  One minor drawback is that the picture is to perfect and clear, Gollum looks a lot more like a special effect than I was expecting.  It’s like they worked so hard to make him perfect that he stands out as too perfect.  But that’s a minor quibble. 

So I’m bleary eyed at work, but I can’t recommend this edition of the films enough.  And as my twitter stream can attest, I can confirm all 682 minutes of the run time.

I love Twitter muchly, it’s a fun way to keep track of my friends and to try and be clever on the Internet. Back before Twitter…actually back before HTTP, what we think of as blogging or microblogging was called a .plan file.  A .plan file was simply a text file sitting on a server on the Internet that anyone could access using the Finger command.  That’s right, in those days before the World Wide Web you basically got on the Internet with some type of console application and issued text based commands like “finger stepto@stepto.com”

So people would update their .plan files with what they were doing or interesting thoughts or whatnot.  After the advent of the WWW, .plan files kind of exploded in the geek community because it was easier than running a webserver and you didn’t need anything other than a text editor to write for it.  So game developers and other people would update their .plan files. Along came easy web page hosting and .plan’s went away.

I told you all that to tell you this: One day Paul Steed, who did models and animation for Id Software, updated his .plan file with an interesting story about how he missed his exit to head into work in Mesquite, Texas.  Instead of circling back he decided to just keep going.  Until he reached the ocean. 8 hours later he reached Galveston, looked at the waves, then drove back. Then went into work the next day like normal. I always thought that was kind of cool.  Unfortunately when I miss my exit at work and decide to drive to the ocean it’s a 30 minute trip.

I got home yesterday to find my Blu Ray copy of the extended Lord of The Rings trilogy had arrived early. I had made plans to watch them throughout the week, but as I popped Fellowship in with the intent of only watching the opening, Paul Steed’s story popped into my head.  So I decided “screw it, I’ll watch the whole thing.  And live tweet it!”

What followed was an enormously fun 11 hours or so as I powered through the films, tweeting as I went.  What surprised me was the reaction.  While 90% of people reading and responding were having fun with my playing MST3k to the trilogy, there was a very vocal 10% who were *furious* at me for tweeting too much.  Some even pulled my favorite passive aggressive twitter tactic: “Gosh if you don’t stop tweeting, I’m going to have to unfollow you.” as if that’s going to have an impact on my tweeting.  Does that person think I read that and go “Uh oh! @BobinFlorida226534 is going to unfollow me.  Better stop tweeting!”  I’m enormously grateful for the 21 thousand people who find what I say interesting enough to follow me.  But to that vocal 10% here’s a protip: You can make lists on Twitter!  Make two.  Put everyone you follow in one list, and no one in the other.  Then when you need to unclutter your stream from someone who is tweeting too much, just move them into the empty list temporarily!  Science! OR you can just, you know, unfollow me.  It won’t break my heart, I promise!  No need to threaten first!

It was enormous fun to do however and I think with a little more warning I will do it again with Star Wars and Indiana Jones films when they inevitably come out.  The LOtR blu rays are astounding however.  The movies look and sound better than they ever have.  I heard things in the uncompressed 6.1 DTS sound mix that I had never heard before!  One minor drawback is that the picture is to perfect and clear, Gollum looks a lot more like a special effect than I was expecting.  It’s like they worked so hard to make him perfect that he stands out as too perfect.  But that’s a minor quibble. 

So I’m bleary eyed at work, but I can’t recommend this edition of the films enough.  And as my twitter stream can attest, I can confirm all 682 minutes of the run time.