Friends, I know we argued a bit about it in the past, but I think I've finally seen your side of the matter, the matter of cross-posting daily Twitter digests to LJ.

I was an early proponent of the practice because I thought, Hey, I say some interesting things over on the Twitters. Maybe my non-Twitter friends on LJ would like to see them. Some of you objected, even denouncing Twitter as pointless.

Slowly, over the months, more and more people joined Twitter and started cross-posting to LJ as well. My Friends page proceeded to get cluttered with Twitter digests, and I felt I was contributing to the problem, so I disabled the cross-posting for my account. Then I felt like I was missing out on the party and turned it on again. Then, once again annoyed, I turned it off once more.

While it was off for the second time, LoudTwitter -- the service that facilitated the cross-posts -- went and crashed. Suddenly all of the Twitter digests disappeared, and I didn't miss them. Why would I? I've already seen those tweets over the course of the previous day since I follow all of you. There is at least one other service that does the same thing as LoudTwitter, but I won't be using it.

It turns out some content is better suited to Twitter, and that's where it should stay. It's for this same reason that I don't like it when people have their Facebook status update with every tweet -- I prefer the selective update method, choosing to update my FB status with tweets that make sense in that arena.

I'm also trying to use LJ as it was intended by writing more long-form entries on a regular basis. It's been a good week so far.

I finally managed to get photos from our MarsCon 2009 performances posted here on the site. Now you can see what we look like as a quartet!

In the “better late than never” category, also posted are photos from CONvergence 2008 and our performance at The Terminal Bar back in January.

Originally published at Possible Oscar official website. You can comment here or there.

Today I've been rather busy in the kitchen. I made the usual bacon and eggs for brunch. Later I went grocery shopping. For dinner, I made tacos. Then I followed through with my intention not to waste the two rather ripe bananas and made banana bread from a recipe I found online. It was my first attempt at baking from scratch. It's out of the oven now. After some cooling, we cut into it. I hope it doesn't suck!

[EDIT] It didn't suck! [/EDIT]

I was asked recently for advice on making Twitter work for an LJ friend. Here is my advice on having a successful Twitter experience:

1) Follow your friends. (duh)

2) Follow interesting people. This can be celebrities or people you find amusing. Don't expect them to follow in return.

3) Follow accounts from web sites and other institutions. I follow news sources, tech web sites, and other sources of information about which I am interested.

4) Be prepared to check your Twitter feed often. Twitter only works well if you keep up on it -- several times daily at a minimum. This is the only way to keep up on conversations and trending topics.

5) Contribute! Tweet often, and be interesting. I know the web site asks the question, "What are you doing?", but don't limit yourself to simple status updates. Post interesting links, jokes, random thoughts, whatever.

6) Use a Twitter app. The web interface is fine, but it can be confining. I use the TwitterFox extension in Firefox on my computer and Twidroid on my phone. There are dozens of options for desktop and phone use.

I'm sure there are many more ways to make Twitter fun, but these are the things I've found to work for me.

It’s about time you and I get some new music from Possible Oscar. Let it be so! Today we finally return to The FuMP with a new single. We parody Green Day’s “Know Your Enemy” with “Kill The Enemies“. This song is about the 1980s arcade sensation Gauntlet.

I always played as the Elf. Which Gauntlet character were you?

Originally published at Possible Oscar official website. You can comment here or there.

CONvergence happened last weekend, and it was glorious. We took the Harmonic CONvergence stage at 10:00 Friday night to a packed room. An hour later, we ended our set to rapturous applause. You guys are the best fans!

Along the way, we debuted those three songs we talked about over the last month. The big hit of the three seemed to be “Get Our Geek On”, which will appear on our next album (hopefully due by year’s end). We also performed a cover of The Lonely Island’s “I’m On A Boat” during which Jared doffed his pants and shoes to reveal…his swim trunks and flippy floppies.

I think this was the best Possible Oscar show ever. It was only our third performance as a quartet, but things are feeling pretty tight, and we’re having fun. The songs are comfortable enough now that we are free to just play and interact with each other and the audience.

We thank all of you who took time out of your packed party schedule to come see us play. You can see some proper rock star photos of the show in Photosynthetique’s CONvergence 2009 set on Flickr.

Originally published at Possible Oscar official website. You can comment here or there.

In an unbelievably daring move, your Scope hosts made the cunning decision to cover our annual trek to Minnesota’s biggest sci-fi convention in an unconventional way. This year…we phoned it in…literally (or is that figuratively?) The entire show was delivered via The Scope voicemail line. It’s an uncensored, unfiltered look at four days of geeky fun.

And just to make it interesting, we forced other con-goers besides Jared and Shane to dial in and voice their drunken opinions on all of the festivities.

CONvergence 2009 may be a distant memory, but now you can experience it for the first time (right along with Adam!)

Episode 76 is digging beer pong and the free “zombie snot” shots at the Con.

Originally published at The Scope. You can comment here or there.

Your Scope hosts survived another CONvergence. I think we all had a lot of fun, and there were many calls into the voicemail line — although how many were not from us or friends of the show remains to be heard.

Although it would be nice to have our special CVG episode posted now for everyone to experience, it’s going to take some time to assemble. No doubt some of the calls will be in need of some audio massage to get them ready to assemble. Please be patient while we put it together for you.

Originally published at The Scope. You can comment here or there.

From The Nick Atoms:

After several years in exile, and after fruitless attempts by services assuring me they could secure the expiring domain for a mere $99, thenickatoms.com is now back where it belongs: in our hands. The domain will simply forward to the .org domain for the time being until we decide if a change to .com as the main domain is warranted.

The Scope will be returning to CONvergence again this year! However, our approach to content will be a little different.

We’ve decided to leverage our voicemail line to give power to the people. We want to hear your stories about CONvergence — prefereably as they happen. Here’s how it works:

CALL US

646-495-9201
Enter 70055 at the extension prompt.

TELL US YOUR CON STORY

Don’t leave out any details.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

www.thescopeshow.com
twitter.com/thescopeshow

We’re also advertising our “Find These Guys, Win a Prize” campaign. Basically, if you find us at the con, we’ll ask you questions, and you’ll win a cheap prize.

That’s the deal, folks. We hope to see a lot of you there. And remember: the fate of our show relies on you!

Originally published at The Scope. You can comment here or there.