Why is Twitter such a HOOT? 

twitter.com/#!/velvetbabe_

Like my new Iphone gadget thing, I'm finding it mildly addictive.  Never would've thought, as I've greatly bemoaned shortening attention spans and such.  Oh well, if a super smart dude like Stephen Fry can be into it, so can I.

One slight annoyance is that I can't post the link to my account in any way that makes it clickable.  Why?  Because some Turkish model-y type chick-lette has stolen the name VelvetBabe out from under me.  Gal has an English name for her account, but all her tweets are in her native language, so why have an English name, then, girly?  I was forced, yes it's true, to therefore add that underscore to the end of the name, and because of that, and the fact that all clickable links are underlined, the url doesn't acknowledge the underscore - it disappears, and instead takes you to her account and not mine.  So all of the many dozens of people who want to 'follow' me must cut and paste the above into their address bar.  First world problems, yes.

I set up a Facebook account some time ago and found I really dislike it.  All the crap coming at you - all the come ons and friend of a friend of a friend things up and down either side of the page - all so noisy and imo user way-unfriendly.  Hard to believe people are so obssessed with it.  Myspace is actually much better organized and less noisy and stupid - figures it would have lost out in the social networking wars to facebook's massively deep pockets.  Also, how annoying is facebook that when they ask you things like who your heroes are, you can't actually put anyone in the list who isn't famous and therefore potentially marketable to/from.  Did you know that?  Ie I tried inputting movie character Curt Wild ...  

... several times and it kept trying to input ex-Red Sox pitcher (and republican jerk) Curt Schilling.  After numerous attempts I could not enter the name I wanted, and then realized - wow - so this is how it works - it's because they can't sell me anything if I enter an obscure movie character from a semi-cult film.  Total turnoff.  Twitter by contrast has absolutely zero BS - short, quick, to the point, and no ads coming at you.  Totally refreshing.  Plus, it's just so damned neat to 1) be able to check in on people like Tim Minchin to see what in hell they might be into at a given moment, and 2) be able to snap a random, spur of da moment photo whilst walking down the street, and instantly send it from your position on the street to your Twitter/Instagram account, which will of course come in mighty handy on My Trip.  Much as I'm a technophobe, this is slightly damned miraculous.