A Twittering we will go

Yesterday was a milestone day. I finally figgered how to jigger a cell phone into talking with Twitter. It's quite a story and worth telling here at Snowbird Central.

Below you can read about the new wal-Mart cell phone and Google Voice. The Straight Talk cell phone prepaid card includes 1000 free text messages. Well, why not actually USE those text messages? Novel idea, eh?

Last night was T-Day for storming the beaches of the texting frontier. I must admit, it wasn't easy--it took me quite some time to figger out. But, I conquered the foe and now I can text to other people's cell phone and, most importantly to Twitter.

To learn how I feel about this milestone, I reprint here an email I sent to a friend last night explaining this giant leap forward.

---------------------(Begin quoted email)---------------
Well, I once knew how to text from a Tracfone but I've long since forgotten. When I realized that this Straight Talk phone has 1000 free text messages, I suddenly became interested once again. On the old Tracfone, everytime I texted, it took a half minute away from my service--hence the texts were expensive so I didn't bother. Plus, who really cares anyway?

Well, you know, Twitter is on the scene now and it definitely has various degrees of usefulness. I have been using it for very esoteric reasons that have only to do with enhancing Google search results. I have had GREAT success with this pursuit. However, I haven't remotely cared about the "other" more mainstream uses for Twitter. "WHO cares?" has been my mantra.

Well, suddenly tonight I realized that it's ME, myself and EYE who should care. Yep, it's amazing what one thousand free texts will do to an old codger. After some degree of cornfusion, I was able to activate the Wal-Mart ST phone into my new twitter account (the one that is NOT work-related) and then I practiced for awhile sending to the account. I have got it down, my man! DOWN, I say, absolutely wired up!

So, what does this mean in the real world? Well, actually a lot. Now, I can actually use Twitter for the stupid purpose for which it was intended--to tell people what I am doing RIGHT FREAKING NOW! What that means is that on this upcoming trip, we can actually post updates on our progress and wherabouts and so forth in real time from the road via the cell phone and Twitter. We don't need to place a lot of phone calls to various people and we don't need to be sitting in front of a computer--nope, we simply send one update to teh Twitter and then anyone who cares enough to wonder what the heck we are doing can go to Twitter and see the sequential messages all laid out in their stupid glory. In this case, it's a totally suitable and right and proper usage of Twitter. We can say stuff like "Passing Pocatello," or "Making time at Malad," or "OMG, we almost into teh SLC mayhem madness" or "We're alive in Spanish Fork." You get the picture. A simple SMS will tell a significant story to whomever might be interested in our whereabouts.

All this time, I thought Twitter was worthless. Who knew? I've finally found a marginally worthwhile usage of the stupid thing. WHA--WHOOO!
---------------(End of quoted email)-----------------
Here is the Twitter Account that is linked to this cell phone:
http://twitter.com/thesnowbirds