I had to cut about four minutes off this video because stupid YouTube is all Nazi and demands that videos be under ten minutes. I was really serious in the video when I said that I could blather on about this stuff forever.

For some reason Viddler is crapping out for all the computers in the house even though it works for everybody else. I’m pretty sure it’s just a problem with our ISP since I’ve run across a few other sites with issues. Hopefully I can get that issue resolved sometime soon because I like it better than YouTube.

ANYWAY! Here ya go! Watch, listen, learn.

Last last night, possibly very early this morning as we were getting into bed:

Me: If you get up before 9:00AM I am going to kill you.
Ben: That wasn’t nice.
Me: …

4:43AM this morning:

Me: SHIT! Honey, it’s 4:43!
Ben: It’s SATURDAY!
Me: Oh.
Ben: So should I kill you now?
Me: Shut up.

So I mention various bits of geekery on different websites like twitter and then end up having to explain it and often times I think, “HEY YOU! YOU SHOULD BlOG THAT!” So I’m going to start tying to be better about letting you all know about cool things as I come across them

First up: bit.ly

Bit.ly is a great little web app similar to tinyurl. Only on steroids. When you create an account and log in, it does cool stuff like keep track of your most recent shortened urls so that you can go back and easily find them to post other places.

That’s not really what I’m wanting to tell you about. I know that a lot of my readers are really into twitter and THANK GOD because how else am I supposed to stalk you all?! Well, bit.ly had this awesome FireFox plugin that makes surfing twitter so much more fantastic.

Here are three of the many reasons it rocks hardcore.

#1 – Follow conversations! It makes following conversation much easier. When you see that somebody has “in reply to *username*” at the bottom of their tweet you can mouse over it and it will pop up a little box that shows you the tweet it’s in reply to. See the screenshot below:

#2 – Picture preview! If you upload a picture to any of the most popular twitter image apps, like twitpic then then when you mouse over the link it pops up a thumbnail preview of the image before you click on it. This is especially great if NSFW images are a problem. Not that they necessarily would be since SURELY you wouldn’t follow anybody that would do that!

#3 – Information overload! This is actually a pretty dang cool feature. When you mouseover any bit.ly link (and some other tiny links) then the box pops up and gives you some pretty cool information. Mainly, it shows the number of time that the link has been clicked. But it goes further! If you click the more information button it redirects you to a page on the bit.ly site that has a wealth of information about your link including where the clicks are happening, the country and if it’s a blog post, it will even list comment responses to the blog and any other backlinks to the post. Here is an example from a tweet I made earlier today about a techcrunch article.

By clicking the “more information” link I can see that it’s been clicked 55 times, 3 other people on twitter tweeted the same link, 0 people posted it on friendfeed and a short preview of all the comments on the techcruch article.

Here is an example of a tweet that ijustine made earlier today:

So, if you use Firefox (YOU SHOULD) and twitter (YOU BETTER*) then bit.ly is just something you are going to have to have. So go get it now!

*And also, if I’m not following you already, leave me your username so I can.

I shouldn’t write blog posts when I’m under the influence of ‘fucking annoyed’ but I’m going to anyway. And I’m going to bullet it because I’m being lazy and I CAN.

• What is with the general bitchfest online lately? There are some particular people I’m referring to on twitter (and I’m pretty sure none of them read my blog so assume you AREN’T them) but I want to slap some of them across the face and tell them to just SHUT IT ALREADY. I’m not talking about general sickness or weather related blah but people who, for MONTHS ON END, have been all WOE IS ME, pitty me, tell me I’m going to be okay, pet me, pay attention to me. And I have the notion to stop following them but it’s like a bad car accident. You don’t want to look, you REALLY don’t but you CAN’T HELP IT. Part of you wants it to just END and the other part of you kind of finds it humorous to watch the train wreck.
• I’ve gotten the notes already to get a video reply up to Allyson’s questions “What skill do you wish you had?” and “What is your favorite iPhone app (that I can also use on my iPod Touch)?” Notes you ask? Yes, notes because when I start to run through what I’m going to say in my head, before I know it I’ve listed off 42 apps and a backstory/info for each one because, ask me about my gadgets and I will TALK YOUR EAR OFF. So I’ve limited myself to THREE apps. THREE. It’s like having to choose which child I love more. Assuming I had more than one child which I don’t and based on my AppStore obsession it’s a good thing you can’t just download kids off the internet every time one looks pretty or fun or just because it’s FREE(!!) because then I’d have 42 kids. Anyway, I promise a video by this weekend.
• Speaking of kids! Mine is fast on the road to making me gray and I’m getting bitter. She’s 10, being a young mom kinda rocks but having a 10 year old does NOT. That’s not true, there are a lot of fun moments, but the fun to OMG TWEEN ATTITUDE ratio is getting a bit out of control and OMG THE HOMEWORK. When you get pregnant nobody ever mentions the HOMEWORK. They mention the cute little fingers and toes, and the awesome first words, and the miraculous first steps but then suddenly they stop talking about how “sweet and cute” they are around 10 and I GET WHY. Because they’ve blocked it from memory. Or were just drowning the memories out of existence with lots of hard liquor.
• Please don’t send me hate mail telling me what a horrible parent I am for not only talking about my child like she’s perfect and smart and responsible and sweet because I’m allowed to have my off days and this is one of them. If you do, I’m sending her to your house for a week. NOW WHAT!?
• I was sick at the end of last week. BAD sick. Ben got sick Monday night and still is. BADDER than my BAD sick. Different than mine symptom wise. I’m developing his symptoms.
• If a smallish mushroom cloud forms somewhere over the Bay Area in the next few days, don’t be alarmed, it’s just my head exploding.

And I think that’s it. I have more to write but HAPPIER, non bitchy stuff and I don’t want to taint the fantastic negativity of this post with it’s awesome googness and, people, IT’S GOOD.

Look for more tomorrow.

I was originally going to write something eloquent, like what John Armstrong wrote, about this awesome day. Something graceful, full of meaning, faith and excitement for what the immediate and long term future has in store for us. Something that shows how awesome I think it was to have been able to cast a vote that lead to this historic event.

Then I decided on a whim to check my flickr stats for the first time in quite some time and I saw that the following image’s stats have shot up 300% in the last two days. And it dawned on me that WHO AM I KIDDING!? I’m neither graceful nor eloquent. So I leave you with the same sentiment and image from when I cast that first primary vote back in February of 2008:

*Title Quote: John F. Kennedy