Twitter. What is it good for? Not music. Definitely.

I know I said I was weening myself off of the internet. Aside from my addiction to checking for cheap flights around the world all the time, freaking outabout the first production video of The Hobbit (and everything else on that site), and posting pictures of me doing backflips into a lake in the month of April (you can find that one for yourself), I'm doing a pretty good job.

And then there's my twitter. I still think twitter is ridiculous for the most part. I very rarely have anything interesting to say on it but find myself posting things about how awesome Rambo: First Blood still is or about zombies or how conference calls can be the death of someone. Isn't that great information?! Aren't you glad you're following me on that?! Hell, I'd hate my twitter feed if I were you.

However...

And there's always a "however..."

In my attempt to step further and further away from the digital world - I'm an analog boy at heart - I've found myself wondering if I'm the only one who looks themselves up on the internet? I know I'm not. I also know that I'm fairly narcissistic and have been known to google myself from time to time. Just to see what's out there. We've all done it. But I don't think I've ever done a twitter search on myself. I don't really have time for that and the beers at the pub aren't gonna drink themselves. That little thought got me to, well, thinking. Who twitter searches their own name? And it turns out that LOTS of people do.

"Who? What stories do you have?!" I can hear the dozen of you asking. I have two stories. That's right. Two. I'm like the buy-one-get-one-FREE of blog stories. I'm a value meal*. I'm a veritable bouquet of goodness dispersement.

The first one happened about two months ago. I was watching TV (something I very rarely do these days, sports not withstanding) with Karen and Meg and the show Don't Forget the Lyrics was on. This show is hosted by Mark McGrath of the band Sugar Ray known for being the other really shitty band on the SugarRaySmashMouth Musical Abortion Duo Tour (if it were to exist and I'm betting that it did at some point in the mid to late 90s) and it had some dame singing along to songs. At one point in the song, all of the music and word prompts cut out and the contestant is forced to sing the next line from memory. For example, let's say "Dancing Queen" by ABBA was the song being sung by our contestant. This is sort of how the game goes... She's singing along... Laladadada...

"You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your time of your life /

See that girl, ___ ___ ___, ___ ___, ___ ___ ___"

If you are much of an ABBA fan as I am or you saw that Mamma Mia!, you know that in order to continue the lyrics, advance to the next round and win the adoration of housewives across America and the momentary approval of Mark McGrath, the words you would sing would be "watch that scene, dig it, the dancing queen." I imagine you get bonus dollars or points or whatever if you do the "ba-ba-BA-BA-BAH-BAH" hits on an imaginary keyboard at the end of that line. If I were the producer of that show that's what I'd do. But I'm not. I'm just a dude with a twitter account.

And so I took to said twitter account posting my displeasure which is a euphemism as you shall soon see with not just the show Don't Forget the Lyrics but with Mark McGrath's career in general. It was fairly innocuous, especially considering the relatively small number of followers I have in the twittersphere. Even further innocuoslying [totally should be a word], is the fact that I posted Mark McGrath's name in said tweet. Twitter has the worst words. Twitter. Tweet. Tweeted. Twatted?

The first thing I thought was "Well, some dude on the Twitter is just messing with me." So what did I do? I found Mark McGrath's website and it turns out that it's his real account. This leads me to believe three things:

1.) Mark McGrath actually spends time on Twitter searching his name (notice how there was no "@" symbol indicating that my twat tweet was sent directly to him.

2.) Mark McGrath actually has no good way to follow up that hit single about traveling or sunshine or whatever-the-fuck-else-he-wrote-about 15 years ago.

3.) Don't Forget the Lyrics has an awful lot of downtime.

Thinking that this was just a one off fluke and remembering the end of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where the titular (hehehe) characters get a whole bunch of money and then go beat the asses of everyone who besmirched their reputation online and was imagining Mark McGrath coming to my home and doing that very thing. I've got a reputation to uphold and, worst case scenario, getting my ass beat in by the guy who sang "Every Morning" and who starred in Father's Day would do nothing for that. Maybe make me look like more of a wimp but that's about it. Okay... So I let that one slide. Good on ya, McGrath.

I'm not very good at learning my lesson. Never have been. Which leads us to the second story. See? I told you there was another one.

At work, we have one radio station pumped in throughout the office. It's some country music station. 95.5? 207.3? I don't know what it's called. It's pretty terrible though. Not a day goes by where I don't hear the super sexy Leann Rimes' "Westbound Train". I've already heard it this morning. But like every other successful radio station, it's focused on hits. Hits, hits, hits, hits, hits. H-I-T-S. That's an anagram, too. You figure it out. The latest hit on the radio is this little ditty by a 'band' called Thompson Square. Trust me, if I can make it through this song 3 or 4 times a day, you can at least make it to the chorus, which for all intents and purposes is a far as you need to go to get to the point of this story. Here's the video:

In my frustration yesterday ('cause, honestly, when am I not frustrated?), I twatted tweeted a very honest review of Thompson Square's "Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not?" and I managed to do it in under 140 characters. My review? Very simple: "This Thompson Square song is some bullshit." And then look what happened:

That's right! I fired back. I figured that if I've been called out by one goatee sporting, terrible sounding singer on twitter in my life, that that was enough. I'm standing up for my rights. My right to be a jerk. My right to not telegraph choruses. My right not go get beat up by pretty dudes. My right to, if I may, party.

So that's what twitter has done for me. Well, that and given me many a good laugh over Josh Orr getting kicked out of Paramore about 4 times. I'm still looking for some other value. Maybe that value meal* I was talking about beforehand...

*I haven't had a value meal in a long time. Why? 'Cause all the good ones have meat in them and I (stupidly) gave up meat for Lent. Superheaven, I'm a-comin'.