There’s a good reason for that

Twitter has this function you can enable so people can follow you if they know your email address. Sounds pretty good on the surface: all your friends have your email address, so it’s an awesome way for them to find you. Except, if they’re really your friends, aren’t you already following each other? Unless you do things the old-fashioned way and have actual real-life conversations. That’s just silly. With email, and IM, and chat, who has time to actually talk anymore? In our sound byte driven world, are there still people who have something so important to say that they need more than 140 characters? Look at this drivel. Clear proof that lots of words don’t equal interesting.

We’re actually going somewhere with this.

Every now and then, twitter sends us a snotty email like this:

Translation:  Here’s someone who would like to follow you so you’ll follow them back, but they can’t find you because you just can’t be bothered to click one little box. Instead, every time your email address shows up in someone else’s contacts, we have to send you notifications like this. Good God Girl, can’t you just play along??

We don’t know this guy. Never met him. Exchanged emails once, about a client’s domain. Like 3 years ago. Since then, he’s sent us invitations to connect on other social media, so it was only a matter of time before he tried to find us here.

Because we’re in his contact list, like probably everyone else he has ever exchanged emails with, twitter thinks we should be friends. We follow plenty of people we don’t know, though, so let’s take a look.

Zero tweets? Pretty interesting so far. And a business, not a person? Even better. If we follow, we’re guaranteed to get a bunch of ads. Really tempting.

You gotta admit one thing, though, “Boomerang Lending” has got to be the worst name for a loan company, ever. Correct us if we’re wrong, but isn’t that what the Nigerian scammers are doing? Sending you money and then snatching it right back?

(Disclaimer: We have no proof that this person is a scammer or affiliated with Nigerians in any way. Our attorney would bitch if we didn’t say that.)

Took a look at their website. Appparently, they are some sort of pawn shop. We enjoy watching Pawn Stars, and are amazed at what a big jerk that guy and his daughter are on the other pawn shop show, but they’re on tv, not in our timeline. Other than the little chuckle we get from their name, Boomerang has very little entertainment value.

This is exactly the reason we don’t click the little box. Other people we don’t want to talk to, or be talked at by, have our email address. Like spammers, for instance. And the guy who threatened to sue us because he didn’t like our jokes. (Ergo: the disclaimer.) But especially spammers.

Since having tons of followers doesn’t mean anyone is actually listening, and the conversations we have with real people, and the penpal relationships we’ve developed help us feel connected to the rest of the world, we’re going to tell Dan “Boomerang” no thanks. In fact, we’re going to go ahead and block him now to save ourselves the trouble later.

PS: Yes, we have another twitter account. It’s linked to another blog of ours. You could go over there, read a couple of posts, and then say something nice. It would make your mama proud.

Thank you GoDaddy!

A little over a year ago, we had a spirited conversation with someone, and her husband, and their daughter, and some of their friends, for reporting squatters on twitter. Mostly because we reported all the twitter usernames they were hanging onto as part of their own little “sell stuff we get for free” twitter scheme. Mother and daughter were selling amateurish logos based on twitter usernames they created and held onto with their grubby little get-rich-quick hands for the purpose of “giving” them to the people who bought their logos. They called it a “branding package.” They also had a bunch of gmail accounts with the same usernames they were going to throw in for “free”. Of course, since it’s against twitter’s terms of service, and google’s as well, to sell usernames/accounts, by giving them away, they were perfectly within the rules. Or maybe not, since their shop has apparently closed down and blown away in the harsh winds of reality.

In our original post, we ranted loud and long about twitter’s lackadaisical attitude about rampant TOS violations, and then stormed right into a tirade about porn on twitter. The porn is still here, because porn shows up every time there is a new, successful online network and dirties up the playground. Kind of like how pigs create mudpiles to roll in. We’re starting to digress, and this post is about squatters, so we’ll reel ourselves back in.

When we started this blog, we wanted to use the domain twitterfail.com. But a nasty squatter had his blubber all over it, waiting for us to cave and fork over big bucks so he could multiply his investment a thousand times over, and retire on the sweat of our brow. So, we became one of the hyphenators and moved on.

Okay, not completely. First, we shelled out $18.95 to backorder the domain, because you never know.

We waited. And the slimeball renewed the domain.

So we waited some more. And this year, the domain went up for auction. Our $18.95 got us an opening bid of $10. Certain no one else could be interested, we sat back, all smug and happy.

And then somebody started bidding against us.

We finally bid an amount that we thought was way bigger than anyone else could possibly want to throw away on a domain they’d never use. And went to a meeting. And were promptly overbid. We got home, and got news that we lost the auction, creepazoid won, and the domain was now available as a Premium domain. For way more money than we could ever justify spending on a domain for a blog we write just for fun. *Sigh*

So we took it like a grown-up, licked our wounds and quietly went our way.

Ha! Almost had you there.

Tonight, a miracle happened. We got an email just a few minutes ago from GoDaddy:

Congratulations! The following domain name(s) that you backordered was successfully captured:

TWITTERFAIL.COM

So now you can find us on both domains, twitterfail.com and twitter-fail.com. We’re bi-domainsional.

Sometimes good things do happen to nice people who wait. And to us, too.

There’s only one good thing about a fever

When a bad thing happens, you can be a winner and deal with it head-on, or be a loser and let it control your life. You always have a choice.

That’s why we are choosing to do something about the Bieber Fever plague. Symptoms of this dread disease include heart palpitations, frequent screaming, and delusions. Once a victim has been infected with the Bieber parasite, it’s too late to reason with them. The illness takes away all rational thought, and their sole purpose for living is reduced to keeping the Bieber alive. Ignoring this terrible disease that has swept the nation will not make it go away, and it appears that no girl under the age of 18 is immune.

No matter where you look, little girls are screaming about Justin Bieber. And, the more girls scream, the more other girls will scream to prove that they, too, love Justin Bieber even more than any sane person can imagine.

The disease usually follows a predictable progression:

Crying for attention

Banding together with others who are infected

Obsessing over imaginary “facts”

Threats of violence

Panic attacks

This disease is quickly reaching epidemic status. It may be too late to save the young girls you love. If they haven’t already caught the Bieber Fever, it’s only a matter of time.

The only good thing about a fever? Eventually, they run their course. Unfortunately, some girls will not build up an immunity, and will be more susceptible to the next teen epidemic. God help us all.

Twitter Fail Army: Activate!

It seems like everyone has their own army these days. @thebloggess has an army. They formed after @WilliamShatner blocked her (the nerve!) and continue to do good works in her name. @craigyferg has his own Robot Skeleton Army, which may or may not really do anything, but have given him his lovely sidekick Geoff Peterson. Even @JustinBieber has an army. Heck, he even has his own Navy. Clearly a navy where no one has to ask or tell.

We don’t have any army. But we want one. We aren’t delusional enough to believe we’d get a spit and polish, precision-team of highly trained militia. Ours would be more like the Confederate army. They didn’t have the training or the pretty uniforms, had to provide their own weapons, and as we recall, actually lost the war, but those guys had heart.

What we do have are followers with whom we get to interact on occasion. Every now and then, they send us fails they found in the nooks and crannies of twitter. So, instead of an army, we have our own little band of spies. Now that we think about it, a covert group of spies is way cooler than an army.

When one of our undercover pals sends us something worth sharing, we bestow upon them the coveted, fleeting honor of Honorary Fail Bird Handler.

In the category of “Worst twitter spammer,” Honorary Fail Bird Handler (anonymous) shared this gem this week:

We’re guessing @mlmsexmoney678 heard that if you use the right keywords (and what is more popular than mlm bussiness sexyspot money?) people will flock to your stream to buy what you have to sell. We suppose anyone can buy a free iphone, but, would they? If so, @mlmsexmoney678 is onto something good.

In an email titled, “You’ll never know who is reading,” @codem sent us this lovely conversation, which starts out with an average, ho-hum, made it all the way around the twitterverse and back, retweeted retweet:

Followed, not surprisingly, by a snarky reply

Lo and behold, somebody at GFI was sitting with bated breath at his keyboard, repeatedly hitting F5 on their twitter search so they could jump in with their hand extended like a used-car salesman trying to hit his quota.

We can’t hold it against @GFISoftware for living up to their potential. Geeks are expected to be socially awkward.

Now we’d like to introduce you to @EJWalle, today’s queen of cluelessness. Alert Honorary Fail Bird Handler @SmurfGalak brought her to our attention. It’s a long story. Let us sum up.

Here’s the skinny: @EJWalle followed @SmurfGalak. @SmurfGalak followed back, even though @EJWalle had some spammy tweets. She should have known better.

In other words, “I don’t care one whit* who I follow, I’m not looking to make actual friends or anything.”

Things don’t go quite the way @EJWalle planned:

So, @SmurfGalak offers an explanation

and is promptly unfollowed. Goes to show some people just don’t appreciate good help.

Ever the slow-learner, @EJWalle complains again about the monster she created.

But the poor thing just can’t stop. Hooked on the bot bug, she continues her death spiral:

There’s clearly no hope for @EJWalle or @mlmsexmoney678, and there’s plenty where they came from. If you’d like to become an Honorary Fail Bird Handler and learn the secret handshake, send screenshots and/or urls of the funny, silly, really bad, or awesome fails you find to tweetfail@gmail.com or DM us on twitter.

This post will self-destruct in 30 seconds….

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*4 whits = 1 iota.
8 iotas = a rat’s ass.
16 rats asses = a damn.