{"id":8678,"date":"2013-10-12T12:44:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T12:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=8678"},"modified":"2026-01-15T20:11:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:11:48","slug":"im-thirsty-said-the-aspidestra-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=8678","title":{"rendered":"“I’m thirsty,” said the Aspidestra."},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when you think that you have seen everything, along comes a concept that reminds you that you have only just scratched the surface. This realization, in turn, reminds you of how finite you really are and how infinitely small your brain really is, sigh!!<\/p>\n

I have been resisting Twitter. Well, I’m “on” Twitter and I tweet as part of a blogging group on Mondays and Thursdays, however, I think that I have to get a smart phone. I know I have been avoiding this as well, partly because I spend too much time on-line as it is and partly because I was waiting for the phone wars to decide a winner. However, I think that I may have to buy the new I-pad tablet, that is soon to be released, because it is about the size of an I-Phone – no kidding, what took you so long \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Anyway, back to the astonishing!!! Mashable<\/a> just posted to my FB wall an article about 8 activities and\/or apps for Twitter. There are several I have to have.<\/p>\n

1. Botanicalls<\/a> <\/span>originally allowed your house plants to call your cellphone when they were thirsty. But like you, those plants have moved on to social media.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nWith a Botanicalls Kit<\/a>, an ethernet connection and a bit of patience, you can set up an electronic sensor for your plants; it will automatically send you a Twitter message when your plant needs to be watered. You’ll even get a thank you note when you complete the task. Pothos<\/a>, a plant that tweets with Botanicalls, has amassed 4,000 followers.<\/div>\n
\nI knew there was something wrong. I have always said that in one of my other lives I was a green cymbidium orchid. I should have stayed that way. Just look at all the followers, I might <\/span>have had.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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<\/span><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
What would a Bleeding Heart say?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\n2. <\/span>Anybody who tweets knows that making a compelling sentence out of 140 characters can be incredibly difficult. Now try adding in a solid beginning, middle and end.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nA number of Twitter accounts have taken up the challenge with great success. @VeryShortStory<\/a> tweets humorous micro-fiction in 140 characters or less. A recent tweet: “Today is special. Getting out of jail. I will not go see Donna. I will not see what shoes she’s wearing. Too much trouble to dig her up.”<\/span><\/div>\n
\nIn 2012, A Visit From the Goon Squad<\/em> author Jennifer Egan posted a short story called “Black Box” on The New Yorker’s<\/em> fiction Twitter feed (@NYerFiction<\/a>), breaking the story down into a series of tweets which were later published in the magazine. @GoodCaptain<\/a> likewise created a novel out of serialized tweets.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nIf poetry is more your thing, check out “The Longest Poem in the World”<\/a>, an epic poem composed of rhyming real-time tweets.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nI think that I have to get on a few of the poetry sites. I’m sure that you can do a Haiku in 140 characters; I’m not sure about Limericks. Then again, Twitter has probably come up with a shortened version – Twimricks, anyone?<\/span><\/div>\n
\n3. <\/span>There are quite a few ways to turn Twitter into an interactive game. In 2010, BuzzFeed<\/em> founder Jonah Peretti (@peretti<\/a>) created a short Choose Your Adventure<\/a> game for Twitter using Bitly<\/a> shortlinks. @Artwiculate<\/a> is a vocabulary game that gives you a word of the day and challenges you to use it in a tweet. The person whose tweet gets the most likes and retweets wins. There are real-time Twitter games forchess<\/a> and Mad Libs<\/a>, too.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nI’m not much of a gamer, unless it’s word games or Freecell, however, I can see where I could spend the rest of my life on Artwiculate. I may have just found a new definition for AA.<\/span><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Go on – just try to figure out what I’m thinking!!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\nThere are 5 other ideas on the list of 8, however, I really like the three that I have mentioned. I am not interested in having my dog send me 1 of 500 preset tweets on and off during the day. It would be a little like those talking dolls that were all the rage a while ago. A rage indeed. They had about 10 preset phrases and after hearing them for the umpteenth time, you just wanted to throttle the damn doll!!<\/span><\/div>\n
\nOn second thought, I might like hearing from my cats \ud83d\ude42 Now I ask you, would a cat ever accept something, as banal as, a preset loop of phrases? C’mon, we’re talking highly sophisticated animal species. Now I could accept a loop of preset phrases as my sending tweets – there’s an idea!!<\/span><\/div>\n
\nAlso, I don’t need to diet by telling everyone what I am eating at the moment – most often for me anyway, it’s crow \ud83d\ude42 I probably do need the reminder app to tell me to do the things that I am supposed to do during the day – meh! why change the habits of a <\/span>lifetime. You’re on your own for the others.<\/div>\n
\nHave a wonderful day<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just when you think that you have seen everything, along comes a concept that reminds you that you have only just scratched the surface. This realization, in turn, reminds you of how finite you really are and how infinitely small your brain really is, sigh!! I have been resisting Twitter. Well, I’m “on” Twitter and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6242,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8680,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8678\/revisions\/8680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}