Random Insomniac Ramblings

I'm up late (and will probably be up all night since I had major trouble dragging myself out of bed today), so...

• If you haven't seen the links I posted on Twitter and Facebook, check out Jersey Circus -- a hilarious melding of "Jersey Shore" lines with the "Family Circus" comic strip. Here's a sample:

• The weather is heating up again. It's supposed to be in the 90s all week. The humidity isn't supposed to increase until around Wednesday, which may be a problem. I fear my central air system needs maintenance, since the last time I had it on the air blowing from the vents didn't seem very cool at all. Problem with this is I can't afford said maintenance right now. Luckily, we've had a stretch where it's been nice enough that, at worst, I've had to use a fan. This coming week concerns me, though. It's good that summer is almost over, except that means winter's coming, and you know how I hate winter cold.

• I've watched very little of the Eagles exhibition games. I planned to watch the first three quarters of Friday's game at Kansas City, because the next-to-last exhibition game is the one where the starters get the most playing time. In the early games they don't play much; in the final exhibition they may be on for a handful of plays at most. So this is the one game where you can get some sense of where things stand for the upcoming season. Plus, with the game starting at 8 and the Phillies' game in San Diego not starting until 10, it set up the evening perfectly.
  
  Unfortunately, I fell asleep in front of the TV not long after 8 and missed a good chunk of the football. (This explains my off-kilter sleep schedule.) From what I've read, though, the defense seems much improved from last year but the offensive line is something of a mess, which is part of the reason for the struggles by Kevin Kolb and the first-team offense. It will be an interesting season nonetheless. Maybe not a great season, but interesting.

• Speaking of football and interesting, ex-Eagle Shawn Andrews has signed with the Giants and is posting to Twitter for the first time in months. How we've missed entries like this:

• Yes, I am still thinking of the podcast idea I've mentioned. That's another money issue. There's a site that I would use to host it but the plan I figure I would need would cost $15.00 per month. (See above reference to centrail air re: affordability.) So, until I feel comfortable with the expenditure or I had a sponsor (and how cool would that be? "The Joe in Philly Experience: The Podcast! is brought to you by..."), it's on hold for now.

• Coming attractions: I do need to write up this week's comic book purchases. (I ended up with 7 after doing some browsing at things I wasn't expecting to buy.) I haven't seen any movies in over a week. I hope to see one or two this week. Other than that, who knows? Something will inspire me, I'm sure.

I'll leave things there for now. As always, I'd love some feedback on my blog -- some suggestions or some requests or something. Or ask me a question.

Twitter Trending Topics

On Twitter the "Trending Topics" feature -- the list of the most-discussed items on Twitter -- has been a source of amusement and annoyance to me. Amusement because it's interesting to see what subjects are being talked about. Annoyance because made-up "topics" lead to a greater volume of sometimes inane, sometimes stupid posts in my Twitter feed. Example: right now one of the leaders in the United States is #nowthatsghetto -- so there are a series of posts such as:

"yo moms got empty Henny bottles around her bedroom............#nowthatsghetto"
"#nowthatsghetto the fact that I can get my hair gel, toothpaste and a #6 Chinese food combo all from the same quick mart"
"claiming you have celebrity friends when in reality, you're just they're Facebook fan ......#nowthatsghetto."

All of those are actual tweets I found during a search, but at times they'll come up in my feed if someone I'm following decides to run with it. (I'm looking at you, injured Eagles offensive lineman Shawn Andrews!) Sometimes they're clever, but often they're just variations on the same idea and I find it more annoying than anything else.

Anyway, Twitter has tweaked its service so you can set the Trending Topics that show up on your page to a specific location. You can see what's trending worldwide; in the countries of Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, the United Kingdom or the United States; or in one of 15 cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, London, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle, São Paulo and Washington, D.C. Nice to know Philly made the cut, so I thought I'd do a comparison of what's trending here as compared to the hot topics for the USA, Canada and the world. (Some other time I may do a comparison between various cities.)

Worldwide:

* #nowplaying
* Haiti
* iTampon - According to Twitter: "People are making a joke due to unfortunate word associations in the name of Apple's new tablet, the iPad." (No, really?)
* #cbb7 - (No Twitter explanation but if you see the item directly below, you can guess what CBB stands for.)
* Davina - "Davina McCall, host of Celebrity Big Brother (UK), entered the house tonight in disguise."
* Union (for President Obama's State of the Union speech tonight)
* Don’t Ask
* #apple
* Ugly Betty (canceled by ABC, those bastards!)
* Don't Tell

It's not an exact science -- Twitter is separating the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" topic (Obama is reportedly going to call for the anti-gay military policy to be repealed in his speech tonight -- I wonder why this is in the top 10 worldwide but not in the USA?)

United States:

* #itampon
* #ipad
* #nowthatsghetto (See above.)
* Apple iPad
* iBooks
* MaxiPad (See iTampon)
* Union address
* MadTV
* iTablet
* Howard Zinn

Canada:

* #itampon
* Apple iPad
* MadTV
* #Haiti
* Ugly Betty
* Multitasking
* #yeg (Huh?)
* Canadian
* Mass Effect
* Olympics

Philadelphia:

* #itampon
* #applesnextproduct
* #NewAppleProducts
* Apple iPad
* Haiti
* Ugly Betty
* Tyra
* Oprah
* Apple
* Device

Again, probably a Twitter issue that all of the variations on "Apple" are appearing separately instead of as one topic...and how is "device" a topic?