the twitter revolution

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[endif]So I have this friend Robert Phan. Met him in 2001 through a friend of a friend of a friend. My then-girlfriend's dormmate had a crush on him, so she'd go outta her way to organize these double date dinners. The would-be pairing never developed so that was that. Rob and I were not close but kept contact here and there. I’ll always owe him for burning me Wrestlemania X8 (The Rock vs Hulk Hogan) on DVD and leaking me Weezer’s Maladroit weeks before it hit the shelves.

In the past year he's gotten a girlfriend, moved out of LA, picked up photography and started a new career working with tech gadgets. I know all this despite not having seen him or spoken to him in person in over five years. Our friendship is strictly on cyberspace and it's not intentional. We don't send each other private messages, nor do I check his wall with a purpose. Instead we’re aware of each others lives because our stuff just kinda pops up here and there via feeds and updates. Our lives never cross but merely pass by each other on the web, and we keep in touch this way without actually being in each others lives.

But that works perfectly fine for two American guys like us. I’ve said this before—guys don’t just call each other up to catch up. Maybe we do it with a best friend or a brother, but that’s it. Exchanging emails is pointless cause we have nothing real to say each other—we’re not a part of each others lives, and making “how are you doing what have you been up to” small talk is meaningless. Instead, we crack one liner comments to each other on Twitter. He’ll comment on a facebook photo of mine, I’ll comment on his status. We’ve learned more about each other from not-trying over the net than the whole awkward “let’s sit down and have dinner with two other girls” thing.

Twitter is just changing the way relations and interactions work. Right now, all the online movie websites such as JoBlo, Screenrant, and LatinoReview are at comic-con, and through tweets, they’re essentially doing a live commentary of the event. I just found out Gary Oldman said Batman 3 could start shooting by next year. Oldman said it, Screenrant dude tweeted it. In a few hours, NY Times, LA Times and other major publications will have a comic con wrap up. But half the gossip and the buzz would have been old news on Twitter by then. I may pick up a SCMP tomorrow and read in the life section that Gary Oldman said Batman 3 starts shooting in 2010. I may read about this in Empire next month. I'll yawn because I knew this 180 seconds after Oldman said it.Running commentary is becoming an essential way to cover events for media and a go-to method of mass communication for geeks. Through twitter, I'm following Comic Con and Fuji Rock as it's happening. I see pictures of everyone in raincoats and bucket hats in Japan. I see pictures of the freaks and geeks (not James Franco, but real freaks and geeks) at San Diego. I know Twilight fans were harassed and booed by other geeks in San Diego, and as the tweets started flowing in during Weezer's set, I realized that it was the greatest Weezer setlist in the history of Weezer. They pulled out all the punches: covered MJ, Gaga, White Stripes, Blur. Played the Japanese National Anthem and played every hit single.I can picture in a few years when mobile internet become more accessible/common, live commentary will take on a grander scale. It'll be interesting to see tweets during one of those monumental sports moments; I wish twitter was around in the 90s so I could've see/read/feel/experience the heartbreak and agony of Utah and New York fans when Jordan stuck a knife in their heart--as it was happening. I want to watch a transcendent movie (think The Matrix, Pulp Fiction or Ten Things I Hate About You hahaha) on opening night and see tweets that follow from film buffs all around the country. Or actually, it'd be funner to experience a laughably bad movie and have running jokes/cracks on the film as it's happening. This would have happened at the screening of Aaron Kwok's Murderer If we all had an iphone and twitter. The jokes would have started coming through as the movie was going on.I just found out the first track off Jay Z’s upcoming album (The BLUEPRINT 3) has been leaked online. I know this because Jay Z is a "trending topic" on Twitter and one click on the section brings me to tweets with download links to the track. I’m listening to it now: Rihanna nearly ruins it but Kanye saves it with an sick flow over mid-track tempo change (a la Radiohead) that outdoes Hova's. I’m disappointed by the track overall but excited at this new form of discovering what’s been buzzing around the web.

NBA player Kevin Love became the first professional athlete to break a national news story last month when he casually tweeted that his former coach Kevin McHale wouldn’t be returning to work next year. Within a few hours AP were running stories based off the tweet. Pro athletes gotta now watch out for what they tweet cause it could come back and haunt them.

I’m following Arnold Schwarzenneger on Twitter. I followed him expecting to hear awesome one liners such as “stick around” (said after he impales someone with a knife in Commando) and “he had to split” (a comment he made about someone he cut with a chainsaw in Running Man). But instead, he’s tweeting about the state budget. BOOOO right? His latest tweet is:

“Budget passed. Thanks to the legislature for the hard work last night and today. Plan to sign next week.”

I was disappointed with that tweet at first. But then I had this mental picture of Ah-nold saying that line out loud in front of an exploding warehouse. Now I can’t stop laughing. I’m giddy. I’m grinning.

Twitter is fucking amazing.so our budget's a mess and our crime rates are ridiculous. but we have this man as a governor and a president who wipes dirt off his shoulders and knows ball (even though his proposed health care plan won't work if you do some number crunching). yeah america is awesome.**** *once again, I'd like to admit I was an idiot for bashing twitter and calling it worthless a few months ago. I'll man up to my fuck-ups everytime. Except Transformers 2. Even if Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Robert De Niro, Johnnie To and Scarlett Johansson tell me they think it's a good movie, I'll tell them they wrong.