Online Media Cultist

The more I make use of Twitter, the more it fits into the gaps and obsessions that might be called my work, er, lifestyle.

I’m a big TV fan – I’m far more excited about the spring and summer television season, for instance, than anything that might be coming out in theaters. (Show me movies that can contend with The Sopranos and The Shield and Rescue Me!) Now that my wi-fi troubles seem to be in the rear view mirror (note brilliant foreshadow), I’m partial to having the laptop on my, well, lap as I kick back on the couch and watch TV of an evening.

Twitter plays very nicely into this as I can “mini-blog” away about the shows I’m watching (my Twitter profile can be found here. 140 character maximum messages force you to be short and snappy – it’s a nice welcome challenge as compared to the universal blank page I’m faced with in blog world. For example, right after this week’s episode of The Shield I wrote:

Brilliant ep of The Shield, Damn if CCH Pounder isn’t one of the best actresses on TV. Surprised to see Vic v. Kavanaugh resolved this early

And from Sunday’s Sopranos premiere:

Great sopranos as always. A “small” ep that reintroduces the themes surrounding Tony, post-shooting. Slightly slower, thinking about future

Much as I would love to, I can’t cover the entire galaxy of things I’m interested in as a blogger. Twitter is a great tool to mind the gap, as the London tube tells us.

Because of my great affection for both Twitter and TV, I was very interested to see – thanks to BloggersBlog I believe (a great resource for all things Twitter) – that Drive executive producer Greg Yaitanes not only is on Twitter, but will be posting live Twitter updates during Sunday night’s two-hour series premiere on Fox.

Twittering from live events is a surface that is just getting scratched, and getting the live reaction and (short!) thoughts from the exec producer of a TV show is an absolutely fabulous idea.

I’m interested in Drive, by the way, for two reasons and two reasons only: Nathan Fillion and Tim Minear.

Fillion is best known as Mal Reynolds of Joss Whedon’s brutally short-lived Firefly and later in the film, Serenity. He can play super serious and downright menacing one moment, and playful and nearly goofy the next. He absolutely anchored Whedon’s cowboys-in-space realm, and brought a quirky charm to the role of a lifetime.

Minear also comes out of the House of Whedon, having written and produced on Angel and later exec produced Firefly. Minear is a brilliant and tragic figure of sorts in my view as he exec produced three screamingly and outrageously promising shows that were axed light years ahead of their time: Firefly, The Inside, and perhaps most heartbreaking of all: Wonderfalls.

Let’s hope that Drive is half as good as those shows, and lasts twice as long. Meanwhile, Twitter on!

I continue to be fascinated by Twitter. While I understand why people don’t get the hoopla (I was in that camp at first), I really think that it has staying power. My own use of Twitter has evolved over the last few weeks, for instance. For a spell I enjoyed “listening in” on short thoughts – there’s a kind of beauty and cleanness to seeing ideas and grand notions boiled down to 140 character max messages – from such blogging luminaries as Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, Steve Rubel, and Jason Calacanis.

More recently though I’ve enjoyed taking an active part in “twittering” as a “mini-blogging” outlet of sorts of my own. Twitter is a great place to get outside the “formal” bounds of blogging to just kind of let your hair down to let thoughts fly in short bursts (you can do this via web, SMS, or IM). I can watch the season premiere of The Shield, for instance, as I did tonight and emit such bits of exuberance into the digital void as: The Shield is as great as ever, getting darker and morally fuzzier all the time. Amazing performances, great cast.

While I have neither the time nor the inclination these days to write full length TV reviews, Twitter lets the wannabe TV critic in me shout out in digital delight, giving me instant gratification while tying in to my everyday activities.

I save some of my favorite Twitter “twits” in my Favorites folder. Here are some fun recent ones:

* Steve Rubel offers a stream of great links throughout the day and bits of web pontification such as: Further, I think Twitter has better monetization options than digg. Most of the digg loyal run ad blockers.

* ray (as literate and funny and interesting a twitterer as they come): Music expresses things about the human experience that cannot be expressed in any other way.

* laughingsquid gets the funny-because-it’s-true-award (I lived in the Bay Area for five years): Fuck North Beach in San Francisco. We made the mistake of parking on the street after 8pm and got towed.

* There are a bunch of fake profiles on Twitter. I haven’t bothered with them for the most part, but I’m fascinated by the one for Xander of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. I’m a huge Buffy fan, so it’s kind of bizarre and funny to read about “Xander’s” trials and tribulations throughout the day at Sunnydale High: I wonder who is playing at the Bronze next weekend. I sure hope Cibo Matto plays there soon.

Man, just mentioning the Bronze gets huge points in my book.

Recent OMC coverage of Twitter:

* Starbucks Takes Over Twittervision? It Must Be April First
* Twitter as Communications Platform
* The Power of Twitter Compels You
* This is the End of the Twitter as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)