Tools of the Trade

Most urban adventurers have a few things they will not leave home without. A pair of comfortable walking shoes. A cellphone with a decent signal. Usually, a variety of keys, at least one of which has a use long forgotten. These are all things that are just a part of the lifestyle. What I want to do instead is direct adventurers to a new tool that is readily available in the urban jungle. What I'm talking about is twitter. While not tangible, this new bit of software is something no adventurer should be caught without.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Spirit, what is this wondrous new invention called twitter?” The answer is quite simple really. Our good friend Wikipedia defines twitter as follows: “Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates, tweets, which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default). Users can send and receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS (receive only), or through applications such as Tweetie, Twitterrific, Twitterfon and Feedalizr. The service is free to use over the web, but using SMS may incur phone services provider fees. “
Now, to the naked eye that just might look like twitter is another form of texting people and, for the most part that definition is correct. Twitter however, fits perfectly into an adventuring lifestyle.

Lets get an example on the board, shall we? Say you feel like seeing a movie or having dinner with some friends. Usually the process involved in getting either to happen will involve several phone calls, text messages and hunting down individuals on aim or facebook. This one little program makes it so that a single text message sent to “40404” is relayed to every one of your followers. So, if you talk all the people you want to see on a regular basis into following, then it really saves quite a bit of work and gives you more time to actually go watch a movie. Several problems do exist however. For one, if you have a limited texting plan chances are twitter is not for you as it can get overwhelming quickly.

There are of course some simple alternatives to using twitter. One answer would be to set up a shortcut on your phone to text all of your friends at once. Another slightly more expensive mobile toy available is chacha. By simply texting a question to 242242 you can get a quick if not snarky answer from one of their live workers! Be careful however, over-using their service may result in some fees that you may or may not want to deal with.

Let us end this post with three ways that twitter can make you a more dapper adventurer, because everyone loves lists.

3.- Time is Money- As mentioned previously twitter can work as a great time saver! Every minute spent not calling someone is a minute that could be spent having an adventure.

2. -All the Cool Kids are Doing it- At the end of the day life is a popularity contest. Twitter allows you to be popular in a wide variety of ways. For one, it gives you a list of the people following you. In this way you can see just how many people are trying their hardest to be involved in your every day life. Secondly it constantly fills your text message box. Whether you want to look like you have a thousand girlfriends hounding you at odd hours of the day or just want more excuses to leave conversations over the course of a day, twitter has you covered. For an added bonus, add a nerdy ringtone to your text alerts. I for one am very partial to the power rangers alert tone.

1.Learn to be a Better Adventurer Through Imitation. You can use twitter to follow a variety of noteworthy adventurers in today's times. The following is just a short list of adventurers I recommend following:

-Jhonen Vasquez- Creator of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. Also Invader Zim, for those in the know.

-Neil Gaiman- I may have mentioned him a few times before. Go read The Sandman, you shall not be disappointed.

-Sohmer- He runs a few things in the webcomic community. I'll just link Looking For Group , you can do your own research from there on.

-Quotable Buffy- Something different. Not so much a person but a random assortment of quotes from a rather interesting show. It's such a shame that I've come to hate the show in my old age.

-Occultclassic - Honestly I follow 11 people so I rolled a D12. The result was 7 and he is the 7th person down my following list. He's an adventurer to the very end and also a talented artist and modeler, why not check him out?

As for my twitter, kibs1. But, really it's not all that interesting to non-adventurers.