It's been a couple of weeks since the flooding in Cockermouth hit the
news headlines, so here is my picture update on the damage caused, and
ongoing repair and clean-up work in the Market Place and Main Street
areas that were so badly hit...
As you've no doubt heard on the news, Cockermouth has been hit by flooding...
So I've went and grabbed a few snaps where I could, and I'd likeEarlier on, or maybe last night... but pretty darn recently at any rate, there was a small trending topic on Twitter. It centred around the tags 'No God' and 'Know God'. You may even have seen or participated in this little discussion. I'm not going to bore you with the details of what was going on, mainly because I don't really care.
However, at around the same time, I read several 'My dog's got no nose...' type jokes, and had an idea for one of my own...
I duly tweeted this gem into the Twitterverse, whereupon, it was apparently completely missed by everyone... and that's a shame because it really tickled me...
http://bit.ly/u1FBn Do you see this link? This will take you directly to this forgotten nugget of comedy gold... and if that doesn't work, here it is typed out by my own fair hand...
My God has no-no's...
How does He smell?
He doesn't, He's just very judgemental....
Was it really worth the effort of me posting a whole new blog update, just to get you to read my gag? Almost certainly not... But so what? I liked it, you lot can make your own minds up whether you like it or not, and the World will continue on it's way as it has for many a year...
I'd also like to add that only one person has made a proper contribution to my previous post...
Come on people!!! Halloween party music is important too...
Late last night, I was doing a little thinking...
It's two weeks until Halloween is upon us once again, and in between all the rampant pumpkin destruction, sugar consumption, belly aches, drunkenness and diabolical Bela Lugosi impressions... what music will people be listening to?
That's when I decided to try and come up with a play list for my own imaginary Halloween party. The tunes I've selected aren't in any particular order, but they are all tunes that I have heard and liked, and have a certain 'something' about them that fits in with the spirit of the occasion. A lot of them are probably pretty obvious, others less so... but what the heck!?
My Halloween Music Extravaganza
Spellbound - Siouxsie & The Banshees
The Torture Never Stops - Frank Zappa
Angel Of Death - Slayer
Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Voodoo People - The Prodigy
Miss Lucifer - Primal Scream
Goblin Girl - Frank Zappa
Number Of The Beast - Iron Maiden
Nasty - The Damned
Riders On The Storm - The Doors
Welcome To My Nightmare - Alice Cooper
Creeping Death - Metallica
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Murderer - Helloween
The Four Horsemen - Aphrodite's Child
Big Black Witchcraft Rock - The Cramps
Haunted - Disturbed
Shadowplay - Joy Division
Scarecrow - Ministry
Paint It Black - Rolling Stones
We Who Are Not As Others - Sepultura
Black Illusion - Ozzy Osborne
Sold My Soul - Nazareth
Welcome Home (Sanitarium) - Metallica
Fixit Girl - Chris Morris (Not a song, but still a very creepy piece of audio from the creator of Blue Jam)
Those of you who have got this far, will probably now be thinking stuff like, "He's forgotten about (songname)... the fool!"
Well, I haven't... I'm asking you to make further good Halloweeny suggestions in the comments section... 8-) BUT, I do have two rules about that
1) No "Anything by (bandname)..." type suggestions. I want you to actually THINK about this.
2) You may NOT suggest Thriller by Michael Jackson, because it's just a massive cliché.
So dear readers, I urge you to have a good old root about in the back of your m inds and your music collections for other stuff we can put on this list, stuff that will keep all your Halloweens good and ghostly...
I'll try and remember to post responses to some of the more intriguing suggestions that come through before October 31st, and you can have a read of those on Halloween night.
After today, you probably won't hear from me for a wee while... Don't worry! It's nothing traumatic or life threatening... I'm just skint.
A total lack of cash is a pain in the arse. Can't afford to go out, or to buy new things, or to travel... my only escape for several months now has been coming onto the internet and intergrating with people on Twitter. And now, even this least expensive of options is going to close to me... for a while at least.
Depression makes it difficult to cope with what are relatively everyday situations for most people. Talking on the phone is a particular bugbear. Loathe it with a passion. Anyway, I've now got to take the bull by the horns, use the telephone, and try to get a bit of assistance from whichever bureaucractic nightmare is running the show this week. I'm not confident of a speedy outcome, having dealt with these people in the past...
How will I cope? No idea as yet... though it should be interesting. I've recently finished my initial course of medication and counselling, and so far I haven't cracked up again. 8-) How well will I deal with being passed from department to department, jumping through hoops and filling out interminable forms now that I no longer have those to fall back on?
Anyhoo, it'll be a couple or three weeks or so before I can answer that fully.
Fingers crossed.....
There's a small chance that people will ask where I have been for the last few days, and if they do, I'm sending them here...
It's been a fairly hectic few days, lots of relatives in town for a visit, and impromptu big ol' family get together. Actually, that's pretty much it... no-one got stupidly drunk and started a fight, or injured themselves in a humourous fashion... but it was very busy with bodies to-ing and fro-ing, and trying to keep about ten different conversations going at once, and not standing on the accumulation of small children and animals also present.
To be honest I didn't do a great deal myself, but it was still somehow very stressful, and physically and mentally exhausting.
Family is great, but when everybody turns up at once like this, it's impossible not to feel utterly drained after everyone has gone home again... and if there's a chance of doing it again before too long, we will...
I'd write more, but frankly, I'm too tired to properly process all the thoughts I have swirling about in my head... it was fun though! 8-)
Despite my best intentions, I have crumbled and opened another acount with Twitter.
I can also now be found under the soubriquet @sickkid_pt2
I didn't want to do it, but I found that I just couldn't stay away from my tweeps, that's how more-ish they are...
Inevitably, I've missed a few off the list, but that's not intentional... and I'm sorry if that includes you...
My biggest worry right now, is that because I've followed a lot of people and sent them pretty similar tweets regarding my re-appearance, Twitter will decide that that means I'm being a spammer, and suspend me again while they investigate...
These are the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that blah, blah, blah, blah... etc.
Thanks to my true tweeps and facebook friends who have kept me from despairing these last few days... you know who you are... and I think you're wonderful because of your support... I am in your debt...
After my initial panic over being suspended by Twitter, my mind turned to other thoughts, specifically, "Did other people notice anything odd about my tweets, that might be construed as 'offensive', 'spammy' or worthy of suspension?"
I had to find out....
So off I went to Facebook, in order to ask those who are also my fellow tweeple, if they had seen anything unusual lately... all the answers I've received so far, say that they have seen nothing untoward in my tweets... >phew!<
So what have Twitter seen that no-one else appears to have spotted? Something in my usage pattern that is usually indicative of a spammer perhaps? Have I unwittingly posted a link to a site compromised by malware? I hope not.
I genuinely had no idea what it could be... then a thought struck me... hashtags.
A couple of weeks ago I joined in with the #welovetheNHS campaign that some of you will have heard of. During this time I added the twibbon to my avatar, posted several supportive tweets, posted several links to news sources that gave unbiased opinion on the story and took issue with several of the more ridiculous opinions and news stories on offer.
I seriously began to wonder if the anti-NHS tweeters had been organising and blocking campaign against me, and perhaps others who've shown their support to #welovetheNHS. Could it be a case of sour grapes? A revenge, of sorts, for daring to hold an opinion contrary to their own?
In all likelihood, probably not... my ego isn't so fragile as to believe that everything that happens is a personal attack on myself.
I'll be submitting another request to Twitter for further information before long, and hope to get a slightly more enlightening response.
In the mean time, I've opened up the comments section so that anyone can leave a thought or two if they wish. Has this happened to you? Did you get an answer? Were you happy with the outcome? I'd like to know if I can expect a swift decision on this matter... because a minimum of 30 days suspension (for a thorough investigation) is going to be very challenging... I really like being part of the Twitterverse.
Very early this morning I received this e-mail :
"Hi, TrueTwit user!
Something just happened and we are unable to authenticate your account
with Twitter. We want to help resolve the issue so that you can be
active again! Here are a few possible reasons why it is not working: You may have revoked access to TrueTwit in Twitter. Log into Twitter,
click on settings, click the connections tab and make sure TrueTwit is
allowed access. If not, contact us at our Twitter support profile.
Your account may have been suspended. Strange, but it does happen
sometimes. Solution: log into Twitter and make sure everything is
working right.
If we find anything else, we'll let you know."
So off I went to Twitter to see what the heck was happening. I got
quite a shock... a banner with a big red exclamation point telling my
account has been suspended and inviting me to challenge this decision
if I didn't agree with it... I didn't agree with it and followed the
instructions to appeal the decision.
I then received, a short while later, this e-mail :
"Hi there, sickkid1972! This is an automated response to share reasons why Twitter suspends
accounts for spam/abuse investigation. Please visit your own profile page to make sure you're actually
suspended and not viewing another person's suspended profile page--
many people think they are suspended when they aren't. You'll know
you're suspended if you log in and see a red notice announcing your
suspension on your account. If you're reporting spam, we thank you! Please report spam in the
future by following @spam and sending us a direct message, and by
blocking the spam accounts you come across, as we closely monitor
blocked accounts. Twitter suspends accounts for Terms of Service violations or spam
investigation. Please review our policies for more detailed
information:
http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries If you are suspended, it's most likely for one or more of these reasons:: User Abuse
* a large number of people block the profile or write in with spam complaints
* aggressive following
* imbalanced ratio: the number of followers is small compared to
number of people following
* misuse of the reply feature
* updates consist of duplicate links and/or text
* updates consist mainly of links and not personal updates
* updates consist of updates poached from others' timelines, passed
off as one's own Technical Abuse
* updates consist of links pointing to phishing sites, malware, or
other harmful material
* a large number of accounts is created in a short amount of time
* an account is identified as belonging to a spam cluster When this happens, we suspend the account for investigation and hide
the contents from the public view in order to remove the cause of
complaint. It's important to us that the Twitter community receives only the
content they'd like to receive. While we do welcome feed-based
accounts, we discourage aggressive following and other tactics that
will alarm people. If you feel you've been suspended in error, please reply to this email
with a short explanation if you haven't already, and don't forget to
include your user name. We'll be in touch with more information soon. Thanks for your understanding in this matter, Twitter Support"
I re-read this several times to digest the information...
The line "If you are suspended, it's most likely for one or more of
these reasons::" stuck with me. I began to worry about what it was
that I had been doing and saying...
"User Abuse
* a large number of people block the profile or write in with spam
complaints" ~ Could people have been blocking me? I suppose so. As for
spam complaints, I'm sure I haven't been doing anything that would be
considered "spammy".
"* aggressive following" ~ Again, I'm sure I haven't done this to
anyone, but... what if I have? What is considered aggressive
following?
"* imbalanced ratio: the number of followers is small compared to
number of people following" ~ Definitely not this one...
"* misuse of the reply feature" ~ Not sure what qualifies as misuse in
this case, but I don't think that I've been misusing my ability to
reply to tweets.
"* updates consist of duplicate links and/or text" ~ Maybe this, as I
did, in fact, post a link to my blog a couple of times the other day.
Although it's not like I make a habit of repeating myself in such a
fashion...
"* updates consist mainly of links and not personal updates" ~ Can't
be this. By far, the great majority of my tweets are personal updates
and responses to my followers. I have posted links in my timeline, but
by no stretch of the imagination does it consist mainly of these
links.
"* updates consist of updates poached from others' timelines, passed
off as one's own" ~ I do not do this. I always give credit in my RT's
and don't like it when people do not credit properly in theirs. The
occasional miss is inevitable, I suppose, and can be forgiven, but
this term implies that it is done somewhat maliciously, and that is
definitely NOT what I'm all about.
"Technical Abuse
* updates consist of links pointing to phishing sites, malware, or
other harmful material" ~ I'm certain I haven't done this, and if I
have, then it was most certainly not done maliciously or with any kind
of mischief aforethought. Indeed, I would be a victim myself if I
had...
"* a large number of accounts is created in a short amount of time" ~
Definitely not this one, I only have a single account.
"* an account is identified as belonging to a spam cluster" ~ I don't
see how this can be the case, unless I've been hacked, and someone is
tweeting in my name when I'm not active.
It's only been a few hours since this action came to light and I trust
Twitter to discover the truth of the matter. I just hope they can tell
me what's happening soon, because I would really like to know...
Until then, I shall just have to wait and wonder...
OK, so it sounds a bit lame and corny, but it's true. It's also
something I'd forgotten until fairly recently.
