I came across this article in the New York Times last night and thought it was the best pro-Twitter article I've read yet. I have to admit that for me personally, it has been difficult to embrace Twitter and find meaningful ways to use it. However, I think I do understand the utility and disutility it can provide.

A lot of people I know who are not super internet savvy will quickly dismiss Twitter as a fad. More often than not they say something like "it's just a useless stream of personal anecdotes that I don't care about at all". This is true for many Tweets, such as "Walking the dog!", but not all of them. Like any form of electronic communication, Twitter has signal and noise. I think Twitter can be likened to an FM signal, and users/aggregators are like tuners, able to pull the proper channels of interest.

I think that even though I have not personally added much signal strength to Twitter, I am nontheless excited about what it has to offer. There is no doubt that Twitter can provide useful and timely information in a way that's never been done before. Next time you see hundreds of cops in your neighborhood, or there's a forest fire coming your way, just search Twitter and maybe you'll find out what's happining. I think after this I'm going to follow some cool people, and maybe the Korean BBQ truck around here that everyone talks about: @KogiBBQ.

I'm off to Belize and I thought it would be cool to keep a travel log right here on the emoticon! Stayed tuned for continuous updates and hopefully some pics (pending the internet situation).

I'm not 100% sure of the itinerary, but I'll be staying with my girlfriend's family on Ambergris Caye from 7/11 to 7/18. Should hopefully be doing some snorkeling/diving at some point and otherwise exploring what looks like a ridiculously beautiful tropical paradise.

7/10
Just finished packing. Should be arriving in Belize around 3pm tomorrow. Apparently Belize is on mountain time right now, so it's an hour later than the west coast. Brought a ton of slide film and the Nikon, otherwise packing light. Stayed tuned!

7/11

The flight was pretty smooth, arrived at BZE and took a cab to the ferry terminal. Belize City is a blast from the past, it looked like pictures I've seen of old Havana. The ferry was to take us to San Pedro, which is the one and only city on Ambergris Caye. It was more of a glorified speedboat, and it was an incredibly rough and crowded one-hour trip. Apparently we hit "rush hour" where everyone (tourists and locals) were heading back to the caye. But I guess I'd rather be on a crowded boat here than the 405 though. The waters are beautiful. When we arrived our guide said that everyone who comes on the boat leaves on a plane. We probably won't be exceptions.

That being said the trip was worth it. Ambergris Caye is a quintessential island paradise. And the fact that it was a bit tough to get to makes it all the more appealing to be on it. Right now we are in the midst of severe afternoon thunderstorms, but I will post pics tomorrow hopefully.

7/23
Ok so I failed at my planned updates. In fact I've been home for most of a week and I haven't even capped this post off. The problem with being on a tropical island paradise is that the internet is really slow, and you don't want to do anything except chill. In condensed form, the rest of the trip went something like this: swim, eat, snorkel, eat, scuba, eat, swim, eat, scuba, eat, sail, eat, smoke cuban cigar, eat, head home. It was one of the best trips of my life...

I promise I will provide more next time!

So my buddy sent me an interesting article today from Variety. Apparently the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that from now on there will be not five, but ten nominees for Best Picture. The explanation is as follows:

Having 10 best picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize.

At first I was feeling pretty cynical about this. I think that in the last five years or so there have been quite a few Best Picture nominees that were undeserving. Take the 76th and 77th Academy Awards for example. I also thought that maybe this is a marketing ploy. More movies will soon be able to stamp "X Oscar Nominations" or "Nominated for Best Picture" on their covers at the video store and the Academy could build even more hype for the show.

Looking at the last two years, however, I started to change my mind a little. The last two Academy Awards (79th and 80th) both had a pretty robust lineup of nominees, and frankly one could probably think of a few more that could have easily been added each year (given that they were both really good years), right? Into the Wild and Children of Men came to my mind immediately. I did some research at http://www.imdb.com/list to confirm this, but I did not find what I was looking for. I actually only came up with one additional pick for the Best Picture nominees for each of the last two years.

So now I've come full circle and am back to my original feeling about this. I just don't think there are on average anywhere close to ten films per year that are worthy of Best Picture. So it's looking more like a marking ploy to me. What do you think?

UPDATE (6/25): on NPR's Marketplace, Kai Ryssdal called this "a smart Hollywood stimulus package." He put it better than I did...

Isn't this the greatest blog you've ever seen??

Today I was at lunch with some coworkers. In case you didn't know I work at an internet company, so the whole crew is pretty into things like the iPhone. One guy was saying that he was going down to the Sprint store to see about getting the new Palm Pre. Suddenly I found myself vehemently defending the iPhone 3GS as a better choice, even though I've never actually seen or held one.

iPhone-induced craziness can strike any Mac fan at any time. The only cure is to educate yourself more- so that you can back up your claims with empirical evidence. That's why I'm about to order my iPhone 3GS online. Am I sick?