T w e n t y S i d e d
This is a real thing that happened just right now:
I wake up, stagger to my office, and flop down in my chair the way I do every morning. (Yes. I’m sleeping way in. Blah blah not feeling well lately.) Looks like my wife is out running errands.
Notice I forgot to post that Carol of the Bell post, which was supposed to go up this morning. Oops. I hit post on that. Check email: Nothing. Comments on my website: A few. Twitter: Ah. Here’s one from my wife from a few hours ago. Says our new couch arrived.
I lean forward in my chair and look out to the living room. Sure enough. There it is. Hm. Not bad.
So, I just learned via Twitter that there was new furniture in the very next room.
EDIT: Did you know that “Shamus” is slang for “detective”?
A Star is Born
Remember the superhero MMO from 2009? Neither does anyone else. It was dumb. So dumb I was compelled to write this.
Best. Plot Twist. Ever.
Few people remember BioWare's Jade Empire, but it had a unique setting and a really well-executed plot twist.
Fable II
The plot of this game isn't just dumb, it's actively hostile to the player. This game hates you and thinks you are stupid.
Could Have Been Great
Here are four games that could have been much better with just a little more work.
Playstation 3
What was the problem with the Playstation 3 hardware and why did Sony build it that way?
Y’know, four years ago she would’ve sent you a text message, ten years ago she probably would’ve used an landline phone, and thirty years ago (yes, I know you’re not that old, but bear with me :)) she would’ve just told you in person upon returning to the hours and the effect would’ve been exactly the same.
I mean, it’s just generic “a guy spends his morning without noticing a new addition to the house and has to be told about it” story.
But still, it’s an interesting story :)
I know this probably isn’t really the “appropriate” reaction, but that was the coolest thing I’ve heard/read all day…
That’s pretty impressive, Shamus. A few years ago it took my husband a whole weekend (2+ days!) to notice I’d gotten my hair cut. Now he’s on Facebook, so he knows when stuff like haircuts happen. Never mind that we live in the same house.
Ha ha ha! There is absolutely no question that you have a Y chromosome, Shamus.
I actually nicknamed my Husband Unit(TM) Captain Oblivious.
I could move the entire living room out into the back yard and it would take him a week to notice.
Leslee
PS Hope you get to feeling better quick.
I’m not laughing at you, man, I’m laughing… in your general direction, admittedly.
It’s a rueful sort of laugh, however, for I am indeed one of the most oblivious people any of my friends know. Le sigh.
I can one-up you on the getting out of bed… I woke up on the guest bed in my room this morning. I am completely sure that I was on my own bed when I went to sleep.
Before I only woke up turned completely around on my bed, still weird when your baring is completely off.
And yeah, I can see that also happening to me, no twitter account for me though.
Clever post title. I wish my husband read twitter. Sometimes it is nice to deliver certain information a little indirectly.
ROFL! Okay, that’s hysterical. :D
And yes, I knew that. But then, I’m female and read a lot of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden as a kid. :)
Angie
Back when I was a teenager and lived with my parents it took me about a week to realise they’d repainted my bedroom while I was away for a weekend, I didn’t know if it was worth bringing up when I realised or if I should have ignored it and pretended I’d realised and just admit I really cared more about the fact that they’d done it without telling me than actually about the fact they did it.
It’s alright Shamus, It took me a whole day to realize that the rotting hunk of a hot-tub was removed from my backyard. And when i did look at the spot where it usually was the first time. I just thought. Why did all the grass die?
Yeah, speaking of which, how do you pronounce your first name?
Shey-mus?
Sha-mus?
Karl?
midget0nstilts: Shay-mus. Rhymes with “famous”.
Eh. No worries. The hubs and I communicate more via Facebook, IM, blog comments, and e-mail than face to face. This occurs from adjacent rooms. We’ve been known to hold long conversations and even holiday planning sessions via IM from about 20 feet apart. He frequently gets news updates about the children, pets, and house via Facebook/Twitter.
Pretty much what I thought. Thanks.
Have a happy Christmas!
Give the man some slack! He just woke up!
It takes me at least 1h30 before my brains starts. 1h00 if I have coffee…
Way back in college, when I lived in a crappy off-campus duplex, I went to the gym. Came back. That’s odd… I thought I locked the door. Made a protein shake. Took a sip while grabbing the remote. Hit the remote, and turn to look at…
The blank spot in the corner where the TV used to be. Invective! We’d been robbed. Pulse rate hits the ceiling as I scramble for something vaguely weapon-like and check the rest of the house.
In my defense, the only visible items they stole were a 19″ TV, a VCR, and a boombox. And they forgot the remotes for all three. (Stupid criminals.)
Leslee @ #4:
I must have a very selective Y gene. I’ve never noticed when (any)= Woman In My Life gets a hair cut, but I have (multiple times) quipped “new haircut? looks nice” to female friends and aquantances and they almost invariably answer “my boyfriend/fiance/husband hasn’t noticed all weekend and it took you all of 15 seconds!”
But, I guess, we’re odd that way.
Apropos of nothing, any reason you didn’t mention the TF2 free weekend/update a week ago?
You canceled the d20 TF2 servers, since they were sparsely administered, and thus empty most of the time, but ignoring the free weekend seems a curious decision to a
bitter partisaninterested fan like me.Not sure if this was intentional or not, but I just noticed that you referred to yourself as a “twit,” which conveniently fits into “TWITter”.
Is this an interesting coincidence or am I just embarrassing myself?
Yeah, the “twit” thing as in “itiot” and “TWITer” was just me trying too hard to be funny.
To your edit Shamus:
I heard also u are now the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
Wow:
Husband.
Blogger
Nerd
Superhero
Wrestling champion AND
Detective?
You are really famous!
@bbot
Most of the old d20 people moved to the Chocolate hammer server.
Off topic, but with the Blizzard we had this week I kept getting the urge to say “This is no ordinary storm”.
So good job.
This completely and totally made my day. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who does stuff like this. Thank you Shamus!
My grandparents got a new sofa once, it took my grandfather a full two WEEKS to notice it! It wasn’t even a replacement but a curvy light blue thing visible from three rooms.
I think I’ll just stay young forever…
Curious note: Erle Stanley Gardner noted that the use of the word “shamus” to mean detective can be laid at the door of Dashiell Hammett, who often had ne’er-do-well characters refer to his detectives pejoratively as a “shamus.” Gardner tried to track down the etymology and found
it actually meant a guy who’s a phoney. I’ve also read that it means “dunce.” Which is not consolation in this instance, but possibly applicable. :)
I remember a game called “shamus” on the C64:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamus_(computer_game).
I once forgot to leave enough food for my cat, when I was out for the weekend. Fortunately, I also forgot to throw out the garbage and close the toilet door…
This reminds me of a Numb3rs episode I saw recently (Numb3rs is a FBI Show, basically). These two agents are talking, one trying to convince his partner to join twitter so that he can “tweet” him and organize meetups after work. His partner is like “no, man, just call me, besides, I like that word… you “tweeting” me? that’s just weird.”
Shamus:
* private detective: someone who can be employed as a detective to collect information
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
* Séamus is a male first name of Celtic origin, “SHAY-mus” in English. It is the male variant of the female first name Samus. It is the Gaelic equivalent of the name James, ultimately from the Hebrew יַעֲקֹב YaÊ¿aqov. Many people refer to it as the most popular Irish name on the record.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamus_(name)
* Shamus is a computer game written by William Mataga and published by Synapse Software. Originally developed for the Atari 8-bit computer system in 1982, it was later ported to a number of platforms including the VIC-20, Commodore 64, TRS-80 Color Computer, TI-99/4A, IBM PC and Nintendo Game Boy …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamus_(computer_game)
* Shamus is a 1973 American film starring Burt Reynolds and Dyan Cannon. Reynolds stars as Shamus McCoy, a hard-drinking New York private detective …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamus_(film)
Sadly the Chocolate Hammer TF2 server has a way worse connection to europe, it seems. Means I play more with strangers and less with the d20 crowd. :(
I tend to be pretty sharp about noticing when things have been moved out of place or when something’s been changed, but for some baffling reason, I can NEVER tell when a woman’s had her hair done unless it was something really drastic, like going from long to short, or wavy when it used to be straight, bright blue when it used to be brown etc.
Regarding Shamus, from Irish Seamus (proper name), contrast shamus (American slang for detective), from misapplication of Yiddisch shamus (phoney) “” regarding that.
I wonder why the haberdasher told Denton that it was used for a phoney? To my knowledge, the far more common meaning of shamus/shames/sjammes is ‘helper, servant, assistant’, especially in the senses of (1) the caretaker of a synagogue, possibly the rabbi’s assistant, and (2) the off-set candle of a menorah, the one used to light the others. (Shamash in Hebrew, but shamus in Yiddish.) Perhaps it was used for a phoney as in ‘he may be posing, but is of low position, really’?
I must point out how helpful your wife is by providing a tweet.
At my house, the wife would stomp around with a mischievous grin for hours, and when she finally couldn’t stand it anymore would ask: “Don’t you notice anything different?”
Me (looking around in panic): “You got a haircut?”
Her (slight frown): “No.”
Me: “Dogs got baths?”
Her (more frown): “No.”
Me: “You shaved the cat.”
Her (severe frown): “No.”
Me (contemplating relocation to Antarctica, what to match the local temperature): “Er … you had all the furniture replaced by exact duplicates?”
Her (eyes now firing laser beams): “We got the new couch delivered.”
Me: “Oh. Where is it?”
Her: “You’re sitting on it!”
Me: “Do you remeber where I put my parka?”
I went home one weekend when I was in college and went to a pizza place with my parents. We were killing time waiting for the pizza by doing lame “magic tricks” with the salt shakers and sugar packets. Then my father put his hand over his face and said “I’m going to make my mustache disappear!”
Sure enough, when he took his hand away, the mustache he’d had for 5 years was gone.
So it’s not just men who sometimes fail to miss this stuff!
What’s it say about me (or modern culture) where I didn’t even realize that Twit could have meant anything besides Twitter?
Am I the only guy who notices these things, but intentionally doesn’t mention them? Unless it’s something important, I say nothing so that when she asks if I notice anything different, I can offhandedly mention what it is without looking away from whatever it is I’m doing (usually writing and/or practicing my music) and smile when she pouts at not having caught me missing something. Of course, my girlfriend is much the same way; neither of us really mention physical things. I could get a tattoo on my face, and it probably wouldn’t elicit any more than a curious glance or two. As soon as I mention anything intellectual, and we can’t get each other to shut up. All in all, I like the way it works out.
> What's it say about me (or modern culture) where I didn't even realize that Twit could have meant anything besides Twitter?
What does it say about me (or my opinion of modern “culture”) that I didn’t realize the “twit” in Twitter could have meant anything except “idiot”? :)
But, then, I do think it’s kinda weird that everyone goes nuts every time they pare down a technology and put a new name on it.
“Hey, here’s these nice forums where people can come together and chat without having to be present at the same time.”
“Okay, we limited the ‘start a new topic’ feature to the forum’s administrator, and removed most of the good editing, threading, and searching functions, blew away preferences and organization… but everyone loves it because instead of calling it “crippled forums” we call it BLOGS!”
“Okay, blogs were still too complicated what with all those threaded replies, images to look at, and screens full of text to read. So we’ll cut them back to 140 characters and remove all the reply features. We need a name – something that really ironically commemorates the fact that people keep celebrating the removal of features over time. Something that rubs everyone’s noses in what twits they are being… oh! OH!”
Ha! That is hilarious! I would totally do something just like that if given half a chance :D
*cracks up*
Oh my, that’s great. =D