babbling blue

I reluctantly admit it, Twitter is good for something. I was having gmail problems and wanted to find out if it was localized or if gmail was–as it appeared–down. I searched “gmail is down” (in google, of course) and the top result said “Is gmail down? Ask Twitter!”

Huh…well yeah I guess that’s good advice, thought I. So I went to Twitter.com only to be told that Twitter was busy, as there were too many tweets! Uh oh! Internet meltdown! But I hit refresh about 30 seconds later and I was able to search for “gmail”. I was greeted with a great many tweets indicating that gmail was down. Shortly thereafter a nifty Web 2.0-y notice appeared on the page telling me that there were 633 new results matching my query since I searched…and this was in less than a minute. That’s pretty impressive.

So yeah, gmail is down. And Twitter–a site I don’t really give a damn about–is good for telling me that gmail–a site I’m glued to all day–is down. Thanks for the tweets!

If you use gmail (if not, why not?) and Firefox 3 (If you use Firefox, you should upgrade. If you use IE you should use Firefox! Why, because I freakin’ said so! Plus, it’s better.) you can set up Firefox so that mailto: links will open in Gmail, rather than Outlook Express or whatever stupid email client you probably don’t use.

To see how, go to this post on the Gmail Blog. It’s easy!

I’ve been rather derelict in my blogging duties, but at least I’ve kept true to my word in not posting when I don’t have something to say. This will be a post of brief mini-updates just to keep all 2-3 of your readers apprised of the exciting goings on in my life!

First, how do I love gmail? Let me count the ways… No there are too many. But in addition to the constantly growing mailbox size limit (I’m using 6% and I have “thousands” of emails), they keep adding cool new shit. For one, I think the new color tagging is nifty. But it is nothing compared to the ability to sign on to AIM through gmail! How cool is that. For those of us “secured” behind overzealous corporate firewalls during much of our day, gmail’s chat can be our only communication with the outside world. . . and link to sanity. But I didn’t know many people who used gtalk/gmail chat. However, that’s rather moot now since I can chat on AIM right in the gmail web client, firewalls be damned. Thanks, Google.

Second, we got our second real snow of the season last night. It was pretty but a minor pain to trudge through this morning before many sidewalks were shoveled. I’m sure I’ll be tired of the snow in . . . 8 minutes.

Third, I went to Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico over the Thanksgiving holiday. My Thanksgiving dinner was fajitas, and much of the day was spent at the pool or beach. I had a freakin’ blast! I love it there. All I have to say is: Pinga, pinga, pinga!

Finally, I knew it was only a matter of time before I did it. Yesterday I was trying to call my cell phone from my desk phone so I could check my voicemail (terrible cell reception in this high rise) and I dialed 911 by mistake. As soon as I saw the number on my display I hung up, thinking I had been fast enough and the call hadn’t gone through yet. But I was mistaken. The 911 Center called me back immediately, and I sheepishly told the operator it was a mis-dial. At least she seemed friendly.