Okay, so iTunes is really starting to get on my nerves.

It was already on my nerves because it seems to be incredibly slow. Even on my new spiffy mega-mondo desktop it feels bloated–it's got that bad-comedian-in-a-fat-suit slowness going on. I was all excited at the prospect of a 64-bit iTunes…but after running it for a while I wondered why it had gotten slow again. Then I discovered that the installer was the only 64-bit part. The regular iTunes was still 32. Now I'm not a technical guy (not anymore–I don't count myself in that particular club) but why in the hell would you want the installer to be 64-bit? The only reason I can come up with is that the 32-bit version wasn't playing nice with a 64-bit OS.

Anyway, so that was annoying.

Now I found today I had somehow turned on a feechur I'd never witnessed before nor desired: that of "album ratings." I have MP3s that I've pulled in from God knows where–a lot of old-time radio files, audiobooks and other things. As a result, I am missing a lot of artist and album titles (which I use this previously mentioned method to go through on the run).

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I really like this video from Mike Rowe, host of the show Dirty Jobs. Apart from this being a sneaky way of getting me to watch his show (because after seeing this I just like the guy in general), it addresses a lot of the stuff I like.

Here, watch the damn thing first so I don't spoil it.

Direct link for the feedreaders.

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I've decided to take on a liberal policy of following people back on Twitter. I look at this way: if you think you want to listen to me go on and on about stuff, then I figure I should return the favor. It's just being nice. However, I don't just blindly follow everyone back. I get requests to Digg and Stumble stuff and generally if I don't think it's something I would honestly Stumble or Digg, then I won't. And if I take a look at somebody's Twitter and don't think I would consider following them if they hadn't followed me first, then I just don't.

So when I look at somebody's Twitter, there are a few things that just shut me down and I won't follow them back. That's not to say if I'm not following you back you're not a lovely person and you probably help feed orphans or kittens or orphaned kittens or something, but you're just not my cup of orphaned kitten tea, if you know what I mean. (Or it could be that I've been getting a lot of followers recently and I missed you in the shuffle–dreadfully sorry about that, if that's the case.) Anyway, a few things to watch out for:

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So I've tried to think of things I've been asked more than once. And one is the title there: everybody and his brother Simon, King of the Witches, has a website or blog or whatnot that they own. Their own domain, their own corner of the Web. Do you need one too?

The answer is honestly probably not. But the main question you need to ask yourself is: what are you trying to accomplish?

Most people just want a place so that they too can be heard. Read. Whatever. If you just feel like blogging about your cat, then perhaps you don't really need your own site. You might be fine with using your Facebook account, or even that old standby LiveJournal or just going and getting a mycatrocksyourface.whatever.com at some place like Wordpress.com.

Seriously. They're free, there's no infrastructure for you to support, and your cat's three fans can read up on its latest adventures and whatever you dressed it in this week.

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Just a brief thing regarding this. For those of you who don't use Twitter, you may find this even more boring than those of us who do. But here goes.

There is a term in Twitter called "retweet" or "RT" for short. It's the only time I try to use the term "tweet," meaning "to post to Twitter," because "tweeting" just sounds…well, pretty goddamn stupid. Basically when you "retweet" you are simply passing along what somebody said. So if I had said "I wish I could get this flathead screwdriver out of my ear" and you RT'ed me, it would look like this

RT @Widgett I wish I could get this flathead screwdriver out of my ear.

This makes perfect sense to me. When you read that, you see "RT" and know that what's being posted isn't original. And then you see "@Widgett" and know, oh, that lunatic Widge said this. And then you read the rest.

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Bill C. sent me this link a few weeks ago and I've meaning to blog about it. Go check it out.

I think he's got some good points there, specifically as to what advertising is when you boil it all away. It's an interruption wanting to sell us one thing when we're in the middle of doing something else. This is true. When you go to Needcoffee, there's a better than average chance you're probably not wanting to see an ad for singles dating service. So there's been a huge mismatch between what might be relevant for you to see vs. what you're actually seeing. I think this happens better online than it does in the real world–in "real life," I would constantly be amazed at the offers I'd receive via snail mail. For example, a special deal on replacing the siding on my house–while I was living in an apartment. It just takes a little bit of checking to know that my address was an apartment at the time–and yet here I was getting mail about an offer I simply could not use.

The internet knows where you are just by your IP, so I'm assuming you're not seeing the same ads I am in some instances. But still, it's not working the way it should. So while I agree with some of the author's ideas in that article, I think the answers are a little simpler and less advertisageddonish.

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A local restaurant we frequent asked its frequent fliers if they should get involved with Twitter. And I hear this question a lot: Twitter, do I hafta?

Of course, people are getting on Twitter and using it because it's achieved critical mass and it's Simply What You're Supposed To Do rather than understanding what it's good for. Like with Facebook. But unlike Facebook, which is basically good for finding out about your former high school classmates without actually going to the reunion and having that Awkward Moment where you've expended the five minutes of conversation you built up over the last couple of decades and NOW WHAT?, Twitter is quite good for lots of things.

You can promote your blogging on it, like our friend Miss Destructo. You can ponder the ins and outs of magic, like our friend Wolven. Or you can use it for some weird conglom of all of it, like when I was lucky enough the other day to have Graham Linehan, the creator of The IT Crowd, relate both my admiration and a question to author Alan Moore–and get me a response. (It was my admiration for Moore's spoken word albums and when will he be doing another one–Answer: maybe next year.) This via Twitter.

But back to the restaurant, if we assume we're talking about businesses. Do they have to get on Twitter? Yes. They do. Do they have to use Twitter? Well, no.

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