The Universal Cynic

I figured I'd address this here, seeing as so many of you are e-mailing about it.

Yes, my Twitter page is gone. No, I'm not currently tweeting anywhere else. I decided sometime ago that I was going to take a hiatus from the application until 2010. That might mean the beginning of January, but maybe later, depending on how I feel. Why on Earth would I do such a thing? Well, there are a few reasons. Want to know what they are? Too damn bad -- go eat a banana and skip this part, if you must.

1) I only really gave a crap about 8 or 9 of the people that I followed. That means I created a separate column in my TweetDeck for them (everyone does that, right?) and pretty much all others fell by the wayside, depending on my reading frequency. Go ahead and assume that your feed was in there, if it makes you happy. I will confirm that both Bill Simmons and his wife were part of this group. (Aside: Simmons's is the only account I have ever bookmarked and he's the only person to tweet something I cheered at -- the announcement of a podcast with Dave Jacoby, featuring a one-hour discussion on MTV's Jersey Shore. I wish the Simmons family would adopt me -- they're easily my favourite strangers on the planet. I'm also scared to admit that I may have a bit of a crush on JackO. I think we were meant to drink socially together on a regular basis.)

Uhh...moving on...

2) The media can eff off and like it. There are exceptions of course -- my buddies PW, P-King, Jason, Neate, Greg and Michael Rand at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (whose work I especially adore). There are others, naturally...my brain is fogging at the moment. That being said, I got particularly peeved whenever I saw press pull this stunt on Twitter:

"Hey, I'm interviewing (player name) tomorrow. What should I ask them?"

Here's an idea, Mensa -- why don't you do your own goddamn work?

Granted, I'm no J-school grad, but this is the way I tend to operate when prepping for an interview:

* Strike all questions that can answered with yes or no;

* Strike all questions that begin with, "tell me/talk about...";

* If you're 95% sure you're already know the answer to a question, strike that as well.

See what's left? That's your list. Hop to it (then pay someone to transcribe, of course).

For the record, this is also the reason why 95% of interviews generally blow. Zero effort.

3) The incessant retweet. Brent Wallace is reporting that Chris Phillips will be eating oatmeal after practice -- let's all spread the word! Don't we all follow the same media/larger bloggers? Knock that crap off.

4) Women are annoying and share too much useless information. A lot of chicks proclaiming an interest in sports/hockey on Twitter can probably account for 1% of their tweets to be relevant. The other 99% of the time, you're getting stuff like, "I have a migraine" or "I can't sleep!" Here's an idea: Take some Advil and an Ambien, then belt up. (Alternatively, go have crazy drugged-out sex like Tiger Woods -- allegedly. I don't give a damn either way.)

5) Live-game tweeting. I understand chiming in here and there, because we all do it. But unless it's a big event, or you're actually present, no one needs minute by minute updates of Ottawa v. Tampa Bay or similar.

Those are the top five, and I'm sure there are more, but that'll do for now. Part of me is missing it -- The Driver's been on point with some legitimate smack-running, and I've been performing menial tasks while sporting a sequined eyemask. The photos are bank. But the majority of the hockey bits likely will end up here, so you'll just have to deal with it for the meantime.

I won't lie, though -- it's nice to be missed. Thank you very much. I'll see you back over there next year.