I signed up for a Twitter account when I heard about it a couple months ago, but realizing I didn't care what celebrities were having for lunch, I quit using it.
When enough people I knew had signed up and were using the micro-blogging service to make it worthwhile, I started sending out 140 character thoughts along with them.
I still did not like it.
My phone would go off, and I'd be greeted with an update like, "Eatin' lunch with Carl. Carl's cool."
My friend's lunch plans with Carl should have stayed in the realm of Facebook statuses where they could be ignored.
Still not finding much use for the service, I resorted to following stand-up comedians, because if I'm going to hear about somebody's lunch plans, I'd prefer they be funny lunch plans.
Speaking of comedians and Twitter, both Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Tim & Eric, the comedy group that put on a show Monday evening Tweeted a couple times during their visit here.
"Alabama is making me very nervous," Heidecker Tweeted Monday afternoon.
The UPC folks gave Wareheim some good advice.
"Our student advisors say the chicken tenders are good at Locos," he said. "They also said I shouldn't drop the C bomb down here."
After the show, Heidecker apparently had some fun with the UPC driver.
"Shooting fish in a barrel here," he Tweeted. "This student rep driver thinks I've never heard of personalized license plates."
They both apparently left Alabama with a good impression, though.
"Had great pizza in Alabama, so it's a win," Heidecker Tweeted late Monday night.
Wareheim also gave us a digital goodbye.
"Thanks Auburn!" he said. "You guys rule."
But back to my story as to how I've come around to liking this service.
The afternoon of March 21, I got a Tweet from my friend Tripp.
"Hey, Kev, you are the only one I know with text alerts," he said. "Can you call Zack and tell him to call Justin? I'm locked out of my house."
Tripp's had gone on a run.
When he got back he found that his phone had died, he was locked out of his apartment and his roommates were gone.
The only thing he had on him was his iPod Touch, which has a Web browser, so he sent out a distress Tweet to anybody who could see it.
And it worked.
We got hold of our friend Justin, who has a lock-picking kit, and Justin got Tripp into his apartment.
He would have been stuck out there for hours if we had not known he needed help.
Sure, it's not a terribly big deal.
But Tripp would have been inconvenienced in a major way had it not worked out the way it did.
We all later received a follow-up Tweet from Tripp.
"Yay for being back inside after being locked out for 2.5 hrs," he said. "Thanks Justin!"
The next morning I got another from Tripp, who had apparently learned his lesson.
"Hmmm what to do today ... hopefully not get locked out again haha," he said.
But if he did, he now knew one way to get back in.
Finally, The Plainsman has a Twitter account at twitter.com/auburnplainsman, where we send out our headlines with links to our stories.
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