On August 27, 2009, I pondered, “What would happen if I really tweeted the way that Twitter haters say all tweeples tweet?” Following that, I announced my intention to, “…do it as an experiment starting tomorrow.”
At 22:28 that same night I stated, as a warning, “Alright my friends and followers, my tweeting-like-a-real-twerson(???) experiment begins tomorrow morning. It’s gonna get nasty!”
A cousin of mine and FaceBook friend, John Lisonbee, commented on my above statement with, “Nasty, or just twittery?” to which I replied, “Twisty maybe?”
The morning of August 28, 2009 the grand experiment began. My intention: cause the creation of a black hole solely through obnoxiously excessive tweeting. The tweets came fast and furious…
Note that all time stamps are Pacific time. All tweets were synched with my FaceBook account via the TweetSync application. The majority of tweets were sent through the TwitterFon application for the iPhone.
07:33 — Just crawling out of bed and getting dressed. I have a feeling this will be a good Friday… a Stu Friday. Let the experiment begin! (John Grant “liked” this on FaceBook)
07:42 — Best reason to amputate arm: I’m so SICK of putting stupid brace and sling on each morning! No doctors in UT county will do it though. (this tweet failed to sync with FaceBook)
07:42 — Brushing my teeth.
07:51 — Dropped my boys off at school early because they wanted school breakfast. I get here and oldest boy says, “I’m not going to have breakfast.”
08:04 — This “Stu Friday” is starting out well! Got a great tip on a job lead plus a callback to interview from a company I contacted yesterday.
08:35 — Researching the companies that have asked me to interview. You should know your potential employer as much as possible before interviewing.
08:41 — Thought about watering my lawn this morning, then decided not to.
08:44 — Taking a leak. Aahhh… what a sense of relief! Okay, done now. Flushing.
08:47 — One company I’m researching, if they hire me I know I’ll have tons of work to do right off the bat. Their website copy is horrible!
08:53 — Just learned if I tweet too fast, TweetSync (the FaceBook app) can’t keep up. It has failed to post one of my Twitter updates so far today.
09:01 — Job search has made me realize: If you ever get a job with a company you love and respect, and they love and respect you back, DON’T LEAVE!
At 09:08, Twitter user droach282 tweets, ” What…? http://bit.ly/g3UW0“
At 09:22, Twitter user “@leegientke sends me the message, “@stuthewise you need to track the number of followers before and after the experiment…
09:59 — @leegientke The experiment is more to see if I can cause a tear in the space-time continuum, but not a bad idea. 97 followers at the start.
10:00 — @leegientke I’m actually expecting to lose half my followers before 5 pm when they get sick of the constant tweeting 
10:04 — just told @leegientke that I had 97 followers at start of today’s experiment. I’m a liar. I had 95, and I’ve already lost one. 47 to go!
10:06 — @droach282 Yeah, isn’t that the stupidest thing ever? It would be hilarious if you didn’t realize they are actually serious about it.
10:10 — Getting ready to have lunch with the mad entrepreneurial genius @jeremyhanks at Sconecutter. We’re gonna get sconed! (Stephen James Escobedo comments on this FaceBook status with, “Tell him I said hi!” which I do.
At 10:16, Twitter user @droach282 sends me the message, ” @stuthewise And the fact that their serious - and don’t define what is declarable as an emergency - is horrifying to me.”
At 10:20, Twitter user @leegientke sends me the message, ” @stuthewise LOL! It’s interesting, the more I tweet, the more people follow me… but then I typically tweet targeted info”
10:35 — Waiting at the Orem Sconecutter. (FaceBook comments on this status update are ” woah you’re the first person I know who has eaten @ the sconecutter” by Claye Stokes, ” Oh man, I eat there way too often!” by myself, and ” love the Turkey Advocado!!” by my sister Tracy Lisonbee Phillips.)
10:46 — Saw lady miss 3 opportunities to make left hand turn because she’s busy blabbing on the phone. Guy behind her got impatient and went around.
10:53 — Checked out the scars on the knee of @jeremyhanks and it is one sweet man scar!
11:35 — @jeremyhanks is blowing my mind!
11:52 — Lunch was great. Now I’m home with tons of stuff rumbling about my mind. Time to get some work done.
12:07 — Took a leak, washed up, and rinsed mouth. Time to watch episode of Dexter, then start a brainstorm session and put together a presentation. Stephen James Escobedo responds to this FaceBook status update with “Sweet”. I reply with “Hey, got your message to Jer for ya!”
12:15 — On Weeds, kid on debate team argues against electoral college with opening statement “G.W. Bush.” Response should’ve been “Abraham Lincoln.”
At 12:23, Twitter user @droach282 sends me the message, ” @stuthewise Oh, you’re kidding me…”
15:00 — Was about to tweet something completely pointless, but my cat snuck into my room, jumped on my bed, distracting me and making me forget.
15:06 — @droach282 Some Showtime shows like to insert regular right-wing bashes. Weeds keeps it relatively light though. Me no care politics.
15:15 — Things are looking good for my poker game tonight. 10 players make a full table. Sweet action!
15:36 — All this tweeting has drained the battery on my iPhone faster than normal. It’s on the charger so now I’m tweeting from my computer.
Right around this time, I notice that Twitter user and former coworker @JakeSabey has started following me. I follow him back.
15:40 — Hey new follower @JakeSabey you caught me in the middle of a Twitter experiment. I’m trying to make a black hole appear via mass tweets.
15:57 — Trying to get uninsulated garage cooled down for poker game tonight. Any tricks? Swamp cooler on opposite side of house. (Nathan D. Judd comments to this FaceBook status update with an interesting solution, which I will not duplicate here.)
16:00 — Playing Bejeweled Blitz on FaceBook.
16:09 — Okay, no more Bejeweled Blitz. Gotta save some of my luck for the poker game tonight! (Twitter user @EmperorSEO retweets this.)
16:12 — Chatting with high school friend on FaceBook whom I haven’t seen since 1992… when we both worked at McDonald’s together!
16:20 — BTW, use “whom” when the object (person) is being acted upon, “who” when the subject (person) is the one acting. Was my last tweet correct?
16:32 — Dang! Gotta take another leak! This is unusual for me. Hope I’m not pregnant or something. (My cousin Shauna Lyn Seguin responds to this FaceBook status with, “You probably are :)”)
17:22 — Hanging out at the University Mall with a buddy. Nice scenery! (Shauna Lyn Seguin comments on the FaceBook status with, “While your there…can you buy me a whole new wardrobe?” My wife Meadow Lisonbee follows it up with, “better than the scenery you get at home? ;)”)
18:01 — Done with the mall. Grabbing a bite to eat now. Maybe be some more “good scenery” at the restaurant.
18:15 — At the Subway. Line hasn’t moved in 5 minutes, and the guy behind me is literally insane! (On FaceBook, Becky Prestwich “likes” this status update. Nine minutes after the update hits FaceBook, Bradley Bowen comments, “I bet you are still in line :).”)
Around this time, using TwitterFon, I attempt to do a TweetPic update with a picture of the line at Subway. It doesn’t go through, but I fail to realize it until the next day.
At 18:47, Twitter user @AaronBV sends me the message, “@stuthewise tweet pics of insane guy?”
18:55 — @AaronBV Ah sorry man. Too late.
19:07 — First hand of the poker game, pocket jacks. Drawn out on by ace rag 
20:06 — Kickin’ butt in HORSE tourney. All the hold ‘em players are confused
20:40 — Second time with pocket aces. This I flopped a set.
At 20:42, Twitter user @bryanphelps sends me the message, “@stuthewise I’ll come play poker with you if you continue tweeting your hands”
21:41 — In razz, 5th, 6th, and 7th street all paired up @$#!
21:41 — @bryanphelps As long as it’s okay by you that I lie about my hand
21:50 — In stud now, not getting any playable hands.
22:03 — Last hand of stud, finally won by catching a hidden boat on 7th street. (Meagen Ridley comments on this FaceBook status with, “Exactly how many posts have you made today?”)
22:09 — Hold ‘em, call all in preflop with AK spades. Raiser shows 8 3, rivers straight. Freakin’ bastie!
22:47 — Went on a bad run. Last hand in razz: all in with 8 high on 6th street, 7th street doesn’t improve, lost to 7 high.
22:48 — Out on the bubble too just add salt to the wound.
22:49 — I’m pissed about losing, so I’m taking a sip of Coke Vanilla and ending my Twitter experiment 10 minutes early. Look Ma, no black hole! (Twitter user @zubeme retweets this. My aunt-in-law Bekki Johnson comments on this FaceBook status with, “Stuart, you have too much time on your hands.”)
Final report:
For the day, I tweeted a total of 49 times which included seven @replies. Prior to that, I averaged 2.24 new tweets per day including @replies.
I started out with 95 followers and ended with 100. All but one of the new followers seemed to be fishing for followers using the, “If I follow someone, they will follow me back” theory. I only followed one of my new followers. The day after the experiment, number of followers dropped to 97. Two days after, it was down to 96.
No black hole was formed, and no tear in the space-time continuum resulted.
Conclusion
In order to cause a black hole to appear, one must tweet more than 49 times within a 24 hour period. My calculations suggest 503 tweets should do the trick.
Additionally, in the world of social media you are judged my your most recent update. Post wisely my friends!
Now I’ve spent my fair share of time watching the pros, trying to imitate them. I never did get my driving form right until I watched Tiger in slo-mo. But honestly… I kinda suck at golf. Even with two arms, I doubt I’d be much good. Lucky for me the company tournament is 4-man best ball! All I have to do is manage to get lucky every once in a while, and maybe I’ll nail something good — just like all those freakin’ donkeys do against me in poker! Yeah, you know who you are.
) from November 1 up for your pure listening enjoyment.
The first car I ended up actually doing a test drive on was a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant with about 150,000 miles on it.
Next test drive was a 1997 BMW 528i with 170,000 miles on it. I was really excited about this one. He was asking $5,300 and had already turned down an offer for $4,800, so I withdrew $5,000 cash from my bank expecting to buy the car.
The next day, I took work off early so I could run back up to Salt Lake and check out a couple minivans and a supercharged Buick Regal. The vans, though they looked nice in their online ads, were in pretty bad shape. The first one was a blue 2000 Sienna with 148,000 miles. Two door handles were broken, the passenger window motor didn’t work, a cup holder was missing, a speaker was falling out, and the carpet was all crusty. This minivan had clearly been well used and abused by many children and maybe even a few overly frisky midgets.
So I drove a little further north to another dealer to check out the car that I was really interested in, a 1998 Buick Regal. It had 190,000 miles on it, but for $2,800 I figured if I got even one year’s use out of it, I’d be happy.
