Jamie Thingelstad

On Thursday I went to see The Hold Steady for the first time. The Hold Steady is a Minneapolis-grown band that has now reached some recognition. It was a really good show. They hit all my favorite songs and were really engaging.

The Hold Steady grew out of another band called Lifter Puller. These guys have a good following in the cities, so there were a lot of people at the show that were Hold Steady “devotees”. I was a little surprised to be surrounded by a large crowd of people that seemingly knew every word of every song. Felt a bit like I was crashing someone’s high school graduation party. After all, three of the band members parents were in the audience.Great show either way. If you haven’t listened to The Hold Steady, you should check it out.

I’ve tweeted my last tweet.

If you’re a diligent visitor to my blog, you’ll notice that the Twitter section on the right hand side is no longer there. My iPhone is noticing that the volume of SMS messages has dropped way down. Most importantly my brain is feeling less distracted.

I’ve been a big fan of Twitter for a while now. So far I’ve created 1,281 tweets. 1,281 little 100 character updates sent who knows where. Now I think I’m done though. There are a number of reasons I decided to get off the Twitter bus.

• Twitter is addictive, at least for me. The distraction was too pronounced, and while it’s fun to keep up with a number of people you wouldn’t otherwise see that much – it also pulls you out of the experience you are having right then.

• I prefer blogging, and the complete sentences and paragraphs that surround it. While blogging is not incompatible with Twitter, I feel that I’m blogging less in part because I Twitter in between things.

• It has the potential to lessen the value of in-person discussions. When catching up with a friend I’ll think “I saw that on your Twitter” and then we move on. But really, could a 100 character SMS really sum up the richness of a trip to the zoo with your kids?

I don’t mean to condemn Twitter. Different strokes for different folks after all. And I do think it’s a great platform for mobile live blogging. I’ve kept my account active even though it’s disconnected from my phone and everything else just in case I want to use it to live blog the Folk Festival or something. But for now, I bid adieu.

If you happen to follow my robot, that account has been deleted.

Hiding in the dark having ran out of candy on Halloween!

Wiring up Mail.app with GMail/IMAP. First impression — painfully slow.

Intrigued by CouchDB.

Ruby Users of Minnesota meeting @ Acadia Cafe.

Just grabbed thinglestad.com (e and l transposed). This is the most common mispelling of my last name. A bit surprised it was still available.

At dinner with my wonderful wife waiting for food and then going to RadioLab. Date night!