@Stokes ≠ @StokesUP

@StokesgyltFellow Twitterers, take note. The user known as @Stokes is an entirely different person from the users known as @StokesUP, @STOKESGYLT, and @Stokez. Despite the fact that these people apparently answer to “Stokes” (or a similar-sounding variant) in real life, you cannot simply type “@Stokes” if you wish to tag or address them in the medium known as Twitter.

I offer the following photographic evidence.

This is @Stokes:

@Stokes

@Stokes is really Sutton Stokes (me!), a fabulously successful freelance writer currently living in Missoula, MT. Here I am relaxing in my solarium.

This is @StokesUP:

@StokesUP

@StokesUP is identified only as “Stokes” on his Twitter page. He is from some place he calls ÃœT and is a photographer.

This is @STOKESGYLT:

@Stokesgylt

@STOKESGYLT, of Harlem, goes by “Stokes the Editor” (Bio: “IM STOKES THE VIDEO EDITOR AND I WILL EDIT ANY VIDEO U BRING TO ME!!!!).

And this is @Stokez:

@Stokez

@Stokez is a high school student from Chicago.

I bring all of this up because of the relatively frequent inclusion of “@Stokes” in Tweets that are clearly not meant for me, such as:

RT @noel3leon: http://twitpic.com/q1l32 – @stokes do a shoot wit me d another girl lik this. please– let’s do it wit them girls u showed me

And:

@Stokes the Editor STOKESGYLT #whydogirls act like they dont suck dick

(Sorry for that, but I just wanted to give you the flavor, so to speak. Oh, and @STOKESGYLT, maybe it’s because they’re afraid you’ll talk tweet about them in a degrading manner.)

Tweets intended for @Stokez tend to be more wholesome, though I was once privy to a conversation among high school girls concerning what they had named their breasts.

Anyway, no hard feelings, just try to get it right in the future. And let’s hear it for @StokesUP, whose photography really seems to be getting off the ground, as indicated in the following direct Tweets he sent to user @kaylaanic0le:

im turnin that shit into a website. real soon

And:

yump jus bought my domain .

Way to go, Stokes! (BTW, I think the domain is here, though it’s just a placeholder page so far.)

KSM ≠ Magneto

Ezra Klein suggests that we stop acting like scared little children about this whole KSM-in-NYC issue.

“These guys took down a plane with box cutters. They used crude weapons to attack a far more sophisticated and effective fighting force. The most fearsome of them was captured at home, in his pajamas. It’s not like we’re putting Magneto on trial and need to keep him away from metal filings.

It’s one thing to be afraid of terrorism. But there’s no real reason to be afraid of terrorists, and … there’s good reason not to look like you’re afraid of terrorists ….”

Indeed. The only thing making me nervous about this trial is the way some of us are crying about it. If people are really afraid of inspiring further attacks, maybe they should stop broadcasting to the world how easily frightened they are.

Getting Robbed at Work

And not in the usual way:

As traditional targets for theft have beefed up their security and the recession has driven people to desperate measures, robbers are infiltrating corporate offices. Many of the incidences involve small companies with ground-level offices that offer easy access. And sometimes the perpetrators are armed, heightening fear among office workers who thought their sleepy cubicle farms were safe.

Back when I worked for a small company with ground-level offices that offered easy access, we were burglarized twice. This was no real surprise, given that we were located in some kind of HUD-designated tax-break zone designed to bring businesses into neighborhoods otherwise known for junkies and vacant buildings. Behind our building, needles littered an alley where it was not uncommon for prostitutes to ply their trade. In addition to the building housing the consulting firm where I worked, the boss also owned some neighboring rowhouses, where he rented out apartments, and one day the janitor paused while emptying my trash to complain of the lake of blood he had just had to clean up in one of the entryways.

Ah, Baltimore.

So, anyway, lock up your stuff. Especially your laptop. It’s like a thousand-dollar bill, just sitting there, asking someone to take it.

The Week’s Tweets (2009-11-14)

  • Red letter day: for the first time in about two years, New West Health Insurance got something right the first time! #
  • Is it common for two-month vaccines to turn a baby into the antichrist, or are we just lucky? #
  • Coen is sleeping so peacefully right now. It's a good thing he doesn't know he will be jabbed with needles later today. #
  • Getting somewhere. #
  • Worth paying attention to: RT @bradrourke: Poll: Veterans Ready To Serve On Home Front: http://bit.ly/FTdwb #
  • What do I need to do to be able to run Windows Visual Basic applications/templates on my MacBook? #
  • Note to Samsung ML-3051N printer owners: my print cartridge lasted several thousand pages after "replace toner" light started blinking. #
  • Looking for people to help me start "double-entendre Tuesday" (#DET) and "that's what she said Thursday" (#TWSST). Tweet it on! #
  • Double-entendre Tuesday: writing an article about a financial entity "taking a position behind a banker". Hey! Ho! #
  • And from another job ad: "if you don't have any samples, i will need to see you to 'get a feel.'" Hey! Ho! #
  • Just saw a job ad looking for someone who can do "proper English sentence making." #
  • In my latest Missoula Notebook column, I'm taking Walter Sobchak's advice and drawing a line in the alley. http://bit.ly/1Ivxsm #
  • Coen would like all of you who are not in earshot to know that, in his opinion, today sucks. #
  • Scary thought for the day: in less than 2 months, stuff from the 1990s starts being "20 years ago." #
  • Today's H1N1 clinic at Sentinel HS now opened to children 6 months-4 years old, according to MTPR. Until 5 pm. #
  • Vaccinated! Well, half vaccinated anyway. #
  • Already about 100 people in line for flu shots at Sentinel HS. Clinic starts in 30 minutes. #
  • If only the health-reform bill had been more liberal, maybe more conservative Democrats and all the Republicans would have voted for it. #

The Week’s Tweets (2009-11-07)

  • "Yours will not be as exact." #
  • I thought Jason Kottke knew everything: RT @jkottke: Why do cashiers write on $20+ bills before putting them in the register? #
  • Break's internet is out. Probably not the worst thing, in my case. #
  • "I guess I should've read it," said Brenner of the contract." Well, yes. http://bit.ly/2vNE0P #
  • If anyone is having any difficulty waking up every 15 minutes between 5 and 7 a.m., you can borrow Coen if you want. #
  • Coen's Scream Style is immensely powerful and immune to nearly any weapon.\ #
  • Matches, Vladimir Nabokov, and (missing) the premiere of V, all rolled into one column over at Went West: http://bit.ly/RLEPG #
  • Playing with matches, Vladimir Nabokov, and the premiere of V, all rolled into one column over at Went West: http://bit.ly/RLEPG #
  • Mailbox size limits that it's possible to actually reach are so 2001. #
  • Does anyone know the children's book about a boy who befriends a Martian and has to explain Earth to him? Circa 1980s, early chapter book. #
  • Two hours of sleep is the new four hours of sleep. #
  • "Iraqi security forces at hundreds of checkpoints have been relying on a hand-held wand." #
  • Favorite things: raindrops on roses and the "encumbered but not yet invoiced" dollar-total cell on my project-tracking spreadsheet. #
  • Thanks, internet: from looking up a technical term for some paying work to watching a video of a man opening a bottle of wine with his shoe. #
  • Guy at next table is paying bills by writing paper checks, taking pictures of them with a digital camera, and uploading them online. #
  • Birth Center is birth ready, but hospital ban poses problems. Hebl's patients lobbying Community. http://bit.ly/3yOOfN #
  • Need to talk to someone who knows their prison/meaningful counterculture tattoo symbology, preferably among hobo subculture of northwest. #
  • Amused by a sentence I just wrote that included the phrases "remote wipe" and "users can self service." #
  • What a silly thing to do, Councilman Hendrickson. http://bit.ly/1wVl59 #

Seen The Avatar Trailer?

I like reading about crazy people, so I enjoyed the recent New Yorker profile of movie director James Cameron.

The occasion for the profile is the upcoming release of his new science-fiction movie, Avatar. I’d heard about this movie, the plot of which revolves around human efforts to subjugate an alien race on some distant planet, and figured it would be the kind of cheesy CGI mess that sci-fi movies cursed with unlimited money usually turn into these days.

Then I came to this part of the New Yorker profile:

“The digital elements of “Avatar,” [Cameron] claims, are so believable that, even when they exist alongside human actors, the audience will lose track of what is real and what is not. “This film integrates my life’s achievements,” he told me. “It’s the most complicated stuff anyone’s ever done.”

Intrigued, I clicked over to the trailer and saw… the kind of cheesy CGI mess that sci-fi movies cursed with unlimited money usually turn into these days.

What is it that happens to movie directors that causes them to be so impressed by this stuff? If I were the studio head that gave this guy $230 million to make this film, I’d have a very sinking feeling right about now.

Thank God he made Aliens before digital animation got “advanced” enough to rely heavily on.