Roadtrip

To Ipoh

Practice

Bear with us! We're freaking out again because of the weather. And no, not we as in me, personally, but as in the entire island nation. It's really cold! It's really windy! Roads are closed! Domestic flights have been cancelled and cars can't get into/out of parking spots! Snow has invaded the tops of our winter boots and we've lost our woolen mittens! An entire meter of the fluffy stuff has fallen and it's apocalyptic times here in this country named for ice. How will we ever survive? 

Well, since most of us have lived through this kind of thing before it shouldn't be too difficult. And according to my favorite weather site (click on a pic and scroll the timeline to watch the pretty colors change) it will warm up and all the impertinent snow will be turned to sludge by Friday midnight. Phew!

Another sweet thing to do, though, to keep warm here in winter is to experience Hot Yoga with Lana Vogestad who is a talented artist and amazing Barkan Method yoga instructor leading sessions at the World Class chain of gyms here in Reykjavik. They unfortunately don't have a site in English, but here's your chance to practice your Icelandic (that last link is an inside joke: Google Translate is not the definitive Icelandic language resource by any means) by checking out their verðskrá. If intensive, balancing, healing, rewarding, sweaty Practice is your thing, Lana's classes are an absolute must in any season.

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When we start working...

Make-up seems to be the one thing thats vital when we enter the working world. They say first impression makes a lasting one.

At Harrods in UK, the first thing they insist upon is make-up everyday at work if not you will not be hired.

Being a student, it isnt a must to have make up unless you want to be vain. I never saw the purpose on
Splurging on cosmetics. It is expensive. My money was always used on books, electronics and food. I'd really rather spend on food;) But opportunity came to spend some of my 'highest' income earned when i worked for boots.. Furthermore, i get a discount shopping at boots, so it was an even better opportunity to buy expensive stuff like cosmetics.... Shopped i did...

Few days back i took out my 'toys' and played with it. The pic shows one eye bigger than the other, if u look closely. Its because one eye had full eye liner while the other was half oO ... After all, i was just experimenting:) definitely looked different n better whatmore with iphone apps picture effects..

Make up were from estee lauder, clarins and bare mineral.. Some were given to me for free back when i was in USA...

Twitter Jail

This is the fourth in a series of utterly unimportant ramblings and observations about the way that Twitter works.  The others are (click on links):

• How to Use Twitter (a guide for beginners and non-beginners alike)
• The Language of Twitter (some fluffy reflections on the English used on it)
• Conceptualising Twitter (trying to explain what on earth it is to non-users)

What is Twitter Jail?

So this post is about being in Twitter Jail - it's also known as Twitter Prison, Twitter Gaol (classy spelling!), Twitter Slammer.  Well, what is it?  I've had a surprising number of people ask me that question, seemingly unaware of its existence.

It's essentially a special circle of hell reserved for those who tweet "too much".  Here's what the Urban Dictionary says:

Twitter makes no mention of the specific 100 tweets per hour limit on its support page, though it does confirm the 1000 tweets per day limit that is "broken down into smaller limits for semi-hour intervals".  Tweets includes retweets.  The support page also mentions a separate daily limit of 250 direct messages.  You'd have to be going some to hit 250 DMs in a day, unless those rumours are true that this is where it all actually happens on Twitter and all the rude stuff goes on? Ahem.

100 tweets in a hour sounds like an awful lot.  If you're posting 100 general tweets in an hour this is indeed a huge amount.  The chances you'd have no followers after a very short time, because you'd be flooding their timelines so much.  (The exception is during something like X-Factor, where 100 tweets and RTs are quite possible and often amusing from the very quick-witted).  But 100 messages to people that are in fact multiple conversations, not general tweets?  That's actually quite easily hit.  I know. For I am a Twitter Jail Bird :o))

What happens when you get chucked behind the metaphorical bars, is that you receive an error message as you try to post a tweet.  You receive no warning: you are just cut off.  There is no trial.  There is no judge or jury.  This is summary "justice".  Appeals to the ECtHR in Strassbourg are not possible.  You have no way of telling people you've been carted off.

What can you do in Twitter Jail?

When you're in Twitter Jail, you can read your feed and look at your @ mentions.  If you haven't gone over the DM limit you can also still direct message.  What you cannot do is tweet yourself.  It's very, very frustrating, as you're frequently cut off mid conversation and unable to respond to anything.  I always like to respond to people, promptly - I just find it good Twitterquette.  For example a couple of my blogs have led to loads of people responding: I had over 1000 lovely supportive messages in the space of an afternoon on one - and I was locked in Twitter Jail in no time, unable to thank people.  That sucks.

How long is your sentence?

This varies.  The support page mentions something about variable times.  It can be 30 minutes, or at busy times it can be longer.  You're advised to try again "in a few hours".  I've found that if you're put in prison twice in a day, you have to sit out longer the second time and it really can be three hours you're shut out.  THREE HOURS WITHOUT TWITTER? What is there to do to amuse yourself without Twitter?  Nothing.

These poor Twinky Tweeps are at a complete lost end :(

Jail Breaking

You're eventually released without warning.  I've not found tricks round this: you just keep trying and trying and suddenly you're a free Tweep.  People have sent me e-nail files (I always leave with well manicured hands, but they're useless on the bars) and even my fearless collie dog, Oscar, has not been able to break me.  He's more interested in raiding the biskwit tin or playing with his squeaky toys whilst I'm languishing in a windowless jail.  Sob.

@LassieOscar to the Rescue? Erm, no.

Defying Twitter

However... there are ways to make your jail sentence less disruptive, as I and other people have found.  What you do is this:

• Create a second profile for emergency use (mine is @PMEinJail)
• Make it clear on the bio and from the name that it's you, in jail
• Log out of your main account (e.g. @PME2013)
• Open multiple windows on your computer (it's more tricky on an iPhone)
• Do a search for your main account name - all mentions of you will come up, so you can see who has replied to you.  You can then respond to those messages from your jail account, and the conversation will automatically move over as they reply to you in jail
• You do not need to try to follow everyone again from your jail account.  What I do is simply open another window with a list I've already created with the people I speak to most anyway.  
• If you don't use lists, they are a superb way of refining your Twitter experience and ideal for this scenario.  I can see what my top 250 tweeps are saying through my period in jail and then just pop back over to my main feed when I'm released

I've been in jail 3 times already this week.  The above might sound like a right faff, and if you're a less fanatical user of Twitter, of course not necessary.  But for hard core Tweeps like me (aka, people who don't *actually* have a life) it really works very slickly indeed.

Even if you don't need to create a jail account yourself, at least having read this you'll be aware what's happening if you get a response from a random account like for example, @PMEinJail or @KiraInJail...

Have fun and don't tweet too much guys - it's not big and it's not clever!  Yeah right :-)

Reflection

Some things that make us happy: good coffee and good books.

So I did a search on Iceland in G+ and of course got all sorts of lovely HDR mega-manipulated picture hits from über-superstar photogs (really, how can you snap a bad shot out in our amazing nature!) and also a tiny shout-out for a music festival I'd never heard of before. At first glance it looked to be all about death metal, but names can fool: the DMD, or Dark Music Days, event "can easily be summed up in one word: Diversity. Here, composers and performers from many different sectors of Icelandic music have been able to meet and cooperate while presenting their latest works."* It's happening next weekend, so if you are in the neighborhood, you might want to give it a whirl.

It's being held at our new Harpa which not everyone loves, but which I think is actually a stunning play of space and glass and light, reflecting nicely an aspect of our Icelandic people: seemingly cold, complex and overwhelming from the outside, but truly golden, strong-hearted, warmly intricate and multi-faceted on the inside ~.~

*Quote from www.darkmusicdays.is
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Yee sang, cny

I had my first plate of yee sang while getting my nails done. I am craving for more:)

Synchronicity

Yeah, I didn't get it either. They were just there, in front of Hallgrímskirkja, these big black letters, begging me to snap a shot. So I did. And I had intended to write I have no clue what this is all about, but then I saw an article in Fréttablaðið (the daily free newspaper that I've requested not be shoved into my mailbox because life is kinder without being constantly slammed with hype and adverts every day, but which I'm subjected to anyway whenever a new delivery person takes our route, causing that phenomenon known as Middle Class Guilt because now I'm responsible for recycling inky garbage I never wanted in the first place! *sigh*) about the guy behind the word, one Santiago Sierra. He will be installing his stafir at Austurvellir in support of citizens' rights to democracy throughout the world, on this, the third anniversary of the loud and messy protests here in Iceland in the same town square.

On a lighter note, my father Thor and I have been invited to celebrate 70 years of diplomatic relations between the US and Iceland tonight by the US Ambassador to Iceland, Luis E. Arreaga (he has a blog!) at Nasa, a venue located at Austurvellir that some of you are familiar with from it's long lines during Iceland Airwaves (book your tix for 2012 now! They sell out mighty quick!)

Tonight we'll actually be entertained by local musicians who have done the Airwaves festival, LayLow and Of Monsters and Men (that link takes you to an NPR / KEXP shout out : ) who in this video are playing a song from their Airwaves Off Venue Reykjavík Downtown Hostel gig, produced by a very sweet and super talented DJ-Producer American friend of mine, Manny, whose last name is Santiago, like the NO artist's first name, and who interestingly enough was contacted by a long lost friend out in the States after he had seen Manny's Guest Photographer post here on Iceland Eyes. Incidentally, this photo of Manny's was taken at the Reykjavik Art Museum which is hosting the exhibition of which Sierra's NO is a part.

Nice synchronicity, eh?

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