InfoTart

It turns out that many of my friends have accounts with Twitter, this fun little “micro-blogging” service that seems to have captured the hearts and minds of the digerati. I first heard about it after the South By Southwest conference last year when it burst onto the scene, but resisted creating my own account at the time.

Well, I finally took the plunge and created my own account on Twitter yesterday. So far so good — two days into it and I’m still doing it! Look me up at: www.twitter.com/AnthonyHand

If you’re on Twitter already, let’s be friends! My ID is AnthonyHand.

I’m hoping that my fascination with this shiny new toy lasts a bit longer than a month…

Tonight I finally went to the Kowloon on Route 1 in Saugus for dinner. With its big tiki tacky, I’ve been wanting to go for years, but never actually got off my tush to go.

This afternoon I met up with my friends Tim & Joanna to hang out and get dinner. They live in Melrose a hop, skip, and a jump from Rte. 1, so instead of the same old place we love (Turner’s Seafood), I suggested something different. Something cornier. Something tiki-er — the Kowloon!

Well, I skipped the Scorpion Bowl because I wanted to be able to drive home tonight, but otherwise it was a fun visit. That place really is over the top, even on the inside!

At some point during dinner, Joanna grabbed Tim’s Nokia N95 and took this great picture of us. Isn’t she adorable?

I have several friends who are avid readers. While I may read a book or two a month (in between my gazillion magazine subscriptions), they tend to read many times more than that, it seems.

So my friend, JP, told me about this social networking site called Good Reads. The point of the site is to share reviews and ratings of the books you’ve read with your friends. Based on what you’ve read, the site will also recommend books that others who’ve read it have also read. (I think it uses Amazon’s recommendation engine for that. The site is an Amazon affiliate and makes some money off presenting links to Amazon for purchases.)

Now, I’m actually pretty tired of the social networking phenomenon in general. May I never join another MySpace/Facebook/Tribe/Bebo clone!!

That being said, I’m okay with joining websites which offer tightly focused communities where social networking isn’t the end all/be all of the offering, but rather enhances the offering. For example, there have been other websites before allowed you to enter the books you’ve read into virtual bookshelves. As a standalone offering, that’s kind of boring. But add the social networking effect where I can see the books my friend JP likes (we have a lot of overlap in the fantasy genre), and it becomes much more compelling.

It’s also fun that the web site offers a “gadget” which can be easily added to your blog so you can share the books you’ve been reading with the world. I just added my Good Reads gadget to this web site. (It’s on the right hand sidebar.) We’ll see how much I like having it there over time, but right now it’s okay.

I visited my former office yesterday, iSkoot, and snapped a few last pics with my former co-worker, Jacqueline. Then last night, my friend, Dave, and I went out for dinner to celebrate my birthday. After dinner, we went to Atwoods and met up with Jacqueline and a few of her friends.

Isn’t Jacqueline a cutie? And now she’s moving off to San Fran next month! I’m going to miss that girl…

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A friend of mine lives in Provincetown and has been dating this guy named Peter Donnelly. I’ve met Peter a few times and he’s a wicked cool guy. (Plus handsome! What a good catch…)

Peter had invited me to a concert in Boston earlier this summer, but unfortunately, that was the week I was going to Provincetown. In fact, most unfortunately I’ve missed all of his Boston-area concerts for one reason or another.

I found out today that Peter has a web site to promote his two CDs of original music so I checked it out. He offers a few downloads of his songs and a concert schedule. Plus, he writes on his web site that another new CD is dropping in February 2007. Cool…

Peter has a great voice! He’s actually a good songwriter, too. I’m not sure how to categorize his music. Maybe folk? Anyways, I didn’t realize that he was so good. Now I know what to ask my P-town friend for Christmas…

Peter Donnelly’s web site: www.peterdonnelly.com