I’m pretty sure I first became aware of Twitter two years ago around the time SXSWi 2007 was going on. It was fun to keep up with who was at which party and who was trying to get a cab home or to the next event.

Once I got involved with Twitter, I noticed that there were two styles of following people:

1. Follow only people you actually know or want to read.
2. Follow everyone that follows you (not including spammers, etc).

Steve Garfield & Bill Cammack

Steve Garfield from SteveGarfield.com apparently subscribes to #2. Steve is currently following 10,666 people @ twitter.com/stevegarfield while 9,714 people follow him. (note: Steve speaks about this in the comments below. Click Here to jump to Steve’s reply)

Meanwhile, Veronica Belmont appears to subscribe to #1 and is currently following 480 people @ twitter.com/veronica while 154,033 people follow her.

The question is “Which style works best for you?”.

Off the bat, following everyone didn’t work for me. That was when I was only following 200 people. I’m currently following 2,067 people @ twitter.com/billcammack, while 2,324 people follow me.

The first thing I did, back in the “200″ days was make another account strictly for following the local NYC Twitterers (Yes, “Twitterers”. If they wanted their posts called Tweets and their users Tweeters, they should have named their app “Tweeter”. Too Late.). That worked well until basically all of the people I was following stopped using Twitter to make plans, favoring more private apps.

So then, there was the ability to @reply people, which means that if you make a Twitter post and put @billcammack in the message, it’s supposed to show up in my “@Replies” folder on my Twitter home page. This works, and it doesn’t work.

First of all, the way it was initially implemented, @replies weren’t threaded. This means that if I made statement “A” and then made statement “B” afterwards, if you read my statement “A” and responded to it with an @billcammack, when you clicked the “in reply to” link, it would show you my LATEST comment, statement “B” as opposed to the comment you were actually referencing. They’ve since fixed that and @replies reference the correect and intended Twitter post.

Second, if you don’t put @billcammack in the very beginning of your Twitter post, it won’t show up in my @Replies folder. I wish I remember who told me about this so I could properly credit her, but a friend of mine and I were referenced in the same post, like this hypothetical, yet probable line:

Observer @CaliNative: Your stats are THE WACK, compared to @BillCammack‘s

What would happen in that instance, to this day, is that @CaliNative would get this in HER @Replies folder, and I wouldn’t get it in mine. The way around this is to use search.twitter.com to search for your own screen name.

What I’ve found recently is that I mostly respond to @billcammack references, because my timeline moves too quickly for me to derive any value from watching the board. This is with only 2,000 people to follow… NOT 10,000, like Steve Garfield or 150,000 if Veronica Belmont were to follow everyone that follows her. I was already swamped with less than *half* of the current 480 people she follows, when I was reading the board back in the day.

The obvious issue here is that I would LIKE to be able to skim over everything that EVERYONE I’m following has to say, but I just can’t. Some people tend to sit on Twitter and Friendfeed and other sites/apps ALL. DAMN. DAY. to the point where you wonder how the people that hired them are getting any value out of their workday. On top of that, I tend to avoid those people on Social Media sites at all costs, because they flood your board more than 40 other Twitterers combined.

So there’s the question, and I’m hoping to answer this for myself today. Moving forward, how do I want to read Twitter? If I want to watch the board, then I need to reduce the number of people that I’m following. If I stick to @replies, I can keep following 2,000 people and never read the board anyway. I can also get @replies from people I’m not following, so that functionality isn’t lost in paring down my list.

So how do YOU read Twitter?… And, How’s that workin’ for ya?

~Bill Cammack

Twitter: BillCammack
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We’ve already established in “Maury Show Tips: 01 – You Are An Idiot” that if The Maury Show calls you AT ALL, then either YOU are an idiot, your girlfriend is an idiot or BOTH OF YOU are idiots. That means there’s a 66% chance that you are an idiot, which is higher than 50%, so let’s just assume that it’s YOU. Here’s the proof:

You + Her = Result
================
Smart + Smart = Rejected. Never seen on the show [25%]
Smart + Idiot = She did something that will embarrass you = Guest [25%]
Idiot + Smart = You did something that will embarrass her = Guest [25%]
Idiot + Idiot = Ratings Galore = GUEST!!! (multiple episodes) [25%]

Now, because you’ve been invited as a guest, we can throw out Smart+Smart, which leaves us with two slots where you are an idiot and one slot where you are not = 66% chance that the idiot is YOU.

If your girl happens NOT to be an idiot (which, BTW… you wouldn’t be smart enough to figure out), then we can rule out the Paternity Test series. The only trick The Maury Show has left up its sleeve is The Lie Detector Test.

Like I mentioned previously, even the secretary who buzzed you in the security door to the studio is more educated than you are. PLEASE do yourself a favor and FORGET ABOUT TRICKING AN-NY-BOD-DEE until you get back out in the street, like FAR AWAY from the studio and make sure you turn a couple of corners so their outside cameras can’t see you either.

Of course, the entire point of this series is that you’re not going to take my advice and stay off the show, so here’s how to carry yourself when you’re a guest on the Lie Detector Test episodes:

1) How to pass the Lie Detector Test

There’s a very simple way to pass the Lie Detector Test……

Don’t lie.

The Maury Show hires professionals to administer the polygraph examinations… oh… sorry… I mean the Lie Detector Tests (let me not confuse you). These people catch ACTUAL. CRIMINALS. who did stuff they REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, *REALLY* don’t want to get caught for. You, my friend, are the proverbial “fish in a barrel”. They can break you WITHOUT hooking you up to the machine. For instance, the next time you want to know the truth about something, ask the person to their face and don’t blink while they’re processing what you said. If their eyes dart in one direction, they’re accessing actual memories. If their eyes go the other way, they’re MAKING. $#&%. UP! These people can tell by how much you start blinking or sweating what time it is. They don’t even NEED the needle to jump… So if you get strapped in for that test, TELL. THE. TRUTH!

Telling The Truth is the semi-valiant way to “survive” a Lie Detector Test episode. You’re going to come out looking bad either way, so if you’re strapped in, and you know damned well you’re about to lie… give up the ghost. Admit to what you did. That way, when you walk out on stage, you know there aren’t going to be any surprises, AND you know when to grab your girl’s hand, look her in the eye, tell her “You know I love you… right? :D ” and keep holding her hand until she rips it away from you when Maury tells her what you admitted doing with her favorite aunt.

If you go out like a sucker and lie about it, you’ll be sitting there on stage BELIEVING you passed the test, which is when you look like :O just before they cut to an audience shot because your girl hopped up and slapped the $#&% out of you. At least if you tell the truth, you have SOMETHING to lean on when she’s bitchin’ about it backstage, even though she’s going to counter with “Why couldn’t you have just TOLD me???”, and “You brought me on NATIONAL TELEVISION to tell me this???”

2) If you STILL have to try to pass….. :/

If you insist on not taking ANY of my advice and a) Not returning the Maury Show Producer’s call, b) Not showing up to the studio and c) Not lying during the polygraph examination, then your best bet is to “Act As If”.

Now, this takes incredible skill, because you’ll have to translate what the examiner says in your mind, on the fly. To complicate matters, there are positive questions, negative questions and, let’s call them “test” questions. You have to make sure that you have an “Act As If” for the positive and A DIFFERENT ONE for the negative. Meanwhile, you have to tell the truth during the “test” questions, so the examiner knows the machine’s working right.

The “test” questions are very simple. You had to show them ID to get in the studio, so they know what your name is. They called you on the phone, so they know what your number is. They have your address on file. They will throw these questions in so that when you answer them truthfully, the machine indicates that you’re telling the truth (or rather, does NOT indicate deception), and they know the machine is calibrated properly. These questions are a breeze. Here’s the hard part…

The questions that I’m calling “positive” are questions that your girl will be HAPPY if you are telling the truth about these things. When the examiner asks you a “positive” question, such as:

You have to figure out on the fly that it’s a POSITIVE, and before answering, substitute the name of a chick that you think is attractive…. like, maybe.. Veronica Belmont. :D

So the questions YOU answer are:

This way, you can truthfully answer “YES!!!!” to all three questions, and the polygraph will not indicate deception……. Unfortunately, since you’re probably not smart enough to convince yourself that he actually SAID “Veronica Belmont”, you’ll probably Epic Fail, because not only are you lying, you’re lying POORLY. :/

Same thing goes for the negative questions, such as:

You know the drill… Search & Replace. “Act As If”! :D

See how simple? :D

3) Do NOT answer escalating questions

This is the way Lie Detector Tests work… When you tell the truth, nothing happens. When you attempt deception, the needle goes YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAAAAAAAAA and the polygraph examiner knows that you just lied. The problem FOR YOU is that he’s not going to TELL YOU that he knows you lied. Here’s how to tell you just got busted, so you can STFU:

If dude asks “Did you ever cheat on your wife?” and you KNOW. DAMNED. WELL. that you did, but you answer “No, Sir” anyway (or some variation, “I’d never cheat on my wife”, “My wife is my heart”, “My wife is my whole life”….) and then the next question he asks you is:

“Have you ever cheated on your wife with FIVE different women?”

Do. Not. Answer. That. Question!!! You. Have. Been. BUSTED!!! Do Not answer ANY more questions along those lines. You have not cheated on your wife in a box. You have not cheated on your wife with a fox. You have not cheated on your wife for some Green Eggs & Ham. NUTH-THANG!… NOTHING! If you DO answer these questions, that’s when Maury gets to hit you with the double-shot, for the big Ratings Bonus:

Maury: “When asked if he’s ever cheated on you, he said ‘No’.”
Girl: :D
Guy: :D
Maury: “The Lie Detector Test said that is a lie…”
Girl: *silent with shock*
Guy: “What? No Way! I have NEVER!…”
Maury: “… more than 30 times.”
Girl: *Falls on floor*
Guy: *Starts imagining living under a bridge*

See that? You could have “survived” if you would have STFU when they started asking those escalating questions… “more than 5 times?”… “more than 10 times?”… “more than 30 times?”… Trust & Believe that wherever they stop asking you, you FAILED all the levels below that one.

4) The Green Room is not PHYSICALLY PAINTED GREEN!!! :/ (idiot)

“The Green Room” is a term used to mean a holding area for people that are not on the show at that point in time. Yes, it *MIGHT* actually have green walls, but it doesn’t have to. The episode that I saw that inspired this series featured a guy, sitting on a couch, in plain view of the camera, saying something to the effect of:

“I’m not going in the Green Room man, haha they send girls in there to trick you. I’m staying right here! :D “

Next thing you know, there’s a white flash, and there’s a girl sitting next to him on a couch. Wait. I need to go off on a tangent. :/

Dudes… PLEASE do not flatter yourselves that you came all the way from the sticks with your so-so looking girlfriend to New York City, where MILLIONS of people live, and according to disputed reports, there are 210,820 more single women than men, and it just so happens that you sit down on a couch inside a studio with SECURITY, where nobody can just walk in off the street, and some chick who’s there DURING WORK HOURS is gonna walk up to YOU, start a conversation, take her shirt off and make out with you. IT. IS. A. TRAP!… JEEZ! :/

On top of that, you are there WITH. YOUR. WIFE! (or girlfriend or whatever) After all that trouble you went through to lie your ass off through the polygraph examination, you think it’s a good idea to pick up chicks because your woman isn’t physically in the same ROOM with you? I mean, just because you can’t see your girl with your eyes means you can get away with ANYTHING?

Here’s your tip #4… Forget about The Green Room. How about, “If you come to NYC to prove to your girl that you’re not cheating, how’s about… NOT CHEATING UNTIL YOU GET BACK HOME?”

And Then… They don’t even send STUNNING chicks in there! :D They send your regular, average, run of the mill, pass five of them on every single New York City block type chick in there, and you go for it right off the bat! Way to make yourself look selective. Good luck getting a good spot for your cardboard box under that bridge.

~Bill

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