Yesterday was a strange #BTUB for me. And I have attended a few.

Firstly I was confronted by something I have never considered nor wanted: fame. My girlfriend Francesca have often teased me about it, casually palmed it off to her friends when explaining twitter to her friends. And I have always laughed it off with a "no, I'm not."

Yet, to my face, in a radio interview, last night I was presented as a "twitter celebrity". How'd you figure that, I asked? "Followers" was the reply. "You have lots of followers."

Now that struck me as an odd answer. Lots of people follow lots of people on Twitter. You can get followers all sorts of ways. If you follow enough people, you'll get an almost equal amount following you back.

But that is not what I would call a measurement of fame. Even by the very limited context of twitter. I am very selective with whom I follow on twitter. Over the years I have pretty much strictly limited myself to local people that I can talk to, and are interesting to me.

My follower base has thusly been slow to grow, and I feel that my number of followers (around 1800) is only a factor of the time (almost three years) and effort I've put in to twitter.

So already my "fame" is quite limited: one, it is on a rather limited medium to start with. Two, it is strictly local - in a geographical sense. And three, a measurement of fame based on followers is already a rather shallow measure. There are people with more followers. Peter Black (@peterjblack) and Brady (@pressdarling) for example enjoy similar statuses of "local twitter celebrities". And there are people with more followers yet again who doesn't.

Now that got me thinking. Am I a celebrity (again - in this limited context)? I still wouldn't say so. Twitter is a strange beast. It is, for me, a very local forum of lots of people I care about and share my (often highly opinionated) views with. I throw things into the ether, hoping that someone will enjoy it: be it a link, a witticisms or an opinion. But most of all it is about the very real and tangible relationships I have cultivated over the years.

I love meeting new people. And through twitter I've met a lot. And through twitter the largest share of whom I call friends come from. And that's what twitter is for me. Not the number of people that sometimes glance at what I have to say.

But the people I meet, the people I talk to. In person as well as online. These days, for me, #BTUB is mostly to catch up with people that I consider friends. If there's new people there it's a bonus.

And so, being confronted with this unwanted label of celebrity, and admittedly a little bit drunk, I became very emotionally bare. I went around and told my friends how much I appreciated them. I patched up a friendship that had gone astray. And hopefully showed the new people I met that I am a real person. And not always this (slightly arrogant) internet persona that some may label a "celebrity".

Warning: it's going to get mushy from here. 

So friends of twitter and in real life. I really do appreciate you, and I am thankful to twitter for enabling me to meet you. James, Sarah, Adam, Nicole, Brady, Denis, Divna, Paul, Elspeth, Paige, Joss, Ash: You are true friends. To Samantha and Kieran: it was lovely to meet you, and you better be coming to BBQ on Sunday. To everyone else I've missed (Caspian, Chris, Netti - you are awesome): I like you too. Let's talk more. And even to the people who don't like me: hey, it's the internet. You can't like everybody.

If you've read this whole rant: Thank you too. If you haven't met me yet, come and talk to me at BTUB or come to one of my BBQs. I'd love to meet you.

A personal computer is what to us now? A desktop? A laptop? A notebook? A netbook? An iPad? A smartphone?

The truth is that it's a spectrum. Not defined by OS. But by interaction.

What is more *personal*? The more intimate, the more up close and personal you can get with the data and the closer interactions with such you can have. The closer you can get, the more personal I would argue.

The PC is no longer your desktop. Nor your laptop. Not even your netbook. It is the Internet in your hands. Your friends at a touch. Your parents faces a click away. THAT is your personal computer. And the best thing is that you won't ever have to think about it as such.

And yes, the Mac profoundly changed computing way back then.

Hey everyone!

This day marks the first real split between the computer as a home appliance and the computer as a professional tool.

BONDI CIGARS - Universal Stew
(Independent)
> Unashamedly middle-aged blues, evoking dank basement pubs filled with cigarette smoke. Cigar smoke even. In fact, what are blues fans doing now post the smoking ban? Now I was pondering angles to put this review in, mostly revolving around the name universal stew. Is it too lowest common denominator? Too thin? Not enough meat? The truth is this is a fairly solid offering from musicians that have been playing for longer than many of the readers have been alive. Of course if you fall into that category, this album might not be for you. Sure, the blues clichés are all there. Lyrics about heartbreak, trucks rolling across plains, hard work and cheating women. There are some odd arrangement choices and some truly woeful backup singing, and while the production could have been a bit beefier this is a stew that stands up to a second serving. Yes, I went there.
ERIK VELAND