Because today is Thursday, the day of the week on which we honor the Norse thunder-god Thor, it seemed appropriate to me to say a few intelligent words about Norse mythology, the development of the Scandinavian languages, epic poetry, and archaeology. And then I thought, "screw that, let's see what's going on over at Twitter."

So I went ahead and conducted a social networking tool test, something of a random rabbit hunt. Beginning with a follower of mine, I picked one of her followers at random; then I picked one of that person's followers; lather, rinse, and repeat five times, adding each new person to my list of people I follow. Here's what I discovered:

@lonelypancake - The Lonely Pancake lives in Flap Jack City, "all alone in a syrup hating world". I got a few chuckles out of his ... her ... its random lines, like "Please stop sipping the Haterade", and "Don't listen to waffles. Seriously. Anything a waffle tells you is full of holes." But mostly I felt a rush of deep unsettledness. Pancakes are supposed to be inanimate, for God's sake. They aren't supposed to talk, let alone tweet. I'll keep a close eye on this one. Anyway, The Lonely Pancake is being followed by ...

@ShellyKramer - Mrs. Kramer (for she is indeed married) tweets from Kansas City, which, despite my persistent lobbying, is still no closer to the state of Kansas. Shelly's bio declares "Luv MilkDuds+Beer", and quite frankly, I am certain that this is precisely what makes Shelly the successful marketing strategist that she is. Milk Duds and Beer together is almost certain to become the new Peanut Butter and Jelly, and when it happens, Shelly will be able to say with pride that she was way ahead of the curve on this one. Her love of mixing chewy-chocolate and liquid hops is probably what caught the attention of ...

@raywatson - Ray is, if his bio is to be believed at all, a big fan of photography, wine, and ... the web. Actually, his bio fearlessly identifies him as a "Web addict", which seems like the sort of thing a person would want to keep a little more hushed up. Still, to each his own, and c'est la vie, which brings me right to my next point: for some reason, Ray's tweets occasionally make use of the French language. As far as I can tell, it's deliberate, too. I'm not going to say anything more, I just hope that Ray someday understands how crippling this is to his credibility as a wine-lover. Despite his shameful use of French, however, Ray managed to get followed by ...

@ksavelyeva - Kseniya Savelyeva connects to Twitter from Toronto, Ontario, where the economic recession has ravaged the land so thoroughly that even Kseniya's name has been brutally stripped of some of its necessary vowels. It is perhaps this tragedy that caused Kseniya to openly declare herself a "Fashion Addict", which, I suppose, means that no matter how hard she tries, Kseniya cannot stop wearing clothes. Personally, I look at Kseniya's smiling face, I consider her vowel-deficient plight and her poignant addiction to clothing, and I am inspired. She keeps her tweets short, informative, and to the point, and she stays on top of the social issues. This sad victim of fashion addiction may just be the person who eventually cures me of my newspaper-reading addiction. At any rate, she certainly gives hope to her followers, among them ...

@WordGroupie - Lynnell Nixon-Knight is a "Writer type", "closet scholar", and "humor afficianado", which I take to mean that she says things, she read things, and she laughs at things. We need more of this type of person in the world, and less of the other "type" of person (you know exactly who I'm talking about). Lynnell (who had the good sense to stock her name with a few extra consonants, just in case) tweets at a different level than most, a level common to "writer types". For example: "Prestidigitation: the phenomenon of balancing my checkbook"; "Perhaps it would be kinder to call oneself a tweesearcher"; "Why do I love Jazzercize so much? In a word: Frozen Towels. (Okay, that’s two words.)" Refreshing stuff, I have to say, especially when I've had to slog my way through Ray's errant French tweets (geeeez, Ray!).

So there you have it. I'm trying to decide if there's any kind of "real life" equivalent to what I just did in the virtual realm, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that what I just did would probably be considered illegal in the "real world", or at least semi-creepy. Thank you, Twitter, for making me feel just a little uncomfortable inside (again).