Blog P.I.

Two of my (relatively) recent obsessions are fairly unrelated: HBO’s The Wire and Obvious’ Twitter. Since I started tracking “the wire” on Twitter, the two have converged.

For those whom I’ve just confused: Twitter-tracking is a neat and non-obvious function of the popular micro-blogging service. If you’re a casual Twitterino, you may not even know of it. Put as simply as possible, in addition to receiving every tweet from those I follow, I also receive tweets from users across the entire network whenever they use a phrase I’m tracking, whether I’m following them or not. Tracked tweets won’t show up in your web interface, but they will be delivered by IM or text message (and I get both).

With the fifth and final season nearing an end, I started tracking the show’s title about a week ago. I got about a dozen or so relevant tweets per day — until last night’s airing of the ninth and penultimate episode. Although most Wire-heads I know have been watching episodes early via On Demand this year, the avalanche of Wire-related tweets give me the impression that most people are still watching at the appointed hour.

And with three different air times across four time zones, some West Coast reactions didn’t arrive until well after I was asleep. Out of sheer novelty and devotion to the television show, here are the tracked feeds I got last night and early this morning. If you aren’t caught up, yes there are spoilers, and the whole thing continues below the jump.

And as you’ll quickly notice, not every mention of “wire” has to do with “The Wire”:

8:41 PM (marcowill): cooking red beans and rice and getting ready for The Wire. My name is my name!
8:50 PM (ChrisLove): Almost time for the Wire!!!!!!
8:56 PM (melanig): @arsepoetica We aren’t allowed to watch “The Wire” until 12am your time because it is not in HD until then, so don’t tell me if anyone dies.
8:59 PM (seedoflife): Off to strap in for THE WIRE:)
9:00 PM (freddymini): Did go fly the kite with my son. it crashed and the wire, in less than 2 secs, made a gazillion of nodes. Drove me nuts!
9:07 PM (codeslinger): watching ep 9 of The Wire
9:08 PM (arsepoetica): I’m out! “The Wire” beckons. ‘Night, all.
(deantrippe): Watching the scramble-HBO version of The Wire.
9:43 PM (jbrotherlove): dayum! who’s the muscle with Chris on The Wire?
9:47 PM (irinaslutsky): @jbrotherlove dont say any words i’m about to watch saving minutes of the wire like drops of rain in a drought
9:53 PM (batterista): Neurons that fire together, wire together.
9:57 PM (msnbc_ent): Series finale of ‘The Wire’ is Can’t Miss TV http://tinyurl.com/yowytg
10:03 PM (shoseph): Will be watching the final two episodes of season one of The Wire tonight. Going to take a while to catch up to @williambeutler and Olly.
10:04 PM (PaulLev): The Wire Season 5 Episode 9: Cold, Killer Sweetheart: And now there’s just one - one episode left in this.. http://tinyurl.com/2q6qcv
10:13 PM (AnnieR): Rarely does a doc film title succinctly proclaim exactly what to expect - “Man on Wire” FTW!
10:28 PM (misterjt): enebriated. picking up dinner. once home, the wire
10:29 PM (seedoflife): Just finished looking at The Wire. Lester rcvd the fuel for another
season at a minimum. But the streets are left behind virtually empty.
10:33 PM (jdarney): Totally wrecked after watching the next to last episode of The Wire.
10:38 PM (seedoflife): One more episode of THE WIRE. I believe Templeton is taken down for falsifying his stories before McNulty catches any heat.
10:45 PM (ddemaree): Could this week’s The Wire be the best episode of the whole series so far? Even just for the scenes with Bubs and Michael and Dukie?
(chrisbz): With only one episode left, The Wire looks like it is going to end mostly in tragedy.
10:46 PM (trisignia): Just registered a Wire-inspired domain for hijinks with the lady.
11:01 PM (colinwilson): @miriamparkinson Fencing wire?
11:02 PM (graysky): Ohhhhh, that was some good Wire! So bitter-sweet. Can’t believe there is only 1 episode left.
11:07 PM (angelan): ramsey lewis’s “in crowd,” on the wire.
11:11 PM (irinaslutsky): OMG i forgot i didnt watch last week’s episode of WIre, that’s how much i treasure it and JUST SAW OMAR ………………………..omg omg
11:33 PM (buffalogeek): it got a little dusty in here as michael said goodbye to dukie and bug on “The Wire” tonight
11:34 PM (MizLit): Watching “The Wire” *lurve*
11:50 PM (kplawver): Wow. I can’t wait to see how the wire concludes. Too bad its smacl in the middle of sxsw.
11:54 PM (buzztter_en): http://buzztter.com/en nin, New NIN, thing, people, Oprah, Nine Inch Nails, inch nails, Wire, that’s so, Hartford, Bull, DIRT, 1984, Dex …
12:10 AM (beerad): is watching ‘The Wire’
12:15 AM (grahamenglish): !!! The Wire: http://www.mininova.org/get/1214284
12:16 AM (dgroundsel): not cracked up to be a chinscratcher. Also the second to last ep of The Wire was cracken fresh.
12:25 AM (melanig): …watching Bill Mahr, waiting for “The Wire.”
12:27 AM (irinaslutsky): i know i’m smart but i had no idea what the code was in the wire, i guess maybe if i didnt watch it alone maybe i knew it was locations…
12:55 AM (misterjt): can’t i just time travel to next sunday at 6pm PST so I could get down with the finale of The Wire? This episode was aces.
1:02 AM (Stuart): I just saw The Wire and now I can’t sleep.
1:16 AM (hangry): wait.. that was the series finale of Veronica Mars? talk about leaving it open ended. Geesh. Bring on ‘The Wire’.
1:19 AM (rambn): ok. I’m going dark during “The Wire” HD
1:24 AM (ben21): The Wire