On August 31, I noticed that my friend Howard Weaver wasn't following me on Twitter.

I swear, I typed "do." I remember because I almost wrote "Whose dick do you have to suck to get followed by @howardweaver?"

Here's where things get interesting. I decided to see if this would work for people I knew and/or admired who hadn't been following me. I made a short list from people I'd been following, spoken with, or had been retweeting.

If you don't recognize all of these names/handles, that's probably because this is a very varied list, in terms of both relative fame and what fields these people operate in.

Jad Abumrad is a producer/on-air host for Radio Lab, a science/culture radio show on WNYC.

Eileen Joy is a medievalist who blogs at In the Middle.

@Brainpicker, aka Maria Popova, is a coolhunter/digital curator who blogs at Brain Pickings.

@BlackSnob is Danielle Belton, who blogs at -- wait for it -- The Black Snob. I think she's my wife's favorite blogger.

@ThisMoiThisMoi is Kartina Richardson, a filmmaker and film critic who's been one of Roger Ebert's blog correspondents recently.

Nathan Bransford is a young book agent who writes a great blog about the publishing industry.

Note: @digiphile is Alex Howard, the Gov 2.0 correspondent for O'Reilly Media.

Some of these people have tens of thousands of followers, some less than a hundred. But I'd been writing most of them, and I thought they were all within reach. I knew I could get their attention.

This one is my favorite:

But it didn't stop there!

Kartina Richardson (@ThisMoiThisMoi) followed me next, although she didn't announce it.

Tony Comstock is a filmmaker.