We forced Timmy to leave the comfy confines of the ThinkGeek server closet twice this month to visit New York and Puerto Rico.

The latter wasn't for work (as you may have gathered from the photographs), but New York was a special occasion.

We were voted into the top spot for a customer service Shorty Award by the twittering zombie horde, and we decided we should attend the official awards ceremony in case we won. Timmy even wore a tie.

Turns out we didn't win, and not that we're competitive--except for God of War and D&D--but we did pause to think what losing meant.

We took a look at our publicly viewable tweets and @ replies and realized that the judges wouldn't have necessarily seen us fixing orders, replacing items, and answering technical questions. A lot of the nitty-gritty stuff happens in direct messages so our customers don't have to share order or account information with the rest of the interwebz. (That's why we autofollow everyone--so we can DM easily and take care of issues faster.)

And then there are the tweets about quantum superposition and griping about Caprica (what a soap opera!) and how we'd like IE6 to die in a fire. Oh--and bacon. Lots of bacon.

So it isn't surprising that we don't appear to be doing all that much customer service via Twitter.

But that's only if you consider customer service to be just about fixing borked things. What if our followers want to talk about pie recipes and swap Princess Bride quotes? "I do not think customer service means what you think it means."

Here's the deal: to us, customer service on Twitter is about being awesome to our followers.

You want bizarre links during the day when you'd rather not be working? Done. Have a t-shirt that shipped in the wrong size? We're on it. Can't bear to go another moment without seeing the latest in geeky cupcake technology? Us either.

That's what you'll find in our tweets--and on our Facebook page, for that matter--because that's what you'd get if you hung out and played co-op Mario with us. (But you'd have to expect getting flung down holes, too, 'cause that's the best part.)

So if you ever need us to fix a problem order, or put the screws on UPS 'cause you're pretty sure your package was lost, you can call us at 1-888-GEEKSTUFF, email us, or start a live chat--but we're there on Twitter and Facebook, too.

Just be ready for some bacon.