Adrift in the Twitter stream: What happened to the Falcon 9 test today?

As a certified and certifiable space geek, and as one who is now dabbling tentatively in the Sea of Social Media, I couldn't help but notice that Space X Corp. was set to run a "static firing test" today of its $54 million baby, the Falcon 9 launch vehicle.

That's a picture of the Falcon 9 at the top of this post, taken during it successful launch into Earth orbit in June 2010 (you can find lots more pictures here.)

I don't know what a "static firing test" may entail, but I looked at the SpaceX website earlier today and saw this:

While this did not enlighten me on the nature, purpose or intent of a "static test" (I am pretty sure it's different from "static cling") it told me when and where to "tune in" on the Internet to see whatever it was there was to see.

Meanwhile, I opened up my Twitter page to keep up with anything pre-launch. (Yes, I have my own Twitter account. You could follow me -- @JackLeyhane -- only I don't know where I'm going so it would presumably be pointless to bother.)

But there was no launch -- and, now, I'm not sure if there ever was supposed to be one.

Look at this Twitter feed from @SpaceX (if I'm not using the terminology correctly, forgive the mistakes of a newbie):

The top tweet is the most recent in this screen capture, so you can see that the launch was aborted, that SpaceX was reviewing the data and might consider trying again later.

But... wait? What is this tweet further down the page (and earlier in time) from NASA Kennedy/KSC (@NASAKennedy)?

SpaceX having no issues ahead of static firing. Falcon 9 rocket is fueled, strongback is retracted. Exercise is rehearsal, no launch today.

That's slightly before a breathless tweet from SpaceX urging me to drop everything and watch the test.

I understand that 'stuff' will happen; tests will fail. Failures are inevitable in science. Bad things happen to good scientists; I get all that.

But... was there supposed to be a test or not? And, if not, why was SpaceX urging people to go watch?

Since this post was started, Elon Musk, the man behind SpaceX, has tweeted that "Flight computer aborted rocket hold down firing. Anomaly addressed. Cycling systems to countdown." This makes it sound like there may be a test today after all.

But shouldn't someone tell the nice folks at the Kennedy Space Center that it wasn't just "rehearsal" and that there might yet be a launch today?

Last week filmmaker James Cameron and Google CEO Larry Page were revealed to be part of a group that's planning to mine the Asteroid Belt. This is thrilling stuff -- but my enthusiasm is necessarily dampened when it appears that the people involved in the commercial space program today can't tell a rehearsal from a malfunction.

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UPDATE: Shortly after 3:15pm, SpaceX announced, via Tweet, that there'd been a successful two second burn.

Two seconds?

Really?