diff --git a/plugins/twitter.py b/plugins/twitter.py
index da002c1..28fabe6 100644
--- a/plugins/twitter.py
+++ b/plugins/twitter.py
@@ -3,7 +3,8 @@ twitter.py: written by Scaevolus 2009
 retrieves most recent tweets
 """
 
-import urllib
+import re
+import urllib2
 from lxml import etree
 
 from util import hook
@@ -22,21 +23,42 @@ def unescape_xml(string):
 
 
 @hook.command
-def twitter(input):
-    ".twitter <user> - gets most recent tweet from <user>"
-    if not input.strip():
+def twitter(inp):
+    ".twitter <user>/<id> - gets last tweet from <user>/gets tweet <id>"
+    inp = inp.strip()
+    if not inp:
         return twitter.__doc__
 
-    url = "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/%s.xml?count=1" \
-            % urllib.quote(input)
+    getting_id = False
+    if re.match('^\d+$', inp):
+        getting_id = True
+        url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/show/%s.xml' % inp
+    elif re.match('^\w{,15}$', inp):
+        url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/%s.xml?count=1' % inp
+    else:
+        return 'error: invalid username'
+
     try:
-        tweet = etree.parse(url)
-    except IOError:
-        return 'error'
+        xml = urllib2.urlopen(url).read()
+    except urllib2.HTTPError, e:
+        errors = {400 : 'bad request (ratelimited?)',
+                401: 'tweet is private',
+                404: 'invalid user/id',
+                500: 'twitter is broken',
+                502: 'twitter is down ("getting upgraded")',
+                503: 'twitter is overloaded (lol, RoR)'}
+        if e.code == 404:
+            return 'error: invalid ' + ['username', 'tweet id'][getting_id]
+        if e.code in errors:
+            return 'error: ' + errors[e.code]
+        return 'error: unknown'
 
-    if tweet.find('error') is not None:
-        return "can't find that username"
+    tweet = etree.fromstring(xml)
+
+    if not getting_id:
+        tweet = tweet.find('status')
+        if tweet is None:
+            return 'error: user has no tweets'
 
-    tweet = tweet.find('status')
     return unescape_xml(': '.join(tweet.find(x).text for x in
         'created_at user/screen_name text'.split()))