tweep.rb

require 'open-uri'
require 'crack/json'

class Tweep
  def initialize(user)
    @user = user
    begin
      u = open("http://api.twitter.com/1/users/show.json?screen_name=#{user}").read
      rescue OpenURI::HTTPError
    end
    if data = Crack::JSON.parse(u)    
      data.collect {|k,v|
        instance_variable_set("@#{k}",v)
      }
    end
  end
  
  def method_missing(method)
    super unless instance_variables.include?("@#{method}")
    instance_variable_get("@#{method}")
  end
end

# irb(main):002:0> a = Tweep.new("a_l")
# irb(main):004:0> a.description
# => "politics n' code: Designer/Developer at TPM"
# irb(main):005:0> b = Tweep.new("tpmpolls")
# irb(main):006:0> b.description
# => "Live feed of incoming political poll data from the TPM Polling Team."
# irb(main):007:0> a.description
# => "politics n' code: Designer/Developer at TPM"