'Unemployed winner' Charlie Sheen joins Twitter

LOS ANGELES, USA: Charlie Sheen joined the Twitter ranks on Tuesday, opening a new window into the restless psyche of the former sitcom star.

Sheen, describing himself on his bio as "an unemployed winner", attracted about 300,000 followers in the first few hours, and in turn signed up to follow the tweets of one of his many porn-star girlfriends.

"Winning! Choose your Vice," he wrote in his first and only tweet to date.

The American actor is in news following a tiff with his estranged wife Brooke Mueller, following which police officers visited his Beverly Hills mansion to take his twin boys out of his custody.

Sheen has been so ubiquitous on the talk show circuit in recent days that his former network boss lamented that he wished the actor could have worked as hard to promote himself for an Emmy award.

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The actor has plenty of time on his hands following the cancellation of his top-rated sitcom "Two and a Half Men." CBS and producer Warner Bros pulled the plug on the show for the rest of the season last week after Sheen launched several expletive-filled rants against the show's creator.

He has since recast himself as the savior of the production workers he helped make jobless by campaigning for them to be paid for the eight unproduced episodes.

"I have to right this unconscionable wrong," he told radio host Howard Stern on Tuesday. "I have to take a stand ... many people are suffering and I'm the only guy who can effect a change."

Sheen said he did care about his public image, telling Stern: "I don't have much of a reputation left to ruin."

The 45-year-old actor has defended his partying lifestyle, and said his extracurricular habits need not interfere with the sitcom's production. Sheen stars as a womanizing bachelor, a role not too far removed from his real-life status.

Meanwhile CBS said it would actually benefit in the short term from the sitcom's cancellation since it does not have to pay a license fee to Warner Bros for new episodes, and the reruns pull in strong ratings.

"I'm not saying long-term I want this to go on," CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves said at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco.

"Going down the road ... I don't know what's going to happen," he added. "I hope it's back. We'll see."

Noting Sheen's appearances on the various radio and television shows, Moonves said: "I wish he would have worked this hard to promote himself for an Emmy."

Sheen has received four Emmy nominations for "Two and a Half Men".