What I Learned From the Balloon Boy Episode

When you got in trouble as a kid wasn't the first thing your mom said, "So what have you learned from this?" Hopefully Falcon learned... something. I certainly learned a lot.

1. We don't have news on news channels anymore. Although long suspected, this was the tipping point of confirmation. What we have are clucky knitting circles that sit in studios with cameras on them, babbling reflexively to the latest chaos to cross their line of sight, while being slightly less informed, intelligent, and/or savvy than the majority of people we run into on a daily basis. No, I wasn't watching The View. Yes, some of them had (or were capable of growing) beards. That didn't make them any less clucky. Sometimes more so. Honestly, my barista has more gravitas and better information.
   
2. Be careful what you hear from your news source. Because they aren't careful what they read on the internet. They kept throwing out rumor and speculation by citing "some websites suggest." Turning to my husband I said, "I need to blog that the kids is actually a 2,000 year old vampire and although he fell from the balloon he's fine, he just needed the blood of twenty cows to heal his wounds. Very messy." You know, just to see if the news channels would bite. The only reason I didn't was because at that point we weren't sure the kid was ok and it would have been callous to disregard the family's feelings in an attempt to speculate. Obviously I don't have it in me to be a TV news anchor.
3. Being a kid is harder now. Let's be honest, we all did really stupid things when we were kids. But the chance for us to be fodder and spectacle for a drama-hungry 24-hour news network was dramatically lower in the 80s or even the 90s. Before the 80s those networks didn't even exist and you REALLY had to do something to get on the sedate, stately nightly news - either local or national. I'm now a little scared to have kids because they will be growing up in the roaring 2010s where.. there will be roving cameras zipping around trying to catch something interesting happening? I don't know how it can get worse from here, I just assume that it will.

Maybe I'm the last one who should be reviewing the news networks since I actually don't watch them often anymore (or maybe that's the point). My primary news source? Kind of... ambient. Information is pretty much omnipresent in our lives and when I hear/see/sense something that interests me I follow up on it, usually with Google. (Usually on my Blackberry, so my learning is 24/7 and location-independent.) After that I would list Daily Show and Colbert Report (affectionately dubbed "the boys" in our house) and I read the Late Night Political Jokes list pretty consistently. Last, but not least, is checking in on my blogging circle periodically to see what's up.

All that makes me question: perhaps it isn't just the newspapers that are becoming irrelevant.

Oh, Balloon Boy, what have you done?

The Random Album Cover Meme

Pam over at Beancounters must've realized I had a hard week because she posted this totally awesome meme.

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit random

The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to The Quotations Page. Hit random quotes

The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr. Click on explore the last seven days

The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.


Sources:
Kimberly Wood Photography, In the Sky with Diamonds on Flickr
Centro (Mexico City) on Wiki
Martha Brooks, True Confessions of a Heartless Girl on The Quotations Page

I Have Needs

Remember the Google game "[Name] is"? Well this is "[Name] needs."

Sue needs to look at getting back in step with us if she wants to stay and participate as a full member of the Liberal party [ed. Ouch!]

Sue needs an outhouse where electrical items can be stored

"SUE NEEDS YOU!"

Sue needs to back to school to learn the basics of What Not to Wear [ed. Ouch!]

Sue needs occasional prompting when reading

Sue needs to be rocked

Sue needs developers

Sue needs help!

Sue needs a good avatar

Sue needs YOU to sell our city

Come on, Scoops, you know you wanna... Tip o' the hat to Deb Land, who I found via Wendi Aarons, who I found because she authored this wicked awesome open letter to P&G over their stupid Always brand "Have a Happy Period" marketing.

The Visual Mosaic Meme

Scoops always has the funnest stuff.
Here are the questions you have to answer visually:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name - Or online handle.

Here's how:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

Friday Random Ten: Watts Bar Lake Edition

1. Probative
2. 380th Air Expeditionary Wing
3. Arctocephalites
4. Quebecor World
5. Studstrup
6. Gosport and Fareham R.F.C.
7. Paul Campbell
8. HMS Discovery
9. National Narrowcasting Network
10. Paul Kennerley
    

I'm With the Band...

I got this game from Scoops. "Here's how the meme goes: Go to Wikipedia. Click on "random article." The first one that comes up is your band's name. The next is the album title. The next 15 are the songs on the album."

His band, Darwin Glass, turned out great. I kept myself from editing my results or skipping anything to get a completely random read. My best guess is that this is a slightly political, very weird folk/country group. Potentially from Europe. That have a weird fascination with both time and geography. Apparently they are fans of Darwin Glass because track #10 looks like a cover of a Darwin Glass song.

Band Name: Watts Bar Lake
Album Title: 2007 Kerry Intermediate Football Championship
Track Listing:
1) Patricia McKay
2) What You Don't Know
3) Martin Mere
4) Charlotte Eagles
5) Thirteener
6) Lateral coital position
7) 1996-97 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)
8) Yasir Hameed
9) Horsleycross Street
10) Discrepancy of hypergraphs
11) Neuviller-lès-Badonviller
12) Marlinton, West Virginia
13) Malcolm Gladwell
14) TTE
15) 2855 Bastian

The Number 123

Scoops definitely knows my number. No, not 23. Or 123. But invite me to meme and I will come right out of the woodwork. I'm traveling so thank goodness I brought reading material with me.

Here are the meme rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people & post a comment here once you post it to your blog, so I can come see.

Page 123:
We can hold a face in memory, and we can solve a puzzle in a flash. But what Schooler is saying is that all these abilities are incredibly fragile. Insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads.
~ Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

In case that entry made you wonder what the next line was? "It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out."

I hereby pass this meme along to the following fabulous bloggers:

1. The Notorious ADB. I would seriously like to know what reading material you have closest to you. Bonus points if it turns out to be a bureaucratic manual.
   
2. Subspace at GalaticMu. I know you hate memes but I think you will find this to be the exception - and entertaining for me to boot. What would be even cooler would be if everyone on the GalacticMu wanted to do this and string it together into one funky sci-fi vignette. But, you know, no pressure...
   
3. Pam at beancounters. Bonus points if you have something close to hand that ISN'T a schoolbook or bureaucratic manual. Yes, I worry about you.
   
4. Nevsky at 2+2=5. You need to post a FEW more things on your blog anyway!
5. sixthdoctor at lighthearted mental sewage. What are you reading under that great big festering neon distraction? Inquiring minds want to know.