December 2009
61 posts
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most viewed trailers of the year
Yahoo! has the most viewed movie trailers of 2009. The only movie out of the top ten that I saw was Terminator: Salvation.
Here’s that trailer below:
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famous san fran sea lions disappear
Weird story from Wired.
The sea lions’ disappearance is as strange as their initial colonization of the pier about 20 years ago, in late 1989. They just started showing up one day and as their numbers increased, their traditional hang out, Seal Rocks, became less populated. There are all sorts of theories about why the pier became a favorite haul-out spot for the sea lions, but no one knows for...
Watchyear in review from jib jab
Though they aren’t necessarily the best videos, they seem to be the most popular and so I watch these every year — the year in review videos from Jib Jab.
What do you think?
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the @clubtrillion guy gets profiled by the NY...
I don’t think that it is often that a benchwarmer on a college basketball team gets a profile in the New York Times; but it happened today when Pete Thamel profiled Mark Titus, a senior from Ohio State.
The junior guard Jon Diebler said that after a win on a recent Saturday night, [Ohio State men’s basketball coach Thad] Matta gathered the team to talk about an e-mail message that...
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for those of you born on december 25
This is from the great webcomic XKCD. I recommend checking it out.
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facebook group makes rage against the machine #1...
H/t to @pguy.
While most Facebook groups are an exercise in futility, one actually got something done; a Facebook group made the Rage Against the Machine song “Killing in the Name Of” the number one single in England.
The story out of the New York Daily News:
According to The Daily Mail, Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 hit song sold 500,000 copies in one week to become the...
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WatchYour worst fears are realized: Marmaduke: The Movie.
No, it wasn’t some joke or scary tale told on the internet; they have actually filmed and will be releasing a live action version of the incredibly horrible single-pane daily cartoon Marmaduke.
And it will star Owen Wilson as a speaking Great Dane.
Lord help us all.
top ten facebook status update trends
While the year’s top Twitter trends are interesting, the year’s top trends on FaceBook status updates are even more interesting — because the numbers of Facebook users dwarfs the number of Twitter users.
So what were they? Well, The number one trend was… *drumroll*
Facebook applications.
In other words, people talking about Farmville and Mafia Wars.
But it was something...
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i saw jesus shooting santa claus
An… umm.. interesting Christmas decoration. Because if there was one thing that Jesus stood for, it was shooting fat, bearded men in red suits with a shotgun.
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i have no idea what the hell goes on in cricket
I learn this from a sentence in an ESPN Cricket story (apparently, ESPN covers cricket at cricinfo.com) about the match between India and Sri Lanka. Actually, it’s not the entire story, just the first sentence of the lede paragraph:
The second humdinger between these two teams this week ran the gamut from wonderful to what-the-heck as runs and wickets flowed in equal measure in good...
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"Dollhouse Hits New Lows" in ratings
I haven’t watched a single episode of this show (and, in that, I’m pretty much like the rest of America), but I know a few people who swear that it is one of the best shows on TV right now.
But there is a reason that it is being canceled, and it isn’t because Fox doesn’t like Josh Whedon (well, they might since they put the show on Friday, were original shows go to die)...
"the Daily Sound would never advocate for the...
Any time your newspaper has to issue an apology using that phrase, then your paper has made a massive mistake in printing a column.
It comes from the Daily Sound in Santa Barbara, California.
The Daily Sound would like to take this time to apologize for publishing a guest opinion article on Thursday, Dec 10 written by Gina Perry titled “Watch out for ‘Obama Thumpers.’”
There’s no excuse for...
best end-of-the-year list around
The best corrections of the year from Regret The Error.
Here are my favorites, but these are by no means the only good ones.
Bear sighting: An item in the National Briefing in Sunday’s Section A said a bear wandered into a grocery story in Hayward, Wis., on Friday and headed for the beer cooler. It was Thursday.
ON 17 July 2008 in our front page article “Ron the Lash” we falsely reported...
taking a toddler to see santa
This is in response to one of Ken’s annual posts. My dad and I took my 18-month old nephew Micael to see Santa at the mall earlier this week and surprise his parents with some photos of Santa and Micael; we showed up at 3:30, but Santa was “feeding his reindeer” and on break until 4:00. We decided to walk around the mall for a few minutes before standing in line, and fifteen...
Twitter hacked by "Iranian Cyber Army" says...
On Facebook click “View Post” to read this.
TechCrunch is reporting that Twitter was “hacked and defaced” by someone calling themselves the “Iranian Cyber Army.”
They suggest that if you’re using the same password on Twitter as for other accounts, it would be a good time to change those passwords.
Here is the message from the defacing:
Iranian Cyber...
top twitter topics of '09
This year was really the year that Twitter took off. It’s almost shocking when you see someone who isn’t on Twitter or hasn’t tried Twitter out and inevitably quit (they’ll most likely be back… some time). But it’s also the year that Twitter hit the mainstream.
I think that news organizations require most of their staff to be on Twitter; everyone from ESPN...
not so fast on that dark matter discovery
Again from the folks at Science, the evidence for the discovery of dark matter that the internets have been buzzing about today is not very strong.
Since 2003, CDMS team members have been trying to spot the distinctive electrical and heat signals of WIMPs knocking into the atomic nuclei in their detectors. And for the first time, researchers have seen at least some events that look like WIMPs,...
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happiest states in the USA
According to the journal Science, the happiest state in the United States is… Louisiana. New York brings up the rear, at 51 (they include Washington D.C. in the count of ‘states’).
Web MD has the full list:
Louisiana
Hawaii
Florida
Tennessee
Arizona
Mississippi
Montana
South Carolina
Alabama
Maine
Alaska
North Carolina
Wyoming
Idaho
South Dakota
Texas
Arkansas
...
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no pepsi commercials at the super bowl this y
Today, PepsiCo announced that they would not be airing ads at this year’s Super Bowl, after 23 years of using the largest TV audience in America to showcase their wares.
The Huffington Post has the 13 most memorable Pepsi Super Bowl ads (aka the 13 they could find on YouTube with five minutes of searching).
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the new Scrubs
OK, we’ve seen four episodes of the ‘new’ version of Scrubs (Scrubs Med School) and… so far I haven’t seen anything to make me form an opinion about the new show. I’ve heard that the show sucks, I’ve heard that it is the same as ever and I’ve heard that it should be taken out back and shot.
This isn’t the first time that a Bill Lawrence run...
My best soccer team of all time
ESPN.com has been doing a lot of really cool stuff in their soccer section during the countdown to the 2010 World Cup. From near-instant analysis of the draw to short histories of every World Cup since the inaugural 1930 tournament in Uruguay (and you’d be surprised at how violent and corrupt the World Cup has been at times), it has been a great thing to check out every day.
I’m not...
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US cell phone users texting continues to skyrocket
Does it seem like everyone and their mother is sending text messages these days? Well, yeah, it’s probably true. The Census Bureau found that text messaging has risen since 2003 at an insane rate.
The number of abbreviated messages tapped out on US mobile phones and handheld devices in the month of December more than doubled almost every year since 2003, when 2.1 billion text messages were...
"A town...[overcame] their hatred of gays [to]...
Unlike Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, I had actually heard about this story. But the e-mailer who brought it to his attention is a really good writer, worth reading.
This local scandal is the best of the year because it’s both hilarious and heartwarming. It was an open secret mayor of my very conservative town, San Angelo, TX, was gay. Nobody particularly cared, though, because he...
Ohio Goodwill gets a donation of marijuana
This is pretty funny. A Goodwill in Ohio received an unusual donation — $1,500 worth of marijuana stuffed in a cooler. I’m guessing the person who donated the cooler didn’t realize there was marijuana in the cooler.
The donation is, as anyone who has donated to Goodwill knows, anonymous. However, police have an idea as to how they can catch the thief.
“If anybody would...
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four problems with Rick Reilly on SportsCenter
1) Stumbled over his words
2) His timing on his highlights is off — always a lot of long pauses.
3) He tried to use a catchphrase for every single highlight
4) has no inflection on his words; everything is in some weird high, nasally monotone. Kind of cable-access-TV like.
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Time Magazine's top ten pariahs list has one big...
How the hell did Elizabeth Lambert make this list? Lambert, if you don’t know, is the women’s soccer player who made headlines by pulling the hair of another player and pulling her to the ground.
A bad action? Yes. Completely overblown by the media (including, apparently, Time)? Absolutely.
Time added this her to time’s top ten list of pariahs that includes Bernie Madoff,...
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i guess i wasn't paying attention
I just told my friend Jessica happy birthday via text message (mainly because, well, it’s her birthday). She replied, “ty dear :-)” and this reminded me of another story.
As I like to do, when I remember, I will tell my friends happy birthday at midnight (or as close to after, obviously) via text message. Usually when I do this, they respond in the morning, because not everyone...
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flight of the conchords done for good
Bret and Jemaine announce on the official Flight of the Conchords website that it really is over (H/T to Alan Sepinwall):we’ve noticed the less we say about the future of the show, the more people want to talk about it, so in an effort to reverse this trend we are today announcing that we won’t be returning for a 3rd season. We’re very proud of the two seasons we made and we like the way the show...
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time for the Jaguars to move to LA
This is just ridiculous. The Jacksonville Jaguars can’t even sell out a home game against an in-state team when both teams are battling for a playoff spot.
When you are playing in a key match up (last week against the Houston Texans) for your playoff fate and you can only draw 45,000 people, it’s a sign that football just isn’t going to work in your city.
Even the Kansas...
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Pacquiao-Mayweather not going to Cowboys Stadium
ESPN is reporting that the megafight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. is not going to be at Cowboys stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Pretty much no one knows why.
Arum, Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer, who will co-promote the nearly finalized fight, and HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg were supposed to meet with Cowboys officials at the stadium on Wednesday for a tour of the...
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Rick Reilly tries to benefit from the Tiger Woods...
Rick Reilly fancies himself a golfer, and he holds himself at a higher regard than you or your friends who play golf a couple of times a week; after all, Reilly is a sports columnist, so everything he does in relation to golf is… better. Or something.
And this week, he decides he’s going to be an amateur PR guy for Tiger Woods to try and… well he doesn’t actually think...
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Peter Gammons ditches ESPN for MLB Network
Wow. Huge coup for the MLB Network, as Hall of Fame baseball reporter Peter Gammons is leaving ESPN after 20 years to join the folks at MLB Network. At MLBN, Gammons will appear on studio shows such as Hot Stove and MLB Tonight. Also, Gammons will join the regional New England Sports Network as a studio analyst and reporter. Those outlets landing Gammons is an example of what ESPN has to worry...
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reconfirming one hockey player stereotype
NHL player Brendan Witt was hit by an SUV in Philadelphia on Tuesday while crossing the street. On Tuesday night, Witt suited up for the New York Islanders when they took on the Philadelphia Flyers.
That stereotype about hockey players being some of the most badass men on the planet? Totally confirmed (again).
“I’m okay,” Witt told the crowd as he dusted himself off, according...
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sales of physics book spike thanks to Tiger Woods
Though I’ve seen just about every single piece of news about the recent Tiger Woods scandals (not exactly by choice), I don’t think that I ever actually saw the photos of the accident.
But, apparently, there was a book about physics in the car and that book has seen its sales rise because of the notoriety.
“This is one of my older and lesser known books – a guide to new...
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man lost $127 million in Vegas in 2007
The last time I went to Las Vegas, I’ll admit that I lost a little bit more than I had expected to. But it was pretty much nothing compared to Terrance Watanabe.
From the Wall Street Journal: The run is believed to be one of the biggest losing streaks by an individual in Las Vegas history. It devoured much of Mr. Watanabe’s personal fortune, he says, which he built up over more than...
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"There are absolutely no positive stakes in this...
Over at Bleacher Report, Bryan Kelly has an excellent take on the Fiesta Bowl which pits TCU against Boise State.
A smack-down of their opponent gains them nothing except functionally destroying the perceived strength of the other’s conference.
A close game makes it appear as though neither belonged in the BCS conversation in the first place.
A shootout makes it seem like their defenses...
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better take the "C" out of BCS
Bull crap.
I’m not saying that TCU and Boise State shouldn’t play eachother — but they shouldn’t play eachother this year.
The BCS decided to match up the two non-BCS schools and I can’t help but wonder if it is due to the fact that the BCS doesn’t want to have another non-BCS school beat a BCS school. TCU and Boise State should both have their chances to...