Archives for January 2011

Rap Master Billy S. once said “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Granted, he tossed off that whimsical bon mot in the middle of one of the most depressing plays ever written (HEY LOOK! Everybody’s dead!), but that doesn’t make it any less valid. Nevertheless, I sincerely doubt he would have been pleased with the advent of text messaging. There’s no way to convince me that he ever envisioned his tragic king uttering “2b? nt2b?.”

And while we here at the World News Center hold no lofty pretensions that we are last bastion keeping the barbarians from the gate, there does seem to be a growing segment of society which truly believes something I was told two nights ago; “It doesn’t matter if I’m correct or not, it’s my right to say it.” It also appears that this gentlemen believes it is his right to say “it” poorly as well.

I’ve read his tweets. U cn trst me n dat.

But as sad as that is, it’s nothing compared to what Barbara Goldberg from Yahoo! News is reporting. More and more men and women are going straight from sexting to sex.

Nearly four out of five women and three of five men say they believe texting, Facebook and other social networking tools cause new couples to jump into bed faster, a survey released on Monday showed.

But only 38 percent of women say they have actually slept with a date any sooner because of digital intimacy, according to the 1,200 women and men who participated in the third annual sex survey by Shape and Men’s Fitness magazines.

Smart phones and laptops are the new toys that lead to the bedroom, it said, with nearly 80 percent of women and 58 percent of men saying social media tools leads to sex faster.

Texting is the No. 1 way lovers stay in touch, the survey found, with men texting 39 percent more often than phoning and women 150 percent more.

Even before the magic begins, 70 percent of women and 63 percent of men use Google and other online tools to screen potential dates.

Sixty-five percent of those polled said they had been asked out by text and 49 percent through a Facebook message.
Once the relationship clicks, 72 percent of women report scouring a current partner’s ex-girlfriends’ Facebook pages.

Even in the heat of passion, some people just can’t get enough of their digital devices, the survey found. When a call or text comes in during sex, 5 percent of respondents said they glance to see who is calling and 1 percent say they stop to answer the phone.

And when the spark is extinguished, digital dumping is the new way to break up, with 43 percent of women and 27 percent of men reporting getting a text along the lines of “It’s not you, it’s me.”

For the heartbroken, the Internet keeps hope alive, with 81 percent of all respondents saying they won’t de-friend an ex on Facebook and 75 percent admitting to constantly checking a former sweetheart’s page.

Ignoring the creepy stalker aspect of this story, reading the third to last paragraph of the article immediately led me to think that these people must be lousy in bed. I, once, didn’t notice that the hotel I was in was on fire until management ripped open the door screaming for us to evacuate. Even then I asked how much time we had.

If you were me you wouldn’t have been all that eager to hop off that particular carnival ride either.

She was an E-Ticket all unto her own.

Actually stopping to answer a phone? That was never going to happen.

On the other hand, if these people are willing to go straight to the horizontal bop without so much as a dinner, a drink or even a meeting, that increases the likelihood of running into someone intelligent in a restaurant or bar or other public place.

Hit me up if you’re down with that.

While the lowest of the plebeian proletariat sits in its dank environs typing its fingers into nubs, the exalted ruling class sits in the lap of luxury on a beach in Florida tormented by the ceaseless wondering of why the hired help is being so slow to refill their Mai Tais. While we are forced to wear socks under our mittens as we chip ice off of our desks, because heat is too expensive in winter, our prestigious principals, those lofty lions of media, are forced to suffer through the heinous act of adjusting their own chaise lounges.

Yes, I need a satire font.

Nevertheless, things are what they are.

And, like all children left unattended, my first thought was to throw an office kegger and invite over some of those nice ladies with low morals. But that thought was quickly dismissed when it became apparent that said kegger would be an ice sculpture within an hour.

Add in the fact that “frost bite” and “funzies” should never be used in the same sentence, and you have a recipe for disaster.

My friend and former Playboy model, Debra Jo Fondren, thought it would a great day to write about kitties. More specifically, the Sunda Clouded Leopards which were recently discovered in China. Sure it might be fun to write about a new species of cat, but what do I say after “Hey look! It’s a new species of cat!”?

Yeah, that about covers it.

Then I thought I’d bookend my masterpiece about penis festivals around the world with its female equivalent. After all, fair is fair. But as it turns out, the only real excitement out there, after Amanda Palmer’s stunning look at her – ahem – map of Tasmania, is a rising cult of women who steam clean their vaginæ.

Not even I want to go down that particular road. Even so, I still feel a strong desire to party with Monica Garske.

Of course, as long as I’m writing about nothing, I guess we could take a minute to talk about a former television show about nothing. However, since said show featured a cast of characters whom I wanted to beat to death with a hammer – both individually and collectively, there’s not much there for me to write about.

On the other hand, I guess I could lead us all in a rousing chorus of If I Had a Hammer. But given the fact that we are a shocked nation looking for avenues of peaceful discourse, that seems a tad inappropriate.

Were I a smaller man, I could gloat over the fact that our leonine leaders will be forced to deal with thunder storms, rain and high waves today. In fact the weather will be so bad they’ll have to suffer through the indignity of drinking Mai Tais indoors.

But, like Whitman said, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” So I won’t do that.

I guess I could write about the baby Godzilla found in Riverside California. But “the cops found a lizard and the lizard was nice” is a pretty boring story.

Even by Californian standards.

In other words, there’s nothing for me to write about today. So I’ll just let you get back to whatever it is you’re doing and hope for better news tomorrow.

We’re all accustomed to having our personal space invaded by spammers and telemarketers and wonderful offers of multi-million dollar inheritances and tantalizing chances at improving our love lives and so on. When we seem unmoved by these chances at self improvement and riches, it seems they up the ante by putting pop up ads and banners in front of our favorite web sites. If that’s not enough there is clothing sold with advertising included and called “brands.” That way you can pay for the privilege of advertising their wares to your unsuspecting friends. It’s gotten so pernicious than television shows run ads at the bottom of the screen during your favorite TV shows.

Heck, you can’t even watch a video on You Tube without being forced to sit through some lame auto ad.

In other words, I think we can all sympathize with this British mom.

Athima Chansanchai at MSNBC reports that mom hung up on a legitimate $10,000 prize.

Ooops.

Conditioned to politely hang up on telemarketers, Gail Davis followed form recently, only to find out she had hung up on a legit Apple giveaway of a $10,000 iTunes gift card for downloading Apple’s App Store’s 10 billionth app early Saturday morning, a milestone our own Suzanne Choney wrote about over the weekend.

“I thought it was a prank call,” the UK-based Davis told CultofMac.com (Thanks Gizmodo for pointing us there.) She remembers saying, “Thank you very much, I’m not interested” and then she hung up. (She doesn’t even own an iPod that can run apps, but her daughters own iPod touches.)

Luckily for this mom, her two teenage daughters came scrambling downstairs to tell her that this was no prank and that she better call back! They had apps to buy, for god’s sake! (That last comment is from my own reenactment in my mind of this pivotal family moment.)

Turns out the girls had downloaded a few apps that morning, including the free Paper Glider app, in which the object of the app is to see “how far can you flick and fly your paper aeroplane.” It’s one of the top five free App Store apps, even with user reviews titled, “Truly crap,” “Boring” and “Lame.” It now has the distinction of being the App Store’s 10 billionth app. And the lucky person who happened to download that milestone was going to get a reward: a $10,000 iTunes gift card.

“The girls came down and said it wasn’t a prank,” Davis told CultofMac.com. “I had a moment of panic.”

That panic led to a frantic return call to Apple, but that led nowhere fast, except to generate more family drama.

“The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a genuine call,” she recalled. “The girls were getting quite tense. They never would have forgiven me. They would have held it against me for all eternity.”

But this reality show moment ends happily. An Apple exec called back and sorted things out, making sure Davis received the award.

Now may be the time for Davis and her husband to upgrade their iPods so their daughters aren’t the only ones enjoying all those new apps and/or songs, movies, tv shows, etc. And from now on, she may want to screen calls first before hanging up so abruptly!

So, all’s well that end’s well. Mom can now afford to let her darling daughters download even more apps for a product that is basically 90% hype and 10% phone.

In other words, it’s proof that someone is buying into those pop ups, banner ads, spam ……

Thanks to Gina Ferraro for finding this video