Archive for 2009

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Only An Ignoranus Would Believe In Reintarnation

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 25, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

When I recently wrote about media that appears to be unaware of its own irony, I was convinced that there must be a word for that concept, maybe in German or French. I couldn’t find one, so in my lame attempt at making up my own, I came up with “ignoronic”. Which reminded me of [...]

When I recently wrote about media that appears to be unaware of its own irony, I was convinced that there must be a word for that concept, maybe in German or French. I couldn’t find one, so in my lame attempt at making up my own, I came up with “ignoronic”. Which reminded me of DailyCandy’s Lexicon, made-up words that were shared for free on their site between 2002-2006. Well, ignoronics strikes again. Daily Candy has released a book you don’t need about words that don’t exist. To further the irony, I want a copy of Words That Don’t Exist But Should, but I don’t want to buy it. Complete the circle by buying a copy for me, and as a bonus I’ll get a percentage of the sale from that Amazon link. I guess this made-up word stuff is a popular pastime; the Washington Post has a feature called Style Invitational in which it invites readers to do just that. This guy’s blog does a better job of rounding up the winners than the Post itself does. Some personal favorites: Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it; Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period; and Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly. More favorites from Daily Candy and elsewhere below, feel free to share your own —> Read the rest of this entry »

Innovid: Advertising You Might Actually Enjoy

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 23, 2009 by admin in Popular Media

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

In spite of Google’s $2 Billion purchase of YouTube, and the general public’s slowly growing awareness of services like Joost and Hulu (and soon Sling), no one has yet figured out how to effectively monetize these sites. I mean, if you want to see advertisements while you watch videos, why not just watch TV? And [...]

In spite of Google’s $2 Billion purchase of YouTube, and the general public’s slowly growing awareness of services like Joost and Hulu (and soon Sling), no one has yet figured out how to effectively monetize these sites. I mean, if you want to see advertisements while you watch videos, why not just watch TV? And you might as well put physical stickers on my TV screen if overlay ads (see this Wired piece about Overlay.tv) are the alternative. However, Tel Aviv-based startup Innovid may be onto something with their ideas for interactive in-video ad placements. Imagine an interactive version of the Fight Club Ikea catalog scene. The possibilities here are compelling. In the meantime, free stuff is free stuff. Stop sticking ads in my free stuff! If you want to make money, get clever like Monty Python, and guilt-trip your viewers into making you #2 in sales on Amazon.

Obama On His Blackberry: Yes iCan

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 22, 2009 by admin in Technology

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

Barackberry Jams

Well, it’s been a bitter struggle, but it looks like Obama gets to keep his Blackberry. Sort of. For official purposes, he’ll be required to use the NSA-Certified Sectéra Edge. Which strikes me as a tiny bit odd, since the phone uses Windows as its OS. Isn’t Windows historically a frighteningly insecure operating system? Don’t they realize his enemies might be using an iSnipe? Besides, if he used an iPhone, he’d be able to enjoy an occasional iBeer when he sneaks an iPuff. In light of the seeming incongruency of Obama being kind of a “Windows guy”, maybe he should try the ZunePhone (which I’ve just now redubbed the whyPhone). Which reminds me of a horrible joke I made up recently when a friend dropped their Blackberry in the toilet… Q: What do you a call a Blackberry right before it falls into the toilet? A: A Blingleberry!

New WhiteHouse.gov: Spiffier Than Joe Biden’s Teeth!

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 21, 2009 by admin in Politics

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

It’s kind of refreshing in a way to look for old Bush press information and encounter the image at left. The Obama administration didn’t waste a second hitting the “Delete” button and getting new content on the White house web site yesterday. I’m excited by the prominence of the message that “WhiteHouse.gov will be a [...]

It’s kind of refreshing in a way to look for old Bush press information and encounter the image at left. The Obama administration didn’t waste a second hitting the “Delete” button and getting new content on the White house web site yesterday. I’m excited by the prominence of the message that “WhiteHouse.gov will be a central part of President Obama’s pledge to make his the most transparent and accountable administration in American history“, and the fact that the administration’s Director of New Media Macon Phillips had a blog post up the first day is encouraging. However, contrary to this Wired.com article’s perception of all the technical genius going on, my inauguration day experience with technology was a little frustrating. I don’t have regular TV, so often watch things like this on line. When I visited the CNN live feed, even though it queued me up before I got an active stream, I thought it was pretty cool that I could see my friends “live blogging” (even though I seemed to be the only person I know who LOVED Aretha’s hat) since I had recently been logged into FaceBook.  That is, until the second time I commented on the stream, when the video died. Rather than wait in line again at CNN, I fired up my Joost account, only to find it couldn’t connect. I eventually went to the Joost home page (Hulu was having seizures too) and got a solid stream. Until about 5 minutes into the speech, at which point it just sputtered out completely, so I switched on NPR (and people wonder why I’m such a late adopter with technology. Puh!) In any case, I couldn’t be more enthused about the changey hopey, and I’m glad there seems to be enough humor in this new administration that maybe we’ll have more things like  joebidensteeth.com. Smile everybody! It’s a new era!

Don’t Be Such A Leafpeeping Masshole

[ 5 Comments ]Posted on January 20, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

Said the Kaybecker Floatin’ On A Logan Eatin’ An Italian


So Republicans Drink Coke And
Democrats Drink Sodapop?

I ran across yet another survey of the great Pop vs. Soda debate yesterday, which got me curious about regional dialects. I’m usually most intrigued by differences in language that are truly cross-cultural (one of my favorite books EVER remains Forbidden American English which, aside from being a serious ESL guide, is hilarious at parties) but America’s a big place and has plenty of its own peculiarities. I’ve moved around a fair amount, but my speech has probably been shaped more by wanting to appear media-savvy (or maybe reasonably educated without being stuffy) than anything else. I say sofa (not couch or davenport) sneaker (not tennis shoe or gym shoe), faucet (not spigot), skillet (not frying pan or spider), gutter (not eaves trough or spouting), seesaw (not teeter-totter or dandle) firefly (not lightning bug), and pail and bucket seem interchangeable to me. I take a peculiar pride in the fact that in spite of living in the Midwest most of my life, you can tell the difference between when I say “pen” or “pin”. The best condensed list of these differences that I could find was this Regional Vocabularies of American English page on Answers.com, especially the Regionalisms section, which is where I snagged all the words in the headline. Have any quirky regionalisms to share?

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