Content generators – we used to call them writers and reporters – are having a tough couple years. But they can rest easy on this evidence that, of the many indignities they may suffer, offshoring their jobs isn’t likely to be one of them anytime soon:
__________________
Sender: ydasyl@aol.com Subject: We transform one dollar into one thousand! Date: November 28, 2009 3:10:53 PM EST
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There’s a new movie out today that seems to be of special interest to girls between the ages of 11 and 16. I’m not sure if you’ve heard about it, but it’s called New Moon. If it doesn’t ring a bell, here’s a short clip that’s been running on TV. (I just can’t see this too many times.)
There haven’t been so many young girls screaming so loud and so long at the same time since the historic day Justin Timberlake went solo.
Am I just grumpy, or has their screaming gotten shriller since the days of The Beatles? I’m anticipating that by the time the third movie of the Twilight series comes out, their youthful larynxes will combine with my aging eardrums to reach the effective pitch of a dog whistle.
And what’s there to say about the 50-year-old women who stand in with them and scream in solidarity for the bare-chested hunky young actors? They have more in common with John Leguizamo in To Wong Foo With Love Julie Newmar than Ann-Margret in Bye Bye Birdie. Other than that, and the fact that I’m glad they aren’t hanging out near my son’s school, I’m pretty much speechless.
The cast has about 9,000 young, attractive people in it. So as the pre-opening hype machine was working, you could tune into any talk show – morning, afternoon, evening or late-night – and be assured of seeing a different cast member with his own, personal shrieking harem. (In fact, if Turkish sultans had elicited this kind of audible reaction from young women, the word ‘harem’ would have a very different meaning today.) With every last cast member apparently booked onto every one of these shows, there hasn’t been a minute of spare airtime in the last two months for other important stuff like John and Kate’s divorce, Afghanistan war policy, or Lindsay Lohan’s VD.
At least the movie has started its run now, bringing the inevitable decline to the 9-and-a-half weeks of hysteria (until the Blu-Ray comes out – I’m guessing just in time for Valentine’s Day).
Finally, something really important that you may not have realized about this unheralded movie: Its release coincided exactly (give or take 36 hours) with the actual new moon in the lunar cycle.
Coincidence? Or proof that President Obama is a disciple of Satan?
… and the sun came up this morning. (But you couldn’t see it in Cleveland.)
Iran is on, no off, no on again, and off again in negotiations over uranium enrichment. Jon Stewart made me laugh again, and Rush Limbaugh is about to pop an artery over something or another. My son left the lid up; my daughter stepped right over a pile of her clean laundry in the hall for the fourth straight day.
Another bank either raised my credit card interest rate, lowered my credit limit, or both. The bagger at the grocery store would have put the Coke 2-liter on top of the Wonder Bread if I hadn’t stopped him.
Someone from Nigeria just sent me a personal note, addressing me as “Dear Kind Sir” and offering to give me several million dollars if I will help to launder it by providing my bank account number.
The bottom of my feet hurt a little bit when I got out of bed this morning, but I slept like a baby.
For these things, nobody is going to throw a parade on Broadway. So why should they when the most reliable dynasty in sports does the probable?
God how I hate the Yankees. How nice it would be if I could love them instead.
After 232 years of the USA you’d think we’d be pretty advanced at managing elections by now. But I’ve got this sick feeling we’re getting worse at it.
Back when I was a kid, my parents voted in mini-van-sized booths with curtains, dozens of little levers and one big, red master lever. When you pulled that, you got an audible whrrrr and a click to tell you your vote had been cast; you could see all of the little levers reset, to verify that your vote would be counted for each issue or candidate.
By the time I started to vote, we were punching holes in cards and sticking them into a metal lock box. The only verification that a vote would be counted was the “I voted today” sticker you got at the door – obviously more symbolic than utilitarian.
When I voted today, I filled out little circles with a pen – like the standardized tests I took back in grade school. Then I stuck the ballot into a scanner that was attached to the top of a plastic bin that looked disturbingly like a medium-sized Rubbermaid garbage can. Given all the hanging-chad problems with the previous method, I welcomed the electronic scan – figuring it would verify that all my circles had been filled completely and my ballot was not only cast, but also complete.
It didn’t. It just gave a little “bong” and swallowed my ballot. The elections worker said, “Thank you,” and they failed to offer me a sticker.
I’m thinking by the time my children start voting, they’ll probably do it by dropping a marble in a box, or sticking their finger on an ink pad. Hope they get a sticker.
Subject: Your NAMES was used, Call Me:1-814-796-7443.
Attention please,
Your full names/data’s was used to execute a huge Contract in Dubai
without your consent and you have refused to give a correspondence reply
to My messages, why?
Presently I am on Official assignment in US due to My Bank push towards
acquiring a Bank here in US and an be reached via: “SARGENT’S COURT
REPORTUAL INC. 174 E College Ave Bellefonte PA, in USA: 1-814-796-7443″.
This email message poised because One Mr. Ferguson did came to My Office
to explain that he used your name and data’s to execute a huge Contract in
Dubai without your consent that he used it due to the exigent situation he
Found himself as at the time the Contract was awarded to him and he
fervently pleaded for your understanding especially now that the Project
has been genuinely/legally actualized and the total Project Sum has been
paid to him completely.
Mr. Ferguson then asked that the Sum of Five Hundred Thousand United State
Dollars that he kept in One of his Secret coded deposit Vault Funds in My
Bank be cleared and paid to you as a Compensation for using your name and
data’s to execute his Contract in Dubai without your consent.
There is the needed the for My the “$500,000 Secret coded Vault deposit in
My Bank” be made decoded by Legal clearance and Transferred to you Legally
in accordance with the British Monetary Law. First get back to me via my
secured email Address, to enable me directly reach you Officially or call
you and have a direct voice talk conversation with you now that I am in
USA.
As attested therein in these advertorial sites I would be leaving the Bank
soon, so act fast:
[4 links deleted by blogger on assumption that they're phishing links]
Your’s Truly.
Mark Tucker.
Chief Executive Officer.
Prudential Bank Plc London.
Laurence Pountney Hill, London EC4R OHH.
Securitydepartment@prudentialbk-insuranceplc.com {Restricted}.
First get back to me via my secured email Address, to enable me directly
reach you Officially or call you and have a direct voice talk conversation
with you now that I am in USA.
I’m not giving up on Twitter. Yet. There are still a handful of people whose Tweets are interesting and useful to me.
But it’s a stupid game.
It has nothing to do with how much you have to say or how often you say it. It has everything to do with how many people you follow. I recently attended a webcast on how to build a social network on Twitter. The basic advice: follow a lot of people and they’ll follow you back. And if they don’t follow you back, unfollow them.
The rest of the session was inside ball: what rules Twitter uses to prevent such inanity and how to get around them (wait 24 hours before unfollowing anyone); how to identify non-followers quickly using Twitter’s minimalist interface (if you don’t have a direct-message option next to their name, they aren’t following you); and which tools you can use (Hummingbird, $197.00) to automatically follow people and then unfollow them if they fail to reciprocate.
By using this advice (not the software; just the advice) I tripled the number of people following me (from about 100 people after 4 months of thoughtful tweeting to 300 people after another day and just one tweet). Time spent in the effort: 15 minutes.
The etiquette at Twitter is simple: Someone follows you, you follow them back. And vice versa.
How this does anyone any good is beyond me; it assures that you have an audience of people who don’t give a wit about anything you have to say. And vice versa.
To prove the point, I just got a follow from someone whose list of followers and followees at this moment is in the range of 34,000. She has 14 tweets since May (4 months).
Fourteen? Really? That’s 1,960 characters, which isn’t even a respectable dependent clause to William Faulkner. That’s like 17 followers per word. If Jesus had a ratio like that, would Islam even exist?
When in history have so many people lined up to listen to so many people with so little to say?
The following item is reprinted in its entirety from The Plain Dealer, Tuesday, Sept. 15:
3 current players to donate brains for study of injuries
Three NFL players announced Monday they will donate their brains and spinal cord tissues to a Boston University medical school program that studies sports brain injuries.
Even though dozens of former NFL players have agreed to donate their brains after death, center Matt Birk of the Baltimore Ravens, linebacker Lofa Tatupu of the Seattle Seahawks and receiver Sean Morey of the Arizona Cardinals are the first active players to do so.
In the effort to save newspapers, one idea that’s been passed around is that of the newspaper as a not-for-profit institution. The argument is that its role is so central to the public good that it can be protected as a non-taxed, not-for-profit entity.
While the argument may be compelling, I don’t think you can call it mainstream. Well-known newspaper analyst Lauren Rich Fine says for-profit newspapers haven’t done all they can to adapt to new market realities. I agree; Newspapers in the United States have been for-profit ventures for their entire existence, and just because their business model is being challenged today doesn’t mean their industry is obsolete.
But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with a news organization that does figure out how to succeed as a non-profit.
An increasing number of non-profit news organizations exist, such as MinnPost and the hyperlocal, hypermodest Heights Observer, for which I’m an active volunteer — and which is part of a growing list of other loosely affiliated Observer projects in and around Greater Cleveland. (Not all of them are not-for-profit; they have in common technology platform – Ninth Estate Software — and a singular evangelist, Jim O’Bryan, founder of the for-profit Lakewood Observer).
Now, one of the existing not-for-profits is going the other way; Geoff Dougherty, editor of the 4-year-old Chi-Town Daily News (Chicago) writes in his blog that the non-profit experiment is over. He says the online citizen journalism news organization needs $1-2 million a year in donations to fulfill its mission. With grants running out and grant-sources ready to move on to other projects, Dougherty indicates private donations peaked at only $300,000 — and even that amount is doubtful this year.
“We are talking with local nonprofits that have expressed an interest in acquiring the [Chi-Town Daily News] website and neighborhood reporting program,” Dougherty writes.
“Ultimately,” he continued, “we believe we will be able to fulfill the same mission we set out to accomplish with the Daily News, though with a new name, a new company, and a different business structure.”
United Airlines allegedly broke a passenger’s guitar and refused to pay for the damage. Unfortunately, he was a professional musician who knows how to gain a following. Join the millions who have heard his song and seen his video on YouTube:
After 232 years of the USA you’d think we’d be pretty advanced at managing elections by now. But I’ve got this sick feeling we’re getting worse at it.
Least convincing spam-scam of the week
I’m not giving up on 
A not-for-profit trial balloon has been floated (
