In case you missed it…

Today’s scandal is two fold.

First, Katie Couric has had some work done. Maybe they should label the picture, an Artist’s rendition of Ms. Couric.

What’s better than that is that the New York Post printed the story without any recognition to tvnewser. The beautiful thing about blogs and the Internet in general is that the information is all out there free to share. The issue here isn’t that the tvnewser blog didn’t get recognized, the issue is that the mainstream media has discounted bloggers as ‘amateur journalists’ who lack credibility. By lifiting a blog story the New York Post’s credibility becomes the one in question.

We want Pluto back

OK, unless you live under a rock you have probably heard about the Pluto planet controversy. Other than destroying my childhood memories, I really couldn’t care less. What I do like is the results of the Eyewitless News: Save Pluto photoshop contest.

Back from the Coast

So, my trip out the west coast is over. This was my first trip to California, and I found it very different than I imagined.

The first thing I noticed was the traffic. Everyone always talks about how bad the Southern California traffic is. Personally I thought it was FANTASTIC. If you don’t live here in Northern Colorado, you might not understand. Our community has an incredibly high traffic cop to driver ratio. In fact I got pulled over myself just a couple weeks ago. Out in Cali it’s completely different. Everyone out there drives with a flagrant disregard for any kind of personal safety. No one even seems to notice the lines that the state so generously painted on the streets. In fact I think California could improve their budget if they just saved all that pigment. Traffic cops were nowhere to be found. It’s a free-for-all and I had a blast (of course my sister, the untrusting individual that she is, didn’t enjoy the roads as much as I did).

The other major eye-opener in San Diego was the lack of Beautiful People™. TV, Movies, popular culture in general creates this image of Southern California as being full of sun-kissed, large breasted, scantily clad, bleached blonde women and statuesque surfer men with rippling muscles wearing wetsuits during the day and Armani at night. This was just not the case. Perhaps different areas fit this stereotype better, but San Diego, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, even La Jolla just didn’t give me this impression. On the contrary, population was (generally) split into two different categories. One was the same kind of 30-40 something parents running around in mini-vans and SUVs with their kids that we have in Colorado (this includes the tourists). The other were beach bums that haven’t changed clothes in the last 5 years. You know the kind – the people that are working on (or have) killing all their brain cells with pot. Sure, there was a mix, large hispanic population, plenty of flashy/expensive cars, but overall the biggest difference from here were the bohemian style beach culture. Not what I really expected at all.

Overall, it was a great trip. I’ll probably post more comments, stories and pics in the near future. For now I’m just glad to be home.

Yale Shmale

I’m not a member of the anti-President Bush club, but I do enjoy good humour.

A canadian college setup this site making fun of Yale’s most famous graduate.

MS Word now the authority

Looks like MS Word is now the authority on how popular a word is. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) wants to use the word ‘pluton’ to describe a planet that isn’t really a planet (or something – like anybody really cares). Appearantly this is an issue because ‘pluton’ already has a meaning to geologists (geek death-match here we come).

What I think is funny is this statement from Owen Gingerich, an astronomer at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and chair of the IAU committee that created the definition.

“Since the term is not in the MS Word or the WordPerfect spell checkers, we thought it was not that common,”

What kind of moron takes MS Word spell check as an authority on ANYTHING. At least Google the word, or look it up in a dictionary.