Today In The Headlines. THIS Is News?

I like to know what is going on in the world. I listen to news/talk radio and I read a number of newspapers online and various other news sources. Some days, I can actually find actual newsworthy stories. Most days however, that is very hard to do. To prove my point, here are a few of the headlines, or featured stories (front page worthy) I have found today in various places. I am not going to say WHERE I found these as I do not want to sully the reputation of any news agency. They can do that fine on their own.

Field Museum restrooms judged best in the country. – While I like to know where there are clean restrooms, I don’t really think this is news worthy when there are plenty of other more important things happening.

Lindsay Lohan kicked out of morgue. – WHO CARES ANYMORE?!

Adam Levine demands Fox News stop playing Maroon 5 – Adam Levine, quit being such a bitchy little girl. I am sure you don’t complain when the royalty checks come and return the money because it was from someone who you didn’t want to use your song. If the song is in the free domain, then you have no right to ask anyone to stop playing it. I understand it is Fox but still … grow up.

Ali Fedotowsky calls off the wedding planning.  – Who?

Any story about Taylor Swift – She just annoys me.

The above stories are examples of things that have absolutely no bearing on my life, will not make me a more self aware individual and I will not have a void in my life or my knowledge of the world if I had never even read them.

I don’t want to shed a bad light on all news though. There were some stories today that had merit. Jon Bon Jovi opening a soup kitchen. The coverage of the animals in Ohio. Qaddafi being killed. I don’t need to know that Carla Bruni-Sarkozy named her daughter Giulia. Is this going to help the French be less jerky toward Americans? I don’t think so. Tell me the price of oil is rising, tell me the economy is getting better, tell me that there is a gunman running around my neighborhood and I should stay inside. DON’T tell me “notes from a dragon mom” are bigger than that.

Ok, now that I have sounded like Andy Rooney for the last couple of minutes, I am realizing that this does not really constitute news either. Maybe this is why I never make the “Freshly Pressed” featured page. Oh well. Live and learn…unless the stories are all fluff.

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I Just Don’t Get It

There are many things in life that I do not understand. Whether it be that I am just not tuned into the latest trends, technology or whatever. There are also things that I do not care to try to understand. I know a lot of this will change as my daughter gets older and I will want to know about everything that is going on, but I will worry about those when they start to rear their ugly heads. I don’t need to stress out over that right now.

This is my short list of what I don’t get lately:

WordPress.com’s “Freshly Pressed” Featured Posts – I was under the impression that WordPress.com was free so that the little annoying guy, like myself, could have a place to spout insanity and annoyance without having to pay big bucks for hosting and yada yada. I thought the featured posts were random, updated frequently and would show a lot of different things. I was apparently wrong. There have been times when the same featured post has been up for a week. There are a lot of the Featured Posts that are professional blogs that don’t need the exposure of being featured. I would like to have just one day where I had hundreds of views on my blog. Not for any reason but to say it happened. Oh well.

Justin Bieber – That is all that needs to be said. I will have to wait until Tori is older to find out about that fascination.

Facebook Places – Now, let me preface this one with admitting that I just started “checking in” to places. The reason is for my job. With coupons and specials and everything that can be offered with places, I have to know how this technology works so it can be offered to clients. With that said, I don’t understand why I have to let people know where I am every minute of the day. Can’t you just “check in” without everyone knowing? I know that it is word of mouth free social platform advertising and all that. I just feel that it is a little bit of too much information. Thankfully this doesn’t work with NFC yet. Once it does, I think I might have to turn my phone off or leave it at home. Maybe even do the unthinkable … get a phone that only makes calls!

Twitter – I have been trying to get on board with this one. I have a twitter account. I try to tweet, I follow tweets. It just seems like it is an awful lot of work to keep up with reading and tweeting all the time. I guess if maybe I had it on my phone, but then, I would be distracted all day and get nothing done.

Phone Apps – I know I am going to get a lot of eye rolls for this and be called an old man but, why? I have a Blackberry Storm. I like that I can go to the web when I need to, I like that I can read my emails and my Facebook page when I need want to. I installed a few apps on my phone. I recently removed them because the only time I used them was when I said to someone “hey look at the app I have on my phone”.

WOW I am really leaning toward the Andy Rooney territory here ain’t I?

Keenan Cahill – I am not being a hater but, WHY?!?!?! It is a kid who lip syncs, poorly at that, on YouTube. I have watched the videos. I watched videos of him singing the songs himself. He is horrible. Yet he has like 24 million views. MILLION! Someone PLEASE explain to me what is so special about these videos. I have seen comments on the videos themselves asking the same questions. Am I a little bitter? Probably. My video of me singing a bunch of different Muppet voices in 2 years only got 1,075 views. A recent push bumped it up some. Granted, I am not the most talented person in the world however, I think that I got mad skilz over this kid. Is it because there are 24 million people who are watching this video and making fun of the kid? Does he realize this may be why so many people are watching it? He isn’t even cute. He is a pretty unfortunate looking kid. And he is like 15. It’s not even like he is some little, little kid being cute. It was painful to watch these things. I am sure something will come out and I will feel like an ass for writing this.

Plenty of other things I don’t understand out there is this wonderful world of ours but this has riled me enough for one day.

Until next time, remember … “People write to me and say, ‘I’m giving up, you’re not talking to me.’ I just write them a simple message like, ‘Never give up,’ you know? And it changes their life.”

FEATURE ME! FEATURE ME!

I have been blogging on WordPress.com for a little over a year now. I have had some funny blogs, some unfunny blogs, some good pictures, no pictures and a variety of other things in my posts. No matter what I post though, I have yet to be featured on the “Freshly Pressed” section of the WordPress.com home page.

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For those of you who don’t know what this is, it is a section where 10 blogs are posted on the home page as featured blogs. I have clicked through a number of these and sometimes I just think to myself “really?!?!” I have had PLENTY of blogs that I think were far more amusing that the ones they have featured there. I know that they are randomly chosen, and they even had a post about how to get chosen. It seems to me I have done most of the things that it takes to get chosen to be freshly pressed.

I will admit that incoherent ramblings aren’t always the things that masses of people want to read but still, I would like the shot. I would like the personal satisfaction to know that I was good enough to be one of the chosen few. One of the elite to have their blog opened up to possibly hundreds of hits in one or two days. I want my 15 minutes of blogging fame.

With that said, I am not complaining about the selection process really. I don’t want the committee to think that I am writing this just to get chosen … oh wait, I am doing that. Hmmm. That probably will keep me from getting chosen. Come to think of it, my spelling is pretty bad at times, my grammar is nowhere close to being copywriter quality. I don’t have very many interesting original images. My headlines are often times lacking and most times my content isn’t all THAT interesting is it? I am starting to see now, why I am not chosen.

Oh well, I guess I should just be happy to have the readers that I DO have. I love my readers and the comments that they leave are many times much better than my actual blog post and keep me and my wife laughing for hours. Well, ok it is usually my wife laughing at me, but still.

Well, I am hoping that the powers that be will someday find one of my blogs interesting enough to feature me on the home page. Until then, I will continue to let the voices tell me what to write and hopefully entertain all of you.

Hey look at me! I posted three days in a row! I hope I can keep it up but made the list of things that need to be done before the baby comes and … YIKES! I am going to be one busy soon to be daddy the next couple of months.

Well, I am off to come up with a hundred or so tags to let me be found. Until next time, even if I am never featured, remember … “when I die, on my deathbed, I will receive total consciousness. So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”