The Informavore

I love me some mash-ups and this one has been my anthem for the majority of the day. I especially love the ones that are tongue in cheek with the poems they choose to use.

Check out “Ke$ha Just Wants to Have Fun” from DJ Jay-R at C.H.A.O.S. Productions

Ke$ha Just Wants to Have Fun – C.H.A.O.S.

Ah…the untamed wild of our neighbors to the north. When our Canadian brethren aren’t busy dousing french fries with gravy, savoring ham-like bacon or enjoying universal health care, they sometimes engage in a leisurely game of hand-to-jaw combat with wildlife that preys on the family pet. While taking her puppy out, Marie Simon noticed the pup kept trying to run back into the house. She turns to see a coyote lunging for the dog. She grabs the coyote, tosses the puppy out of danger and PUNCHES THE COYOTE IN THE JAW. It runs away. The puppy is safe. The woman gets treated for minor scratches and a rabies vaccine.

Marie Simon, you are woman and I hear you roar.

I too, am the owner of a small dog that probably looks like a T.G.I.Friday’s Puppetizer to most large predators. Usually when I come home I’m greeted with bounding energy and a wellspring of affection. But not yesterday.

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It’s been a wonderfully whirlwind week for the Patterdices. We finally got to share the news of Baby Gaga with the rest of the world and our good friend Jenny, over at the Billman blog, got to interview a cast member from Glee. It’s as if in the middle of all this snow we’ve been swathed in sunshine. As I’m transitioning into the second trimester…I thought, “Wow. I may have had some nasty bouts of nausea, but I never threw up.”

Corey even asked on occasion. Inquired as to whether Mount St. Hormone had blasted forth at all during the first twelve weeks.

“Nope.” I replied. “Just nausea. Lots of heartburn, headaches, muscle pain, extreme fatigue and a chest that felt like a punching bag every morning. Other than that? Faaaaaan-tastic.”

But, o, was I fool.

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There are a lot of exciting things going on in Bowling Green these days. A massive snowpocalypse dumping virtually INCHES of show on the ground, a Gigi’s cupcake shop opening on Monday and a couple of new Redbox rentals being set up at the Krogers. It’s like New York City minus the cultural diversity, crime rate and bustling arts community. (Sorry, Capitol Theater – I don’t mean to undermine K-Ci and JoJo’s recent appearance) Boy howdy. Things have been outta control in this idyllic little college town.

And by outta control, I mean inna my belly. Yessiree – that extra little bit of lady padding I’ve been carrying around isn’t your standard, “Girl hit that turkey HARD over the holiday” weight. It’s more of that “Girl been swimming in baggy tees to cover up her baby bump” weight.  Which – there wasn’t much of a bump until about two weeks ago. But as of January 29th, I’ve passed the 12 week mark. This officially ushers me out of the first trimester “fear and loathing” period and into the second trimester “safer and more swelling” zone. Corey and I – we’re totally psyched. (Is that word still around?) Now we’re super freaking psyched to be able to share the news with everyone else.

So – a quick rundown of some thus-important dates:

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I was out of town on Wednesday during Steve Jobs’ big announcement of the iPad. Walking through the halls of the Capitol building in Frankfort–iPhone firmly planted in pocket with the sound off–I could only imagine how the world was changing around me. Surely the much-heralded Apple Tablet would affect all aspects of our lives from that day forward.

Not so much. At least not yet.

Upon returning to the office on Friday, the question everyone wanted to ask me was “Are you buying an iPad?” I’ve been an early adopter of the iPhone–twice sneaking away from camp to procure the new device. Despite the hype and the potential the iPad presents, I will not be giving Steve Jobs $500+ this Spring. Keep reading to find out why.

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Yale University certainly needs very little help in getting students to apply. The prestigious Ivy League school is one of the nation’s most difficult schools to get into, after all.

That doesn’t mean their admissions office doesn’t know how to have fun. Hitting the internet over the past few days has been a 17-minute musical titled “That’s Why I Chose Yale.” The student-produced film has almost 118,000 at the time of posting.

Current students applying to college have grown up accustomed to individuals breaking into song and dance for no reason whatsoever. Think about it: High School Musical, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and the TV series Glee all rely heavily on bits of the old song and dance.

What’s particularly fun for forensicators is that the star of Yale’s YouTube sensation is Kobi Libii, a 2003 NFL National Finalist in Original Oratory. Check out Yale’s official YouTube channel to see the viral hit, or hop on over to NFLtv to see his final round speech titled “Spin Cycle.”

p.s. Don’t miss the cameo from NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams at the 6:50 mark.

I love alternate history stories.

Take Superman: Red Son for example. Instead of becoming a hero for truth, justice, and the American Way, the Man of Steel represents the ideals of Stalin and the Soviet Empire.

Sliders, The Twilight Zone, and a host of other TV shows and movies have documented novel “what if?” scenarios in which changes both grand and small affect the world we know today. Heck, even J. J. Abrahm’s 2009 Star Trek reboot was an elaborate exercise in alternative history. What was particularly interesting about the film, and so many of these stories, is that while it breaks away to create something new, there are numerous instances where authors go out of their way to mirror the actual timeline.

Newsweek and Facebook, as part of their Decade in Rewind series, has a interesting look at what the last several years might have looked like if Al Gore had been elected President in 2000. The oral history touches on the people, places, and events that were immutable in the last decade, though often spins said events in a new direction. After a bitterly divisive election and a few missteps, Gore uses the bulk of his political clout and budget surplus to move forward with his environmental efforts.

May 2003: In excess of 670 miles of wetland are restored along the Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf Coast. To announce the successful completion of the initiative, the president holds a ceremony on the deck of a solar-powered casino boat in the Biloxi harbor, standing before a banner that reads “Mission Accomplished.” It is roundly ridiculed.

“He plants some grass in the mud and prances around in front of a banner? Gimme a break. This isn’t leadership it’s toilet training.”

—Bill O’Reilly, The O’Reilly Factor, May 27, 2003.

“Dear Mr. President, we elected a nerd. Please stop being a dork.”

—MoveOn.Org billboard, San Francisco.

The story plays out in a very interesting way. At what point does it deviate from expectations? What points are completely implausible? What would you have liked to see? Would Al Gore have been the ultimate Nerd President? Was the author borrowing heavily from a series of West Wing scripts?

We’d like your thoughts on David Rakoff’s piece of speculative fiction.

Update: Newsweek continues the fiction today with a less sunny recap of the Gore years.

President Obama is a alien lizard from outer space.

It’s not the claim of opponents of the President’s healthcare reform efforts. Instead, it seems to be the allegorical underpinning of ABC’s reimagining of the early 1980s television miniseries V.

Anyone who has sat through an honors high school English class where they read George Orwell’s Animal Farm can attest to the power of achieving political commentary through the use of allegory. As it turns out, a pig is not always just a pig nor is a horse always just a horse. In the case of V, a story about an alien invasion is not just a sci-fi yarn about visitors from another planet.

An article from Slate this week poses the question “Is V a political allegory?”:

More than a few journalists and bloggers have remarked that it’s possible to read V as an allegory hostile to President Obama and sympathetic with the birthers and other nutcases who believe him to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The charismatic Visitors load up their “bandwagon” by “spreading hope.” In using their sophisticated iguana technology to provide free medical services, they promise “universal health care.” Indeed, if the show is to have the symbolic import that we expect from a science-fiction story, this is the only possible way to read V as a coherent text.

The original miniseries, which aired in 1983-84, did not seem to hide its message. The Visitors from the series were painted as Nazis, building upon a generation still very familiar with the ramifications of WWII and the Nazi occupation of Europe. Still entrenched in the Cold War, it had a resonate message for American audiences.

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The black and white television in the spare bedroom of my grandmother’s house had a twice-daily appointment during my childhood: Sesame Street. Shortly after consumption of a bowl of cereal in the mornings and somewhere just beyond nap-time and reruns of the A-Team in the afternoons came my daily childhood instruction.

Over the years, our furry friends from that fictional New York borough have built quite the pedigree (122 Emmy wins and broadcasts in 140 countries worldwide). In addition to being woven into the very fabric of American culture, the folks at the Workshop have another milestone to celebrate next week: 40 years of television history. Since it’s inception four decades ago, Sesame Street has made a lasting impression on countless children who are now well into adulthood. When the show began, the landscape of both television and culture were very different.

The New York Daily News sums it up nicely:

The groundbreaking show, produced by the Children’s Television Workshop and a staple of public broadcasting, was years ahead of its time in promoting values that are now taken for granted in many places – accepting and appreciating diversity, not making assumptions based on gender, and being sensitive to cultural and economic differences, are all ideas the show emphasized before it was fashionable to do so.

The show has changed over the years in many ways. What was once a program intended to supplement learning for inner city children has become a cultural mainstay.

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Whilst watching our DVR’ed episode of G4’s Web Soup, we were TOTALLY enamored with Chris Hardwick’s shirt. It just…took us a while to figure out what it was.

Then, after some vocal pondering, “Is that a uterus? Does he really have a shirt with a uterus on it?”, our curiosity and observations were appeased! I Heart Guts is a delightful little site that offers happy and productive guts on t-shirts, pins and stuffed toys.