The Alderdice household is a big fan of Jeff “Action” Woods, sportscaster extraordinaire, good pal, and just a generally great guy.

Jeff isn’t a fan of the fact that I’ve nicknamed him “Action” and petitioned him on several occasions to adopt the moniker on air.  Friends and gentle readers, I believe we can make that and more happen for old Jeffrey.

I sent myself an email reminder exactly one year ago so I wouldn’t forget about this. Nominations have begun for the 2010 Best of Bowling Green.  The contest recognizes favorite restaurants, stores, and individuals in the city of Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Most of all, I want to see Jeff “Action” Woods as a finalist for Category #104 — Best Local TV Personality.

Do you know who won this category last year?  Radar the Weather Dog.  I’m not even kidding.  A dog beat out a real-life human being for best local tv personality.  Had Jeff been nominated, this would not have happened.

Never again.

Here’s why I’m asking you to do this: Jeff has been one of my dearest friends since he helped me move into my dorm room sophomore year–when I didn’t even know him.  He was my roommate in college and suffered all manner of degradation at my hand.  For some reason, he even agreed to be a groomsman in my wedding.  He’s one of the nicest guys in the world, honestly.

I am asking all of my friends to participate in the nomination process.  There are lots of categories; however,you need only vote for 104. BEST LOCAL TV PERSONALITY. Please enter Jeff “Action” Woods in field number 104. You will have to cycle through a few pages to get to the page with this category.  It’s kind of annoying, I know, but there is no direct link for the page.

It’s that simple.  Please vote early and often.  To make the final voting round, Jeff must be one of the three vote-getters during the nomination phase.

Look how happy the little fella is in the photo below.  Imagine how happy he’ll be if he wins.

For folks who know me, there are three things that I enjoy immensely: the charming sound of a ukulele, the nomy deliciousness of cake, and the delightful cadence of an English accent.

Boing Boing had a shout out to the song stylings of Rocky and Balls.  While the name is a bit lacking, these duet darlings from the UK combine a bit of wordplay with simple melodies.  My personal favorite of their songs is “Love Cake,” which can be found below.

Like what you hear? Check out their website for more tracks.  You can also follow them on Twitter.

Like all good memes, Dodson quickly became a product line.[twitter

Ah, the local news.  As mainstream, national journalism gives way to the power of the internet and the blogosphere, it seems as though local media is the only traditional avenue that maintains some form of relevancy.  After all, local media know their audience, stories, and needs in a way that a national media outlet is simply unable to provide.

Granted, there are numerous professionals working in television and print in newsrooms across the country who are consummate professionals.  Every now and then, though, you have a Chris Allen fondling a breast cancer graphic on camera.  Media professionals make bad decisions all the time.  Even after serving as the Dean of the White House Press Corps, Helen Thomas found herself forcibly retired after inflammatory comments.

Thanks to the internet, a highly local story can become global internet fodder in a matter of hours.  Take the story of Antoine Dodson, the latest example of a local news story gone viral.  When an intruder allegedly broke into his sister’s apartment and attempted to sexually assault her, Antoine helped scare off the attacker.  A story such as this meets the “smell test” for local news: it’s timely, it’s interesting, and there’s a human angle.

Here’s the problem.

Consider you are the reporter, editor, or producer of the nightly news.  What should you do in this instance?  To the best of our knowledge, the story was not made up.  Second, they interviewed the parties directly involved in the event.  Given the fact that an attacker could be on the loose in a local neighborhood, the station has a responsibility to inform their audience of any potential danger.  The question I have to ask, though, is should they have aired the story as is?

Checking out the comments section of the original video, it comes as no surprise there is a large African-American audience and native Huntsville audience who feel as though the video casts their populations in a less-than-positive light.  It’s understandable.  Think about those times where a tornado rips through a local community.  Why is it that nine times out of ten that it goes through a trailer park?  Why is it always a trailer park?

The station could have simply reported the story as part of a block of news.  They could have used clips solely from the young woman who was attacked.  There are any number of ways the station could have covered the story; however, they went with the one that would have the most bang.  While I do believe it falls into a gray area, the station reported the story, with the major players, and in a timely manner.  Dodson was obviously and understandably upset.  The statements were his feelings and opinions in the moment.  He was, perhaps, neither sensible or eloquent.  That’s the risk you run when you talk on camera, though.  Perhaps you simply chalk it up to a lesson in awkward.

That doesn’t mean you go back to the buffet for a second helping.  After Dodson’s comments (and the station’s video) went viral, the station did a second interview with him.  This second time, the story focused on his newfound internet stardom.  Check it out.

Props to Antoine for cleaning up and portraying himself in a more positive light.  Shame on the station for doing a story about their story.  At this point, the station’s actions become self-serving and promotional.  The almost self-righteous tone of the reporter as she explains the justification is more than off-putting.  It’s as if to say, “we probably shouldn’t do another story on this but, forget it, let’s go ahead.”  She plantively justifies the station’s follow-up story despite objections from the community: “To that I say, censoring people like Antoine is far worse.”

Maybe, but exploiting people like Antoine is far, far worse.

Before having Gatton Academy students in my life, I had never really heard of XKCD, the crudely drawn though almost always head-nod worthy bit of internet miscellany. Heck, Gatton Academy students even went so far as to stage an elaborate riff on one of its most famous cartoons. (Search “Justin Howell” on the page.)

It should come as no surprise, then, that this little jewel showed up in my Twitter feed this morning. What’s particularly funny is that this Venn-Diagram comes along just as WKU is planning and executing a major revamp of the main university website. Take a moment to study the cartoon diagram below and meet me after the jump.

University websites are generally terrible affairs thanks to the myriad interests that must be served and the quite literally thousands of pages of information found within those websites. Have a look at the current WKU homepage, which has been more or less the same for the past five years.

It’s all there, folks. Consider for a moment that 80% of the column space of the page is dedicated to extraneous information that serves very little purpose to an outsider. In may ways, I find I’m able to navigate the website because I’ve been doing so for the past several years. I think it would be extremely helpful to share the diagram with the folks in the Public Affairs office on campus. This is by no means something that is exclusive to WKU. I’d wager it’s a concern for 90% of higher education websites.

University websites are no longer placeholders on the Internet or simple news websites. They have to be everything to everyone, which is often the major cause of confusion and strife when it comes to managing the site. Creating a new website on this scale is a task that I do not envy. However, the state of Texas recently mandated that the University websites serve a much more important role: accessible information clearinghouse.

Texas House Bill 2504 (2009) includes several measures that mark higher education’s full transition into the information age. Under the law, state universities are required to post professors’ course syllabi, vitas, publications and salaries. Institutionally, cost of attendance and departmental budgets must also be easily available (defined as a searchable database no more than three clicks away from the university website homepage). In a time of calls for greater transparency in the use of public funds, the system seems somewhat innocuous. Most of this information is already viewable in one venue or another; however, objectors within faculty ranks insist the move is an attack on academic freedom.

Despite faculty resentment, ease of information is not a simple luxury among the current economy, it’s an outright necessity. While the Commonwealth of Kentucky may not be anywhere near close to mandating such a program, I think universities can take away some useful information about how to better serve their students not only in online classes but also on the homepage of their university website.

Better yet, I don’t have to worry about being stabbed in the eye by some crazy guy because I’m sitting in Hall H with 4,000 other people hoping to see the cast of the Avengers movie.

I guess we’ll just call it a break even situation.  That is until I stumbled across this little bit of awesome-sauce this afternoon: the newest trailer for the Sony Entertainment/DC Comics massively multiplayer online (MMO) game DC Universe Online.  Jim Lee, Geoff Johns, Marv Wolfman, and other major creators have spent the last five years working on bringing the world’s greatest super-heroes to life for the PS3 and PCs.

Check out the trailer and join me for a little chat, okay?

You know what? Just go ahead and watch it again…or five more times. I’ll wait.

Back again? Good. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?  I’m not even sure where to begin.

Corey’s Top 10 Head ‘Sploding Things in the DC Universe Online Trailer

10.  Superman’s five-o’clock shadow.

9.  Cyborg looks awesome.  Please, DC. Realize this character has the potential to be a major player in the DC Universe and give him the respect he demands.

8.  Joker uses Harley Quinn as a human shield.

7.  Every hero in special armor means things are really, really bad.

6.  Wonder Woman with a delicious Kryptonite-filled interior.

5.  Deathstroke using Batman as a piñata thanks to Wonder Woman’s lasso.

4.  You can never go wrong with Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as Joker.  Seriously.  After twenty years of two fine actors playing the characters, you’d think audiences would want the producers to move on to someone else.  No…such…thing.

3.  Superman burns off Black Adam’s face with his heat vision!

2.  Black Adam calls down the lightning and destroys the entire city.  C’mon.  Why doesn’t the Shazam family get more love in the comics?

1.  A storyline that is good enough to be a movie.  Stop wasting time on these direct to DVD movies and simply make this happen.  Villains win.  Time travel.  The trinity.  Awesome animation.  Great voice acting.

At least I know what I’ll be doing at 3 a.m. this November when Elliott won’t sleep.

Both Prince Zuko and Aang realize M. Night Shyamalan should have quit while he was ahead.

With Elliott on the way, I’ve had a lot of friends ask me if I wonder what it’s like to be Stephanie right now.  Seeing her belly wobble and having my hand occasionally kicked, I can honestly say I would not like to know what it’s like to have “a people” inside of me.  Steph recently put it to me this way: Imagine your stomach is a burlap sack filled with kittens.

Adorable? Terrifying? Both.

After getting back from a late lunch this afternoon, I can certainly tell you what it’s like to have a “food baby” inside my tum-tum.  Looping around campus, we crossed a speedbump.  The abrupt rocking sensation combined with the food baby made me want to yak.  In short, I realized the miracle of life is best left to the ladyfolk who endure with patience and kindness.

It’s odd when the shoe is on the other foot.  In addition to the trials and tribulations of carrying life, Steph has had to suffer through my rants regarding adaptations of comic books into television shows and movies.  She kindly listens as I rant about changes in continuity, missing story beats, and blatant misuse and abuse of engaging characters and series.  With that said, I should have picked up on her hesitation about seeing The Last Airbender movie.   When we began dating, Steph tried to introduce me to the Nickelodeon cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender (Netflix members can watch the entire series on demand!).  Given it’s scope, mythology, and overall sense of awesomeness, I should have clicked with it immediately.

From time to time, Stephanie would remind me about the series and how good it was.  With the film adaptation premiering, I pull the Book One (season one) DVDs off the shelf and started watching the series last week.  It was as good as Stephanie promised.  The series was smart and sophisticated while maintaining the fun and whimsy one would expect of a Nickelodeon program.  It made sense why Stephanie loved the show so much.  I couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t suggesting we go see the midnight screening in town.  Well, the 8% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes had something to do with it.  The attacks about the movie’s white-washing of the cast (better known as “racebending“) probably had something to do with it as well.

After seeing the movie, though, I realized her problem with the film was the same set of grievances I find with the Harry Potter movies and film adaptations of my favorite comic book characters.  You simply cannot capture that same magic again.  The visuals in the film were impressive, but the dialog was horribly stilted.  The characters didn’t act in the way a fan of the series would expect.  The whole thing was dragged down by its somber tone and own sense of self-importance.  The pieces were all there, it just wasn’t the same.

In protest of the movie and support of the series, we immediately left the theater and bought seasons two and three on DVD at Target.  How funny it was, then, as we reached Book Three: Chapter 17 last night.  The episode, titled “The Ember Island Players” provides the audience with a brief pause before the final four episodes and the culmination of the sixty-episode series.  (You can watch the full episode on the Nickelodeon website, too.)

In the episode, the cast of characters discover a play is being staged telling the story of the Avatar and his friends.  The problem with the play is that it gets everything wrong (except for the Kathy Rigby-esque actress playing Aang).  Sure, the basic plot points are there, but the characters don’t do the things they should.  The person adapting the story misses the point of our heroes’ adventures by substituting melodrama and winks-and-nods for the substance and heart of its source material.  The audience wildly laughs and applauds at the spectacle but the characters sit in their balcony seats only to lament that this really isn’t their story.

I imagine that’s how Stephanie felt sitting in the theater.  It’s hard to love something so much and yet hate the position in which you find yourself.  When you find a set of characters in a story, tv series, or movie that resonate with you so strongly, it’s hard to see those things misrepresented.  They become a part of you and you a part of their story.

No matter what you think about casting choices, there is a certain amount of thought that goes into why an actor is chosen to play a particular hero, villain, or supporting character.  Sometimes, that choice is based purely on the star power attached to the lead.  There’s one case where this has really gotten the in way.