Guess who's back, back, back...

Fanfare, please:

The Jerc Store is back online!

I am hooked up on a brand-new laptop -- one that does not shut down every fifteen minutes and is not infected with a virtumonde virus.  Thanks to those who weighed in on the purchase, to Tom for helping me pick this baby out and to Dave for making Windows Vista slightly less terrible.

Hopefully everyone out there in Internet land has not given up on this site. Please start visiting regularly again because the posts will be flowing. Thanks again for your patience :)

[NEW] You can now e-mail me directly at: jerc@thejercstore.com

25 things you don't care about unless they're yours

I thought the "25 things" note on Facebook was getting a little out of control, and the fact that CNN and TIME wrote about it this week just reaffirmed that.

For those unfamiliar with the popular "chain" note on the social networking site, it's basically as follows: You are "tagged" by someone and you write 25 random things about yourself, "tag" 25 of your friends --including the person who tagged you-- and it continues on from there.

And while I (unfortunately) am guilty of partaking in this narcissistic fad, I've definitely read some things about people and said, "WHO CARES?" Do I care what your childhood pet's name was? Not really. Do I stay up late wondering whether or not you've ever been to Tahiti. Not so much.

So, why is this blowing up? Because people like to talk about themselves -- duh. Isn't that the whole reason we have Facebook? Keeping in touch with people is nice and all, but most people really just want to see how many "friends" they can accumulate and how many photos they can be tagged in.

But hey, like I said... I'm guilty. I did it, too. But my 25 random things are more awesome than most people, haaaa.

Anyway, enough of that. I thought this TIME article was hilarious. I'd do the same (i.e. point out stupid things people I know have written), but I wouldn't want to embarrass anyone. Still, it's pretty ridiculous that thing has been recreated 5 million times...

From time.com:
A girl I knew in high school has memorized all of Janet Jackson's dance routines. A college acquaintance is afraid of train whistles. Five separate people harbor lifelong desires to visit New Zealand.

How do I know these things? Because they won't stop writing about them on Facebook! Facebook's "25 Things About Me" meme seems harmless enough; people write 25 facts about themselves and post them on their Facebook pages, just as they do with videos, status updates and photos of last weekend's party. An estimated 5 million of these notes — that's 125 million facts — have appeared on the website within the past week.

Assuming it takes someone 10 minutes to come up with their list, this recent bout of viral narcissism has sent roughly 800,000 hours of worktime productivity down the drain. But it's just so stupid. Most people aren't funny, they aren't insightful, and they share way too much. Facebook is a loose social network; a "friend" on Facebook might translate to someone you'd barely recognize in real life. I don't care that my college roommate's sister is anemic or that my stepcousin's boyfriend gets nervous around old people (apparently he's afraid they're going to die).

Below are 25 facts I wish people hadn't told me about themselves. They come from friends, friends-of-friends, friends-of-friends-of-friends and coworkers. They are all real, though I wish some of them were not.

1. I eat tacos with a fork.
2. I was fat in middle school. The wake of that horror has yet to subside.
3. I keep forgetting that Barack Obama is our President.
4. I have been pooped on by a monkey.
5. I am addicted to the ass-slap dance move. Sometimes I don't even notice I'm doing it.
6. When I finally told my now fiancé that I liked him (as in, liked him liked him), I drunkenly gave him the Anchorman line, "I want to be on you." He had only seen the movie once and had no idea what it was from.
7. Just because I realize that Asian women are smarter, more attractive, and have about themselves a generally superior level of class does not mean I have a fetish. Just that I'm racist.
8. I eat gummy bears by tearing them limb from limb and eating their heads last.
9. I can't grow hair on my arms.
10. Two of my best friends are under five feet tall and I have an intense fear of midgets.
11. I think yoga is incredibly spiritual. I know the Lord is with me in my downward dog.
12. I was born with jaundice.
13. I was born pigeon-toed.
14. I was born with an extra kidney. I wish I could have sold it on the black market and made some money, but it was underdeveloped and did nothing but cause me to wet the bed until the third grade.
15. I like to tape my thumbs to my hands to see what it would be like to be a dinosaur.
16. A horse once fell over while I was riding it.
17. I don't believe in democracy.
18. I cried when Spock died in Star Trek II.
19. I drink two glasses of wine every night before bed. Wait, did I just admit to alcoholism?
20. If you asked me to tell you my favorite movie, I would have a hard time not saying Titanic.
21. I once sent a teacher into early retirement by pretending to be a cheetah and swiping at her from under a desk.
22. I once ran into New Kids On the Block's Joey McIntyre in the lobby of an off-Broadway show. I told him he was the first boy I ever loved. He laughed and kind of smiled. This was the most gratifying moment of my life.
23. My friends say that when they shave my back, I purr like a walrus.
24. I don't understand what people see in the Godfather trilogy.
25. Sometimes I think pee smells like Cheerios.

yup, lots of "coughing"

As predicted, my computer completely exploded with pop-ups -- something about Adware? Spyware? A virus in the computer's registry?? Who knows.

My boyfriend dedicated about six hours of his Sunday trying to debug the thing, but apparently whatever I picked up is a bitch of a bug. So I will try to post as much as possible from my much slower -- but less-virusy -- computer, but I can't guarantee anything. Sorry ya'll :(

Blogs of note

You may or may not have noticed a new link in my "more reading material" section, but I'd like to give a plug to my friend (and former roommate), Katfox, who has just started a new blog about her photography. Please check out her stuff and feel free to visit her blog and/or Web site. You can also get in touch with her to have her take some kick-ass photos for you because she's awesome. End of story.

And while I'm in a promoting mood, check out some other friends of The Jerc Store, namely Geoff, Miss, David Dust and Billions of Currency. Lots of fun --and diverse-- reading material on there for ya, so check 'em out.

Sick, sick, sick

I think I have a decent immune system, but I'm pretty sure my body can sense it's Thanksgiving and just collapses every year around this time. Fortunately--well, kind of--my boyfriend is sick too, so we have been sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves the last few days.

During that time, he came across Google's Flu Trends, this nifty little site that shows you how your state compares with others at any given time throughout the year. And if you check it out, you'll notice that the entire country is at "low" risk right now, but we're riiiiight about to hit the national spike in flu sickness - whoo-hoo!

Thanks, TJS!

Newsfeed eating up lies

I heard a funny story this morning about a guy in Australia who took a "sick day," but got busted because his boss read his Facebook status: "Kyle Doyle is not going to work, f..k it i'm still trashed. SICKIE WOO!"


I laughed out loud when I heard it, thinking, "See? This is exactly what they told us in college about the professional backlash possible in putting dumb crap on social networking sites."(Thanks, Prof. Brown!)

An e-mail, presumably between Doyle and his boss, surfaced on the Internet shortly thereafter: The boss asks the 21-year-old AAPT worker for a medical certificate to prove he deserved the day off, and he writes back saying he did not need a medical certificate for one day's leave. The boss then discloses his proof behind the doubt, and Doyle says, "HAHAHA LMAO epic fail. No worries man."

This story is all over the damn Internet... but now it appears that the now-famous Kyle Doyle might have been framed! [DUN DUN DUN]

"Following an investigation into AAPT's email records, we can confirm the email exchange between two of our employees ... never occurred." -- statement from AAPT.

It appears that either someone set Doyle up--even his mother is vouching for him. Yeah, set up or he set this up to get his 15 minutes of fame, mmm? Either way, pretty comical.

As of this morning, Doyle's status reportedly read: "trying to hide :-/" and he had received at least 175 personal messages regarding the incident.

I'm singing M-to the-C-to the M-to the A...

After years of sidekicking the "Tonight Show," making children's dreams come true on "Star Search" and delivering those big ass Publisher's Clearing House checks to small towners, Ed McMahon now plans to spread the love as a rapper for FreecCreditReport.com.

Think of it as his own personl bailout plan...

McMahon, who recently revealed he was fighting foreclosure after falling $644,000 behind on mortgage payments on his Beverly Hills home, will be featured wearing a tracksuit, being chauffeured around LA in a Cadillac Escalade golf cart and spitting lyrics about his very public financial troubles.

"When I retired, I was famous/I had money and glory/ I bought a house for 6 mill/I thought nothing could touch me/ Until my credit went south, and debt started to crunch me/ Next thing I know, instead of playing gin rummy, I was scrambling just to make ends meet/It wasn't funny," so the rap goes.

The spots will appear in two viral videos, set to be released online in October.

Charles Harris, FreeCreditReport.com's vice president of strategic marketing, said the company sought out McMahon to star in the humorous spots after seeing him openly discuss his finances on "Larry King Live." Harris said McMahon represents "a man who is taking charge."

I think it's brilliant. Does anyone remember when FreeCreditReport.com's old commercials just had a lady singing "Freeee credit report dot com!" and that was it? Probably not because they were lame. Women are crooning over the indie boys in the new commercials and people everywhere can't get the songs out of their heads. I'm sure these new ones will be no exception. The Web site even has the "As seen on TV" logo on its mainpage. Talk about hamming it up.

This one is my fav.

In a world...where books have faces...

Coming soon to a theater near you...Facebook:The Movie.


Sony confirmed to InternetNews.com that a movie about Facebook is in the works, and that Aaron Sorkin, writer of The West Wing, will be writing the picture for Sony producer Scott Rudin (No Country for Old Men).

The social networking site, which entertains more than 100 million users, has not agreed to cooperate with any film project, according to a rep, but it's "flattered" by the interest.

The plotline won't be some boy-meets-girl on Facebook drama, but rather a look at Facebook's humble--and controversial--beginnings. Harvard alumni magazine 02138 reported the film would be an adaptation of Ben Mezrich's upcoming book, Face Off (working title), which depicts allegations that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole his Harvard classmates' idea and source code from the site ConnectU (then HarvardConnection).

Sorkin created a Facebook page to get more acquainted with the site.

"I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I've started this page. (Actually it was started by my researcher, Ian Reichbach, because my grandmother has more Internet savvy than I do and she's been dead for 33 years.)" - The Aaron Sorkin and Facebook Movie page.

I think someone should also let Mr. Sorkin know how God-awful the "new" Facebook is, by the way.

And speaking of Facebook...click the box on the left-hand toolbar to become a fan of The Jerc Store on Facebook. (Shameless self promotion, yes indeedy!)

Fun with Google!

You might not think this sounds fun, but Google's got anaddicting "game" for you to try... one that sucked me in for a good hour last night.

The Google Image Labeler pairs you with another user to match labels in an attempt to earn points.

Over a two-minute period, you and your partner will:

• View the same set of images.
• Provide as many labels as possible to describe each image you see.
• Receive points when your label matches your partner's label. The number of points will depend on how specific your label is.
• See more images until time runs out.

It's basically a photo/word association game that you play with someone you've never met.

The points mean nothing and the whole point of the activity is the betterment of Google's image search feature (tricky, tricky Google), but it's a fun way to kill time and learn that people all over the world think as simplistically as you do.

Give a try; you'll be addicted in no time!

Thanks, TJS!

Nothing in his pockets but knives and lint...and a Chupa Chup

If you haven't seen The Dark Knight yet, seriously... what the hell are you waiting for? If you're not planning on seeing it, that's one thing. But if you're just being lazy, you're being inconsiderate because everyone around you is biting their tongues not to ruin the movie by unwittingly discussing this, this or this. [DO NOT CLICK THERE IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE!]

If I had kids, I would never take them to see this movie because it was scary as hell. But if I had kids, I would probably make them do the same thing these guys did.

Check out this "mini-interpretation" of The Dark Knight, in trailer form. [No spoilers, no worry!]

The Dark Knight - Kids Edition! (wizarduniverse.com) @ Yahoo! Video

'Cuil' as the other side of Google

So some ex-Google employees launched an alternative search engine yesterday, touting it as bigger and better than powerhouse Google, but from my experience, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Cuil --pronounced "cool"-- drills into the actual content of a page, displaying results in more of a magazine-like format instead of just a vertical stack of Web links, according to one of its developers. Cuil's results are displayed with more photos spread horizontally across the page and include sidebars that can be clicked on to learn more about topics related to the original search request. [click here to learn more about Cuil]

One big advantage Cuil developers are pushing is privacy, which Google tends to ignore these days. Does anyone else think it's creepy that as soon as you send a Gmail message with the word "love" in it, you get 20 ad links on the page for "Who has a crush on you" and the like?

As far as Cuil goes, the name is fun (My co-workers and I certainly had fun telling each other to "cuil it" yesterday in the newsroom when one of us had an inquiry that would normally beg a Google search), and the look of the site is pretty sleek...but Cuil doesn't really cut it in my book.

Try entering your name, your hometown or even the name of this site and you'll see just how inferior Cuil is to Google --or Yahoo! for that matter. Most of the results don't even match, and what does come up is not very relevant. In fact, try searching for "Cuil" on Google and you'll learn infinitely more than if you enter "Cuil" into the actual Cuil search.

This is the first time a new search engine has been developed by former Google employees, but it doesn't appear as though Cuil will be giving Google a run for its money anytime soon. I mean, "googling" is synonymous with Web searching now, is it not?

That's the catch

In operating this blog, I often have friends and family members throwing stories and videos my way to see if it's anything I'd be interested in posting. Today, my dad asked me if I'd seen the incredible catch made by a ballgirl at a minor league game this week.

An incredible catch? Yes. But there's a figurative catch to the video, too. Take a look...



At first glance, it looks like this little brunette goes Griffey on the long foul ball toward the left field wall, but take another look at the catcher's equipment--During the initial shot (the actual footage), the glove is on his left hand and the equipment insignia is on his right shoulder; in the (staged) reaction shot, it's the reverse.

It appears viral advertising has struck again. Check out that sports drink bottle clearly displayed at the feet of the mini outfielder. Tricky, tricky Gatorade.

Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself. It's awesome, but not real.

"Pork and Beans"

I don't have a lot of time to post, but I've described this video three different times in two days, so I figured I'd post it.

Weezer pays homage to the powerhouse celebrity-maker that is YouTube in their new video for "Pork and Beans." The video was added Friday and already has 3 million views! Viral video much?

Notables in the video include the brainless Miss South Carolina Caitlin Upton ("Everwhere, like, such as the Iraq), Chris Crocker ("LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE"), the Peanut Butter Jelly Time banana, Matt McAllister (the world record setter for most t-shirts worn), Will it Blend?, Numa Numa ("Mayaheee, mayahaha"), Tay Zonday ("Chocolate Rain"), Dramatic Chipmunk (or prairie dog) and Kelly the shoe girl... just to name a few.

Not as good as the old-time Weezer, but it's a catchy song...

Baby for sale!

A German baby placed up for auction on eBay for the price of bubble gum this week has been taken into custody, police said.

The 7-month-old baby boy was advertised on the site for one euro--or $1.57--with the description: "Offering my nearly new baby for sale, as it has gotten too loud. It is a male baby, nearly 28 inches (70 cm) long and can be used either in a baby carrier or a stroller."

The baby has been placed in custody of child services, though the 23-year-old mother claims that it was all a joke. Neither she nor her 24-year-old husband have been identified.

The ad was up for about 2.5 hours, but no bids were made. Several people who saw the posting called police.

Second update: MySpace Murder

Updating an update of a previous item:

The Missouri mother responsible for 13-year-old Megan Meier's suicide and the phony MySpace account that pushed the young girl to do so has been indicted.

Lori Drew, of suburban St. Louis, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles on one count of conspiracy and three counts of unauthorized access of protected computers to obtain information to inflict emotional distress, AP said.

Thank God for justice.

To read more about the case, click here, but the long and short of it is that the mother of one of Megan's former friends created a MySpace account and posed as a teenage boy named "Josh" to see what Megan was saying about her daughter.

The mother, her daughter and another adult had access to the account and corresponded with Megan as Josh for more than a month, until they began harassing Megan, saying that Josh didn't want to be her friend anymore and that the world would be a better place without her.

Megan, who suffered from ADD and depression, hanged herself as a result of the messages.

RELATED LINKS
MySpace Murder
Update: MySpace Murder

Ordering up another round of 'Shot'

Surprise, surprise. Tila Tequila and her selected suitor, Bobby, couldn't make their relationship work and MTV has the bi-sexual dating show signed up for another season.

Tila, who hosted a New Year's Eve show for the network, announced Monday that Bobby had broken up with her because he couldn't handle her schedule or dating a "celebrity."

"The night was amazing except for the fact that Bobby had broken up with me a few days before all of this went down. I wasn't expecting it at all because I thought I had finally found someone that I was compatible with, but I guess I was wrong. My hectic schedule was really hard on him and we both were getting frustrated, but at the same time.....I just wanted to find someone who would understand what a crazy lifestyle I have so it's too bad that things didn't work out between us. With that said I just want to make it known that I still think Bobby is a great guy and I wish him the best."- from Tila's MySpace page.

On the other hand, a MySpace bulletin posted by the boy wonder claims that Tila just stopped calling him after the reunion show, which aired Dec. 23.

"She never called me after the last show and no one would give me her number so pretty much I feel like and ass but we are not 2gather u cant have a realationship bye urself ya know." - from Bobby's MySpace page.

...which should lead us all to believe that MTV demanded that the two end their relationship, especially because the finale of "Shot at Love" drew 6 million viewers--the highest of the network since November 2002.

And come on, Bobby was pretty silly, but he's not a moron (though, after reading his horrendous grammar and spelling on the post, I might reconsider). Who would land MySpace's hottest vixen (and eat animal testicles for her) and then dump her two weeks later? I had an unnatural love for this silly show, but I don't want it to turn into Flavor of Love, which is coming out with it's like, 17th episode this season. It was pretty unreal before, but it's going to be uber fake now! Come on, MTV...

The show is rumored to begin in the spring of this year and will follow the same format of straight and lesbian hopefuls vying for Tila's affection. And be on the look out for Domenico's spinoff: That's Amore! featuring the Italian stallion and the moronic cowboy, Ashley.

RELATED LINKS:
How to save a bi
Here's to a shot at shameless self promotion

Dreams are the things confetti is made of

I always wondered who had the tedious job of sweeping up all that Time Square confetti on New Year's Day, but apparently they're dream makers.

This year, the wishes of people across the world will be printed on the bajillion pieces of confetti dumped on the crazies who visit Time Square tomorrow as part of a NYE Wishing Wall.

To have your wish printed, visit this Web site and fill out the form. Wishes will also be posted here. The wish-filled pieces of confetti will be mixed with plain confetti (is that an oxymoron), equalling more than 1 ton of crap falling on people's heads and onto the dirty streets.

I seriously could not think of a more worthless idea. Is anyone going to read this?? Oh wait, let me bend down and pick some wishes off the street. Or hey, you, there's a wish stuck in your hair, oh it's little Jimmy from Poughkeepsie.

And if you try to fill out the form to submit a wish, you get like, 10 characters to write your it. "I wish this year tha--" that's all you get. I wish for more space to write my damn wish!

This is one class I need to take

An article from Time.com caught my eye, and my peaked interest might be getting some inventive Parsons student an A.

The 15 students from Parsons The New School for Design in New York City are enrolled in a class called Internet Famous [click here to visit the blog], an experimental course in which the students utilize online strategies for distributing and promoting their art in our Google/MySpace/Digg/Facebook/blog-erific modern age.

Jamie Wilkinson teaches how to use headlines, keywords and tags to attract the attention of search engines, and how to use social networks to seek out the audience that will be most receptive to their content.

The students are then graded by a matrix, based on the amount of fame they receive. Wilkinson has three computers that scour the Internet, caught in a constant loop of what he terms "scraping" — constantly going through search engines, blogs, networking sites, video hubs and other sources for what's hot, what's new, and where his students stand, according to the article.

And this Time.com article certainly must have skyrocketed their hits--I tried to get on the Internet Famous Class Web site and I had the little Mac color swirly/hourglass cursor for like, five minutes. There must be thousands of people on this site at any given time!

I love this idea. It's pure genius. And my blog would probably get taken to school by these kids.

King campaign

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like Burger King gets lost in the mix of fast food restaurants; it's like, seventh on my list. But yet another viral video advertising campaign has hit the scene ala BK: whopperfreakout.com.

The video is an extended version of a Burger King commercial, which shows customers freaking out after hearing the fast food chain has discontinued the Whopper. No tears are spilled, but the video shows the elicited anger and/or (bizarre) emotional attachment some people have to BK's signature sandwich.

One user who watched the video via youtube, said:

"I swear to god if I heard that the whopper is no longer available... I would start killin' people... even the joke of this is not funny !!!! A world without a Whopper is a world without air & water !!!"--Terfen

I'm not sure if this really makes me want to go to Burger King, but at least it reminds people that the place exists, and the . I also don't know if I completely believe the veracity of this being 'actual footage,' but it is pretty clever, and the ending is phenomenal.

If you like this or this, check out whopperfreakout.com.

Thanks, Matt!

Chocolate's 'Reign' over marketing

Hey, remember when I was pumping Dr. Pepper's latest beverage creation? Well apparently a mention on The Jerc Store wasn't a big enough advertising move, so they've turned to the latest trend in advertising and featured Tay Zonday.

...wait, who?

Tay Zonday, better known as the genius behind the viral video "Chocolate Rain," is making an even bigger name (and bank account) for himself by joining up with True Entertainment in the "Cherry Chocolate Rain" video.

The video--which at this point has 1,196,291 views--features Tay and rapper Mista Johnson in an over-the-top spoof on rap music and the original video that made Tay a star. Several scantily clad women and buckets of chocolate pour all over the vertically-challenged, but oddly precious, singer as he croons about "a love that took him by force": the Dr. Pepper soda embodied as an attractive woman.
I think this is pure genius. This won't be the driving force that gets people to like the sode, but this thing is going to be a huge part of getting the word out about this product. And the best part of the whole video is the completely misplaced squirrel toward the end of the video that gets doused in chocolate.

RELATED LINKS:
Dessert in a can