Day: August 14, 2009

You Missed It: No one cares what you’re doing edition

I’m back! I know you missed me. But then again, as was proven last week, just because I go on vacation to forget about you does not mean that YMI ceases to exist. It’s sort of like the news in that sense, isn’t it? In any case, I have returned and I am refreshed. Can you say the same? If you were busy making a cargo ship disappear, odds are you missed it.

Your pointless babble brings on the whale
A recent study of tweets on Twitter, the microblogging service, found that around 40 percent are “pointless babble.” This comes as a shock to many, who could have sworn the number was closer to 99.9999999999999999 percent. So what are the remaining 60 percent of tweets? About 35 percent are updates about what song or band a person is listening to right now, 20 percent are complaints about work, class, the weather and illness, while the remaining 5 percent are updates on bowel movements.

This AND Steven Tyler is in the hospital?
NASA said this week that unless it gets more federal funding it will not be able to meet its 2020 goal of tracking 90 percent of the asteroids that could hit the Earth and kill off life as we know it. But that’s OK, your federal dollars are going to more important things. As the ancient Sumerian saying goes, if you live long enough, everything turns into a Bruce Willis movie.

Just in time for the Woodstock anniversary
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was released from prison today after spending 34 years in jail for the attempted assasination of President Gerald Ford. Fromme was a member of the Manson family, which is connected with other crimes, such as a two-day killing spree in 1969. Has anyone told Ford about this yet? Oh, wait.

The Real Story: Nickelback sucks

Distortion pedals turn anything into rock music!You ever read an article–be it in magazine or on news site–and notice one nugget of information that proves the author wrote the article about the wrong subject?

Case in point: “While My Guitar Gently Beeps” (New York Times Magazine) was about how Harmonix and the remaining Beatles and widows developed not only an authentically-mastered Beatles track pack for Rock Band, but also a system for future bands to simultaneously release new albums on CD and Rock Band’s online store.

Interesting, right? Especially since the whole article is peppered with quotes from Paul, Yoko and the guy who invented Guitar Hero?

The Nugget:
“The Rock Band Network is so potentially consequential that Harmonix went to great lengths to keep its development secret, including giving it the unofficial in-house code name Rock Band: Nickelback, on the theory that the name of the quintessentially generic modern rock group would be enough to deflect all curiosity” [emphasis ours].

So the real story here isn’t the inevitable release of a Beatles’ Rock Band Track Pack, but that Nickelback sucks so bad that their very name inspires people to tune out, change the station or improve their immediate lot in life by doing something that isn’t Nickelback-related.

We’re not saying that Chad Kroeger should hang himself about this news. We’re saying that people might not notice if he did.

Warrior of the Week: Esther Orreno

Usually, when you hear news about a snake bite it doesn’t end well. But in this case it’s quite the opposite–it’s a tale of heroism.

Esther Orreno, 87, was on her front step when she saw something lying on the ground. Not knowing what it was, she brushed it aside with her cane. Then she bent down to move it with her hand. It was then that the pygmy rattlesnake bit her. Unfortunately, that only made Orreno mad.

She killed the snake with her bare hands, then went inside and pricked herself with a pin to draw the venom out, which as anyone who has seen Snakes on a Plane knows, that’s pretty much all you need to do to survive. The octogenarian was later taken to a hospital, where she is recovering.

We salute you, Esther Orreno. Thank you for never tiring of the fight for humanity.