I just saw news that a "zombie walk" is happening this Sunday at the Monreoville Mall, called the "Walk of the Dead". They're going for a world record! And proceeds benefit the Westmoreland Foodbank!
If you participate in this, do get a photo taken and submit it to the campus media relations.
-- Dr. A.
Wired News: The Best Internet Spoofs
"It must be true. I read it on the internet." Au contraire, mon frere. Internet hoaxes have been around for as long as the internet itself, and we never run out of people willing to fall for them.
Some are so clever that it's easy to be taken in. Others are so patently ridiculous that you should probably slash your wrists for falling so easily. Here are 10 of the best.
File this one under "Wow, that pretty much sucks."
University of Georgia Accidentally Accepts 100 Students
ATHENS, Ga. — The University of Georgia mistakenly mailed out acceptance letters to more than 100 high school students.
The students received a congratulatory note and a bright red UGA banner last week, only to receive a follow-up letter Monday telling them they had not been accepted after all.
via FOXNews.com
Here's a funny (if not a little creepy) example of a creative new media project, related to the current Super Bowl frenzy.
Can you survive...
the Tetris Chainsaw Massacre?
A zombie-preparedness study, commissioned by Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy and released Monday, indicates that the city could easily succumb to a devastating zombie attack. Insufficient emergency-management-personnel training and poorly conceived undead-defense measures have left the city at great risk for all-out destruction at the hands of the living dead, according to the Zombie Preparedness Institute.
Grilled cheese sandwich, a plate from the Titanic, a ghost of a grandfather--these elements only have one thing in common, and it has nothing to do with a joke about a bar or an urban legend.
Think auction... ... ...
[[Read more]]
Feeling Haunted? Have a supernatural experience that you are dying to share? Have you visited a haunted location in the Greensburg area? Have you experienced the paranormal in your life? Have you ever seen a ghost? Have you been haunted by spirits? Do you have weird tales of Ouija boards? Anything else freaky that you'd like to share?
I wanna hear about it! I -know- we've got some SHU ghost stories, but I'm also interested in anything in Greensburg and the surrounding areas. You don't have to believe that the story is true; I just wanna hear about it!
Clerk Fooled by Bill With Bush's Picture
GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) — State police aren't laughing about the person who allegedly passed some funny money - a $200 bill with President Bush's picture on it - at a women's clothing store.
Police on Wednesday charged Deborah Trautwine, 51, with theft by deception, for allegedly passing a bogus $200 bill at the Fashion Bug store in Hempfield Plaza on Aug. 22. There is no such denomination, even without Bush's picture on it.
Holy cow.
I blog, and nothing happens.
No comments.
No movement on my hit counter.
Nothing.
I talk about blogging, and I get blank stares or that dreaded " shaking head of disapproval" as I surface yet another topic that I could drag screeching and thrashing into the blogosphere...
Being at home, my parents just don't seem to understand. (Nor can they really grasp the concept of blogging, as a matter of fact.) Past conversations of blogging have been rewarded with laughter, horror, and pure disbelief--all welcome in my world merely because I have no contacts. It's driving me mad.
And not to sound totally narcissistic, I'm a little annoyed that my blog is presently as lonely as I feel, and will continue to be lonely until I return to school in the spring.
Wow, even though I'm not in school, I can't wait for the semester to start so there's something to do here on NMJ. Even if it is a blog entry titled "Homework question 7,8,9 pages 46-93"...
Get blogging, you SHU-sters, you.
Wired News: Onion Taken Seriously, Film at 11
There was a problem with the story. Rather than do his own original reporting, Evening News writer Huang Ke had cribbed, nearly word for word, his text from an American publication. And as if that wasn't bad enough, Ke hadn't bothered to vet the source he had plagiarized: The Onion.
The Onion | The Onion | Yahoo Launches Soul-Search Engine
"Capable of navigating the billions of thoughts, experiences, and emotions that make up the human psyche, the new Yahoo soul-search engine helps users find what's deep inside them quickly and easily," Yahoo CEO Terry Semel said. "All those long, difficult nights of pondering your place in this world are a thing of the past."
By popular demand, and for the love of all things cold, I present to you the first intstallment of my stories of the snow.
There are the usuals of snowmen and days off of school, but I have a few that still make even me laugh on the warmest of summer days.
Once I went skiing at Boyce Park with a friend and her church youth group. We mostly stayed on the bunny hill, since neither of us had been skiing before. Well, we got a little bit of courage and decided to try a larger hill--with a ski lift. Now for those of you that know me well enough, you realize that this is a problem because Karissa is deathly afraid of heights. (I only recently began riding rollercoasters, and I can handle large flights of stairs thanks to a few friends that worked with me on that at Governor's School...) Nonetheless, we wre seated on the ski lift, and I made it to the top, with some coaching from my friend. We dismounted the lift, and prepared ourselves to go when all-of-a-sudden, my left ski decided that it wanted to go by itself. The stupid thing detached from my boot and went gliding down the hill. :-/ *argh* So i had to get back onto the lift and ride down with ONE ski on... and the ski lift guy looked at me strangely when he asked if it was mine--no, I'm in the group of kids that only skis with one ski... grr.
Another funny story has to do with an ice storm we had about three years ago. A few neighbors, my brothers, and I decided to go to the elementary school near where I live to go sledding. It was a rough walk up, but my brother Jacob had a friend that had a fantastic hill in his backyard. We stumbled all the way there because it was so icy, but we stuck it out because we wanted to try this hill. When we finally got there, we fought over who would use which sled--naturally, we all wanted the toboggan because it's the fastest, albeit the hardest to drag back up the hill... I lost a game of rock-paper-scissors to win the toboggan, but I got the plastic roll-up sled (you know, the kind they sell in K-mart for like a buck?). Since I was the oldest, I went first. I pushed off and went flying down the hill. I flew all the way to the bottom, across the road at the base of the hill, through the parking lot of the elementary school, across the blacktop playground, down another small hill, across an old lady's backyard, and down yet another small hill into the street below. !!! What a ride! Several times I had tried to stop myself, but really, I couldn't--it was too icy! The kids were all chasing after me--some with their sleds, who also found they couldn't stop, and some just ran. It was terrifying, but quite a rush, and the record for the longest sled ride in my neighborhood :)
When I lived in my old house (before I moved in middle school), Our backyard was right next to a river. We had a chainlink fence that mom and dad had put up to keep up from the river, since the sloping bank was the end of our yard. My sister and I, aged about 9 and 7 respectively, decided that since we couldn't go to our friend's house to sled because the roads were too bad that we'd sled in our own yard. Now, the only "hill" that existed was the riverbank--and it extended right into the chainlink fence. We had our little pink and purple toboggans facing the fence, and we gleefully slid down the small incline into the fence, content that we could entertain ourselves. Until the time that my pink toboggan went a little further than I did--right under the fence and into the rapid river current... Luckily, I didn't follow. I was just barely too big to slide under the fence. I was pretty ticked about losing my pink toboggan. Santa had just given it to me a week prior to it's tragic departure.
I've got plenty more, having lived in Westerm Pennsylvania all my life. I have a passion for the snow, and there's nothing I love more than waking up in the morning to a fresh blanket of snow on the ground :)
The Onion | Clinton Googles Self
Citing curiosity as his primary motive, Bill Clinton typed his own name into the popular search engine Google.com during a lull in his daily activities, the former president reported Monday.
Amusing:
Yahoo! News - Pa. Woman Cited for Honking Car HornGREENSBURG, Pa. - A western Pennsylvania woman who honked at hunters because she was upset they were in a tree stand that had been her late grandson's will be cited for illegally scaring deer.
Norma Kramer, 77, of Export, Westmoreland County, will be cited for "creating an intentional interruption of the hunting process," according to a state police report.
(this hilarious graphic of what attacked the server over Thanksgiving provided by the Blogs in Education website... I'd post a thumbnail, but I don't like cribbing)
Tis the season for Xmas shopping and final's cramming. Best wishes to all of you.
Hey all! I just wanted to let you know, since I've been so stressed out lately, that I've done a little bit of research on Stress Busters, so check out my Blog and take the Stress Test!
The Onion | Media Criticized For Biased Hometown Sports Reporting
"In our extensive study of the nation's sports sections and broadcasts, we documented countless examples of shamelessly one-sided reporting, obvious speculation, and bald editorializing masquerading as journalism," FAIR spokesman Scott Wilborough said. "Coverage was heavily, sometimes brazenly, weighted toward the teams from a media source's own area. To look at the data, you would almost think that sports journalists aren't held to the same standards as other reporters."
The Onion | Mom Finds Out About Blog
In a turn of events the 30-year-old characterized as "horrifying," Kevin Widmar announced Tuesday that his mother Lillian has discovered his weblog.
My poor sister and aunt has to hear this...Merriam-Webster just defined their current vocations as "a low paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement"--a McJob.
The definition is really offensive to people who have worked at McDonald's beyond adolescence; I've found many make decent wages, have moved up in the fast food heirarchy, and have great benefits from the company.
Bias looks like it is sneaking into the dictionary.
When coined phrases, such as "McJob", are included many people have different opinions on what that definition is. I think the Merriam-Webster company should rethink its stance before the America begins to call their employees "WebsterGeeks" or "Girly-Merriam-Definition-Dorks".
Lots of people work for McDonald's. There is power in french-fry-making numbers. And coining words is one of the most common practices around.
I got this in an email. Fascinating how complicated simple directions can be sometimes, especially when there's a deeply rooted psychological meaning in them.
I think Mother Nature has a severe case of schitzophrenia.
It's November 3rd and I'm wearing sandals. Dr. Jerz remarked in class this morning that a grand majority of us appeared to be prepared for spring. ("What month is it, anyway?" one of my friends remarked just this past weekend.) Just about ten or twelve days ago, there were flurries. What's going on here?!
I have lived in Pennsylvania all of my eighteen years, and I don't recall ever seeing weather like this. We had a spring that started in June, thanks to delayed snowfall... a summer that really only lasted for three weeks, and that was in late July and August... and autumn has just become uncharacteristically unpredictable.
I'm not exactly complaining, but I wouldn't mind a bit of predictability, if you know what I mean. I like not having to put on the weather in the morning because I know what it's going to be like--hot, cold, or in the middle. Only now there is no common factor from day-to-day that helps me know how to dress... it's a little irritating, but I'm still not complaining :)
You might have heard that Matt Goening, creator of The Simpsons, got in trouble when a recent episode included a spoof of Fox News. Both The Simpsons and Fox News are owned by the same corporation, but Fox News (which has been quick on the legal trigger finger lately) supposedly threatened to sue The Simpsons. Or so it was reported.
Reminder to all reporters: Check Your Sources!
Names & Faces (washingtonpost.com)"Fox fought against it and said that they would sue the show," Groening told Gross. "And we called their bluff because we didn't think that Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. So we got away with it," he said, proud of the accomplishment.
But the above WashPost article shows that it turns out Groening was just kidding when he mentioned Fox suing itself over The Simpsons.
I'm not sure what the cause of the trouble on blogs.setonhill.edu was yesterday, but it seems to be working fine now. To celebrate, here is a little something to get you all in the holiday mood. Note to the (fictional) Seton Hill Blog Review Board: This is a tasteless and potentially offensive joke, but I think it is a good way to drive home a lesson we have been learning in "The Practice of Journalism" -- journalists and consumers of news should be on the lookout for people who try to misuse or misinterpret science in order to advance their own agenda.
The Onion | Generic Candy Corn Will Give You AIDSOnce again, Halloween season is upon us, and with it, the wonderful anticipation of dressing up and trick-or-treating for delicious Brach's candy. With that in mind, it's important to remember all the ways that you can make your Halloween safer and more fun. It won't put a damper on anyone's holiday spirits to wear high-visibility costumes when going from house to house, to have kids trick-or-treat with an adult, and to inspect all candy for tampering. Perhaps most importantly, keep in mind that eating just a single kernel of candy corn manufactured by a company other than Brach's Confections will give you a deadly case of full-blown AIDS.
I'm so glad there's finally a reason for me to bring this up! Surprisingly, this has a lot to do with what's being addressed in "It Ain't Necessarily So".
The New York Post made a colossal error today on its editorial page. The paper somehow printed an editorial bemoaning last night's Yankees loss to the Boston Red Sox, noting that the "Curse of the Bambino boomeranged this year" and that the Bronx Bombers "couldn't get the job done at home."
Do you follow the humor columnist, Dave Barry? He's a regular journalist, but did you know he keeps a blog? It's so popular that I assume most of you have seen it before -- especially those who were present at his guest visit to Seton Hill last year -- but I thought I'd remind folks to check it out. Required reading. How else would you learn about the latest bioterrorist attack or ways to communicate when SHU's network is down.
I think Barry also takes outside contributions to his blog, so if you come across something weird, send it along to him!
(Sidenote: I used to think he had an assistant keep his blog for him, but he actually mentioned flying to PA in his blog the week he came out to Seton Hill. Still: how much can we trust "official" blogs of celebrities?) -- Mike Arnzen
I received the following email from a friend a few months ago. I just decided to post it because I find it highly amusing, and I thought that others interested in writing (no matter what style of writing) would be, too.
read on... B-)
I took the Writing for the Web section on using only Anglo-Saxon words a little too seriously, and now I wonder whether my words are coming from Old English, Latin, Greek, Old French, French, Middle English, etc.
Please read this and tell me if I'm missing the point.
