You are here: Home > media
Archive | media RSS feed for this section

Believe it or not, I need to practice my smack-talk

by on September 8, 2011, in but in our house we never get bored, Internet, media, stupid assholes, technology/yes I am a geek

A week ago, the closest I came to caring about football was getting excited about tailgating before the MTSU games and then stumbling into the stadium in just enough time to buy popcorn and catch the end of the fourth quarter.

And now, all of a sudden, I’m playing in two fantasy football leagues and trying to figure out when I need to scream at the TV and when I need to silently plead with my players to not fuck me over. Ok, I’m also trying to figure out how to remember who all I have on my teams.

Also: A big middle finger to whoever designed the UI for the Yahoo and ESPN fantasy football sites. It’s as if some assclown with a master’s in annoyance was given full-reign over Microsoft FrontPage and decided to try for his PhD in confusing the ever-loving shit out of anyone who would access these sites.

As if fantasy football isn’t stressful enough already.

Comments { 1 }

Women’s lib my ass

by on February 8, 2011, in life etc., me and Murphy Brown, media

Last year after all of the misogynistic GoDaddy commercials during the Super Bowl, I transferred all of my domains from them over to BlueHost, where I host this blog. I have about 10 domains, which I realize is not even enough for GoDaddy to notice. But it made me feel better to not support a company that obviously doesn’t mind alienating its female customer base. This year, GoDaddy’s overplayed and tired “look at Danica Patrick’s b00bz and hey! maybe she’ll make out with this other chick” commercials confirmed that I made the right move by severing all ties with the company last year.

But one thing keeps sticking in my craw: So Danica Patrick is a woman succeeding in a field that is obviously dominated by males, right? She’s doing this awesome thing—playing the boys’ game and winning, right?

And how does she celebrate her badassery? By signing on with GoDaddy to make commercials that ensure she’s only seen as a pair of tits. Instead of being seen as a woman kicking the boys’ asses and taking their names, she’s allowing herself to be devalued and objectified. If this really is the only avenue she thought she could take to build her brand, I’m sad for her. And for our society as a whole.

I don’t watch Nascar or the Indy races, but if I ever hear her talk about how it’s hard for a woman to be taken seriously in a man’s field I will laugh so, so hard. And then cry. Like a girl, right?

Comments { 4 }

Look at this fucking corporate shill

by on November 15, 2009, in food and/or beverage, hahahahaha, media, news/politics, pop culture will suck out your soul

So you know all those annoying hipster kids that run around drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon “ironically”? You know, the beer that the rest of us drank when we were broke-ass college students barely making rent and it was either that or Natty Light? The beer that fills the styrofoam coolers of our redneck brethren at family barbecues or tailgates? But these kids drink it because it means “anti-mainstream” and “I do my own thing, I don’t follow society’s rules”?

Back in 2004, Pabst executed a highly effective word-of-mouth campaign that made the long-declining brand an “ironic downscale chic” choice for bike messengers and other younger drinkers who viewed the beer as a statement of non-mainstream taste. —adage.com, as reported on freewilliamsburg.com

HAHAHA.

So all you kids drinking PBR because you think it makes you look cool and ironic and like you’re bucking mainstream? Yeah, you’re really just part of a corporate marketing campaign and you’re doing exactly what The Man intended for you to do.

Enjoy your shitty beer.

Comments { 4 }

I call bullshit

by on August 20, 2009, in Internet, jump aboard the crazy train, media, memes

I saw this linked from Rex’s blog and decided to give it a try. I figured using my married name, Megan Morris, would yield more results of people most definitely not me since I haven’t had much time to infiltrate the interwebs with my shenanigans under my new name yet.

I was mostly right, though one of the blurbs that popped up did find a somewhat correct version of me.

I call bullshit

I call bullshit

I figured I would try again using my maiden name, and expected the search to result in a mostly correct graph, as an ego search usually yields plenty of links to items that are most certain about or by me.

Boy was I wrong. Nothing, not one damn thing, that popped up on the screen was related to me or any of the results you’d get if you plugged in “Megan Goodchild,” with or without the quotes in your own search of my name.

I call bullshit

Incredulous, I tried again. Still nothing, though the graph looks distinctly different this time. The same blurbs had popped up on the screen, so I am not sure why the program decided to give more weight to other items this time.

I call bullshit

Obviously this is not an exact science, and interpreting the results of this graph as identity, persona, who you are, etc., is faulty logic anyway. This isn’t who I am, it’s who my name is. Which in itself is a little disconcerting, as we identify so strongly with our names.

And while I’m not Megan Morris the sports enthusiast, I am also not Megan Goodchild the bookworm.

I am, apparently, unidentifiable. And I rather like it.

Comments Off

I can haz Google-fu?

by on June 16, 2009, in Internet, life etc., media, technology/yes I am a geek

In an attempt to corral all of my random Google accounts and products under one ID that I can live with, I’ve been switching over and revamping my Google profile. I’m still using the rocketmail.com email address (I don’t care how much ass Yahoo sucks, I still like my email address at rocketmail better than my Gmail one; I just check it in Gmail now—also, how effing cool is it that Gmail lets you check another email account and respond from it right from within Gmail?), so no need to update that.

But if you’re curious, bored, stalkerish, etc., you can check out my Google profile here. Feel free to add me as a contact or friend, especially on Google Reader, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Comments Off

In which I try to be helpful

by on May 7, 2009, in around town, Internet, media, news/politics, technology/yes I am a geek

So Scott at WGNS (that’s @wgnsradio for those of you playing along on Twitter) finds it insulting that I pointed out his site has grammatical errors.

In which I try to be helpfulHe also keeps DMing me, but since he’s not following me I can’t DM him back. Which doesn’t really bother me, since I have no trouble discussing in public the importance of a news organization practicing good grammar and spelling.

Anyway, in his last DM, Scott (I’m going to call him Scott now since he helpfully left his name in the comment on the below post) asked me for some ideas. I’m going to assume he’s asking for ideas specific to the grammar/spelling issues on his site, and instead of picking apart each story on the front page (which I actually would be happy to do if he would find it helpful—I learn very well from my own mistakes and have benefited greatly from seeing the results of someone else proofing my articles), I’m going to list five general rules/examples that are good practice to follow (and that I have seen broken on WGNS.com).

  1. 1. Age is written like this: “A 27-year-old man” or “A 14-month-old baby,” not “A 21-year old woman.”
  2. 2. A dash is not always necessary when following a number. For example, “3 Arrested on Drug Charges” instead of “3-Arrested on Drug Charges.” Now, I would even suggest spelling out “three,” as in AP style all numbers below 10 are written out, but Scott has said they don’t wish to use AP style.
  3. 3. It is not necessary to write someone’s name (or any word, really) in all caps. Writing in all caps online signifies screaming, and is considered bad form.
  4. 4. It is not necessary to report the race of an individual in the story unless it is absolutely necessary, for example, if the police are describing someone who has allegedly committed a crime but has not been caught yet.
  5. 5. When listing someone’s title after his or her name, it’s generally not capitalized. Unless of course that’s your specific style that you’ve adopted. (Again, I favor AP style.)

Scott, maybe we got off on the wrong foot. As a writer/editor, I can’t help but proofread everything I read. It’s ingrained in me, I guess, and it especially rubs me the wrong way when I see news outlets disregarding simple grammar rules.

So if there’s any way I can help—anything I can point out that you would find helpful and learn from and not take it as rude or condescending—I would welcome the opportunity.

Comments { 8 }

Conversational media FAIL (or, a letter to WGNS Radio)

by on May 7, 2009, in around town, hahahahaha, Internet, media, news/politics, technology/yes I am a geek, WTF?

Dear WGNS Radio,

I think it’s great that you’re on Twitter. A lot of old media (newspapers, AM radio, etc.) seem to be resistant to the idea that Twitter is important, but I can assure you that nerds early adopters like myself get a lot of their news—especially breaking news—from the platform. So I’d like to commend you for not turning your nose up at it, as many have been wont to do, and instead embracing it and using it to drive people to your website.

However, the point of Twitter is to have a conversation with your audience. (FYI, this includes me). So when I tweeted yesterday about finding funny your tweet about boys buying girls’ jeans and commented that your website has grammar issues, you had several options of how to respond.

You could have taken the opportunity to let me know why you don’t feel it necessary to ensure your website, a news outlet, is grammatically correct. You could have told me that you don’t have a copy editor, or maybe that the guy who posts to your site never went to J-school and doesn’t understand AP style, or maybe even basic syntax and grammar rules. You could have called me out and asked me to point out some places where I found errors.

Conversational media FAIL (or, a letter to WGNS Radio)But you chose to respond with snark via direct message, letting me know that you’re radio people and you can’t spell. (I get that you were joking with “right,” but do you also realize that “thanks” isn’t spelled “thank’s”?)

And when I tweeted about your reply to me, you sent me another direct message telling me that your reply “wasn’t that crazy” (I never said it was), and that AP style is “for the papers” (technically it’s used by many more news outlets than just newspapers). So I guess you’re saying that crappy grammar is the official style you’ve adopted then?

Conversational media FAIL (or, a letter to WGNS Radio)Oh, and telling me “Bye-bye,” and removing me from your followers?

Way to add to the conversation.

But see, you’re not just radio people. You have a website, so you’re web people now. You have a Twitter account, so you’re social media people now. People don’t just listen to your radio station for the news—they come to your website to seek out stories and information. And I would think, seeing as how you are in the news-gathering and news-disseminating business, you would understand the importance of spelling and grammar.

Just like it’s important to pronounce words correctly on air, it’s important to relay your online news with grammatical correctness as well. Because if you don’t, you lose credibility. And if you lose credibility, people won’t take you seriously. And then they’ll stop visiting your site. And fewer visitors to your site means fewer advertisers, and we all know what that means.

WGNS has been on the air since Dec. 31, 1946. You’ve made it through the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, Desert Storm and whatever this bullshit we’re doing in Iraq is being called lately. You’ve been around longer than Barbie dolls, the Frisbee and birth control pills. You’ve outlasted 11 presidents, the Studebaker and telegrams from Western Union. Hell, is there even anything older than you in Murfreesboro? (Oh, right: Bell Jewelers.)

Look, WGNS, I like you. I visit your site to get a hyperlocal take on the news that often I can’t get from the DNJ or the Murfreesboro Post (I don’t even bother with The Tennessean for Murfreesboro news anymore). I try to look past much of your poor style, which includes your penchant for reporting the race of (non-white) individuals involved in accidents and crimes and your inexplicable need to affix a dash after almost every number (“3-Arrested on Drug Charges Near MTSU“).

But I implore you, WGNS: You’ve been through so much in your 61 years. Is it really too much to ask that you report the news on your website with grammatical correctness?

Comments { 7 }