Catching Up

I took a stack of old newspapers to my friend’s apartment so I could catch up on about a week of Style sections and Metro sections.  Here are the fruits of my labor.  Sorry it’s so old.

Ah, the Heat, the Crowd, the Park and the Booze (Times, Metro, July 16)

Around the City, a Shortage at the Pump: Not of Gas, but of 4s (Times, Metro, July 15)

‘Sesame’ Upgrading Its Address On the Web (Times, Arts, July 15) <–makes me want to be 2 again (but what doesn’t??)

Wrinkles Vs. Religion (Times, ThursdayStyles, July 17) can Jews inject pig collagen to treat wrinkles?

In other news…

Kosher Fail (awesome)

This year’s soccer moms and NASCAR dads, according to Slate.

I’m sure you already saw it, but George Bush calls the economy “hungover.” (He should know.)

Obama wears a yarmulke.

Adorable Animal Videos

I’ve been busy this week: friends visited (wohoo MelBou!), Broadway called (and I sat in front of Whoopi Goldberg!), epic happy hours occurred, and Yankees games attended.  Oh, also I’ve been cat sitting for Ferris, which means I walk to work and don’t have an hour-long commute to read the paper.  Sweet.  Regardless of my lack of hard news, my friends have been sending me quality stuff all week, including cute animal videos…

From Tanno and adorable: Christian the Lion

From Dad and adorable: Singing Puppies to Sleep

From Alex MD and totally cool (but not so adorable, even though she is): If You Have a Problem, Ask Everyone

From Scott and Matt Brown: Font Conference

Even though I’m not good at reading the news this week, I am writing the news and blogging for LMNOP.

Gay-Hating-Comic-Books, Feist, a More Popular Congress and Jews With Tattoos

There’s this guy who’s running for reelection to his position as Oklahoma City Commissioner. He decided that the best campaign material would obviously be a comic book. And not just any comic book, but a violently homophobic comic book that purports that there is a conspiracy of toga-wearing-homosexuals, “liberal do gooders,” and “good ol’ boys” out to get him. Oh, and it’s rife with grammatical and spelling errors, natch. Here’s the entire comic book. Read it to the end please.

From KELLYq: Feist on Sesame Street!

On Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me, the editor of CosmoGirl!! gives advice to Congress on how to be popular. Hint: it includes Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers.

From Valerie (and The Times): Jews with tattoos.

And my story made headline news!!

I’ve Been Busy…

Sorry I haven’t been up here in the blogosphere recently. I went to the beach with some fabulous people last week and had a great time. I also went to Central Park to hear the NY Philharmonic play a free concert AND a fireworks show. My life is pretty fantastic, but it means I am limited on blogging time. Still, I’ve been reading, so here’s a quick, disorganized run through:

From Andrea: a pair of siblings separated by the Holocaust reunite after 66 years.

Silly me, I though MTV reality shows were a crappy way to start a political career. But no, a Real World alum is running for Congress.

ABC News gets into the Cute Overload business.

From Matt Brown and to everyone else who is sick of me bragging about my hometown(s). Number 7 AND number 11. I am still MUCH prouder of this claim to fame.

This is really cool: Google keywords and find them in YouTube videos of candidates’ speeches.

From Alex MD, no matter what you think about the original: the political cartoon response to the now infamous New Yorker cover (that I will not link to, because if you don’t know about it, you really have no place reading a blog called “The Media Nerd.”)

She also sent me this fun game. The instructions are not in English, but you have to memorize the order of the numbers and then just click them in increasing order when they disappear. Try it, it makes more sense than I do.

From the WaPo: “Too-Busy Teens Feel Health Toll” is obvi about someone at my high school. Here’s a good quote:

“All my friends do this. We’re all over-scheduled. We live in Bethesda: It’s a way of life.”

Hot dogs at Ebbets Field in the 50s. You’ll be glad you’re eating $8 hot dogs now that are hopefully not as gross. (Dad, you’ll like this one, clearly.)

For New York’s Birth Date Don’t Go By the City’s Seal (Dad, you’ll like this one a lot too.)

French grand-mere chef lady.

Metropolitan Diary, because I love it.

I totally want to play in this playground.

Arielle just sent me this ridiculous link. Yes, they want to boycott McDonald’s because it is “promoting the homosexual agenda.” There is nothing I love more than McDonald’s french fries and gay men. I would like to sign the opposite of this petition.

Okay, that was long, I know, but hopefully you enjoyed some of these articles. Thanks to my favorite ladies to keeping me informed! Oh and Andrea, I still haven’t listened to this week’s WWDTM.  I’m going to go upload the podcast while I sleep.  I am so hip and techy.

All About Food

First, from Alex MD and the NYT, Passive aggressiveness in the office (these tend to be about dirty dishes, on which you eat food…). The article links to one of my favorite websites (that I forgot about): passiveagressivenotes.com.

Frozen yogurt ala Pinkberry finally makes it to D.C.!!

For more from today’s WaPo on food, the battle of the burger joints. (And reviews from Andrea: Burger Cage Match and Big Buns.

This is kooky cute and I like it.

Oh, and I wrote another article.

I’m off to the beach for the rest of the week, and I’ve suspended my newspaper subscription.  If you find anything good, don’t hesitate to e-mail me at themedianerd at gmail.com

McCain Vows to Eliminate Those Pesky E-Mail Taxes

Short today, even though I promise you I read both the WaPo and the NYT. The funniest thing I read though, was from John McCain’s economic plan, from his “Pro-Innovation Tax Cuts” section:

“Ban New Cell Phone Taxes: John McCain understands that the same people that would tax e-mail will tax every text message – and even 911 calls. John McCain will prohibit new cellular telephone taxes.”

Really? I wasn’t aware of e-mail taxes…Who are those people running around trying to tax my e-mail and text messages. Oh, I forgot, the scary liberals.

Don’t worry, I’m even-keeled(ish):

Obama’s awkward convo with an uber-Christian (and young! and hip!) magazine.

Now for other news:

Taxi matchmaker from The Wall Street Journal.

Pub trivia from The Times.

OMG! My least-favorite columnist from the WaPoMag is outta here!! (Sorry Andrea, I know you <3 her.)

Give Gene Weingarten two pages!!!

Science, Weddings, Flip-Flops and Flipping the Bird. Sounds Like the 2008 Presidential Campaign.

Photos of hilarious science fair experiments; make sure to scroll down at least to “Crystal Meth: Friend or Foe?”

Wedding Guests Behaving Badly.  Almost as good as Tanno’s story about the hunting themed wedding she attended…If you’re friends with her, ask her to tell the story, it’s fantastic.

Flip-flop podcast from the New York Times.

A glimpse of the commuting New Yorker on the Q train.

Jersey Shore town makes flipping people off legal. From the article:

“‘I’m giving people the finger if it’s legal, absolutely,’ laughed Carlos Padilla, a 23-year-old from Dumont wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt and gold chain. He’s renting a house for the season with a bunch of pals — all of whom were drinking beer from red plastic cups and listening to rap music on the front porch one night this week.”

Mmm sleeveless white t-shirt and gold chain.  Can’t wait to get to the shore this summer…

Now We Don Our Homosexual Apparel

I already decided not to post most of these stories because either friends already blogged them, gstatus-ed them, or e-mailed them, but my dad wanted to see them in my own little corner of cyberspace, so here goes…

The Boys and the Subway (fast, good, and will make you happy)

Now to my headline, this story is so good!  Jerome got it already, but Dad demanded it make the blog.  He’s right.  Here’s the story when it first made the WaPo blog, and here’s today’s story, with a headline almost as good as Jerome’s.

Shampoo might be considered a deadly weapon in airports, but there’s a group that wants to make it legal to bring GUNS into Atlanta’s airport.  Meanwhile, I guess I’m stuck defending myself with three ounces of contact solution…

Also, I need to share some stories that happened today:

#1: I literally saw the blind leading the blind on the subway this morning; a blind man and a blind woman were helping each other get off the train.

#2: While sitting in my cubicle, at a media company in New York City, I received a phone call from someone speaking in French.  They demanded to speak to someone who spoke French (obviously, since I had no idea what they were saying), so I yelled “DOES ANYONE HERE SPEAK FRENCH?!” a few times until one of my coworkers came to the rescue.  After repeating the same thing to them in French for a while, we found out that they thought they were calling the Quebec government and they wanted to change their address.  I don’t know if it was a French-Canadian prank call, but it was hilarious nevertheless.  I mean, they didn’t even have the right country…

#3: From the train this morning I saw a CRAZY fire in Newark, and I still haven’t found it in the papers.  If you’ve heard anything, let me know.

Articles By People I Know (But Don’t Work With, Because That Wouldn’t Be Fair)

Ok, I don’t know ALL the authors, but enough of them that it was worth bragging in the title.

From The Mayor, rich NYC parents and their anger over their kids not getting into Ivies.  And I thought Whitman was ridiculous…

No, we just have parents repping on the op-ed pages of the Sunday New York Times and Washington Post. Well done Orly and Katie’s dads.

Carroll Kim is an iReporter for CNN!  Read her article here.

The Most-Cited Rockers in Judicial Opinions (You law school kids will enjoy this one)

This high school football player should be a model for everyone, he is fantastic and I wish I knew him.

And this story, from the WaPo is for my favorite, Christopher.  Even though it’s not about/by him, it’s pretty close to our truth!

A News Quiz

Back to my old format for a day…(this might be because I’m listening to NPR’s Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me! now.)

1. What is the Presidential Memorial Commission in San Francisco naming after George Bush?
a. A new government building
b. A highway
c. A park
d. A sewage plant

Answer here from The New York Times.

2. What is interesting about this guy in Albania?

a. “He” is really a she
b. He is the oldest living army member
c. He has never smiled in his life
d. He is the new face of a Dr. Pepper campaign

Read the answer here, from The New York Times.

3. Jeopardy! time! What is the question to this answer: “An increasingly common medical condition in which the affected person becomes violently sick in the stomach when exposed to adulation and deification of Barack Obama.”

a. What is Democratitis?
b. What is Hillarity?
c. What is Baracktose Intolerant?
d. What is Obamatic?

Read the answer, here, from Slate and sent by BOTH Alex MD and Andrea!

Another good link from my dad, sorry, no question: Automotive Oddballs.

Also, watch this, from Sarah Tanno.