MTV has surprised me once again. In only two short hours, MTV pulled off yet another award show that was entertaining, funny and chocked-full of surprises and censors.
Yes, there were parts of the show hosted by the hilariously quick-witted Aziz Ansari that were predictable. It is a sure thing that at any award show where fans vote for winners, Twilight will be the victor. While the Hangover may have more fans, those viewers are much less likely to take the time to log online to vote for their favorite movie.
As predicted the Twilight Saga and its band of vampires pretty much ran the show. Barely ten minutes went by without some quip or quibble about vampires or Taylor Lautner’s abs and the franchise swept all of its categories. Kristen Stuart (Best Actress), Robert Pattinson (Best Actor, Global Award), Anna Kedrick (Best Break Out Performance [for Up In the Air, but we all know it was for Twilight]), and the rest of the cast of New Moon (Best Movie) took the stage that night. Continue reading 'MTV is on a Bleepin Roll'»
The biggest music deal in history has been signed between a record label …. and an Estate?
It is true. This week a contract worth over $250 million, which will include ten album projects, was signed by Sony Music and the estate of the late Michael Jackson proving that the best success is achieved after death.
”I think that, as with most artists, death is not a terrible career move, as we know, for the estate and for the record company,” said Editor of Billboard Magazine, Craig Marks, when asked about the multi-million dollar Jackson Estate deal.
For college students, imagining a professor as anything other than an educator can be challengingly unnatural. Spotting a teacher beyond of the boundaries of a school zone is like a finding snowman on a tropical beach or a fish living out of water. Teachers acting outside of the classroom seem to be breaking some unwritten law. It is as if the classroom is their only environment and that is where they fulfill their solitary niche.
University of Tampa Assistant Professorof Biology Dr. Todd Campbell understands all too well how it feels to find a species acting outside of its natural environment. When he is not in the classroom, Campbell is out in the wild, researching animals that are establishing communities outside of their own natural habitat.
And while finding a teacher outside of the classroom may seem unnatural yet unproblematic, Dr. Campbell is finding that this is not always true with animals. Especially when dealing with African Nile Monitor Lizards who are currently unnaturally establishing themselves in Florida and beginning to take over the canals of Cape Coral.
”What I found were trails and boroughs and scared residents and people who had had the things climbing on their roofs, eating their cats, taking goldfish out of their ponds, and cornering them in their garages,” says Campbell.
As if the couple from the smash YouTube Wedding Entrance Dance video weren’t already awesome enough, they have gone and made themselves an even better example of groovy peace and love.
A few months ago Minnesota couple, Jill and Kevin, were thrown into a national spotlight after a clip of their unorthodox trip down the isle surfaced on the Internet. The popularity of the clip quickly led to over 26 million views on YouTube. It was an unexpected influx of attention for the couple who only posted the clip on the web so that they could share their big day with family and friends who couldn’t make it.
But once the clip starting bouncing all over the web, Americans everywhere just couldn’t get enough. The couple along with their wedding party were featured on numerous national talk shows where they recreated their quirky wedding march dance to Chris Brown’s “Forever.”
This media frenzy caught on a time when Chris Brown represented anything but newlywed love. A domestic dispute with Brown’s long time girlfriend and singer Rihanna had caused a public backlash against the artist. But just as America was losing their faith in Brown, this video surfaced.
How many times have you gone onto your favorite website and got caught up on a CAPTCHA?
The premises seems pretty simple. Type the distorted word into the text box to gain access to a particular sect of a website. But it is not always so easy. Sometimes the words are so stretched and distorted that it is almost impossible to tell what the access word is.
The CAPTCHA—Completely Automated Public turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart—was designed in 2000 by a team at Carnegie Mellon University in effort to protect users from all of the nasty “bots” out there trying to scrape, spam and scam your computer.
Since the CAPTCHA is doing a pretty good job at keeping the bad bots out, I guess we will just have to suck it up and spend the extra time decoding passwords like “plucks pride in difficult” and convincing ourselves that there are no subliminal messages in the CPATCHA’s seemingly random jargon madness.
Want to know more? CAPTCHA has an offical website. Check it out at www.captcha.net.
Just when I thought all hope was lost, the impossible happened. This year’s MTV Music Video Awards were actually… good. After years of drowning, MTV finally took some initiative, climbed out of the water of the main stream, shook off all of its mediocrity and reclaimed its proper place in the entertainment spotlight, fresh and new. Thank you MTV, I’m glad to have you back.
This year’s show was exciting, emotional, invigorating, and dare I say enjoyable. It was entertaining in all the proper premeditated ways a producer hopes for and in all the unplanned, spontaneous ways a producer dreams of. It reminded me why I kept tuning in year after disappointing year. I have been waiting for the redemption of Music Television, and finally almost a decade later, it happened. Continue reading 'Thank You MTV'»
Because New Zealand was first settled by the British, it has a culture thick in English influence. But don’t forget that like America, there were people living on the islands way before the English settlers came to take over.
In New Zealand those people are called Maoris. These eastern Polynesians decendants first arrived on the islands about 700 to 2000 years ago, bringing with them a culture rich with tradition.
Watch below as a group of Maoris perform their traditional dance, Haka. The harsh chants, body slaps and over-exaggerated facial movements were tactics used to scare off enemies while proclaiming strength and unity.
(If you were a fan of MTV’s last season of The Duel, you may recognize the dance. It is the same performance given by the cast during the introduction of the show. All season long I’m sure you, like me, were wondering what they were doing. The show was filmed in New Zealand… now it makes perfect sense!)
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is making headlines. Yesterday Yahoo.com posted an article published by the Associated Press describing the new research being performed on the massive, floating heap of garbage forming in Pacific Ocean.
Kudos to national news links creating awareness of this soon to be trash disaster, and thanks to the University of California for going out and investigating the problem.
Revisit this soupy, trash island on RaubiMarie then read what AP had to say about it on Yahoo.
It is no secret that New Zealand is home to a vast amount of beautiful and diverse topography. Staggering cliffs, rugged mountains, endless fiords and secluded beaches are among the many breathtaking sights scattered throughout the adventurous countryside. But there is also an often overlooked aspect of the Kiwi’s diverse geography… the natural, unique features formed by the country’s geothermal hotspots.
The most wondrous examples of New Zealand’s geothermal activity can be found in area called Wai-O-Tapu, which is a Maori word for “Scared Waters.” This region, located just outside of Rotorua, is about a three hour drive south of Auckland and is home to a beautifully diverse landscape of cavernous craters and colorful pools formed by hydro thermal eruptions that took places hundreds of years ago. Continue reading 'Before Hot Spots Were WiFi'»
The thoughts of traveling to a foreign country are often filled with romantic notions of exotic, beautiful places, postcard sunsets and luxury suites. But the reality of traveling is not always as glamorous as the pages of Conde Nast Traveler and National Geographic. Sure there will be sights that will leave you awestruck and you will more than likely encounter many places so insanely different from your home that you will wonder if the plane you flew on actually took you to another planet, not just another continent. And yes, most of those places will be so great that you will forget about the creature comforts you have given up to embark on your trip (comfortable beds, short walking distances, familar foods, etc.). But wherever you go, you will always be on the hunt for at least one of those clean, comfortable places… the bathroom.
So I was pleased to find the coolest and cleanliest of all public bathrooms in Auckland, New Zealand. Watch as Jillian demonstrates how the Kiwis keep your public bathroom experience comfortably clean and personally private.
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The biggest music deal in history has been signed between a record label …. and an Estate?
How many times have you gone onto your favorite website and got caught up on a CAPTCHA?
Just when I thought all hope was lost, the impossible happened. This year’s MTV Music Video Awards were actually… good. After years of drowning, MTV finally took some initiative, climbed out of the water of the main stream, shook off all of its mediocrity and reclaimed its proper place in the entertainment spotlight, fresh and new. Thank you MTV, I’m glad to have you back.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is making headlines. Yesterday Yahoo.com posted an article published by the Associated Press describing the new research being performed on the massive, floating heap of garbage forming in Pacific Ocean.
It is no secret that New Zealand is home to a vast amount of beautiful and diverse topography. Staggering cliffs, rugged mountains, endless fiords and secluded beaches are among the many breathtaking sights scattered throughout the adventurous countryside. But there is also an often overlooked aspect of the Kiwi’s diverse geography… the natural, unique features formed by the country’s geothermal hotspots.