I Know a Guy (kind of)

Hi. I’m going to redirect your attention to this post. And then this one. And then preface this post by stating:

I have never watched The Bachelorette. That’s not to say I haven’t watched The Bachelor. I watched the Prince Lorenzo season (YIKES! except that cute Italian girl – what a doll! and the socialite girl was a riot) and then the Brad Womack season.

As you will (or won’t…) recall, Brad turned down BOTH finalists. Blogs and message boards went abuzz talking about how DeAnna should be the next Bachelorette. And she is.

So that’s reason #1 I’m watching this season. Because I already know who she is thanks to the season of Brad.

Reason #2? This guy:

Ok, so I don’t know him know him, but I know him. Or I’ve met him a few times. He’s a MN guy who’s friend with my BFF’s boyfriend, so there’s that. And that’s going to keep me glued to this season.

That and the hope that Reality Steve treats The Bachelorette with the same admiration and respect (aka satire and parody) as he does The Bachelor.

Go Ryan!

Hells Yeah

So I got a little curious as to actually who does do the voice-over in that E-trade commercial… I Googled “e trade baby commercial voice over” thinking that was enough keywords to at least get me in the right direction. Wanna know the first hit?

Check it.

THIS BLOG. (See post below)

NIIIIIICE.

More than Just a Moment?

The TV junkie in me loved this post today on Defamer.

No, I didn’t actually watch last night’s premiere of “Moment of Truth” on Fox. But I do know 23 million other people did, and the ratings reflect that. Maybe that’s the hype, maybe that’s because it rode the coattails of American Idol and was pitted against CW’s Gossip Girl rerun and ABC’s Supernanny.

Either way, this voyeuristic society might be just the right playground for [another] such a show.

Bienvenidos a Facebook?

Swiped yet again from my new favorite blog:

Facebook moves into international translation efforts
originally posted by Caroline McCarthy

As has been long expected, Facebook has begun to work on making its service available in multiple languages as it expands internationally–and it’s doing so by utilizing the power of its millions of users by enlisting them to volunteer a few minutes. The site has spent the past few weeks asking international users to participate in the process by installing a “Translation” application that lets them translate words on Facebook from English to their native languages. It only applies, of course, to Facebook-generated text; anything entered by users, like interests or favorite movies, remain as-is.

The Translation application is initially available in French, Spanish, and German, and Facebook has said that thousands of users have enlisted in the process and are “actively translating.”

A preview: Facebook en espanol

(Credit: Facebook)

But it’s more complicated than that: “This doesn’t mean that once a user has finished translating the site will be available in that language,” a release from Facebook explained. “In order to get the best possible quality translations, we have a voting system. Other translators of that language will be able to vote on the quality of the translation by giving it a thumbs up or thumbs down. Users are also able to report any poor translations or translators.” Essentially, Facebook has prank-proofed the system.

Full versions of Facebook in French, Spanish, and German will be available, ideally, before the end of March; when those are complete, the next set of languages (which have yet to be determined) will enter the translation process.

A handful of other social networks already offer a variety of languages based either on personal preference or geographic location. Friendster, which is popular in Asia, allows its users to toggle back and forth between English and Chinese; MySpace operates more than a dozen international sites with both language and content targeted toward the culture in question.

Guess We Could Find Out?

Interesting, but chances are slim-to-none that the five people who actually *do* this will make any kind of impression:

Jan 30 is “Delete Your MySpace Day”

Things I agree with, but that still won’t make me delete my MySpace page:

“He [Simon Owens (I know... who?)] decided to catalog the many ways in which MySpace had failed him:

1. You rarely log in to MySpace except to delete spam friend requests from nude webcam girls.

2. You spend five minutes writing a wall post only to hit an error message when you try to post it because of all the website glitches.

3. You’re a girl who constantly gets marriage proposals from random men in the middle east.

4. You visit someone’s Myspace profile only to suddenly have music start blasting out of your speakers. Bonus points if it happens to you while you’re at work.

5. You have to make redundant clicks to perform simple tasks because Myspace keeps taking you to advertisement pages where you have to click on “return to myspace profile” in order to continue what you’re doing.

6. You visit someone’s profile only to have your eyes bleed because of terrible page layout with non-matching designs and font colors.

7. Your experience is hindered because of intrusive banner ads that either talk to you or try to reach out and block your view of what you’re trying to look at.

8. You read yet another news account about how some child predator using Myspace has abducted a little girl or that some hoax myspace account has caused a teenager to commit suicide.

9. You’re frustrated with the fact that Myspace doesn’t allow you to post your contact info, meaning to contact someone you can only use Myspace’s glitchy Instant Messenger, message/email system, or wall commenting.

10. You’re tired of seeing Tom stare out at you from millions of friends lists and just wish he would change his fucking profile picture.

Finally, reaching a breaking point, he made the decision to nuke his MySpace account. Instead of immediately deleting it, he wanted to set an end-date that others could join him in his effort of January 30th, perhaps sending more of a message to MySpace rather than going quietly into the night.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Good luck, Simon friend.

Social Network Mind-Meld

It’s like she read my mind. (PS, this is one of my new very favorite blogs):

Is there a graveyard for deleted Facebook profiles?

Kind of scary to think about and yet I still Facebook, MySpace, twitter, Digg, delish, and well, blog like it’s going out of style.

It’s not yet, is it?

Blog-Hopping

Ok, so I still can’t get into Perez, so I’m just going to share some of the blog-hop findings I skimmed today. So that I feel better about myself, enjoy these exerpts in a series of new posts.

This is how I spent the last day off of my mini-vacay. Well, this plus doing laundry.

I Beg Your Pardon, but This is My Secret Garden

I stumbled across this gem of a page pointing out many lovely things about what Atmosphere called his “secret garden.”

MINNESOTA FUN FACTS*
*facts unchecked, but just go with it

Just some fun facts on Minnesota for those who may not have known:

Only in the Metrodome has there been a Super Bowl, a World Series and a NCAA Final Four Basketball Championship.

The skyway system in Minneapolis allows people to live, eat, work and shop in nearly five miles without ever going outside.

During the winter of 1888, residents of St. Paul built an ice palace at the winter festival. Before melting, it was considered one of the largest buildings in the world, measuring 14 stories high and covering an acre of land.

The Mall of America in Bloomington is over 9.5 million square feet in size.

Because of its thousands of lakes, Minnesota has 90,000 miles of shoreline, more than California, Florida and Hawaii combined.

Minnesota claims homeland to the following inventions: Masking and Scotch tape, Wheaties, Bisquick, Aveda beauty products, the bundt pan, HMOs, Green Giant vegetables, and the Snickers candy bar.

The first library to have a Children’s department was the Minneapolis Public Library in 1889.

Northwest Airlines based out of Twin Cities, was the first major airline to ban smoking on international flights.

Minnesota is home to the first automatic pop-up toaster, the first canned ham, Spam, Greyhound Lines (the first bus line), and Tonka Trucks.

Between the 1860s and the early 1900s Minnesota was the leading lumber-producing state.

The low rocky ridges, or ranges, of northern Minnesota that contain iron ore are located in the region known as the Superior Upland.

Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi River, was discovered and named by Henry R. Schoolcraft in 1832.

Minneapolis and Saint Paul became major cities partly thanks to French immigrant engineer Edmund La Croix, a resident of the area who perfected a device to purify white flour in the early 1870s.