Are you sick and tired of playing victim to Facebook’s nefarious, ever-changing privacy practices? Are you exhausted from all of those hours spent trying to get reoiriented with Facebook’s interface after another zany redesign? Have you had it with those tiny ads on each side of your screen, ruining the serenity of your social networking [...]
It’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed since I unveiled my first-annual list of YouTube Faves. Even more astounding is the fact that in 2011, YouTube users sent more than 25 million hours of coning, kitten and crotch-trauma footage out to pasture on the YouTube server farm, nearly doubling the total for [...]
I recently came across this story about a Canadian man named Harold Hackett who has thrown more than 4,800 message-stuffed, neon-colored juice bottles into the Atlantic Ocean since 1996. Astonishingly, he’s now received more than 3,100 responses from bottle recipients stretching from Africa to Ireland. Even more impressive, all of the replies have been handwritten [...]
I remember it like it was yesterday. I can still recount the pride and outright joy of that sunny July afternoon — the day I received my invitation to join Google+. I can’t really explain my early enthusiasm for G+. Maybe it was the thrill of exploring an uncharted new social space. Maybe it was the appeal [...]
I used to sell musical instruments for a living. Flutes, violins, accordions — you name it, I sold it. It was a fun gig at first, but it was retail and, well, my enthusiasm eventually succumbed to the daily routine of soul-crushing banality. The job did, however, prove a good learning experience. Namely, it provided [...]
Like many of us here at CM, I’m a musician. I picked up the bass at 13, and since then I’ve been in and out of about a dozen bands. Most of them never made it out of the basement. A few lucky ensembles, however, managed to escape and venture into that Mecca of every [...]
Apparently so, according to a recent study by researchers from the marketing departments at Southern Methodist University and the College of William and Mary. In a simple experiment, 100 undergraduate students were divided into two groups and shown one of two print ads for an imaginary popcorn product from Orville Redenbacher. One version featured imagery [...]
I can’t speak from experience, but from what I’ve heard, one bite of an In-N-Out burger will change your life forever. The relatively small California chain holds a lofty spot in American lore as the preeminent dispensary of ground beef greatness, and every In-N-Out fan I’ve ever met has adamantly sang their praises, often speaking [...]
My 3rd cousin, Jerry, was one of the more colorful characters of my youth. He was loud, drunken and unapologetically vulgar. And each day, he careened up and down the curling roads of Rockhouse Creek in an old pickup with a toolbox full of Pabst Blue Ribbon. For many years, I avoided Pabst, associating it [...]
The NCAA Basketball Tournament is back, and the nation is once again awash in bracket-picking bliss. But lurking beneath all of the twine-snipping, shining moments lies something far less appealing: the blatant exploitation of student-athletes by the NCAA. They’re walking billboards for shoe companies and sports drinks. Their likenesses are used to market everything from [...]
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