Humor

ICYMI: Baby, you’ll be sorry someday – Bill Maher and his “break-up” with MSNBC

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In case you missed it (I sure did), Bill Maher tried to let MSNBC down easily…by breaking up on Valentine’s Day:

It’s Valentine’s Day, and I cannot go on any longer living a lie. MSNBC…we need to talk.
Whatever we had is not working any more. You’re obviously interested in another man: Chris Christie. You’re obsessed with him. So I wanted you to hear it from me first. I’m going to start seeing other news organizations.

He’s tired of hearing about this guy Christie all the time. “But now we never talk about any of the things we used to talk about: global warming, gun control, poverty… “, he pouts. I think he’s just missing the good old days when they both joyfully obsessed over Obamacare and Sarah Palin. He minimizes and is dismissive of this new interest: “Look, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little lanes of traffic don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

Yes, yes, he did it for dramatic effect. Valentine’s Day, Casablanca reference. Cute. (Side note: breaking up on Valentine’s Day is really not a good idea, Bill. If the two of you had truly been an item, it would have invited some kind of scorned-lover vengeance.)

One could imagine MSNBC’s response: “Go ahead, Bill. Go have your flings, go see other news organizations, see if you can find one that fits your interests. You’ll be sorry someday. You’ll see. Someday, you’ll lean forward again.”

But Bill has had post-breakup remorse. We can’t call it a change of heart, but Continue reading →

NY1’s Michael Scotto should have followed TWC’s Jim Cantore’s example & given NY Rep. Michael Grimm a “kneeded” lesson in respect

/ terrikowalczyk / 1 Comment

It could have been – should have been – a simple post-State of the Union interview: young reporter from local hometown cable news station interviews US congressman. But at the end of the interview, Michael Scotto, Washington reporter for Time Warner Cable’s 24-hour newschannel NY1, attempted to ask a question on another topic. We never got to hear the question, though, because Representative Michael Grimm (R – Staten Island and Brooklyn) apparently anticipated the content of the question, and immediately cut Scotto off and walked away. But after it appeared that Scotto had finished his on-camera report and signed off, Grimm came barreling back to threaten him.


Needless to say, the camera was still on. Needless to say, the video has gone viral.

Grimm released a statement following the incident:

“I was extremely annoyed because I was doing NY1 a favor by rushing to do their interview first in lieu of several other requests. The reporter knew that I was in a hurry and was only there to comment on the State of the Union, but insisted on taking a disrespectful and cheap shot at the end of the interview, because I did not have time to speak off-topic. I verbally took the reporter to task and told him off, because I expect a certain level of professionalism and respect, especially when I go out of my way to do that reporter a favor. I doubt that I am the first Member of Congress to tell off a reporter, and I am sure I won’t be the last.”

Uh, pal? If you were in so much of a hurry, why did you have time to come back and physically intimidate Scotto and threaten to “throw [him] off this f**king balcony” and Continue reading →

9 reasons why numbering the reasons for your assertion drives more web traffic to your site

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This first paragraph is a snappy little emcee, breezily providing the briefest of background on the problem of all those people out there on the internet not clicking through to your little backwater of a blog, or to your huge content farm with ads flashing like carnival barkers, but you already think you know what I’ve written here anyway and have skipped right over this text to skim the neat list of 9 reasons below.

Numerals stop the eye. Eyetracking studies done in the early days of the internet showed that numbers “attract fixations, even when they’re embedded within a mass of words that users otherwise ignore”, such as search results or their Twitter timeline.

Numbering establishes you as an expert. You must have done your research, or at least sat around brainstorming and repeatedly ticking off the list on your fingers, in order to come up with enough reasons to justify numbering them.

Numbering creates a list. Lists are easily scanned for highlights. An old but surprisingly still-cited study found that users don’t read on the web – they scan. No one has time to actually read your content; help them pretend that they did.

Numbers = bullet points. Bullet points = succinct. Succinct = good.

Numbering promises easy answers. Answers to the burning question that your numerically Pavlovian readers didn’t even realize Continue reading →