Neurotic Neologisms Nicole Lee’s random sputterings

Earth to Nicole 02: David

In this episode, I complain about social networks, tell you the completely true story of when my high school friend lied to me about a guy named David, and update you on silly pop culture stuff. Please forward all correspondence regarding the podcast to earthtonicole [at] gmail, or leave a comment in this blog entry.

Your time is valuable, so here are a few helpful timeline markers:

0:00 - Introduction
12:13 - Nostalgia segment
24:26 - Pop culture segment
28:44 - Conclusion

The opening track has changed to a riff from Arrivals and Departures, a song from Linus, an indie rock band from Hawaii. The bassist is Nik, a mage/priest in my World of Warcraft guild. Toldja I was geeky.

Gotta also credit Jonathan Coulton for the other tunes, and here’s the link to Buzz’s blog post that I mentioned in the introductory segment.

PS. Apologies for the rambling — really have to write out a script before I start from now on. I also apologize for the horrible rustling and heavy breathing — I figured out it was from moving the mic around a lot, and the wires getting tangled. Gotta get myself a mic stand. But you already knew it was crappy right? Right.

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Earth to Nicole 01: Introduction

In this introductory episode, I explain my thesis that without LiveJournal, Gawker wouldn’t exist. Also, I tell you a story from my high school years, give you my current stance on pop culture things, and offer the public a chance to be a guest host. Please forward all correspondence regarding the podcast to earthtonicole [at] gmail, or leave a comment on this blog entry.

Your time is valuable, so here are a few helpful timeline markers:

0:00 - Introduction
13:23 - Nostalgia segment
20:51 - Pop culture segment
23:49 - Conclusion

A few major shout outs go to:
Jordan, Jesse, GO!, You Look Nice Today, and East Meets West.

PS. I realize this episode is riddled with glitches and audio horrors, but I’m still unusually proud of it.

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It’s Tumblr-y!

Hey look, my blog looks Tumblr-y! (Don’t worry sports fans, it’s still Wordpress)

Figured it needed a design refresh, and followed the footsteps of many of my friends and went ahead with Derek Powazek’s neat-o DePo Clean theme (He has a much more minimalist version called DePo Skinny as well).

It needs a few more tweaks though. Plus, I have a surprise for y’all by the end of the day

Complete list of references in the Weezer video

This is the Weezer “Pork and Beans” music video that’s been circulating around the Web today:

It references a whole list of YouTube memes. So I went out and looked for the links of every single referenced video that I could find. Let me know if it isn’t complete:

(In order of appearance)

One Man Band
Numa Numa
Dramatic look rodent
Afro ninja
Canon in D electric (Same desk/room look)
Diet Coke and Mentos
Guy catches glasses with his face (A VERY subtle reference)
GI Joe PSA
T-shirts
Star Wars kid (Jennifer in the comments pointed out the Afroninja is twirling the staff like the Star Wars kid)
Chris Crocker/Leave Britney Alone
All your base are belong to us
Miss Teen South Carolina
Light saber duel (Okay, so they technically appear at the end, but Miss Teen SC does wield a light saber here).
Soulja boy dance
Evolution of dance
Chocolate Rain/Tay Zonday
K-Fed
Daft hands
Daft bodies
Girl in socks/Sex advice girl
Shoes
Dancing baby (This is the best link I could come up with; looks like other dancing baby vids were removed or something)
UFO in Haiti
Sneezing panda
Peanut butter jelly time
Blendtec Blender
Rubik’s cube
Charlie the Unicorn

I might’ve missed one or two links, but this is about 99% correct.

Online vs. Print

Y’know, as old-fashioned as print media is, it still blows the socks off my feet. Getting my name in print in an internationally distributed magazine was still one of the biggest highlights of my life. All this stuff I do for CNET is fine and all, but there’s seriously nothing like getting a magazine in the mail and seeing your name in bold type on glossy paper.

This is why it makes me sad that many of my colleagues in the online world dismiss print media as old and dated. I understand there’s more freedom and timeliness with online publishing — heck, I’m still a pretty big advocate of Web 2.0 no matter how much I complain about it. Blogging is a great tool, due to the immediacy and transparency it allows. But I’m telling you, print is something special. There’s something so visceral about the full bleed designs in glorious CMYK with the words — MY words — filling up the page.

Yeah, I’m pretty stuck in the past. I admit that. The future lies in the bits and bytes of the digital screen. Blogs are the here and now. Who cares about dead trees and three-month-old content?

Sadly, I do. I’ll be right there, on the verge of new media taking over the old, fervently holding on to the remnants of the last magazine ever printed. And my heart will break a little bit, the tears will pool in my eyes, and I will eventually let go.