Guys, seeing as it is the season for expressing gratitude for life’s wondrous bounty, I just wanted to take a moment to note the many things I appreciate about–no, just kidding. I wanted to talk about Twitter! Well, not just Twitter; more like short-form blogging etiquette. Specifically, the practice of linking to something without providing any context. For example, tweeting something like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpA2tMrQ4RU I SIMPLY CANNOT.

Guys, this has to stop. My time is not terribly valuable but in the course of any given day I am bombarded with hundreds of opportunities to click on links. If I clicked on every link I saw on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and email, I would get even less done. So do me a favor and give me a hint about whether I should spend my 20 seconds on your link or on playing Skifree (see how I did that?).

Now, there are two exceptions to this, and as far as I’m concerned you need to satisfy both of these exceptions simultaneously:

1. If I trust you implicitly to only use this linking method for sites that I am absolutely sure to value; and
2. If you only omit the context for links in situations where there is dramatic, rhetorical, and/or comedic benefit to my being surprised by the link’s identity.

Note that (1) is a condition you are unlikely to meet with respect to most readers/followers, who may like you but probably wouldn’t even stake their Starbucks money on your abilities as an internet curator. And even if you’re arrogant enough to believe that most people think you’re great^*, you still need to actually be great, or at least adequate, at linking with nuance and wit. This means you’ll have to know how to recognize and wield irony well. If you’re like most of the people in the world, this is not your strong suit. So just go ahead and tell me what you’re linking to, so I don’t have to write a stupid blog post about it while fighting the urge to pepper said blog post with examples of the behavior I am decrying.

^* Note: of course you are arrogant enough to believe that most people think you’re great–we all think that. But, to be honest, you’re probably just okay.

This site is so much better than Stuff White People Like. Not Hating Just Saying is a pretty simple concept–a bunch of things that suck, and a description of in what way they suck.

Highlight: Diet Dr Pepper.

Highlight #2: Hipsters. Now, this is really just another Stuff White People Like, but I found it funny and this is my blog so I don’t care if it’s hypocritical:

Here is a perfect example: thrift store clothes. The stuff you are buying (overpriced, I might add) from a thrift store(or vintage) was shit that was hot 20 years ago, but you rationalize it by saying “it’s ironic.” You just picked up the scraps of some guy who is now 30 but wore that stuff when he was 17…oh wait you are 30 also. High school hipsters I get, but old hipsters? There ain’t shit hip about a 45 year-old in skinny jeans. Why don’t you just go to the kids you hated in high school’s old houses and raid their childhood closets? That way you can wear the very clothes of those that were such “jerks” to you in high school. How is that shit for ironic?

That’s a certifiable hipster burn!

Anyway. I like that site. Thanks for linking it, Lauren (ps, might be time for you guys to get a new URL).

Someone in my class at the journalism school asked if it would be okay to have her boyfriend give her answers for the take home exam. No, really. And when she was told that no, it wouldn’t be okay to have someone else do her work for her, she was seriously upset about it. The best part? The class is Media Law and Ethics.

Doing something is better than nothing.

Not sure whether it’s better to replace your gas-guzzler with a hybrid or a high-mileage hatchback? The important thing is not which one you choose, but just that you choose one, now.

It’s not clear what the best way to deal with the myriad of problems chronicled in Al Gore’s powerpoint presentation? Don’t spend years debating whether to incentivize reduced corporate polution or to just mandate it–just pick one and run with it.

There are so many options for keeping track of your schedule–Google Calendar or Yahoo Calendar or a paper Moleskin? I think you guys know what I’m getting at here.

It’s so easy to find oneself paralyzed by the choices, and do nothing. I do it all the time. But most of the time

Um, that’s where I left off on writing this entry. On June 29, 2006.

Have you ever taken a horrible stereotype, applied it, and been shamed into realizing the error of your ways? Well let’s just say that doesn’t happen in this clip:

The saddest part is how for a brief moment it actually appears that the butt of the joke (the owner of the gas station) appreciates the irony–she describes it as a “hick town” and more or less nails the premise (that the guys are baiting the rednecks). But then she calls in the rock-throwing country bumpkins and sets back America’s international reputation yet again. It’s hard to like anyone in this video, though; if you’re going to try to get each other killed, it’s no fair wiping off the paint when it looks like you might actually succeed. And honestly, “rubbish”? Are you havin’ a laugh? Maybe that kind of language flies in Wee Britain, but in the US of A we call it “trash.”

In summary: America = dumb hicks. Britain = mincing pansies.

[Dethroner]

Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli suddenly stepped down today.

Analysts said Nardelli’s surprise resignation was almost certainly due to the fact that he had become a lightning rod for critics of hefty corporate executive pay. They said the Home Depot board was under great pressure to make a change.

At a disastrous Home Depot annual meeting last May, Nardelli, the only director present, refused to answer questions or respond to criticism from shareholders about the hundreds of millions in pay, benefits and stock options he had pulled down since he took over leadership of the chain in 2000. During his tenure, Nardelli earned some $240 million in salary, bonuses and stock options.

. . .

[Nardelli] will walk away with a severance package of $210 million, the company announced.

Well, that should certainly quiet the critics.

Full story here.

This song and video have certainly made the rounds online, but I rediscovered it recently and the idea that anyone out there hasn’t already seen it keeps me up at night. So, for my own peace of mine, I give you… Tunak Tunak Tun.

The song alone is something special, but the accompanying dance/video are extraordinary. Daler Mehndi is the best. The image of the moustachioed crooner and his three clones twiddling their fingers and clapping in relative time to the beat is seared into my brain–in a good way.

Bonus video: Toothpaste for Dinner‘s alter ego, KOMPRESSOR, with his extremely creepy cover:

KOMPRESSOR’s greatest triumph, in my opinion, is his transcendent cover of Beck’s “Debra”–KOMPRESSOR WANT TO GET WITH YOU. I can’t even describe this song except to say it’s the product of a disturbed mind (like all great art). It’s one of those songs that I enjoyed as a novelty for a while, but after literally years of listening to it I now appreciate it in a serious way. I hope you enjoy it, too.

The world is so strange sometimes!

Sorry to keep writing about sports, but sometimes I can’t help myself.

Cory Lidle, the Yankees pitcher who died when a small plane he was piloting crashed into a Manhattan building last week, was buried yesterday.

As the 45-minute outdoor service in Covina, Calif., began, three planes similar to the one Lidle owned flew over the crowd before disappearing into dark gray clouds. “Everybody was doing fine until the planes went over,” said Randy Wolf, Lidle’s teammate with Philadelphia.

Um, yeah. That’s like having a phalanx of limos speed past Princess Diana’s funeral. Or the Olympic downhill skiing team at Sonny Bono’s. Just a horrible, horrible idea. They might as well have closed with “The Day the Music Died.”