What they are watching...Episode XI

Our look at what the teens and tweens of America are watching. You may have caught some of our earlier episodes, if not follow this link and [scroll down].

In this case what they are watching is Shinee, which according to their Wikipedia entry is pronounced like shiny. They are, if this conglomeration of phrases can hold any collective meaning, a contemporary R&B South Korean boy band. Now you have got them pegged, right? Here is their latest single, "Lucifer."



One thing is for sure, they can dance.

Durham Squirt Gun fight 2010

The first annual Durham Squirt Gun and Water Balloon fight and free-for-all was a huge success. The Splash Mob event was organized by Flywheel design and publicized by word of mouth (and Facebook). It was a smash hit. No pun intended. More than 100 folks of all ages turned out. The Clarion Content's fearless correspondent took these pictures at risk of life, limb and digital camera.


Mayhem, early on...


It was held at the Durham Farmer's Market site, across from Durham Central Park.


Admittedly we were ducking during this photo, but please note the guy in the distance hurling a balloon at various dry (at that moment) photogs.


The action got more intense from here, but we had to put the camera in a safe dry place and take up a vigorous defense.

It is our observation that water ballooners under the age of five are the most dangerous opponent. Too young to have a conscience, they are vicious. More than once our correspondent helped fill and tie a water balloon for an anonymous youngster, only to have the balloon immediately hurled back at us. Fortunately, there were huge buckets under the filling station taps which could be emptied on the offending children's heads.

Special thanks to friend of the Clarion Content, April, for loaning us her extra fully automatic squirt gun. This young lady packs the heat!

Help a documentary filmmaker

The producers of a documentary film about legendary Duke Track Coach Al Buehler are looking for photographs, audio, video, testimonials and other archival materials of track meets at Duke between 1971 and 2000. Buehler's Duke cross-country teams captured six ACC titles and finished second on ten other occasions. He was part of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field program at 1972, 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games.

The filmmakers project entitled, "Starting at the Finish Line: The Coach Al Buehler Story" hopefully will be screened at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival next year. If you have any material or information that might help these folks you can contact Amy Unell at coachbuehler@gmail.com. Check out the film's website here.

Special thanks to our friends at the Community Sports News for alerting us to this story.

An Ecological Believe it or not

We ran across an ecological believe it or not out of Oregon this week for our truth trumps fiction every time files. The Associated Press is reporting that residents of Newport, Oregon and surrounding areas have discovered that shrimp bought from some local stores glows in the dark. Yep, you read that right, it glows in the dark.

Local marine biologists at Oregon State University's Sea Grant Extension say say it's due to marine bacteria that are not harmful. It can, however, apparently cause shrimp and other seafood to appear luminescent. Reportedly, the bacteria can grow at refrigerator temperatures, especially on seafood products where salt was added during processing.

Brilliant?

A Profusion of Dragonflies

Anecdotally, the Clarion Content has seen a massive increase in the amount of dragonflies in the Durham County area this Summer. Always, with one eye open for the decline of the keystone species, either in Gaia, or in micro-local ecosystems, this has stood out. Dragonflies are everywhere. They are born and bred in standing water and we had a rainy Winter, but this seems exceptional. It is unclear what their natural predator in our area might be.

Has anyone else noticed this?

We recall reading just a few short years ago about the year of the missing acorns in Northern Virginia which quite literally drove local squirrels stark raving mad.

On-line gaming

Social City is one of Playdom's leading games...

How big has on-line gaming become? Walt Disney bought social networking games developer Playdom for $563.2 million. Playdom is a leader in games designed for and played on the social networking platforms Facebook and MySpace. Playdom was a start-up founded by a couple of UC Berkeley grads just a few short years ago.

Disney is positioning itself not only to grab a large chunk of the on-line gaming market, but grabbing new intellectual property for perspective future character vehicles: movies, cartoons, toys, etc. According to Disney CEO Robert Iger, "This acquisition furthers our strategy of allocating capital to high-growth businesses that can benefit from our many characters, stories and brands, delivering them in a creatively compelling way to a new generation of fans on the platforms they prefer."

Thanks for the heads up goes to the DailyFinance.

What they are watching...Episode X

Our look at what the teens and tweens of America are watching. You may have caught some of our earlier episodes, if not follow this link and [scroll down].

In this case "What they are watching" is a young, North Hollywood dance sensation, who appears poised to leap into stardom...Kyle Hanagami. He is beautiful and a bad ass dancer. His videos have garnered hundreds of thousands of views.

How to...

How to? Ask Google, of course.

We always love a fascinating sociological query here at the Clarion Content's editorial desk. We thought we might clue you into one we check on, for shits and grins, fairly regularly. As you probably already know the Google search box autoprompts responses to what you are typing in, that is to say, it makes suggestions. So if you type, "Harry Pott" Google is already guessing ahead to "Harry Potter" and "Harry Potter and the deathly hallows," as things you might be searching for.

One of our favorite little sociological games is to type the phrase "How to" into the Google search box and check out the autoprompts for what kind of stuff folks are trying to figure out how to do. We gave it a whirl today and as always the answers were amusing, if not particularly illuminating.

From Google, the top ten "How to" autoprompts...

1. How to tie a tie
2. How to train a dragon
3. How to
4. How to kiss
5. How to remove a tick
6. How to destroy angels
7. How to lose weight fast
8. How to get a passport
9. How to grill corn
10. How to draw

Almost as amusing from Google, the top ten "How do" autoprompts...

1. How do magnets work
2. How do I love thee
3. How do I get a passport
4. How do websites use cookies
5. How do I find my IP address
6. How do clouds form
7. How do you get pregnant
8. How do pirates dress
9. How do you get pink eye
10. How do you like me now

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Bad Ass Merle Haggard pic

This bad ass picture of Merle Haggard came from here...

Durham City Council rejects billboards

Billboards avoided...

The Durham City Council rejected a two year campaign by Fairway Outdoor Advertising to relocate some of its billboards, upgrade some others and convert still other billboards to digital operation. The council was unanimous in its vote, 7-0 against. The Raleigh News & Observer quoted Councilman Mike Woodard, who reported receiving more than 1,000 e-mails in opposition to Fairway's request and seven in favor of it, "This issue has united Durham like none other." The City/County Planning Department also recommended against the change, "No substantial positive effect has been identified for Durham's economic development," by changing the ordinance.