Sweet Tweets

Here are a couple of the funny tweets we saw yesterday on Twitter.


From Nikon is Love...the internal query, "Into me or into getting into me? #singlegirlproblems"

From Canadian Andrew Classon a youthful political perspective, “California aint a state its a army” [sic]


For those who don't speak the Twitter jargon a # is a hashtag, which indicates a subject or topic of the tweet.

Durham expansion

Sometimes revitalizing old buildings is better than making new ones.

King's Sandwich shop was a nearly hollow, open to the elements, un-air conditioned shell until less than two years ago...Now it is gorgeous and busy.


The News & Observer has a story about big plans for expansion in downtown Durham, courtesy of Measurement Inc. and founder Henry Scherich. The company owns huge chunks of the Morris Street blocks between Geer Street and the downtown loop. According to the N&O the first project will be a 74,000 square foot office building on a half-acre lot just southwest of the Historic Durham Athletic Park, less than two blocks from the recently condemned Liberty Warehouse in Durham's thriving Central Park district.

The initial proposal had included condos, but the sliding housing market put the kibosh on that idea. In fact, as things stand the project only has one tenant beyond Measurement Inc. However, that tenant is a nifty little tech start-up, Urban Planet Mobile. They specialize in distance learning via text message, as we all know the best way to reach America's youth. Urban Planet Mobile has programs for S.A.T. vocabulary and foreign language learning among other things. It is an idea that we believe has great potential.

As for the Measurement Inc. development project? Time will tell. We do not root for growth for growth's sake alone. The N&O quotes Durham's Mayor Bill Bill, "...new buildings is good news for the area..." It may be a little more nuanced than that, Mr. Mayor, we hope you have your eye on the long view. Groundbreaking is tentatively scheduled for this July.

Billboards

Californian parents are apparently upset about billboards advertising the video game, "Duke Nukem Forever," a first-person shooter game for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The reason for their angst supposedly resides in the salacious nature of the game rather than in the locations of said billboards, one is across from elementary school, the other near a church.

The Clarion Content would have preferred these folks fought the initial construction of an advertising platform near these important places, as opposed waiting to object to particular subject matter. This smacks of a First Amendment issue. The Clarion Content is loathe to use the Constitution to defend businesses right to advertise. We would prefer to argue that if corporations were not treated as persons under the law, no such right would exist.

"Duke Nukem Forever" is labeled "Mature" by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, suitable for those 17 and older. Read more about the game and the debate here.

Apparently luckily for the parents, the gameplay isn't all that good, so the kids may hate it, of their own volition, for an entirely more utilitarian reason.


How about the use of the American flag here if you want to talk about salacious degradation? Backwards, at that.

Durham Graffiti

One of our photogs spotted this graffiti in Durham...

What they are watching...Episode XX

Our look at what the teens and tweens of America are watching. We peer into their world through the lens of Youtube. You may have caught some of our earlier episodes, if not, follow this link and [scroll down].

This fascinating video was filmed by students at East Chapel Hill High School. It tracks cultural recognition. It is an eye-opening look, don't get to caught up on the youthful respondents, ask yourself how much better your friends would do.

Dumas to come to the screen

The works of Alexandre Dumas, particularly the Three Musketeers, have been favorites of the silver screen. Now the renowed French actor, Gerard Depardieu, wants to bring the life of Dumas, himself, to the cinema. Depardieu hopes to develop a joint film project with Azerbaijan. Dumas traveled throughout the Karabakh in the 19th century and stayed with a poet, who was a daughter of the last Khan of Karabakh Natavan.

In the modern era this area has been a flashpoint of tension between Armenians, Azerbaijanis and an imperialistic Russia.

Depardieu will have to work very carefully around the literal and proverbial minefields, if he is to bring Dumas's life to the screen.

OK Cupid Sex Survey

Not sure how many of you, dear readers, are familiar with the on-line dating service called OK Cupid. It is definitely a popular alternative, especially among the younger set, to Match.com and E-Harmony.

One of our newest Durhamanians recently emailed us a link to a fascinating OK Cupid blog piece about gay sexual mores and gay relationships versus straight sexual mores and straight relationships. The data is clearly not scientifically perfect. All data has bias, and this is no exception. What is fascinating about this piece is the huge pool of data OK Cupid had to work with period. 3.2 million users, 4 million match searches and 669 million user answered questions- that is a lot of data.

Read the survey and the accompanying blog piece here at their blog, OK trends.

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.

Things that need to invented, part V

We are reviving our long dormant and long overdue, "Things that need to be invented" column, hopefully heretoforth to once again be published monthly. Your brilliant suggestions are encouraged, read the other folks sweet invention ideas here [scroll down below this post]. We are so confident about the volume of your forthcoming submissions that we are kicking things back off with a triple shot of invent this.

The first thing in this month's column that needs to be invented is a cheaper electric riding lawnmower. Gas powered lawnmowers are so bad for the environment. On top of their deleterious effect on air quality and the noise pollution, they are woefully inefficient and resource wasting. We are going whole hog with the electric and hybrid cars things, why can't somebody get on it for the lawnmower market? They are quieter, way less polluting and way more fuel efficient. We could not find one cheaper than two grand. Surely they can beat that with a little more mass production. Maybe we can get a government tax credit for buying an electric lawnmower?

The next thing we would like to see invented is for Major League baseball to put its entire back catalog of game telecasts on-line. Let us, the fans, be able to look up any game, any time and stream it on-line. We would pay for this. And we are not just talking this year's game, but the historical back catalog. Think how many games diehards would watch? And if this project sounds fanciful, try to remember that just a few short years ago the idea of digitizing your entire music library to something the size of laptop, let alone i-pod, was the stuff of dreams. What an argument resolver! Want to know who was pitching in the pine tire game? Or where the use of middle relievers really started? Stream one Yankees-Royal game, stream an entire A's or White Sox season. MLB you can be America's game again, start here.

And finally in the sub-category of needs to be invented known as their needs to be an app for that... (And nobody on the Clarion Content's staff has an i-phone so please alert us if their already is an app for this...) The Craigslist Missed Connection application! Just walked by that beautiful girl or that cute guy in the coffee shop or bookstore without saying anything and regretting it already? Voilà, an instant Craiglist Missed Connection post. In era where texting and IMing are ubiquitous and conversation subsuming, what could be better than instantaneously being able to anonymously record on-line that you wish you would have talked to thus and such hottie?

Thank you and good night. We will return same time, same place next month. Send us your feedback and your brilliant invention suggestions.