I hope everyone enjoys reading the "comments" section on web articles as much as Bourbon does these days. Given it's now possible to send immediate and unfiltered "letters to the editor" on many news websites, Bourbon loves how "Lampard only came back because he misses showering with the boys" is now perfectly acceptable on foxsports.com (in an article written by the mysterious "RivalsDM"). Showering with boys in general is probably not something many people would admit to enjoy doing, or, for that matter, discuss on the world wide interweb, but Bourbon toasts foxsports.com's sense of free speech in allowing "el_goleador" the forum to give his opinion concerning Frank Lampard and his showering habits.
Bourbon realizes the irony of criticizing amateur "commenting" in a blog about Bourbon running around dropping bits of depravity on various European capitals, complete with a comments section, but still, bourbongoes.blogspot.com is not quite foxsports.com. Or is it? Ah, epistemology.
It is also true that foxsports.com is probably not a place where many get information. Especially about soccer, so one could argue, "who gives a fuck?" And probably do it quite well. So, let's check another website, perhaps one with more news-clout!
Exhibit A:
Wait.
Bourbon was surfing to time.com, purveyor of "news, analysis, opinions, and multimedia" in search of a comments section to an article about possible life on other planets (a new X-Files movie is coming out!!!! omg!!!) thinking it might be ripe with riveting analysis and opinion from a range of uninformed readers. Maybe even some amateur multimedia? When, before finding the bottom of the page, Bourbon noticed a section dedicated to listing most popular and most emailed articles on the website. Popular topics at time.com:
- Retirement of a managing editor at WSJ -- about a 1 on the Bourbon popularity scale. Time readers must not view enough amatuer multimedia.
- Polygamous family trees -- Hmm, maybe time.com readers do in fact spend time with amateur multimedia.
- Scalp and neck skin cancer -- Again not immediately exciting or seemingly "popular," yet the peculiar specificity of the cancer is intriguing. Bourbon almost clicked, but then his colon itched.
- "Prince William's Bumpy Landing" -- Couldn't even cleverly itemize/summarize this one and had to quote it verbatim. Whenever Bourbon reads a headline about royal families, he wants to mix himself with ginger ale.
- "Choosy Mothers Choose Caesareans" -- Same problem as above. Bourbon would have clicked, but he couldn't work the mouse with his feet.
- "Help For Sex-Starved Wives" -- Fuck this, I'm quoting from now on. This is 100% awesome. Now we know who reads time.com, at least midweek. Bourbon clicked. There's promise to this one! Oof. Oprah. No joke; it's an article about Oprah. Problem solved -- too much Oprah, not enough sex.
- This goes on...
Strangely enough the email list and the popularity list were quite similar.
And we wonder why Americans can't pick a president.
1 comment:
As I am bored at work and wanted to comment in an open forum in response to your commentary entry, I hereby provide this nice history lesson courtesy of Wikipedia. I enjoy how a "reference" source can be edited by anonymous users who are also expressing their view of "fact", just like people who leave comments. On to the lesson:
Elijah Craig (1738 – May 18, 1808) was a Baptist preacher from Kentucky, who is remembered chiefly for being credited with the invention of bourbon whiskey. Craig was born in Orange County, Virginia in approximately 1738. He was ordained a Baptist minister in 1771, and was imprisoned briefly in South Carolina, apparently for disturbing the peace with his sermons. He then moved to what was then Bourbon County, Kentucky and settled in the area of Frankfort, Kentucky in 1785. In 1777, he became pastor of Blue Run Church.
Craig was a shrewd businessman and a local magnate; he built Kentucky's first fulling mill, its first paper mill, and founded a distillery in approximately 1789 in Georgetown, Kentucky. It is said that Craig's distillery was the first to age corn whiskey in new charred oak barrels,[citation needed] which is the decisive step in turning moonshine into Bourbon whiskey.
Craig died in Georgetown in 1808.
Heaven Hill distilleries now produces a bourbon named after him which is considered to be one of the firm's premium products.
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