Nicki Minaj, Food Network, Turkey and Black Friday: hot topics for November 26, 2010

I took Thanksgiving off from the blog, it being Thanksgiving, and there wasn't a lot of movement on the hot list since my last post on Tuesday; just the same topics jockeying about.  However, today there's several new ones, most of them variations on "Black Friday".  Black Friday is, of course, the colloquialism for the first day after Thanksgiving, traditionally considered the first day of the Christmas shopping season, although these days that starts around the middle of October now.  Black Friday first started showing up back on November 4th, but the term has been increasingly prominent and appearing in more variations over the past week or so.  Best Buy, the electronics retailer, is the first name to pop up; not surprising as their portfolio likely matches best with the interests of internetoholics.

Turkey and the Food Network no doubt both pop up because of Thanksgiving itself and its tradition of gorging ourselves on turkey and other such foods.  Although it's now after the fact, I recommend brining your turkey; Alton Brown has a good recipe.

The odd one out (that is, a topic not apparently related to Thanksgiving) is Nicki Minaj, apparently a pink-haired rapper from either Jamaica or Queens.  (The pink hair is apparently a wig.)  The only interesting thing about her that she seems to be claiming to be bisexual in order to get media attention (or appear sexier) then subsequently denying that she's bisexual to avoid controversy.  Most of her gossip-rag media attention (other than the present week, which appears related to an album release) seems centered on speculation about her orientation.  The consensus appears to be that she's a "fauxmosexual": fundamentally straight, but willing to act otherwise because that creates buzz and sells records.  Whatever; I've already learned way more about this whole cluster of concepts than I ever cared to.

The TSA: Hot topic for November 22, 2010

After a weekend of the same old topics jockeying about (the only one new one to show up was Erin Barry, who is just another player in the petty drama that I mentioned on Friday), a completely new term showed up late last night. And for once it's actually a matter of some real significance: the TSA, or Transportation Security Agency.  The TSA is in the news lately because of John Tyner's now-famous "Don't touch my junk!" ultimatum, issued in San Diego to TSA agents who decided he needed a "pat-down".  His outrage has led to a groundswell of complaints and commentary regarding TSA screening practices and made the TSA the whipping boy of the day.

And to be fair, the TSA deserves it.  Current US airport security practices were never really calculated to stop determine terrorists.  Their main intention was always to increase the general anxiety of the American public about foreign terrorism, in order to perpetuate the need for such invasive practices.  This was done for two reasons: one, to make Americans more complacent about having their privacy, and right to travel freely, shredded, and two, to create revenue for the companies that manufacture and sell security solutions.  The actual practices used are designed to be extremely visible; that they're annoying just adds to the effect because it just adds to the visibility and thus keeps public anxiety at a high.  That they're almost completely ineffective (either as designed or as implemented) in actually stopping a determined terrorist is, quite simply, irrelevant; that was never their purpose anyway.  This is "security theatre", plain and simple: the government is pretending to provide security as a cover for what it's really doing, which is eroding your rights a bit at a time, and hoping you won't notice because you're too scared to care.

There is now an Internet-organized boycott of TSA body scanners scheduled for this Wednesday, which is (because of the Thanksgiving holiday) anticipated to be the busiest travel day of the year.  The government has already whined about this, urging people not to participate in the boycott because it would create delays at airports.  That is, I imagine, the point.

Oh, and for those of you who think you'll just travel by train: Amtrak passengers are subject to security screenings too.  For now these aren't as intrusive as those mandated by the TSA at airports, but that could change at any time.  TSA has authority over Amtrak and can, at any time, change the regulations for riding on the nation's passenger trains, as well.

Tony Parker: Hot topic for November 19, 2010

Today's only new item is Tony Parker, a basketball player who is in the spotlight apparently because he was caught sending sexually explicit text messages ("sexting") to the wife of another player (whose name is apparently Erin Barry).  This seems to have come out in the context of his divorce, which is, of course, totally unsurprising.

I'm sure this sort of thing goes on all the time, and this is only making the news now because it involves both a basketball player (Parker) of some repute and also a television celebrity: his soon-to-be ex-wife is Eva Longoria, who is apparently somehow involved in Desparate Housewives, which I understand is a TV show of some fame.  Ok, whatever: two people who are famous for things I don't generally pay attention to.

Oh well, I suppose the masses need their opiates.

Kate Middleton, Emma Watson and Four Loko: Hot topics for November 18, 2010

Three new items today, this time from an upcoming movie (Emma Watson), an upcoming royal wedding (Kate Middleton), and an energy drink (Four Loko).

Emma Watson presumably shows up because of her appearance as Hermione Granger in the upcoming Harry Potter movie.  I haven't been able to bring myself to read the HP books: first, I am still peeved at Rowling for going after fan websites for "copyright infringement", but more importantly, from what I have read in excerpt and in summary, I just don't like her sort of writing.  She breaks at least some of Lawrence Watt-Evans' laws of fantasy; at the very least the second, fifth, and sixth.  As far as I can tell, in her books magic is used almost entirely as a macguffin to advance the plot or to create a desired effect, rather than being an integral and necessary part of the fabric of the universe against which the characters interact.  (Contrast the role of magic in LWE's Ethshar books, which I adore, or in his equally excellent Dragon trilogy.)  I also don't like the racist and classist overtones in her writing.  Also, like so many fantasy novelists, I have caught the glimmer of what I call "superman disease": as a series like this progresses the main characters become increasingly powerful, with experience and time, forcing their opponents to be equally inflated so as to make for interesting conflicts.  This typically results in each book ending with some massive conflagration, only to be outdone in the next book by an even more massive conflagration.  (This does make for good movie material, admittedly.)  For another example of this, see Raymond Feist's Riftwar saga, although I think he did well in recovering from that with the later Serpentwar saga, set many years later with entirely new primary characters.  Avoiding this basically requires the author to create a complete and consistent universe in which many stories with different characters can be set; this is far harder than just creating a handful of characters and just enough of a universe for them to move around in.  Another reason I like Lawrence Watt-Evans. 

Kate Middleton is, for those who don't follow the British royalty, Prince William's recently-announced fianceé.  Royal-watching is not one of my major pastimes, but apparently both the dress she wore and the ring William gave her are hot items on the "celebrity replicas" market.  Ok, whatever. 

The last item, Four Loko, is of somewhat more interest: it's one of those caffeinated alcoholic beverages that the FDA has been going after of late.  Four Loko is apparently the first such beverage to be decaffeinated in response to the FDA's effective ban on the addition of caffeine to malt liquor beverages.  One has to wonder if this will also apply to Cuba Libres or to Irish coffee.  Then again I don't think anyone sells a premixed Cuba Libre or Irish coffee (nor would I want to drink such a thing), and besides those are made using distilled spirits instead of malt liquor.  Frankly I find energy drinks revolting; while I have no problems with caffeine (I have three or four cups of rather strong coffee a day, and also occasionally drink Mountain Dew or Pepsi when I can find the 'throwback' formulation made with sugar instead of corn syrup), one of either guarana or taurine (I know not which) has a flavor which is nearly vomit-inducing for me.  So I'm not going to cry any tears over the loss of these products.

Manny Pacquiao and Skyline: Hot topics for November 16, 2010

Today brought two new items to the top ten list: Manny Pacquiao (a boxer) and Skyline (a movie).

I'm a bit annoyed to be writing about a boxer or about a boxing match.  And so I won't.  You want to find out r Frankly I think boxing is just about the most barbaric of the competitive sports we still engage in, even more so than American football, and would be quite happy to see it go away entirely.  Boxing was a far higher profile event when I was younger; I think Mike Tyson did a lot to make the sport disrespectable.  Which, to be frank, I'm quite entirely happy with.  I will admit when I first saw the search term ("Pacquiao v. Margarito") my first thought was "Is a pacquiao some sort of new cocktail?"  But that would have been "margarita".  My bad.

The other rising item today is Skyline, which is apparently a low-budget alien invasion movie.  MTV doesn't seem to think much of Skyline: not good enough to be good, and not bad enough to be good for being bad.  I'm almost as uninvolved in movies as I am in sports, so I won't be seeing this one.  This is another one where I wasn't able to predict what the search was for; I was kind of hoping it would have been for the chili, but again my hopes were dashed.