Weather, Ice Bucket Muppets, Free Range Kids, More From Furguson, and Some Movies

This entry is part 83 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge continues to spread (and pull in tons of money and awareness). Now we’re up to Muppets like Cookie Monster and Kermit the Frog participating.

I continue to be amused. (And, in some cases, impressed.)

There’s still lots of problems in Furguson… and there are so many media-types there to get a piece of the action that they’re becoming a bit of a problem themselves. Pro tip, news-hounds: if there are more of you than there are protesters, you should probably dial it back a bit and decide amongst yourselves who’s going to go cover another part of the story.

Then there’s a new survey out that says a whole lot of people don’t think any kids under 12 should ever be out and about unaccompanied. That’s just ridiculous. Most of the people who think that have obviously forgotten that they likely survived a whole lot of unaccompanied time growing up. (Especially if they’re my age or older.) These are likely the same parents that complain like crazy about being run ragged trying to get their kids to all the meticulously planned (and structured) activities they’ve pushed them into. Send ’em out to climb a tree, dammit. Falling teaches you about physics… and risk management. Coddling them until they’re in their teens gives you “adults” who can’t deal with the real world.

And, as you scroll through the feed, you’ll also see a few trailers for movies that look new and different and interesting. Probably not blockbuster theater “success” stories like Guardians of the Galaxy… but likely infinitely better writing and acting than all the movies everyone will hear about.

Here’s the feed…

Geek Cred, Stupid Kids, Good Crazy/Bad Crazy, Muppet Christ Superstar, Old Mall Nostalgia, Thor in Drag, and a Whole Lotta T-Rex

This entry is part 7 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

One thing technology has really let us do is get a different view into the lives of celebrities. Now, on their terms, we can see them as real people–not just icons on a stage or screen. That down-to-earth-ness also means the lines of communication between fans and celebrities are more open now than they’ve ever been before.

One of my favorite things about Twitter, especially when I was watching TV shows in real-time, was being able to give a shout-out to the various cast and crew members letting them know when they particularly impressed me or jumping in to some other conversation that was going on. Getting an actual, real time response was always nice.

Well, now I can say “Achievement Unlocked: Celebrity Feedback!” for YouTube, too. For certain values of “celebrity,” at least. Posted a jokey comment on the latest Nerdist News vid, making what I thought was a tired, overused pun… but apparently host Jessica Chobot hadn’t heard it before and said she wished she’d thought of it to end the show with.

Some days, it’s the little things that help.

Not that a wee bit of YouTube celebrity digital love could balance out all the other news I was reading through and pondering online during the day. (Though all the T-rex stuff did help a lot with that.) We live in a problematic world and, sadly, the bad stuff doesn’t really surprise me any more.