So now, let's get on with things, shall we? The Semi-Triumphant Return of Top Ten!

[featherynscale]

That's right. It's content-free Friday, and today I'm celebrating the TOTAL FUCKING DEATH OF JOURNALISM AND RATIONAL NEWS REPORTING, the COMPLETE AND UTTER SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE OF THE INFORMATION AGE that is Yahoo!Buzz. If you haven't heard of this, and in my heart of hearts, I hope you haven't, Yahoo!Buzz "features the most popular stories right now, determined by people around the Web. A story's Buzz Score is based on your votes, searches, emails, and more. Stories with the highest Buzz Score may be displayed on the Yahoo! homepage." So basically, they aggregate the most "buzzworthy" stories from the news, and those are what you see when you hit the portal homepage. Brilliant. Why didn't we think of this before? What are you going to see there? Well, I can tell you one thing, it's probably not going to be in-depth analysis of the complicated morass of American foreign policy or the latest developments in high-energy physics. Oh no. There's celebrities out there to report on!

Anyway. Rant over. So, here's the list. Hourly, Yahoo!Buzz publishes a list of top news-related searches, and that data feeds into their process. The list I'm looking for is the top ten news-related searches for today, 2 p.m. CDT. Could you go to the site and just get the list? Sure. But what fun would that be? Here we go:

TOP TEN YAHOO!BUZZ SEARCHES, 4/4/08, 2PM CDT.
1. Jamie Lynn Spears (turned 17)(triadruid, 1 point)
2. Pregnant Man (is pregnant) (lexpendragon, 1 point)
3. New Kids on the Block (touring again) (auraseer, 1 point)
4. Naomi Campbell (spit on somebody) (next_bold_move, 2 points)
5. American Idol (I don't know why it's in the news, it just is.) (lulumai, 2 points)
6.
7.
8. Barack Obama (must be some guy on some tv show, doesn't his name sound familiar somehow?) (lulumai, 2 points)
9.
10.

EDIT: Rules are in this post.

Comments

[auraseer.livejournal.com]

Since you mention signs of the apocalypse, I hear New Kids on the Block is getting back together.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Ding ding ding. #3 on this list, but #2 on the list of Top Ten Signs That The Music Industry is A Shambling Corpse. :)

[auraseer.livejournal.com]

What, really? I thought I was joking.

That site must be even more depressing than I ever would have thought.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Make a sanity check. Roll high.

[auraseer.livejournal.com]

Looks like I failed. My d% came up double twelves, three bushels of bananas, and a pygmy marmoset on a unicycle.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

A unicycle sized for pygmy-marmoset-riding, or a regularly-sized unicycle, with the marmoset clinging to a bracket or something? Think, man, this could be important!

[auraseer.livejournal.com]

The unicycle is standard sized, but surprisingly, the pygmy marmoset is eleven feet tall.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Gah! I think I just failed *my* sanity check. *twitch*

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

Pregnant Man?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Big #2. 1 point for you, sir.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

NFL draft
Whitney Houston/Bobby Brown

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope. Neither one.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Jamie Lynn Spears turned 17 (Johnny Dare had an awful remake of Winger for this..)
Snowstorm pounds region of US (I can't remember which w/o looking at a news site)
World's Tallest Dog.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Snowstorms are passé. Tall dogs (http://gibsondog.com/index.php), only interesting to a certain subsection of the population. But Jamie Lynn Spears, whose only claim to fame as far as I can tell is being pregnant and related to somebody famous is 17, stop the fucking presses, that is our top story. One point to you, and one more reason not to get out of bed in the morning for me.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Ethanol?
Steroid use in baseball?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Silly. Ethanol is relevant to the future of our energy industry, and may affect foreign policy positions. BOOOOO-RING. And steroid is... hard to spell. Neither of those make the list.

[next-bold-move.livejournal.com]

Naomi Campbell got arrested for spitting on someone, didn't she?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. Top Story #4, model-spitting! Two points!

[zylch.livejournal.com]

Britney Spears. I have no idea what she might have done this time, but it'll be a cold day in hell when she's not in the Top Ten.

(either way, I win... either I get one in the Top Ten, or my faith in humanity is renewed just that little bit by the fact that she's not there)

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope. Her space has been usurped by her even less relevant sister or cousin or whatever. So I'm not sure it is a win-win situation, actually.

[zylch.livejournal.com]

At least they're not *both* on there. Call it a draw.

[lulumai.livejournal.com]

k... i'm going to go slightly more historic/political... and say there is probably something about mlk (anniversary of his assasination) and maybe something about obama/clinton/mccain and the disaray that is our political system.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

MLK? Dead more than half a second - irrelevant!
However, Senator Obama makes the only appearance on this list of a political figure, in the 8th position.

[lulumai.livejournal.com]

ok... now for my pop culture sort of guesses... and shoot me that i even know such things... but you have to balance 16 years of college with something...

- beyonce and what's his head (jay-z... just came to me) are possibily making it legal
- kathy lee has returned to the today show... i'm sure i know soemthign else useless that folks seem to care about... OH... i don't know anything about it... but did...(drum roll)
- american idol ((fillin the blank)) make the list?

[lulumai.livejournal.com]

WOOT... with 4 points I'm calling it quits.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

It's a horrible little game, isn't it? :)

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Beyonce doesn't make the cut, nor does Kathy Lee, but American Idol rings in at #5. Why? God only knows.

[lulumai.livejournal.com]

This is what a long commute does for me... useless radio gossip-mumbo-gumbo fills my brain. I can't listen to NPR, because i start yelling at the radio and at my fellow drivers. I'm pretty sure that makes me a danger to myself and others.

Now my brain keeps coming up with useless information... Heath Ledger's possible love child (and birthday). Something about some show called the Hills. ((just threw up in my mouth))... oprah was doing a show on the evils of puppy mills as a tribute to her dog that just died. Did you know one of her dogs died of choking on a plastic/rubber ball last year? What a horrible way to go.... will never be able to watch the "gimp" scenes in pulp fiction again...

ok... really walking away now.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

NCAA Final Four?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Oddly, no. I would have expected that, too.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Well, then. I'm done here. Carry on. :)

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

There's got to be something with Britney Spears and Kevin Federline on there. There always is.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Not today. :)

[lilia-blackbear.livejournal.com]

Well, everyone knows everything about MLK, right? And Yahoobuzz could probably care less about the political hoopla surrounding the Bejing Olympics... what about that girl... Hannah Montana? Or however it is spelt. Has she done anything lately?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Apparently not. Or at least, nothing so momentous as turning 17 or spitting on someone.

[dramaticaddict.livejournal.com]

um, didnt brad pitt get married or something, thats probably there....

[dramaticaddict.livejournal.com]

what about the unreasonably high gas prices, theres got to be enough people searching for ways to save gas or something....

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope. There's no sex or scandal in that! (I mean, yeah, they had some oil industry reps in front of Congress on Tuesday, but government = booo-ring, unless there are hookers in the story.)

[dramaticaddict.livejournal.com]

well, in that case, might it be that whats his name from wherever that paid like 5 or 10 grand for the hooker? or maybe the story about how the hotel room number 816 or something where they met has been banned from casinos because too many people were playing it? or maybe the story about how yet again, this has brought up all the "why men cheat" questions?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

He might have, but it didn't make the list.

[leiandra.livejournal.com]

Dancing with the Stars

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[dramaticaddict.livejournal.com]

did the whole political unrest in china/olympics protesting story make it, it was there a few days ago(i have to check my yahoo at least once every six months...)

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

Well I heard while surfing through the radio stations this morning that Beyonce' and Jay-Z finally got hitched. Also, I'm pretty sure there *should* be buzz talk about the IRS's impending "tax rebate" thingie. Also heard in passing that Mariah Carey got another top ten hit; and if people have stopped talking about the W.W.F. I think we just hit a major culture shift. Also, movie sites are all abuzz about newly released photos of the new Bond movie (and zomg is the new Bond hotter than ever), so I would imagine it got on that list, too. And if people are buzzing about the pregnant man, I'm assuming they're also buzzing about him appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show, which the talker DJs were buzzing about this morning, as well.

Aaaand that's the buzz that's been infecting *my* brain today. Thanks for the chance to download it here.