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Today is International Men’s Day! A day for men to rejoice in their man-ness; to chest bump, beer drink, and barbecue to their heart’s content. Apparently the IMD website has other ideas about what International Men’s Day should be about, BUT they do have informative links about the “Development of Manhood” (don’t tell me you didn’t giggle when you saw that. You did.)

Really though, men are super awesome, and so handy! I would probably have eaten only a third of the pickles in my lifetime if it hadn’t been for some of the men in my life. (Sidenote: is it really necessary to vacuum seal those jars to the point of nearly cracking in on themselves from the pressure?)

However, if you don’t think helping ladies who lack in upper body strength is what being a man is all about, there is… Movember! Ah, the month of mustache and a socially acceptable excuse to look uber creepy/sleazy for an entire month. And hey, you’re raising money for prostate cancer, so if anyone gives you flack about your ‘mo you get to make them look like a total jerk.

And since we’re on the subject of awesomely hairy men, I leave you with this wonderful Rotten Tomatoes Show ditty, Ode to Chest Hair.

-Danielle

Got plans for tonight? Of course, you do–you’re tuning into The Thursday Night Block Party on Current, right?

Tonight, Current is kicking off a brand-new season of SuperNews! at 11/10c. This season will include the return of fan favorites including technology obsessed office workers Craig and Darren, the beleaguered Obama administration, the self-obsessed hipsters and continued scathing satires of today’s political, pop-culture, and infamous figures.

But that’s not all. The Thursday Night Block Party kicks off at 10/9c with a brand-new infoMania. This week, Sarah Haskins takes a look at home security in Target Women, so tune in to see her and the rest of the infoMania crew’s take on the week in news and entertainment. Missed an episode? Check out previous infoMania episodes on Current.com.

Then att 10:30/9:30c, tune in for a new episode of The Rotten Tomatoes Show. This week Brett and Ellen take on “Precious,” “The Men Who Stare At Goats” and “A Christmas Carol.” Watch previous episodes or leave a webcam with your review at The Rotten Tomatoes Show on Current.com.

Finally, at 11/10c,  the new season of SuperNews! premieres.  Check out a sneak peek, or get a SuperNews primer on the SuperNews page.

Steph

Astronomy nerds rejoice! 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy (yes, I’m kind of late on this one, but pjacobs51 was all over this, and in a timely manner, thanks for posting that video! and JanforGore linked to some phenomenal pictures too) commemorating “the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s use of a telescope to study the skies” along with a few other neat events.

Not doing a fist pump for this fun fact? Well, on the 17th the Leonid Meteor Shower should be a fun treat for those with clear skies (sorry Northwest, better luck never) and the word “doozie” was thrown around to describe this year’s shooting star display. That’s right, doozie. For those living in the US, the peak of the shower is expected to be at roughly 12:30 AM PST. And on November 17th at 12:30 AM I will be on my street corner in a bathrobe, popcorn in hand, staring up at the sky. (Don’t worry, I live in San Francisco, I’ll blend right it.)

Still being a hard to please grouch and don’t think the meteor shower is cool either? Well, there are plans to open a space hotel by 2012, guests would pay $4.4 million for a 3 night stay, no big deal. I could make some snarky comment about this, but really, as outrageous as this idea is, I think we can all agree it would be pretty awesome.

And hey, if you’re still not excited about all this cool astronomy stuff, at the very least you could use IYA as an excuse to drink- “Oh, why am I having this delicious beer at 2pm? I’m just celebrating International Year of Astronomy.” See? Totally legit. You just went from the person drinking during the day to the person drinking during the day with fun facts.

-Danielle

There’s something about winter that makes it so tempting to spend a day inside, curled up with a blanket, a cup of tea, and a good book. So it’s a good thing that today is National Book Lovers Day–it’s the perfect excuse! Of course, if you’re not sure what to read Current is here to help.

Head on over to Booked for the latest literary news and check out what others on Current are talking about.

Ever wondered what to do with a book instead of reading it? Here are some tips! (I think this could be really useful for outdated reference books–I’m pretty sure I have a dictionary from 1995 sitting around somewhere–or old textbooks. Unless there’s a bustling market for outdated organic chemistry textbooks I don’t know about…)

If that’s not your thing, why not get some ideas about what to read next. How about a look at the story behind the upcoming movie, “Men Who Stare at Goats”? Or  a Hedge Fund manager’s look at the collapse of Wall Street? Maybe business is your thing–why not peruse a list of 101 business books. For a tasty look, why not flip through a cookbook chronicling a  year in cakes. (That one’s totally going on my reading list. Cake! Books! NPR! What’s not to love?)

And if none of that speaks to you–you can always pretend to be a literary elite. Max and Jason tell you how in Books by the Foot:

So whether you’re reading, or just impressing your guests will a wall of unread classics, enjoy National Book Day! And tell us what you’re reading.

Steph

It should come as no surprise that as someone whose job is to trawl Current.com, I’ve come across some pretty weird, icky and just plain odd stuff on the site. Luckily, my cringing, eep-ing and outbursts of profanity as a result of this seems to amuse those who work near me.

Today was no exception. I came across “Germany’s bald bears: Fur disease afflicts Dolores and baffles vets” that Trypnotik posted, and promptly choked on my coffee. I seriously thought it was a picture from some new movie with a horrible, scary killer animal thing. Upon closer inspection I learned that it was a bear that had lost all it’s hair. The nice, compassionate reaction would have been something like, “Oh, that’s terrible. Poor bear.” Mine was “Ah! Groooooss!” Not wanting to be the only one freaked out, I made the rest of the Online Community Team look at too. That does NOT look like a bear. It’s all leathery, wrinkled skin, horn-like ears, bulgey eyes and ginormous claws. I’m sorry bear, that really sucks, but EW.

This got us talking about what other animals would look really odd without hair. Naturally, we Googled it. Whoa man, let it be known that it’s not big, round eyes or floppy ears or little tails that make animals cute, it’s fur. Trust.

So for your twisted curiosity I’ve included some pictures of normally-hairy-hairless-animals. You’re welcome…and I’m sorry.

Ashes the Hairless Chimp

Hairless Rabbits

Xoloitzcuintle

Ok, fine, this one is featherless:

Featherless Chickens

-Danielle

Hello Current blog readers!  By now most of you are getting used to the new release and the updates to the Current.com submission tool.  There’s a lot of new ways to do things (check Mario’s blog post for a really good overview of the new goods), so today I’m gonna give a quick rundown of what I have hastily named ‘multi-clipping’ (if you have a better name for it please email me at bdorries@current.com).

What is multi-clipping?

Multi-clipping occurs when you to add multiple sources to the description field of your story. Instead of only getting to choose media from one source, you now get to browse all the media from each available source.  All you have to do is copy/paste the URL of your sources (as many as you want) into the bottom of your description text and the submission tool will do the rest.

Why so many sources?

Submitting multiple sources has two (that we’ve discovered so far) really beneficial and distinct applications.

1. Keep us updated. Let’s say a story breaks at 10:00 AM about jellyfish capsizing a Japanese fishing boat. It’s a really awesome story, it gets featured on the homepage and lots of people are commenting on it.  Two hours later at 12:00 PM another source reports that it wasn’t a Jellyfish at all but a Giant Squid – this is when you need to multi-clip.  Instead of going through all the trouble of changing the source article and finding an appropriate image, simply post the URL of the updated story in the description field.  After that just add some text updating your readers about the break in the story – and boom goes the dynamite – we’re up to date.
2. Let us know what you’re thinking (my favorite). Just like before, a jellyfish has capsized a Japanese fishing boat.  This reminds you of an article you read a couple years ago about a killer jellyfish population explosion as well as an article that gave some insight into possible causes and effects of the jellyfish population explosion. It’s time for multi-clipping.  Copy/paste the sources, choose your media and let us know what you’re thinking!

Those are just two possible applications for multi-clipping, if you find any more please let me know about them.  And as always please let us know how it’s going on our Get Satisfaction page.  We’ll have plenty more tips and tricks about the submission tool and other updates coming up in days to come – so check back often!

Thanks,

-Ben

bdorries@current.com

P.S. Here’s a great example of multi-clipping from Current online-producer Andrew Fitzgerald :

http://current.com/items/91327125_honduras-reaches-deal-zelaya-returning-to-power.htm

Stop hoarding daylight, it’s time to live in the darkness

Hey everyone!  It’s that time again; time for me to go to sleep one night and hope to god my cellphone knows what exactly fall back/spring forward means in the morning.  I always get confused whether or not I get an extra hour of sleep (drinking) or one less (cursing the sky).  Luckily for me cellphone alarm clocks are the most advanced clocks in the world as they are programmed to adjust for DST automatically.

As you should be able to guess, daylight savings time is coming for us yet again; it is predicted that it will occur this Sunday around 2 AM – consider yourself warned.

The history of daylight savings day :

Daylight savings time has existed in some form or another for over 2000 years.  The modern format of an hour just disappearing in the middle of the night (and me showing to work an hour early wondering if a disaster has claimed the lives of all my coworkers) has only been around for a little over 100 years.  There are many reasons why daylight savings time may have started – one such story describes an annoyed William Willet observing his fellow Londoners sleeping the day away.  I too observe too many of my cohorts sleeping the day away; alas, in order to correct their slumber the daylight hours would have to be adjusted about 5-7 hours forward.

Why daylight savings is good :

Generally speaking – during the Spring and Summer months daylight savings increases productivity as well as enables people to be more active and lead healthier lives.  Unless you live in Arizona or Hawaii.  If you are living in Hawaii you live on ‘island time ‘ and probably don’t even know what season it is let alone if it is 5 o’clock or 6 o’clock in the morning.  Arizona however is another story.  Arizona boasts one of the only people alive since before time existed as it’s Senator – and thus has been slow to accept the relatively modern idea of switching their clocks for no good reason. To this day I don’t know if there is any way to tell exactly what time it is in Arizona.

Why daylight savings time is bad:

When daylight savings time was first put into effect I can only imagine that all hell broke loose.  That being said, we’ve all come to terms with the idea since then. I have no counter argument for daylight savings time, other than the fact that simps like me have a really hard time wrapping their mind around the concept and always get confused exactly what ‘falling back’ or ’springing forward’ means (so do I go forward in time? Or does time go forward and I stay in the same place? It gets really meta and existential if i think about it too long).  Perhaps one solution for the problem of the intangible essence of time shifting is to just sound some sort of really loud alarm clock at 7 AM combined with over-saturation of the media warning us that the sun will be rising a little bit later than usual (I’m trying to do my part right now).

Say good-bye to the tans you worked oh so hard to get over the Summer, box up all your sunglasses and shed a single tear, for this Sunday we say goodbye to the Sun.  I pray to Zeus that it comes back next Spring and is bigger and better than ever (besides the fact that we could benefit from it being a little cooler than it has been as of late).

-Ben

Ah, Halloween. Time to break out the skeleteons, ghosts, and witches hats and gorge on candy. Halloween is hands-down my favorite holiday of the year, and one of the best things about it? A great excuse to scare yourself senseless!

Allow me, for a moment, to take a brief detour. Halloween has it’s roots in the ancient Celtic holiday of Samhain (pronounced sow-in), which was principally a harvest festival. Samhain is, however, also a festival of the dead and considered to be a time when the veil between the world’s is at it’s thinnest, a time when the spirits of ancestors and other spiritual beings to walk among us mere mortals…

Which, if you ask me, also makes it a really great time for ghost stories. I’m gonna let y’all in on a little secret: I love ghost stories. The creepier the better–the kind that make you get that chill down your spine, when you want to spin around real quick to catch whoever (or whatever) it is you can feel watching you.

In the spirit of Halloween (and Samhain) I want to hear your ghost stories! We’ve had a few creep up on Current–some of my favorites include this look at the haunted Moss Beach Distillery in Half Moon Bay (alas, I didn’t see any ghosts when I was there) or this possible video of a ghost from my own alma matter, Asheville High School. (Which was, as far as I could tell, was not haunted while I was a student. Shame, really, it would have made things far more interesting.)

You might also want to check out this video on the haunted Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky for inspiration:

But enough from me–what about you? Have you had any brushes with ghosts or other supernatural entities? Leave a webcam or a comment, and we’ll post the spookiest responses on the Current.com blog!

Steph

L'écrivain by gilles chiroleu on Flickr

Earlier today one of our community members raised a question that immediately reminded me of a drafted post sitting in my to-do pile. So I dusted this sucker off and refreshed it with some new information for all to read.

Over on the announcement of our new submission tool, 02 commented:

“You guys never put my submissions up at all. It would seem as though a plan were afoot to force only designated providers – while the promise is held as Bullshit.”

This isn’t a anything new; in general people get a little confused when it comes to what gets featured on Current.com. It’s not uncommon to find out that people either don’t understand, or worse, their misunderstanding leads them to believe that there is a secret agenda conspiring against them behind-the-scenes.

Trust me, this is just not the case.

Our editorial team is relatively small on Current.com, especially in comparison with some of the more editorially driven sites out there. We see Current.com as a joint partnership between our internal team, and the community that frequents the site. While we produce content for TV, the amount of content we produce for the web is fairly small in comparison with what our community produces on a daily basis.

Here’s how things shake out:

(more…)

Hey all,

Sorry I haven’t posted in a couple weeks – I’m back with some new featured groups.

First up – and my personal favorite :

FOODIES: UNITE

From lolitanimatronic, an awesome group that deals with favorite thing – good food.  FOODIES: UNITE is a lot more than just a bunch of people getting together and talking about their local restaurants and eateries – it’s a group where the benefits of eating smart (locally, organically) are shown at the production level and at the consumption level (check this out for some advice on what’s in season this fall) . The FOODIES: UNITE group is also a great place to visit right before lunch.

The Science Club

Are you into science?   Current user wirehedd has created the group for you.  Are you not that into science but enjoy vaguely describing something scientific (this me BTW) at dinners and parties? THIS ALSO IS THE CLUB FOR YOU.  All things science, from theories to proofs, failed inventions to working inventions – tons of interesting stuff in here, check it out.

Anti-Xenophobia

Found_Avenue has created a really positive (well, anti-negative) club that has a lot of merit in today’s society.  This is a club for people are pro-acceptance and anti-prejudice.  The group supports awareness of xenophobic activity as well as stories of people overcoming xenophobia.  A good mix of positivity and knowledge about some of the problems facing the different cultures/beliefs of the world.

That’s it for this week’s featured groups – please feel free to let me know if you have any groups that you think should be featured.

Thanks,

-Ben

bdorries@current.com