End of the Week: 08/08/10- 08/14/10

END OF THE WEEK:

Let's get straight into this. The following are my picks for some of the best moments the past seven days. Enjoy.

Video of the Week: "10 Year Old Opera Singer Jackie Evancho Sings on 'America's Got Talent'"
This past Tuesday, the hit NBC summer show "America's Got Talent" decided to do something differently. Instead of continuing with this season's competition, they had some of the best never-before seen talents that submitted videos to them through YouTube perform on the show. After the show, it turned out that the one performance that stood out was by none other than Jackie Evancho, a 10 year old from Pittsburgh with her brilliant Susan Boyle-esque singing. Well done Jackie, and hope to see you with a nice singing career ahead. She's already off to a great start!







Stories of the Week:
-The Actual Story of the Week: The Possible Google-Verizon Deal
Some people are calling this the end of the Internet as we know it. And you know what, they're probably right. A few days back, the New York Times reported a possible deal between Google and Verizon, which previously worked together to create the Google Android Phone, which would all allow Verizon customers to speed up some online content from Google to their Internet users much quicker if they are willing to pay for that privilege. Why is this apocalyptic you ask? Well, because it could end a once-sacred Internet policy called net neutrality.

Net neutrality, for those that are unfamiliar, basically means that no form of the Internet is favored over another and that all Internet content is allowed to run at the same speed as others. It has been that way since the beginning of the Internet, but with this deal it could all change. With this deal, it could be the start of an Internet similar to cable and satellite TV where Internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast among others can pick and choose websites to be on different packages or run on different speeds than others. This is a big problem since it could raise cost to use the Internet and with pretty much all TV, radio, phone and other service about to all be run through an Internet connection, it could mean a complete takeover of the Internet from corporations where it is currently free and open to everyone. So this will basically impact everyone in the future.

So far, there are hopes of it not happening, thankfully. Currently, the deal hasn't been official yet from both sides. There are also some big supporters of Net Neutrality in Wahington from Nancy Pelosi to Al Franken to even the President himself, though the court decision a while back with stated that the F.C.C. can't refrain Internet providers from blocking and slowing down some content and the fact that Congress is slowly being controlled by corps. could cause some problems. But for now, it does look like this deal will come into effect. And if it does, then I feel that the era f the Wild West Internet that we all know and love will come to an end very soon.

- The Tiger Woods Saga of '09 Memorial Story of the Week: JetBlue Flight Attendant Slides Down Plane With Beer After Fight With Passenger
There was a great quote this past season on "Mad Men" with Roger Sterling saying: "My father used to say to me that this is the greatest job in the world except for one thing. The client." Apparently this Steven Slater guy was tired of that old saying. Really tired! Pretty cool story, though.

Hoax Story of the Week: Woman Quits Job Via Dry Erase Board
This week was about to become the week of creative job quits. First came the Steven Slater. The second one came from a website called The Chive who reported a story of this girl named Jenny who quit her job by sending 33 e-mails to her workers with 33 messages written on a dry erase marker saying that she's quitting her job and how bad her boss was. The story immediately took off across the country with publication across the country from Yahoo to the the NY Post and received over 105,000 "likes" on Facebook. But that was before one man, Peter Kafka, a writer for The Wall Street Journal's All Things D grew suspicious, saying:

"The story showed up this morning on theChive.com, a dude-centric site
run by brothers John and Leo Resig, who own a series of photo/humor
sites [...] Before that, the Resigs ran a site called Derober, which
features doctored photos of celebrities in their underwear.

And Derober's moment in the spotlight came back in December 2007,
when it made up a story about Donald Trump leaving a $10,000 tip on a
$82.27 bill. The story was convincing enough to fool Fox News and the
New York Post (both of which are owned by News Corp., which also owns
this site).

So Jenny is a fake, too. Right, Leo Resig?

No, Resig says over the phone. "Jenny's very real."

However, over the past few days it soon surfaced that Mr. Resig was indeed lying. On Wednesday, the Jenny from the story returned to The Chive, saying that the past 24 hours have been surreal, saying that her actual name is Elyse Porterfield, not Jenny, and that this story was indeed a hoax by the website, confirming the day long suspicions of the story. Still, you gotta give credit to The Chive.com for creating such a good quitting story. After all, it was reported in such a perfect time, nearly hours after the story of Steven Slater first came out.

Person of the Week: Steven Slater
for actually being so mad with a passenger that he went and cussed that person out in front of the rest of the plane's passengers, announce that he was quitting his job as flight attendant on Jet Blue, grab some beers, open up the plane's emergency slide, slide down and away from the plane only to get arrested an hour later after police found him having sex with his boyfriend and having no regrets doing so. Not only did that took great guts but it was an inspirational moment to anyone working in a job that was tired of all of their jobs clients, customers and the work itself. It was also something that many people who traveled on a plane with an annoying passenger can relate and, though the videotapes later proved that the escape from the plane wasn't as epic as most thought it would be, it was still pretty original. Now, he's an American hero who is adored by millions and might also get a reality show out of it where the day before he was just a nobody. Not bad for someone who spent twenty years working in the flight industry if I might add.

And that's the way it was! Hope you enjoyed your week, but now it's time to start a new one.
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15




If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you want to suggest anything to mj15 for his next blog entry (tips, perhaps?), e-mail him at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.