By Carol MacPherson
Let’s tie the suitcases to the top of the station wagon and take a trip to Headline Land.
“Antonoff: Smartwatch fatigue sets in”: Already? Does anyone have one? Has anyone created a device that measures how extremely fast fads come and go these days? “Why, look at the time. Everything I own is passe.”
“Facebook to track users’ online shopping”: The shopping, er, social network will let advertisers know where a promotion was first viewed and when it led to a purchase by tracking users among their electronic devices, to prove to advertisers that their money is well spent. Bloomberg News notes it is “a tool that may reignite privacy concerns.” It just may. And it makes a coupon from a newspaper seem rather elegant, and unobtrusive.
“Tell us: What’s the most vexing education jargon you’ve heard?” No, please don’t. All of it, every word, is most vexing, and sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard. (The reason for the request is so that they can turn it into plain English. But you can’t translate gibberish.) But if you must participate, check out the “educational jargon generator” at ScienceGeek.net, where the generator’s creator was inspired by the College Board’s AP chemistry description that said: “The student can connect phenomena and models across spatial and temporal scales.” Oh, can they?
“Chef recommends 5 flavor-boosting ingredients”: Do tell. “Salt and acid. Americans want more of those flavors in their foods.” Seriously? More salt? The chef recommends more of the oldest flavor-boosting ingredient known to humankind? How not bold of the chef. (Even if the salt/acid combo come in the form of pickle juice, as she recommends.)
“Excess sodium linked to 1.65 million deaths”: Just sprinkling that fact on the above headline; just for a little reasoning, er, seasoning.
“Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg on tech’s diversity gap”: One thing that might help, or at least would be less annoying, is if Sheryl Sandberg wasn’t the only woman ever, and forever, quoted.
“2-foot-long hot dog among new Seahawks food items”: Oh, boy. The “Colossal Hawk Dog” is topped with chipotle cheese sauce, pico de gallo, diced red peppers, diced jalapenos, sour cream, and guacamole with blue and green tortilla strips. So, a hawk dog burrito? Yum, yum. But no diced Skittles?
“Toe dispute prompts arrest of beauty contestant”: This seems to imply something gone awry during a pageant, (like someone wearing a falsie to cover up a cuticle disaster) but no, it turns out the 22-year-old beauty pageant contestant was arrested in California after being caught on video walking comfortably in high heels while collecting workers’ compensation benefits after saying she had a broken toe.
What a scam! So many questions. But primarily: Do beauty pageant contestants who can’t compete really get to collect workers’ compensation benefits?
“Burger King discontinues Satisfries in most restaurants around U.S.”: So now you can sing the Rolling Stones tune, “I can’t get no Satisfries action.” Or not. (Fries without fat are like a Colossal Hawk Dog without sodium.)
“Thousands of people oblivious to fact that anyone on the Internet can access their computers”: Whaaat?
Stay clear of toe disputes this week, such as whether that one little piggy actually cried wee wee wee all the way home.
Carol MacPherson: 425-339-3472; cmacpherson@heraldnet.com.
