The welcome screen

During my semester in DC, I took a journalism class. The instructor had a really strange set of professional experiences before becoming a teacher, including a stint with the USA T(otal crap)oday sports section, an unspecified something that led to a close personal friendship with the America's Most Wanted guy, and co-editorship of the AOL welcome screen. She told us that editing the welcome screen was the pinnacle of her journalism career, because it's one of the most-read news sources anywhere. Serious thought goes into selecting headlines that will be irresistible to AOLers--and make them click for more.

Yahoo! Mail has a similar screen full of headlines--most of them leading to trite and annoying stories. And yet I still get suckered in to clicking, even as I'm thinking "no, no, resist, resist!" I hate to let the welcome screen people win, but I did find these two recent stories pretty interesting:

• Divorce Wars
  

• The Slump: It's a Guy Thing

All for naught

In case you're wondering what I've been up to (there are also a whole bunch of bloggers who will provide more excruciating detail). I guess there is still a shred of hope, albeit a small one. On the bright side, a total breakdown in negotiations might free up my weekend considerably.

Oh, here's a funny session moment I forgot to post a long time ago.

And finally, I find the public discussion on the Governor's "sex joke" to be really entertaining. According to the Strib, "speculation is rife whether Pawlenty's wisecrack about his sex life was a gaffe or a calculated political move." A calculated political move? Really? I mean, really? I propose we channel all the energy spent on useless and absurd punditry into something more productive, like ending world hunger or building capacity for rapid disaster response in Asia.

(and yes, Jim, this post is mostly for you)