It’s better than a mass e-mail

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays – can you call it a holiday? – of the year, and much thought and care goes into my costumes. Often, women tend to throw clever out the window and use Halloween as an opportunity to dress slutty (Meangirls, anyone?) by donning some fishnets, a bustier, and maybe some ears or horns. Guys on the other hand usually just slap on a fake mustache and polyester jacket and call themselves a pimp, or this year, Ron Burgundy.

That’s not really my speed. Like the good, nerdy journalist I am, I like to look to the headlines for inspiration.

This year, my friend CK and I dressed as the bird flu. We crafted chicken wings tied to our arms and an orange feather plume and tail. Then we wrapped ourselves in bathrobes, slid on a pair of slippers and made a necklace of flu medication labels. The kicker was wearing medicine bottles around our necks with the word Tamiflu scrawled over it.

Most folks got it, and thought it was hysterical. One guy who didn’t revealed he hadn’t read a newspaper since 2001 (that was the end of that conversation) and another girl stared at me blankly and then said quite frankly she had never heard of the bird flu and had no idea what I was talking about. (My screaming, “But it’s a pandemic!” – our catch phrase for the night – did little to jog her memory.)

Other amazing costumes of the night included donning a homemade pair of waders (you know, those tall rubber boots for fishing) and carrying an oar to be Roe v. Wade. Another friend of mine wore a hot black dress with a red bow and a tag that read “To: Men, From: God”)

I have turned over a new leaf. I have decided to take those goals I have in the back of my mind (and on a piece of notebook paper, titled “Things to do before I die, or sooner”), and get to work.

I started a jogging regimen. Regimen might be a strong word, as today was the first day of running, if you could call it that.

I plan to sign up for a black and white darkroom developing class starting next week.

And perhaps most exciting – I learned to knit. That’s right folks. I have been wanting to for a long time. I was even given a how-to book for Christmas last year, but in classic Sara fashion I would pick it up, try a couple stitches, mess up and put the needles away. (Kind of like the time, at age 13, I wanted to be drummer Lars Ulrich, got a set, took lessons, and realized my brother was perhaps more musically inclined than I, and quit. Or the figure skating: I was struggling on the axle (that’s a jump, people), got bored and quit.)

I digress. Again, new leaf. And so far, the knitting was really fun. It’s not quite relaxing yet, though, as I am finding I am clenching my jaw in concentration as I knit, but I expect that to change. I managed to stitch a ten-row patch. At this rate, everyone in my family is getting 3-inch pot holders for Christmas. “Oh, ignore the holes and the stray loops sticking out on the side – it’s for holding a tiny, thin pot handle!”

But I am determined not to throw in the needle this time. Before you know it, Martha Stewart is going to have me on her show for segment on scarves, stockings, sweaters….

Here are a couple not-so-encouraging media-related news items today, courtesy the SPJ daily email. Wow.

Newspaper columnist Ann Coulter confessed in a speech that she’s “not a big fan of the First Amendment,” according to E&P. She apparently “criticized the media for being liberal and Democrats for whining about their rights under the First Amendment. ‘They’re always accusing us of repressing their speech,’ she said. ‘I say let’s do it. Let’s repress them.’”

The Newark Weekly News has entered a $100,000 contract with the city council to publish only positive news about the city. The owner says he is providing the city a service. “Do we have invesigative reporters? No. Our niche is the good stuff,” he said, according to The Star-Ledger. The paper can only generate stories based on ledes from the council and the mayor’s office.

More important than the ensuing debate on the appropriate “netiquette” for blogs and listservs was the topic of the initial post, which made it in the Chicago Tribune today.

See, if you’ll recall, a woman had posted a note looking for a media consultant. Little did she realize, I suppose, she was sending this request out to a bunch of news-hungry sharks who jumped on the story. Sure, this CEO who needs image help may not be a big honcho, but now we are all fiercely looking out for him.

As the Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal puts it:

“Unfortunately for Pamela Cramer, whose name was on the request–and for the unnamed CEO–it turns out Medill has produced a fair number of actual reporters and editors, some of whom were more interested in uncovering more about the pending tax case than in helping to buff up the accused’s image. Shocking, no?”

Oops, Pamela.

OK that is the last I will mention this little listserv debacle. … Unless something else interesting comes up.

One more thing – As we all remember the Internet is in no way anonymous, also remember that no one cares. It is a massive, massive web of billions of people writing about billions of things posting billions of stories, musings, pictures. In the end, no one cares. In the end, no one (except perhaps journos and those on the listserv) really cares about Pamela or about my own words on the topic.

So the Chicago White Sox are going to the World Series, and people here are just nuts over it.

I know a kid who got tickets to Game 1 this weekend. Apparently his roommate knows someone. I read today that one guy wanting tickets offered to give up his kidney – you’re choice, right or left – for tickets. One woman offered nudie pictures. Some tickets were reselling for $15,000. They sold out in 18 minutes. Crazy, I tell you.

I wonder, is there anything in this world I would pay that much money – or at least the few hundred dollars others are paying – to see? My max was dishing out $100 for Prince show in Atlanta, and shoot, I’d do that again, and maybe even double it. I was close to paying out that much to see Bon Jovi, but came to my senses.

Perhaps if I was more of a sports fan, I would understand. My inaugural baseball game was the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park when I was in college. As amazing and historic and yadda, yadda, yadda as that park was, I recall it being an excruciatingly boring game. And that was even after drinking a 40 oz. of malt liquor before the game. Gross.

A few years later (this summer) I went to a Nationals game in DC, and surprisingly had a blast – and I think it was more than the beer and the company that made it fun. The game was actually entertaining. But would I pay $100 or $300 or $15,000 to see it? Give up a kidney? Not a chance.