A Wordle Is Worth A Thousand Somethings

Wordle is, in its creator's own words, "a toy for generating 'word clouds.'" With this free, browser-based app, users input text or link to an RSS feed to generate word clouds - visual representations of the most commonly used words in the source text. Users are then able to tweak and customize these word clouds using a simple toolset, and save their creations to the Wordle public database.

Here are some examples of Word clouds that compare the language used by various liberal and conservative news outlets.

Fox News

MSNBC

The National Review

The New York Times

Town Hall

The Raw Story

World News Daily

The Washington Post

The National Journal

Once you make a word cloud with Wordle, you have free reign to do with it as you please. Yes, that also means you can sell them.

OH SHIT

I WROTE SOMETHING ON MY BLOG!

Journalism Class Disrupted, Election Coverage Sabotaged by Overly Enthusiastic "Student"

By Keon Semsarha - rogue, louse, esquire

LOS ANGELES, California November 13, 2012

Serious Business

A Cal State LA journalism class providing supplementary election coverage for a popular USC politics blog was interrupted Tuesday, election day 2012, when a maniacal man claiming to be a graduate student had a slew of increasingly violent outbursts.

What started as a series of loudly uttered comments originating from the back of the classroom quickly escalated to full-on rabble-rousing and one instance of personal space being invaded, as the maniac's disproportionate level of excitement over the developing presidential election grew exponentially.

Showing no indication that he was aware of the class that was in session, the approximately 50 year old man eventually sprang to the front of the class and advanced his apparent agenda of molestation, forcing the busy students to acknowledge and awkwardly respond to his tantrums. "He wouldn't stop shouting at me. Like, right in my face. I tried to ignore him and focus on the election coverage we were supposed to be providing, but his spit kept getting in my mouth," the author assumes one student would say if he was asked to comment. "At one point he tried to ride me like a pony." Students shrank away in abject horror, or at least unequivocal disinterest, at the crazed man's ape-like shouts as they tried to focus on the task at hand.

"Artist's" "Rendition"

Receiving a reaction from the class that could be called tepid at best, he proceeded to offer the tired, irritated students a deal on pizza before running through the campus hallways assaulting busy professors as they tried to do their jobs.

The still-unnamed man has not been approached for comment because he's, like, totally super weird and creepy, but an "artist's" rendition can be seen to the right. One student in the class, the author of this article, has described the man as having "a much smaller chin" than in his own drawing. "His face is pretty much nothing like [the drawing]. Yeah, it's pretty much a completely different face. It doesn't look like that."

In fact, the maniacal, possibly axe-weilding man from the back of the classroom will not be approached, ever, due to an extreme level of caution on the part of the author, who says the man "scares the shit out of [him]. Not enough to stop [him] from writing this, but you know."

OH SHIT

I HAVEN'T WRITTEN ANYTHING ON THIS BLOG!

Playing Catch-Up

So after a week and a half of being tied to my bedposts by a dirty, dirty trollop named Tonsilitis (ask me in class, and I'll show you how big my tonsils still are), I'm back in business and ready to play catch-up. I know I'm late on pretty much everything, so let's cut to the chase.

What is my final project going to be about?
Well, comedy, I hope. Based on our roundtable during the last class session I was able to attend, that's all I have. You'd think I'd have used the last week to come up with a little more than that. I thought so too. It is Native American tradition to seek the wisdom of the ancients via peyote-induced delirium. I thought the fever dreams would deliver unto me some ancient wisdom on the back of the Iroquois wind.

Iroquois Winds, Illinois Winds, same difference.

They did not. They did not.

So the very basic premise I'm working with here is that I am going to bring the funny. Using futuristic methods not taught in regular schools, as thought by alchemy, I am going to impart just a little bit of my own wisdom to tickle your chuckle-butts.

What does this entail?
It means I'm going to find a way to utilize some of the latest and greatest "web2.0" tech to curate comedy in your general direction. I want to show you what to watch, what to listen to, where to go, how to live. And I want you to laugh until you f***ing puke.

I just need to figure out how to do it.

Introductions

Hey everyone! Bienvenidos and welcome to my new space on the internet.

The internet! That final frontier, more vast and uncharted than any portion of the cosmos ever explored by Kirk or Picard.

The internet! That well of knowledge and emotion deeper than the passionate embrace of a foreign lover.

THE INTERNET! I'm all up in that net and it feels so, so good!
No seriously guys, it's pretty ****ing amazing. Check out this sweet, demonstrative image:

Check that business out. It's business time.

Now peep this:

Waiting for host... Connecting to host... bee-oo-ee-KHHHHH-eeaw-eeaw... handshake accepted.

OMG guys, just look at all that internet! Soak it up. Bask in it. SO good.

Wait.




...what was I talking about?

Ah yes...yes, yes, yes. My new space on the internet. I have one.

"Why?" you might ask.

I hate you for asking that. But I'm also compelled to give you a detailed, in-depth explanation of my motives. Let me weave you a tapestry. Let me enrich your knowledge uranium.

I have to. For class.

Class - you should try it sometime. 

I mean, also because I want to. But mostly for class. And although class may not be a factor in your life, it sure as hell is a big part of mine. So I'm not apologizing for subjecting people to this. But sorry.