UW-Madison has mad clout on Twitter
Rosaura Ochoa via Flickr
It's like a Twitter dream come true.
Since sifting through dull newspapers, hyperbolic blogs, and overflowing RSS feeds for meaningful news can be an arduous process, News Net catches and compiles both the amusing and the significant reports that were overlooked throughout the workweek. Here are some things to think about as the weekend begins.
• Continuing a proud tradition of high marks on dubious university ranking lists, UW-Madison came in fourth on Klout’s list of the most influential colleges on Twitter, with a Klout Score of 64, just decimal points behind Harvard. As to what the hell a Klout Score even means, Klout has a fairly detailed explanation of how it measures tweets, retweets, follows, follow backs, true reach, and other social media nonsense that only seems relevant because UW is apparently awesome at it. Expect the hashtag #UWSocialMediaHouseParty to surface over the weekend as students celebrate the new title.
• Earlier this week, the 12-year-old girl who types up all of Gov. Scott Walker’s tweets received ideas for what Walker and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn should wager on the Packers-Bears NFC Championship game this Sunday, and the final bet has nothing to do with bikes or cowboy boots. The losing governor will work for a day in one of the winning state’s food pantries, wearing the opposing team’s T-shirt—meaning if the Packers win, Walker will give another Wisconsin job to someone from Illinois (a volunteer job, but still). The loser also has to fly the winning team’s flag in his office for a day before the Super Bowl. When the Packers crush the Bears, take a second to browse the @GovWalker Twitter feed for this victory tweet: “I can’t w8 4 IL Gov 2 serve up soup 4 WI!”
• Dane101 has dedicated its weekly “Hump Day” sexual health column to the best places in Madison to rent porn—something that we’re kicking ourselves for not adding to the The A.V. Club City Life section ourselves. Last week, Family Video earned fairly low marks for its limited selection and the creep factor of renting porn and free kids’ movies together, but Four Star Video Heaven finished strong in this week’s review. The stock of diverse but not “irresponsible” material (fetishes, but no violence or racism) and easy-to-access plot summaries of the latest porn parodies makes Four Star a masturbator’s dream. And its loose definition of “documentary,” which includes soft-core instructional sex videos, seals the deal. For all your pornography needs, accept no substitutes (except the Internet).
• Times are tough out there. Fifteen years ago, petty thugs would at least get full meals at restaurants before they held the places up. But nowadays it seems that all they can spring for are free glasses of water before they start snatching up employees’ purses and fleeing the scenes. That’s how it went down at Bandung on Willy Street on Monday—a customer asked for a glass of water, then went for the employee’s purse as soon as she walked away. The employee tried to wrestle her purse away from him before the penny-pinching thief finally grabbed the cash from the purse and split. If only Jules Winnfield had been on hand to shepherd the weak lad through the valley of darkness.
