Originally published at The Definitive Dmbosstone. Please leave any comments there.

I’m not here to talk about the crash.

I’m not here to talk about how I was worried for my roommate, my friends, and how others were equally worried for me.

I’m not here to talk about how shocking the images are and how people are going to have a tough commute Tuesday- both getting where they need to go and seeing the front pages as well.

What I want to write about is how Monday’s experience really showed me how the communication of breaking news had changed thanks to social media.

There’s already been plenty of talk on how Twitter and The Internet has aided protests of the Iranian Election, but today really showed me first hand what everybody else was talking about.

So let me share a few things with you.

This was the first tweet I received about the Metro Crash, as you can read in my Metblogs piece I brushed it off. However take a look at her tweet, which is actually a re-tweet of a person she reads everyday. Thanks to tools like Twitter, news becomes more viral. Also we become part of the broadcasting.

First the Mass Media was composed of Newspapers and we learned about events days or weeks after they occurred. Along came television and 24 hour news networks, when news happened we heard of it quicker and we were often glued to the televisions. During 9/11 I was in a high school classroom, glued to the CNN broadcast. The information could reach a mass audience faster, but we were still to the whim of whatever the media could serve.

Now with Twitter first hand accounts and information can reach a mass audience in no time. The tweet above was sent minutes after the crash occurred. News channels were soon showing photos spread around Twitter alongside their own footage. With Social Media we become part of the news making process as well. Famous DC retweeted some news I put out there when it became known that among the dead was the train operator.

Twitter’s short messages makes the news making process byte sized, and thus we’ve moved from being glued to the TV to being glued to the computer screening, waiting for the next 140 character development to the story.

Talking more about becoming part of the news, take a look at a Google News search for “Metro Crash.” The 4th result down is the post I wrote over on DC Metblogs. I didn’t realize my DC blog was considered a news source but it doesn’t surprise me that news organizations are looking at Social Media when reporting their stories. News organizations see Social Media as the future and they gotta keep up or be left behind.

Finally Twitter is also being used as the mass messaging tool to check on loved ones and make sure everyone is ok. Breaking Tweets wrote a great piece on how Twitter was used during the accident which includes checking in on people. Even a DC injury lawyer also advocates the use of Twitter as a way to tell everyone, “I’m ok.”

Technology is constantly changing the way we respond when crisis strikes. It was only back in 2007 when Facebook was used during the Virginia Tech shootings; now Twitter has taken it’s place as the mass communication tool of choice. One day another tool will come along that will continue to make communication faster, robust, and more widespread.

Freaking out will never be the same again.

Tags: blog, facebook, metro, rants, twitter, virginia tech

Originally published at The Definitive Dmbosstone. Please leave any comments there.

I walked in late to a happy hour this week and my co-worker Mallory asked what took me so long. Kristen suggested that I couldn’t get away from my desk because I was too busy working on Fantasy Football.

Is it sad that she was right?

I don’t spend all day working on my team but like Facebook or Google Reader- it’s something I check on a daily basis. In the mornings and evenings I like to see what activity is happening on the waiver wire. As I read and learn breaking news from Google Reader I like to check my sites to see if I can take advantage of an injury or promotion.

I have my fantasy football obession down to a weekly routine:

Monday

There’s still some football left to play but I’m already analyzing the week that just finished- who were the top performers? What injuries might come into play for the upcoming week? Who is out there that I can pick up to improve my team?

Tuesday

The week in football is officially over and my victories and losses have been officially tallied in my leagues. The big goal on Tuesdays is to look at my team and the upcoming week- where am I going to be strong, where am I going to be weak? This is also the day I’ll make all my waiver wire claims in my work league (my Yahoo leagues let me add/drop at will, so by Tuesday I’ve already picked up all the players I need.)

Wednesday

Now that Thursday Night Football is back in style I make all my picks for the week. Both for my money pick’em pool and the side competition I have with my intern Peter. I also do a quick look at my lineup make some preliminary changes.

Thursday

By Thursday all the podcasts I regularly listen to have posted their thoughts on the upcoming week. It makes great listening material when you are on the Metro or in the gym.

Friday

I will look at my lineup and the rankings out there and make and adjust my lineup for Sunday. Using a lot of the rankings I read I will make choices on which kickers/defenses I should add/drop. I always play matchups with those positions. If I have time I’ll post my weekly rant on football on my blog as well.

Saturday

Am I caught up on those podcasts? Just getting excited about the next week in football!

Sunday

The big day! If I have a lazy Sunday I’ll have time to watch some of the pre-game shows for some last minute news and prep. I will have set my final lineups set and I have my computers ready to crunch scores as I watch the games! I cross my fingers and hope I win my games; if not I know that tomorrow I get to start all over again.

So maybe football does take a lot of my day- but to me it’s a fun obsession hobby and hey it only lasts 16 weeks.

Now on to week 10!

TMG Sportsline League (6-3)

Pho Sho vs. Wide-Eyed Pumas

Thanks to soild performances from Brandon Jacobs, Matt Forte, and even my kicker Rob Bironas; I was able to take out Josie last week. There are a few more weeks to go and it’s definitely crunch time in my league as I hope to clinch the wild card spot and make the playoffs! This week I play Lisa in what I hope to be another victory. Hopefully this will be the last week before Tony Romo (he’s my quarterback) can get back into the game.

Yahoo! League (5-2-1)

Pho Shizzle vs. Roondogs

Last week wasn’t so great in this league- my team was weakened due to the bye weeks and I had no chance as Falkor rolled me like a lollipop. I now owe him a case of beer. My team is back at full strength with LT and I should be able to take on Sean and his Favre-led team. Trust me I know what it’s like to have Favre on your team, wasn’t as great as I thought. In this league I’m also waiting for Romo to return and I am handing the ball to Chad Pennington, the quarterback I used in my first fantasy football team. Problem is that two years ago he really sucked but now he’s looking really good. Let’s hope I see more of the new Chad and less of the old one.

Diet Yahoo! League (7-2)

Donte’s $37 Million vs. CoolMyTeamSucksNow

I got the L last week in this league too. I was kinda surprised to see my opponent go up really quick but taking a second look at his team I saw that I clearly underestimated his receivers. Now I am tied for first place in this league and I hope to stay up there with another win. But no promises in a league where everybody such ridiculous rosters.

I was hoping to be able to watch some of the Patriots this week but I’ll be in the middle of moving my life- more on that soon.

Tags: brandon jacobs, chad pennington, facebook, fantasy football, google, ladanian tomlinson, matt forte, metro, rob bironas, tony romo

Originally published at The Definitive Dmbosstone. Please leave any comments there.

Updating you on my piece of shit car, I have dropped it off at the body shop last week and I have been living without a car now for several days. It’s not as bad as I orignally have thought; I’ve been walking to and from work and the gym and in reality I don’t live too far from either. The only pain has been grocery shopping which my roommates have been ever so kind to help me with.

Even though I live close to work I am often asked why I don’t walk everyday and the reason became apprently last week as the walking uphill in work attire with 90 degree weather was not conducive to my sweat glands. After a walk to or from work I was sweating more than Shaq at the foul line.

Walking around town and using the Metro has made me think though about living without a car. If the weather was a lot cooler it’s something I could really consider doing (especially with rising gas prices.) If I’m not in a rush in the morning I may just take more leasurely strolls to work. I already try and run to the gym in order to get some more cardio in. Maybe I’ll even get a bike and just use that.

Overall I’m not going to stop driving anytime soon but it’s nice to know I think I can live with less of it in my life.

Tags: blog, carolla, metro

Originally published at The Definitive Dmbosstone. Please leave any comments there.

More football updates:

The Bears/Redskins was a blast. There was a lot of traffic on the way to FedEx Field, but Falkor, Sarah, Emily, and I had a great time at the game. The Club level is not as luxurious as the Loge but the seats were closer, albeit outside. The club level has a really cool indoor concourse where you can lounge around and warm up- we used that to our advantage a lot.

Wrapping up another busy weekend- Friday Adam and I went to the Suns/Wizards game and see why Steve Nash is sung about in Nelly Furtado songs.

Saturday the boys and I hit up a holiday party in DC. It was an ok night- we had a lot of fun on the metro ride back. All I’ll say is that freshmen from Georgetown are ridiculous.

After a quick nap I got back up to do some charitable shopping at Toys R Us. After another nap I got up in time just to see the Patriots go 13-0. Take that Anthony Smith. Who is that guy anywho? Never heard of him.

Well a week from now I’ll be 24. I can feel the quarter life crisis creeping up.

Tags: blog, charity, fedex field, football, fun times with friends, georgetown, metro, patriots, redskins, steve nash, suns, toys r us, wizards

Originally published at The Definitive Dmbosstone. Please leave any comments there.

Now this week was a good week. Not only did I get a lot of shit done- but I also fit in a lot of quality time with my friends. I feel like I’m warming up on a hot streak for life, so let’s hope I’m in for a good stretch. Maybe I’ll even get bumped up to the clean-up spot. Props to anyone that understands the analogy of the last two sentences.

On Monday I went out with Marjorie to Soho Tea & Coffee to check out their Stand-Up Open Mic. Some people were funny, others not so much. Joke of the night: Trying to buy stuff at Target with Street Cred.

Tuesday I had the pleasure of having dinner with the ever awesome Rebecca Burtman. She’s such an awesome cook and finds new recipes to dolt me every time we hang out for dinner. That night it was a very nice chicken dish made with only seven ingredients! It was in this neat little book her mom got her, I should check it out sometime because cooking needs to be simple for me. She’s been really good at giving me advice, much like a lot of my friends this week.

In continuing with the events I went out Wednesday with Burak and Laura to The Front Page, where it was half price burgers night. It’s a cool little place and the food is great but I didn’t like that it was bursting with people at that time- I had trouble getting a chair, our group had to talk to the manager just so I could get one.

Tara invited me out to RiRa Thursday so I could join her, Diana, and some of their co-workers for a goodbye happy hour. It was definitely enjoyable to see Diana and her co-workers dish about work in the presence of their boss. Ya that’s something I’m not doing anytime soon, even though their boss seems cool- he rides a motorcycle. However his wife also makes him wear an ugly orange vest while doing so.

I took it easy on Friday- I finished touches on The OBX videos I’ve been working on throughout the week. While I’ve been out every day almost, I took time I had here and there to make edits to the three video series- now it’s all done! I should remember this approach for future projects- maybe I can get The FSC done!

Work on Friday was tons of fun, Mallory showed me this cool British guy called Derren Brown who is a hypnotist of sorts. He has a number of videos where he uses NLP to make people do weird things on the street. It’s quite surreal. He’s gotten away with paying people with blank paper, taking their wallet just by asking, cashing in losing dog track tickets, putting people into video games, and playing Russian roulette. Sci-Fi channel just started doing a US series based on his shows done in the UK called Mind Control.

Lunch was also a treat- to wish some of our interns goodbye we had a Fiesta that included catering from Baha Fresh- best lunch ever.

On Friday I was bummed that Marjorie flaked out on seeing Crowded Streets at Whitlows. However my friends came to the rescue and I manage to have a great time out on U-Street with Rebecca, Camille and all of their wonderful friends. We went out to Local 16 and later on the Black Cat.

On the Metro ride back, I encountered quite the drunk group on my train. It was only me and them on the train and they were taken the token drunken Metro photos- and of course looked at me down the train and yelled, “We need photos with that random guy!” Of course I was happy to play the role of “random guy in drunken photos that you don’t remember.” I also saved them from taking the wrong train afterwards. Oh drunk people.
Wow as I type this I realized I went out every night almost. I rock. But at the same time I completed my OBX Videos- so I don’t feel like I got nothing done- why can’t I do this every week? Maybe I can like I said I’m just getting started.

I’ll leave y’all on this note- another idiot tried to crash that famous house down the street from me.

Tags: ballston, blog, clarendon, derren brown, food, fun times with friends, georgetown, girls, metro, mind control, nlp, obx, open mic, u-street

Originally published at The Definitive Dmbosstone. Please leave any comments there.

Sometimes I think about creating a blog with a purpose, like a green/eco blog, an auto blog, or maybe a mommy blog. If I had a news blog or a celeb gossip blog I could write all about Larry Birkhead. But in reality it’s a cool thing to know but I think I’ll be moving on now, not that this drama has kept me from living life.

This past Sunday I went to the Diamondbacks/Nationals game with my roommate Adam, Rebecca developed an ocular emergency that day. I’m glad she’s ok though. It was a good game even though the Nats lost.

The DC losing streak continued into the week. I had the luck to end up with a few tickets for the Wizard’s game tonight. Doug, Sarah, and I enjoyed what was a really close game. However in the last minute, the Nets came out on top. Tonight was a key game for the Wizards to make the playoffs, but they lost. However because The 76ers beat The Pacers, they Wizards are now playoff bound. The announcement was made as the entire crowd was leaving the Verizon Center. Not many people seem to care. I had a really fun time at the game however. Sarah and Doug make life fun.
I heard about this article on Washington Post, after I saw a story on ABC World News. A world famous violinist puts on some plain clothes and plays inside the DC Metro. Nobody notices his talent. I think it’s amazing.

I mentioned my dreams from last week to Chanelle, and she thinks that it must mean that someone has been on my mind. If she’s right I really don’t know if that’s a good thing. As much as I’d like to have someone to think about, should I really be putting my eggs into one basket? A part of me wonders if I am setting myself up for disappointment.

Tags: baseball, blog, diamondbacks, dreams, fun times with friends, larry birkhead, metro, nationals, verizon center, website, wizards