the buzz log
Boom Boom, Baby
It's not enough you have to endure your parents' music as a kid. These days, parents-to-be are piping in their top-40 favorites straight to the womb, using various products that amplify the music loud enough for the fetus to hear.
This is not music to doctors ears, who say the extra loud tunes can interrupt the pre-born's sleep patterns. It sure is tempting to think you can give your developing baby a head start as a musical genius, and some companies jumped on the musical band wagon with products that made it easy to blast the baby with sound directly.
According to a story in the New York Post, pediatritions warn that there's plenty of time to turn your progeny into prodigies once the baby, is you know, actually born.
Filed under: Babies
Hands Off Megan Fox's Thumb
It's probably true that Megan Fox is known more for her stunning looks than her screen roles ("Transformers," anyone?). But even though the actress made her Super Bowl ad debut for Motorola lounging in a bathtub wearing nothing but bubbles, all eyes were not on the obvious: her thumb.
The actress — who is basically perfect in every way, does have one slight imperfection: a wide right thumb. The hand got face time last summer after publicity shots of the actress — and her unusual-sized thumb — first surfaced. Technically called brachydactyly, the club-thumb trait is no big deal — you just have a big thumb.
The condition, which literally means "short finger," is usually hereditary and is not considered serious. But when the Super Bowl ad aired with a close-up of Motorola's digital gadget, Megan's digit seemed to have been replaced with a slender stand-in, sending the blogosphere into a serious uproar — and Web searches into the stratosphere. The Daily Mail pointed an accusatory finger at the phone maker, and claimed they brought in a thumb-double for Megan's not-so-pretty appendage.
(See photos of Megan Fox.)
Fingers flew on the Web, with one-day searches on Yahoo! for "megan fox hands" increasing an astounding 800%. Lookups for "brachydactyly megan fox," "megan fox super bowl commercial," and "megan fox toe thumb" all saw huge gains.
While there remains no official word on thumb-gate, you can watch the ad and decide for yourself.
Sweethearts Candy Gets an Upgrade
Ah, Valentine's Day. Best celebrated elementary-school style with Sweethearts: the Necco heart-shaped candies with the sweet sayings — like "be mine." Or at least, that's how it was, back in 2009. The candy company has decided that the sugary treats needed an upgrade.
If you scoop up a bunch of the multi-colored candies this year, your tastebuds are in for a shock: The company, which had not changed its recipe in 145 years, switched out the pastal shades to electric colors — and fruitier flavors. The new sayings are for gadget lovers: "Tweet me" and "text me" are printed on the hearts along with classics like "love bug" and "sweet pea."
Cute, right? But the new fruity selections have left some with a sour taste. According to the Houston Press blog, Necco is changing up the flavors to include green apple, blue raspberry, and lemon. Um, earth to Necco: lemon is not. Sweet.
Find the most popular Valentine's Day candy.
While some may find the news hard to swallow — the controversy is raging on Facebook, natch — the company has also produced the old flavors for die-hard fans. But they'll be tough to find. The classic Sweethearts will only be sold in dollar stores, while the 2.0 version will be more widely available. It's a lesson Valentine's Day often overlooks: Love can be heartbreaking. Even when it's just candy.
Want to Overthrow the Government? That'll be $5
There are troublemakers and then there are troublemakers. The first group rolls through stop signs. The second type spends their spare time planning to overthrow the government.
Should you fall into the second category and happen to live in South Carolina, you'll find you'll have to register with the very government you plan to overthrow.
Adding insult to injury, subversives also have to pay a $5 fee, or face a fine of $25,000 and a decade in jail. We saw the story on The Raw Story and felt it too good not to pass along. Troublemakers, you have been warned.
Palin's Palm Holds the Answers
Remember those quizzes you had on the state capitals back in junior high? Oh, the pressure! The temptation to write "Pierre, Olympia, Dover, Albany" on the inside of your hand was overwhelming, wasn't it? But you resisted. Maybe Sarah Palin should have done the same.
The former vice presidential candidate seems to have been caught using curious crib notes during an interview this past weekend at the high-profile Tea Party Convention in Nashville. While speaking about her top political priorities, Ms. Palin gazed at her hand in a rather suspicious manner.
Later, Web researchers zoomed in on her left palm and found the following words scrawled in black ink: "Energy, Budget cuts (with "budget" crossed out), Tax, Lift American Spirits." In an ironic twist during the speech, Ms. Palin worked in a jab against President Obama's often-mocked use of TelePrompTers. You can watch the clip below or check out a close-up here.
Following the flap, the Web went wild. Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC mocked Ms. Palin by relying on her own crib notes to recap highlights from Palin's appearance. Her keynote speech, it should be noted, had the crowd on its feet. "Run, Sarah, run," the crowd chanted (as in "please run for president in 2012").
But palm-gate wasn't the only bit of news sparked by Palin. Her defense of Rush Limbaugh's use of the word "retards" raised eyebrows, as well. On Fox News Sunday, the anti "r-word" crusader contended that Limbaugh had used the word in the context of political humor and satire. Earlier in the week, the difference between her angry reaction to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's use of the "slur" and a more restrained response to Limbaugh's made from some awkward fallout. Web searches on "sarah palin on fox news" and "palin limbaugh" have both surged as the controversy swirled.
Sarah's husband, Todd Palin, has also been back in the news. The self-proclaimed former "first dude" of Alaska was revealed to be quite active in state business. According to recently uncovered emails, Todd Palin was "involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public employee unions, received background checks on a corporate CEO, added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments and passed financial information marked 'confidential' from his oil company employer to a state attorney."
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dewey Color System | Breakout! |
| 2 | Sarah Clarke | Breakout! |
| 3 | John Murtha | Breakout! |
| 4 | Anna Belknap | Breakout! |
| 5 | Pajama Jeans | Breakout! |
| 6 | Anna Kendrick | 19081% |
| 7 | Ashley Greene | 3016% |
| 8 | Natalie Morales | 1867% |
| 9 | Laura Chinchilla | 1753% |
| 10 | Burj Khalifa | 1678% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dewey Color System | +1372 | 1372 |
| 2 | Super Bowl | -1014 | 803 |
| 3 | IRS | +109 | 298 |
| 4 | Danica Patrick | +191 | 296 |
| 5 | Kim Kardashian | +100 | 247 |
| 6 | Anna Kendrick | +238 | 239 |
| 7 | Doritos | +161 | 216 |
| 8 | NFL | -178 | 161 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.