the buzz log
Alec Baldwin, George Steinbrenner , SJP: What's the Buzz
Our top picks from the day's hottest searches.
- Kirstie Alley (Searches increased by 2,484%). The "Fat Actress" star will bring her weight battle to reality TV.
- George Steinbrenner (+1,599%). The evil genius of baseball has done it again — winning his seventh World Series title as Yankees owner.
- Alec Baldwin (+1,499%). Just when we thought it was safe to tune out Oscar season, Baldwin and Steve Martin agree to co-host.
- Sarah Jessica Parker (+480%). The "Sex and the City" actress has been tapped by Obama to be an arts advisor.
- November 5 (+106%). Do you know what today is, guys? It's National Men Make Dinner Day.
Uncle Sam Wants You to Move
Uncle Sam will give you the credit, but you'll have to pack your own moving boxes.
Hopeful renters longing for their own roof have been tracking the progress of the "8000 tax credit housing" (up 312% in Yahoo! searches on the Web) and "tax credit extension" (+50%). The "tax man" is feeling generous these days — Congress seems set on extending the credit beyond the Nov. 30 deadline and expanding the pool of qualified applicants.
That's not the only gimme. Homeowners who have been stuck in their digs for at least five years are being dangled a so-called "move-up" credit. Searches on Yahoo! for "6500 tax credit" have been busting out since the news broke.
Of course, not everyone is sold on those credits for first-time homebuyers (or people purchasing for the first time in three years). Some argue that the free money just subsidizes the real estate industry, since it keeps home prices inflated. Others say the 1.4 million households who cashed in probably would have bought their homes anyway. A Goldman Sachs analyst crunched numbers and said the first-time credit extension would probably only up sales by a miserly one percent.
During the first-time rush to own, observers complained that those move-up buyers—usually 80% of home-shoppers — were missing in action.
Incidentally, Congress might be tempted to fill more holiday gift baskets with Uncle Sam bonuses: A bundle of Bush-era tax credits are set to expire, which — as Forbes points out — puts the politicos between the rock ("fiscal responsibility" to deal with the deficit) and a hard place (hard-up voters).Filed under: Real Estate, Taxes, Housing
Who Were the Men Who Stared at Goats?
Anytime we hear that a movie is "based on a true story" or "inspired by actual events," we have to wonder — how many liberties did Tinsel Town take? The supposedly true "The Men Who Stare at Goats" opens in theaters on Friday, November 6, and Web searchers are eager for the straight scoop. Who exactly were these men, and why did they stare at goats?
The film stars George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Jeff Bridges, and, we presume, a heckuva lot of grass-loving goats. According to blogs throughout the Buzz, the movie focuses on an elite group of government-employed psychics. The men would attempt to prove their psychic abilities by stopping goats' hearts using only their minds. If they could accomplish that, the movie contends, imagine how they could interrogate bad guys?
If it sounds crazy, that's sort of the point. The movie, based on a book by journalist Jon Ronson, aims to showcase just how bizarre some of the top brass in the military and intelligence fields can be. On the brink of the film's release, interest and searches on Mr. Ronson have surged over 300%. Lookups on "men who stare at goats true story" and the slightly incredulous-sounding "is the men who stare at goats really true" have also chewed up the Search box.
So, how true is the story? Well, like a lot of things it'll depend on who you ask. Mr. Ronson talks with Time magazine about the film and the trend of "psychic warfare." He has "no doubt that research in this field is still going on." There are also interviews with retired Major General Albert Stubblebine, who was a passionate believer in the human's ability to walk through walls. He allegedly worked with Special Forces soldiers in an attempt to get them to move things with their minds. In the film, he is portrayed by Jeff Bridges in full-on "Lebowski" persona.
Aspects of the movie were likely embellished or altered (this is Hollywood, after all). But even if just 10% of "Goats" is fact-based, it's still a jaw-droppingly weird story. In this case, it seems, the truth really is stranger than fiction. As the movie itself puts it, "More of this is true than you would believe."
The Buzz on Morena Baccarin
The remake of the sci-fi show "V" that premiered on ABC raised many a mystery. One of the biggest: Who is that woman?
Even if you didn't watch the season opener, you may recognize Morena Baccarin from the promos for the show: She's the enormous serene head projected on a hovering spacecraft with a message to earthlings: "We mean no harm."
But don't you believe it. What you can believe is this: The actress is scoring out-of-this-world searches on the Web. Lookups on the rising star soared up an astronomical 4,580% in one-day searches on Yahoo!, making the "V" headliner one of the top five searches on the Web. The buzz is paying off: A whopping 13.9 million viewers tuned in, making it one of the highest-rated new shows this season.
The leggy actress is the head of the V (for visitor) alien invasion, a reptilian species — masquerading as human — that brings health care, technology, and, oh, yeah, a secret plan to take over the planet. (You can catch up with the show and the characters courtesy of the LA Times' roundup.)
Brazilian-born Baccarin is not new to sci-fi. The 30-year-old actor played the role of Inara Serra in Joss Whedon's 2002 space-western series "Firefly," and more recently she played the villainous Adria in "Stargate SG-1."
The original "V" miniseries from the 1980s imagined what would happen if fascism overtook America. The old version's beautiful but evil leader was played by Jane Badler. In the remake, the beautiful but evil leader channels a more modern bad guy: The corporate executive armed with a PR campaign that Enron would have envied.
Check out the opening of "V," where the star's enormous, well-coiffed head is first projected. With that warm smile coupled with chilling plans for world domination, we're betting that resistance to the star — and the show — will be futile.
Filed under: TV, Science Fiction
40 Years of 'Sesame Street'
A very special day is coming soon, boys and girls. Next week marks the 40th anniversary of the first episode of "Sesame Street." Four decades later, the PBS show is still going strong, a testament to the enduring power of pro-education monsters and catchy tunes.
Throughout the day, lookups on "sesame street birthday" posted triple-digit gains. Also huge were various stars of the show. Big Bird, thanks in part to a clever call out on Google's front page, boasted huge search spikes. Another biggie: Our personal favorite resident of "Sesame Street," Cookie Monster. Web searches on the ravenous beast surged 325%.
We also noticed some curious related searches on the blue-furred monster. The ominous-sounding "Veggie Monster" jumped from zilch into breakout status. Is he Cookie Monster's evil twin? Thankfully, no. A few years ago there was a vicious rumor that stated Cookie Monster was going to be renamed Veggie Monster, in an effort to help curb childhood obesity. The horror! Thankfully, this was false, but the Monster has gone on record as saying cookies are a "sometime food."
Blogs throughout the Buzz have covered the looming anniversary. CNN hosts an intriguing article on how the show has changed over the years. For example, Oscar used to be a heckuva lot grouchier, and orange. Gather.com lists four of the show's most memorable tunes ("Rubber Ducky" is included). WowOwow lists 10 of the show's best moments, including the time when James Earl Jones recited the alphabet. It's good stuff, but we would have preferred that the voice of Darth Vader said, "Elmo, I am your father..."
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nidal Malik Hasan | Breakout! |
| 2 | Fort Hood Shooting | Breakout! |
| 3 | Tyrannosaurus Rex | Breakout! |
| 4 | Fort Hood | 43518% |
| 5 | Tropical Storm Ida | 4377% |
| 6 | Willie Aames | 3325% |
| 7 | Shannon Dedrick | 3299% |
| 8 | Gretchen Rossi | 2702% |
| 9 | Epic Mickey | 2583% |
| 10 | Lee Harvey Oswald | 1907% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Danica Patrick | +194 | 207 |
| 2 | Fort Hood | +185 | 185 |
| 3 | Angelina Jolie | +114 | 164 |
| 4 | Rihanna | +39 | 157 |
| 5 | New York Yankees | +54 | 154 |
| 6 | Alicia Keys | +139 | 153 |
| 7 | +1 | 153 | |
| 8 | NFL | +6 | 138 |
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.
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