Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts

16 November 2007

Super fan or super freak?

An Iowa man wants his name change to reflect his one true love

After Microsoft Zune super fan Steven Smith, better known as the Zune Guy to the online communities that know him, got his third Zune-themed tattoo the question that begged answering was what’s next?

The answer came when Smith posted in the zunescene.mobi forums that he is now in the process of changing his name to “Microsoft Zune.”

Within the post Smith made it clear that he wanted to make the change all-inclusive. “Also if I get what I want and this goes through I will be changing all my important documents over to my ‘new name.’ So look back sometime for a Iowa driver's license with my new name, lol.”

Smith also claims that he has done some initial research on the feasibility of changing his name to that of a trademarked product. He claims that, according to what he found, that the change could be made as long as the person changing their name is not benefiting from the change or doing it to harm the company or product in any way.

Naturally once major technology blog sites caught wind of this news, the “Zune tattoo guy” was quickly a topic of much discussion, drawing both encouraging and negative feedback from various places on the Web.

Steven Smith’s dream of becoming Microsoft Zune may not be as farfetched as it sounds. American professional wrestler Brian Hellwig, best known as the Ultimate Warrior in the WWF, legally changed his name to Warrior in 1993 in order to use the name outside of the WWF.

A man named John Sterling reportedly changed his name legally to Sony PlayStation after becoming obsessed with the game console. And who could forget in March 2005 when Terri Iligan auctioned off her name on E-Bay and legally changed her name to GoldenPalace.com, the winning bid, for $15,000.

Currently any further information about Smith’s quest to become Microsoft Zune is still under wraps. But he has promised that he will be making video posts to document his quest in the zunescene forums.

01 August 2007

Quoted on local bands MySpace

Local indie band The Brobecks posted a blog on their MySpace a while back with quotes from press articles about them. A quote from an article I wrote for The College Times back in November of 2006 was the first listed. To check it out, if you haven't uncovered the link already, click the picture at the right.

Also, click the "NetXNews" link on the Brobecks blog to read the full story and explore some of my past writing for The College Times in the news archive.

17 July 2007

Published in the local news

I can't believe I didn't even post about this here until now. I was recently published in a local, Provo newspaper, the Daily Herald. I'm an intern at the newspaper for the opinions section, and generally my duties are confined to taking care of reading, importing, copy editing and otherwise polishing the letters to the editor received at the Herald. It's my decision to decide which ones are most newsworthy, but the final decision on when each letter gets printed resides with the editorial board.
But enough of that. Click or copy and paste the link below and read my opinion piece on recent events in the world of digital music:


http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/228140/

In other news...

According to an article on MTV news online, among a list of 100 new additions to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary is the word "crunk." I had no idea the guys at Merriam-Webster were so into southern rap and Lil' Jon.
Officially, crunk will be defined as "a style of Southern rap music featuring repetitive chants and rapid dance rhythms."
Included in the list with "crunk" will be "ginormous" and "speed dating" among many other new words. "Bling bling" was last year's hip-hop addition to the English lexicon.
In MTV's article, an associate editor for Merriam-Webster, Peter Sokolowski said, "We try to include words that aren't just trends. We're looking for words that will be referred to in the future and people won't need any explanation to know what it means. If the editor of a newspaper can publish a word and he or she expects readers to know what it means, we'll include it."
What's on Merriam-Webster and Oxford's list for next year's hip-hop additions to the language, "fergalicious?"