Tweets from LeavittDC

• I just got to the part of Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" that mentions Twitter. Tweeting, it says, can help the human mind change the world.

Tweets from LeavittDC

• TV ratings this year are up 2 percent. ABC credits DVRs for keeping viewership high. ow.ly/xp0Q

Tweets from LeavittDC

• 72 percent of rich Americans (average income of $415,000) belong to social network sites. ow.ly/x8Uc
• Only three players in NFL history have said they are gay. All made the announcement after retiring. Jason Maloni has more: ow.ly/x6MX
• How many people does it take a TV network to cover a World Series? Fox will have 150 workers at Yankee Stadium tonight. ow.ly/xbuI
• Fox's baseball ratings so far have been 12% higher for game action after 11 p.m. Eastern than before that time. ow.ly/xbHx

Tweets from LeavittDC

Welcome to a new daily¹ feature: my tweets.

• 13:04 Help @grameenfdn (a client of mine) make a difference using microloans. Join me in giving $27 to fight poverty. ow.ly/wUeY #Give27
• 17:38 If the World Series goes six games, the Yankees & Phillies will have had 17 days off in the playoffs vs. 20 during the regular season.
• 18:02 Why take out a newspaper ad when you can buy the same size audience online for a third the price? ow.ly/wWI9 #marketing #advertising
• 18:05 Following up on my question from a minute ago: The Internet is the only advertising medium expected to grow this year in the U.S. #marketing
18:20 Wow. $5,000 sounds high to me. RT @jasonjwilde: What's it cost to throw an NFL game ball into the stands? tinyurl.com/yf7q937
• 21:20 Cool look at the optical illusions of a curveball. j.mp/CurveIllusion #baseball (via @revkin)
• 07:43 Good point. I'm on board. RT @mbostrom: Haven't we reached the point where digital cameras can just be called cameras?
• 09:16 Thank you to @erdanton for punching up my one-line Twitter bio. "Bite-sized portions of triviality. Hundreds served." Thoughts?
  

¹Until I change my mind.

Peace out

Filed under Linguistics.

For years, people have said "Hey, what's up?" to mean hello (rather than actually find out what is up) and "Peace out" to mean goodbye.

But I find it interesting the way people in my office use "peace out" as a verb.

"I'm going to peace out."
"Did he peace out already? Wow. That's pretty early to peace out."

ADDENDUM: I just heard this term used in the past tense: "She peace outed about an hour ago." It really should be peaced out, but I'll let that go.

First commercial flight on natural gas

On Monday, a Qatar Airways flight from London to Doha became the world's first commercial flight running on natural gas.

Actually, according to reporter Adam Schreck, the flight ran on a half-and-half mixture of regular jet fuel and natural gas. But still.

Reading this story reminded all over again that I never know how to pronounce the word "Qatar." According to the WJLA weather promos, it sounds like this. Then again, Adam points out that the voice-over sounds more like a British person reading a sponsorship than a Qatari pronouncing the country's name correctly.

One of these days, I'll settle this debate once and for all.

Good time, great taste

DES PLAINES, Ill. — No trip to Des Plaines would be complete without a stop at Ray Kroc's first McDonald's store, which opened in 1955. These days, this outpost is only a museum, complete with mannequins dressed up as servers with aprons and paper hats. For people who arrive with a craving for food, not history, there is an actual McDonald's in operation right across the street.

Earlier this year, I visited the first Burger King. (Sort of.) Wendy's, you're next!

We're No. 1

Tonight's Packers/Vikings game could become the most-watched program in the history of cable television.

Cable's all-time top five list includes three NFL games; a Larry King Live episode featuring Al Gore and Ross Perot; and High School Musical 2.

Touchdown, Jesus

NOTRE DAME, Ind. — It turns out that the University of Notre Dame campus is located not in South Bend but in an eponymous community with its own zip code and everything. As long as we're carving out convenient boundaries, can we make it possible to drive from Chicago to Notre Dame without a time-zone change?

I mean, look at the time-zone map. Would it kill them to extend Central Time to one more county?

Uh, so anyway, the video documents my weekend trip to Notre Dame. It was cold. It was rainy. And it was awesome — totally worth the schlep.

The holy land

Flickr photo by lobstar28.

SOUTH HOLLAND, Ill. — Some people might wonder as they drive by this town why the water tower proclaims the municipality to be a "community of churches." (It's hard to tell from this photo, but trust me: that's what it says.)

That's been the South Holland slogan since 1976. And they take this church stuff pretty seriously. Businesses can't sell alcohol. Cable operators can't offer adult programming or on-demand channels.

As for the slogan, an Internet search reveals that there are 31 churches in South Holland. People, let's be more specific on our water towers from now on. A community of 31 churches. Got it?