Slushpile Links: Moms, Mindsets and More

Hi folks -- here are a few bloggy items that may be of interest from my blog topic slushpile:

* Don't Mess With Mom: What happens when a mother of six kids discovers that the sneaky brats slipped a bunch of Pokemon cards into her shopping cart when she wasn't looking? She puts them on eBay (the cards, not the kids), laying out the full story in the description, which is funny and well-written and gets picked up and passed around (as these things often do).

The auction is over -- she got $142.51 out of it, which I think is a considerable premium over their fair market value. That's the power of good writing. Also marketing, I guess. Oh, and she probably earned some of her writing chops on her mom-blog: Because I Said So. [link via Fark]

* It's Mindset Time: Yet again, it's time for the Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2011, another depressing/uplifting reminder of how much the world has changed, because it shows what incoming college freshmen take for granted as having "always been that way." A few highlights:

 4. They never "rolled down" a car window.
15. Russia has always had a multi-party political system.
27. Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
36. American rock groups have always appeared in Moscow.
45. They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.
61. They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.

Also of note is #44, "Thanks to MySpace and Facebook, autobiography can happen in real time," which is a nice way to characterize social profiles and blogging. [I saw the link on USA Today yesterday, but they don't get a link since they didn't bother to link to the actual Beloit College page.]

* Busted for Blogging (Cartoon Style): Lemont, lead character of the Candorville comic, who is planning on getting married (against his better judgment) finds out that his father-in-law-to-be reads his blog.

* Domain Names for Babies: This has been touched on a few times, but the AP has another story about how parents are scooping up domain names for their precious offspring. (Previous articles have said that some parents are even choosing names based on domain name availability.)

I think this is a stupid idea -- even assuming the current domain name system is going to be the same in ten years or whatever, I think it's safe to assume that any self-respecting child is going to want to come up with their own domain name.

So yeah, they're vanity domains -- for the parents' vanity.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: slushpile, vanity domains, mindset list