Let me be clear— I really like unusual and creative ideas. Especially in music. Some of these work. Others don’t. But they’re all fun and show how awesome collaborations can be.

1) “Over and Over”— Nelly ft. Tim McGraw: Probably the best known song on my list, this song was unquestionably the most successful. This song hit number 3 in 2005.

2) “Dirt Road Anthem (Remix)”— Jason Aldean ft. Ludacris: Reversing it up from the first song on this list, we look at a country song with a rap verse sprinkled in. Atlanta rapper Ludacris made this remix of Jason Aldean’s number one country hit unforgettable.

3) “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”— Aretha Franklin ft. Keith Richards: Bet you didn’t know the Queen of Soul decided to take on one of the Rolling Stones’ classic tracks. She did, and Keith even helped her do it.

4) “Street Rock”— Kurtis Blow ft. Bob Dylan: Music legend Bob Dylan raps. Need I say more?

5) “The Gambler”— Kenny Rogers ft. Wyclef Jean: Take one of the classic songs of rock and roll, then add some Haitian hip-hop. Sounds pretty awesome, right?

6)”Gone Going”— Black Eyed Peas ft. Jack Johnson: Hip-hop’s bad boys (and Fergie) decide to lay down some beats with Hawaii’s soulful wonder boy.

7) “Party for Two” — Shania Twain ft. Mark McGrath: I don’t know, something about “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” singer Twain with the guy who sings “Every Morning” from Sugar Ray is weird. Am I crazy?

8) “California Gurls”— Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg: I’m sorry, I know this song was huge, but really Snoop? Can you say sellout? He might have actually traded in all of his street cred to make it. Then there’s the behind-the-scenes video, which is just awkward and weird.

9) “Can’t Stop Partying”— Weezer ft. Lil Wayne: Um, yeah, no words for this really. Except Wayne is sick on this verse.

10) “Revolver” — Madonna ft. Lil Wayne: Yeah, Lil Wayne on any pop song seems to make the potential for weird increase. Singing with the 1980s original pop princess is just weird (but again, I think it works). He also dropped some sick rhymes for JLo.

Rumors have merged that Rainn Wilson, who stars as Dwight Schrute in The Office, could be getting his own show that would debut in spring 2013. The show would take place at Schrute Farms, the beet farm and B&B that Dwight runs on the show.

Wilson has been working with executive producer Paul Lieberstein (Toby from the show) about turning the spinoff idea into a reality.

“Paul and Rainn have been joking for years about Dwight’s life on the farm, his family and how ill-suited he is to run a B&B,” a source told Deadline. “A while ago, it started to feel like a show to them. NBC agreed, it’s been further developed to include multiple generations, many cousins and neighbors. At its base it will be about a family farm struggling to survive and a family trying to stay together.”

Does this spell the end for the beloved show? Hard to imagine The Office without Michael Scott or Dwight Schrute.

Photo: Screenshot

How does any parent let this happen? 17-year-old Stacey Irvine collapsed last week after struggling to breathe and was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. Doctors found her body lacked nearly all essential vitamins and minerals before injecting her with high doses of various nutrients.

The young girl says she has never tasted fresh fruits or vegetables, and has been hooked on chicken nuggets since her mother let her try one at the age of 2. The UK teenager says she will occasionally vary her diet— with a slice of toast or a bag of potato chips.

In addition to serious vitamin deficiencies, doctors diagnosed Irvine with anaemia and swollen veins in her tongue. “McDonald’s chicken nuggets are my favourite,” she told several UK tabloids. “I share 20 with my boyfriend with chips. But I also like KFC and supermarket brands. My main meal is always chicken nuggets every day.”

Her mother said she once tried starving Stacey in an effort to get her to eat healthy food, but the technique didn’t work.

Probably not the press McDonald’s wants. The fast food giant had a disastrous social media campaign earlier this week.

It started out innocently enough. A small plane pilot was fooling around with a $75 camera he recently bought. When he got home, he checked out his pictures and noticed something really odd. A small Texas river that seemed to be dark red.

The pilot notified the county who launched an investigation. The Department of Health and Human Services took their own pictures and confirmed that Cedar Creek (which filters into the Trinity River) was indeed red.

They linked the pollution to The Columbia Packing Company in Oak Cliff, Texas and obtained a search warrant. After checking the plant thorougly, investigators discovered a secondary pipe that tested positive for pig’s blood. That’s right, the slaughterhouse has been secretly disposing of pig’s blood into a creek that filtered into a community river.

A city councilman was asked to leave when he attempted to visit the plant and environmental groups have decried the incident. As of right now, the plant remains open.

Gross, just gross. You can see the red river in the bottom left corner of the above picture.

Photo: sUAS News

In what has to be one of the oddest flavor profiles for beer ever made, Tom and Athena Seefurth invented “Pizza Beer” on Labor Day 2006. The couple had a surplus of tomatoes, garlic and a dream to create a beer that would pair well with many different types of food.

After surfing around the Internet, they found a recipe they liked and began brewing. They added basil and oregano to impart some pizza spice flavor. Here they describe the brewing process on their website:

The Margarita pizza is put into the mash & steeped like a tea bag. A whole wheat crust made with water, flour & yeast is topped with tomato, oregano, basil & garlic. The essence of the pizza spices is washed off with hot water and filtered into a brewpot, where it is boiled for a long, long time. During the process, we add hops & spices in a cheesecloth type bag & filter the cooled liquid into a fermentation vessel. (big glass 6 gallon water jug).

You can buy the finished product online at Malloy’s Finest Wine & Spirits.

A disturbing trend has emerged recently. Lots of young people hear about some new article, read it, and live-tweet their reactions to it. The practice drives me nuts, but I think it brings up some broader points about how society uses Twitter.

This latest habit (I hesitate to use the overused word “trend”) has emerged over the last year. I’ve noticed it acutely with three articles in particular. “Getting Bin Laden” by Nicholas Schmidle (New Yorker), “The Shame of College Sports” by Taylor Branch (The Atlantic), and “The Obama Memos” by Ryan Lizza (New Yorker). In each case, I saw groups of people (including, but not limited to, journalists) live-tweet their observations and favorite quotes from each piece.

Live-tweeting simply isn’t effective while reading. Each of these three articles is lengthy, complex and delivers an involved argument. Picking out one quote or observation in the middle of it nearly always misses the broader argument of the piece. I want to hear what other people think of these pieces, but the most valuable service journalists offer is analysis and careful consideration of the arguments. That simply isn’t possible on Twitter, in 140 characters, while trying to read something.

In 99 cases out of 100, the Twitter user would benefit from taking a step back and writing a blog post when they finished reading the story.

Now, this is not to suggest that live-tweeting itself is bad. To the contrary, I think it’s wonderful when used properly. At press conferences or when following breaking news, for example. In those cases, live-tweeting is the fastest, most effective way of getting news and instantaneous reactions (which are most often accurate).

This brings up several larger arguments about Twitter. In my mind, the service does three things really well: 1) It allows users to rapidly scan various services for information, 2) It allows users to share links to other content their followers might be interested in and 3) It allows information to spread much more quickly than any other existing technology. Beyond that, it breaks down.

Observations shared on Twitter are rarely insightful and, at best, simplistic. After all, who can fully share their thoughts in 140 characters? Even the best writer has to condense and oversimplify their arguments to fit within that space constraint. So, I see Twitter as an ideal location for information sharing and a horrendous spot for sharing opinions and observations.

So stop live-tweeting as you read other literature. Write a blog post when you’ve finished and had time to digest it. Tweet me a link. I’ll gladly read it then.

Photo: Adikos

Back in 1989, Gloria Estefan was pretty much on top of the world. She had a new lead single, “Get on Your Feet,” which would become the name of her forthcoming world tour (that tour was cut short by a near-fatal bus crash). The song rose to number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Since then, the song has been used sparingly, but extremely effectively, in pop culture. My vote for most awkward use has to come from Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, who went nuts to the song during his introduction at an internal employee-only pep rally back in 2001. This is the type of dance I do in my room when no one is watching.

So that would be the pick for most awkward, but then Parks & Recreation used the song in this amazing bit. This is so awkward, but hilarious.

There should be a quite a lot of soul-searching in the journalistic establishment after an epically disastrous Saturday evening on the Interwebs. Enterprising journalists from around the world rapidly spread two completely false stories by Twitter. The incidents should give everyone pause and offer the opportunity to reconsider social media policies when reporting breaking news.

First, the two stories.

1. Jeb Bush’s Reported Endorsement: Shortly after the South Carolina primary was called for Newt Gingrich, CNN’s John King appeared to land a big scoop. He announced that former Florida Governor (and brother of ex-President George W. Bush)  Jeb Bush would endorse Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination. Problem was Bush didn’t have any intention of endorsing anyone (he later issued a statement to confirm that).  Jim Roberts of the New York Times probably spread the news quickest with this tweet, but other people picked up on it quickly. Pundits jumped on the announcement and began analyzing its impact on the race before Bush denied the rumor in his statement.

2. Joe Paterno Died: Perhaps more disturbingly, Twitter exploded with news that Penn State’s legendary coach Joe Paterno passed away last evening (since then Paterno has of course sadly passed on). Journos around the world tweeted and retweeted the news. Unfortunately, the reports were traced back to one student publication, Onward State, who tweeted that Paterno died around 8:45 p.m. (their leader has since resigned over the flap). CBSSports.com picked up the story and published their own based (apparently) solely on the original report from Onward State. They later issued an apology, “CBSSports.com holds itself to high journalistic standards, and in this circumstance tonight, we fell well short of those expectations,” managing editor Mark Swanson wrote. Other major news organizations like Huffington Post and Buzzfeed also published stories that cited the CBSSports report as the source of their information. It’s worth noting that none of the major news organizations like the New York Times, Reuters, AP, Washington Post or ESPN confirmed the news on their websites.

So how should these incidents be viewed in the journalistic community? More than a condemnation of Twitter, I think instead they remind us of the importance of getting the story right and maintaining solid journalistic fundamentals. Social media sites have transformed how people obtain their news and how they share it (for example, I learned about the deaths of Steve Jobs, Gaddafi, Osama Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il by Twitter first). Once something breaks, it literally moves around the world in minutes. And that’s a good thing overall.

But, one of the first things journalists are taught is to verify your information and cite your sources. Particularly at the national level, when dealing with important, sensitive stories, those principles become even more important. Everyone is human and mistakes will be made, but there is no excuse for publishing a story about the death of a legendary sports figure with the uncorroborated reports of a student online publication as your sole source. CBS Sports fell down on their responsibility and other journalists must ensure they don’t fall into the same traps.

Breaking news and grabbing the scoop remains an important part of the business. Everyone wants to do it. That does not mean that standards should slip in order to accomplish the feat. Getting information correct has always been a vital part of the news business (it’s essential for maintaining credibility among the public), but it has taken on an even greater importance since the advent of social media.

The best line about grabbing the scoop comes from Walter Cronkite: “Get it first, but get it right.”

Photo credit: NLSven

Sorry I’ve been away from this for far too long, but my life has been full of lots of interesting advancements in recent days. I started a new job! I’m pleased to report that I’m now, well reporting, for a company called Bloomberg BNA. My official title is staff reporter in the environmental news division.

It’s a really exciting post. I’m super excited with my colleagues; everyone seems really kind and knowledgable. I should get some experience reporting on Capitol Hill and will wear a bunch of hats (I’ll probably be covering a wide variety of topics).

Our office is located in Crystal City, Virginia. I’m excited about the possibility of potentially biking into work. It sounds like that would be possible with very minimal road riding. The network of trails sounds extensive.

Happy to answer any questions about this new exciting chapter in my life! Oh, and I will begin blogging more frequently again. I do miss my updates.

North Korea’s enigmatic and bizarre “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong-Il has died of “physical fatigue” while riding a train, North Korean news agencies report. Kim was riding a train around 8:30 a.m. Saturday when he suffered a “severe myocardial infarction along with a heart attack.”

Kim ruled North Korea with an iron fist since his father and the nation’s founder, Kim Il-Sung, died in 1994. Though hampered by a stroke in 2008, Kim continued to rule the country.

State officials announced a period of mourning that will last until December 29. The Supreme Leader’s funeral will take place December 28.

North Korea suffered from crippling famine and nonexistent economic development. For reminders about the brutality and suffering under Kim Jong-Il look no further than:

• This photo gallery from Foreign Policy
• This photo gallery from The Atlantic
• This documentary on National Geographic
• Another rare report from inside North Korea
• Wolf Blitzer’s report from North Korea (with Bill Richardson)

Political control now passes to Kim Jong-Il’s son, Kim Jong-un. The New York Times profiled Kim Jong-Il’s third son earlier this fall. He apparently loves NBA basketball and attended school in Europe. Live coverage of Kim’s death here.

Here’s Kim in happier times. The United States and North Korea announced a major deal less than a day before Kim’s death was announced.