News of the week

Live from the University of Illinois- here are my discoveries from the week! I got to U of I yesterday evening and had dinner with some of Meredith's friends, and am off to have lunch with various GBN people throughout the day.

Naturally, I had to catch up on Google Reader, where I found these shocking articles of the week:

Wild Brad Chase: Tweets spark campuswide search for Brad Pitt-

Disclaimer: THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Read this article to get the full story, but it started with Shaina and I sitting on the deck at the back of my sorority house. We both saw some Tweets that said BRAD PITT IS HERE?! Within 10 minutes of those, three groups of girls left "Greektown" and when I asked where they were going, they said they were looking for Brad Pitt. And they weren't kidding.

Even J-School Buzz (a forum type site for journalism majors) investigated such, and tweeted that Brad Pitt was in between the Student Center and Greektown. After this, I had to go see what was going on, so Shaina and I walked to the student center to go to the Maneater (newspaper) office. Not much to my surprise, journalism students were guarding every door of the student center. Girls were running all over campus to find him, literally, pacing down the street.

This was by far the worst, with a huge crowd of students thinking Brad Pitt had just driven by in a white Sedan. What were they going to do if it actually was Brad Pitt? I don't know....tweet about it more? A variety of rumors were spread...one that he was here with Oprah, one that he was making a donation to his fraternity house for their philanthropy, and my favorite, that he was being 'interviewed' to be the Grand Marshall for the centennial Homecoming (even though he never graduated Mizzou).

This experience definitely taught Mizzou, once again, how quickly things spread over social media and how you need to find an accurate source for things. Just like earlier this year when a shooting two counties away and a man coming to the hospital signified from Twitter that four people had been shot in a university parking garage, we need to be careful what we Tweet, post as statuses and insinuate, because a campus can easily go crazy.

Confession: A Roman Catholic App- This happened earlier last week, and I'm sure you've heard about it by now, but is an iPhone application with guidelines for confession. Although it's not supposed to replace confession, I think some people will take that the wrong way. And what I dislike most about it...you have to PAY for these confession guidelines. Really Catholic church?

Highland Park man charged with Taliban weapons deal- People never think things like this happen in the Chicago suburbs. But they do.

Connections can make a difference when times get tough- Another reminder about how we constantly need to be networking, or our lives will fail and we won't have jobs.

Giordanos Files for Bankruptcy- Although this is mostly for real estate since Giordanos owes 45.7 million to the bank, this is still disappointing news. Restaurants will be staying open, but I'm in awe.

I hope you enjoyed my commentary for the day and enjoy the lovely weather this weekend!