Feb. 13: What's Jen Clicking on Between Casts?

I won't lie to you; I spend a lot of time on Facebook.  I especially like to surf through my friends' status updates, just for a taste of what's going on all around me.  

One of our morning photographers is listening to a rooster crow in a shed behind a restaurant in Van Nuys.

A guy I went to high school with is getting room service but would rather be at home. 

A Children's PressLine reporter in New York is "a bit happier now that a lady on the train has been singing "I'm the World's Greatest" by R. Kelly."

That one cracked me up because when I first read it, I thought it said she had  STOPPED singing.  That's what makes me happy!  Unless it's a song I love, and the person is singing it really well, public singing is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

It reminds me of this video I just saw on YouTube ... from The Onion.  An ad for the world's first "depressant," called "Despondex," for overly happy people who annoy the rest of us.  What with all the bad news around us, financial and otherwise these days, why are those chirpy, singing, "ooh, someone has a case of the Mondays"-saying people so irritating?  Why is a fake news story about a drug that promises to reduce the incidence of costume or theme-oriented parties in the U.S. by 40% in the top 10 favorites on YouTube?

My Children's PressLine friend Myles had updated earlier that he couldn't believe there'd been a plane crash, and I know he was following the story near Buffalo on his blackberry as he commuted into Manhattan for school this morning.  So hearing someone singing a song he liked cheered him up.

I guess my experience is more of my co-anchor, who willingly accepts his moniker "the human jukebox," singing Popeye's Chicken commercial jingles!

I know why that's annoying.  Because then I'm singing Popeye's Chicken commercial jingles.  In my head.  All day.  It's contagious, like a disease!

But what about those inexplicably perky people who tend to drive us away?  It seems counterintuitive, doesn't it?  One theory on Fluther.com is that they just can't be for real. 

One blogger writes, "There are some people who are just so bubbly happy that I have an instant dislike of them. I immediately assume that they haven’t gone through the hardships that most people have (even though I’ll admit this is totally baseless). Even medium happy people don’t bother me. It’s the really over the top kind that really get under my skin like fingernails on a chalkboard."

I wish I had the answer.  All I know is I laughed my head off watching that YouTube ad for Despondex, and ... that made me happy. 

See what else Jen is clicking on...

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