Modern Journalism

Absolutely my favourite place to hang out on line is the ADVrider website.  While it is ostensibly about motorcycle adventure riding, the inmates are some of the most intelligent, funniest, cynical and downright my kind of person people I could ever imagine.

One of the best is about the guy who piloted an XR71 Blackbird spy plane over Libya at 3500mph, photographing missile installations while the Libyans tried to  shoot him down with SAMs. There are not many websites where you get the kind of seat of the pants experiences. Some of the adventure experiences people have in out of the way places are just astonishing.

XR 71 -  http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=332399

Try this for example, if you want to see the calibre of the reports (I warn you, most people find this website astonishingly addictive.) Have a look half way through the thread when he’s in Africa – I love the genuine person-to-person interaction with the various peoples and cultures and what they learn about the people.

Riding through Africa – this guy and his wife are amazing photographers -  http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=710660http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=710660

The following is a thread from one of the inmates "snoid". I sat there nodding my head and sighing in total agreement.

It’s official: I am old and I am a curmudgeon. The modern generation is no good (actually I don’t believe that, I believe they are a product of the environment and will do well. The days of smoking,’ cussin,’ drinkin,’ and other such dodgy newsroom behaviour was for our time alone, when it was almost compulsory to behave that way.)

But I’m sure you will appreciate the sentiments of the following words, shamelessly “dot-commed” from the thead. 

Here it is under the heading of “Interns” 

well, the summer interns are here and it's a good crop.

most of the girls are pretty, one could be a model (tall, blonde, germanic), and they're all from really good schools. the 3 or 4 that sit next to me are seemingly bright and charming and well on their way to good careers in journalism from what i can overhear. one's going to miami, another off to new york, so on... there's just one problem. they're the landed gentry, the whitebread elite... there's no fire in their belly, no spark in their eyes. they're all little iphone-toting, stepford kids.

AND THEY LISTEN TO DAVE MATTHEWS.

shoot me now. i'm gonna point the sidecar south and become a druglord and poison this homogenized country from the outside with meth and cocaine and weed so strong it makes ya blind.

from the newsroom,

snoid

the newsroom used to be a debauched and smoky place, full of flying cuss words and rushing from deadline to last call at the local dive bar.

now it's tampon city. blow it up. change is not good. blow it the fuck up.

it's about being free, making real bad decisions and drinking so much rum you piss yourself. when i was their age, i was fighting, fucking and dropping acid.

i'm not quite ready for the end of the corner diner, the neighborhood pub, the drive-in movie... i want to see weirdness from just one of them. i need some kind of sign that one of these lifeless fucks has a soul. the place is already lousy with 'normal' folks. please interns, just a loud cuss word, a pleurisied cough, a petechial eye. tell me about last night and how close you came to going to jail for a decade. please