Not surprisingly, this year was the most competitive for high school seniors graduating into Universities across America and the globe. Topping the list for the worst acceptance rate was Columbia University:

Applications to Columbia numbered 18,081, and the college accepted 1,618 of them, for what was certainly one of the lowest acceptance rates this spring at an American university: 8.9 percent.

The New York Times has the fully story here, but if you step into a high school anywhere the senior situation is grim. Many of my fellow classmates (valedictorians, student government presidents, yearbook editors) were outright rejected from many schools even though they had perfect grades, (perfect SAT scores) and a plethora of other accomplishments.

However, I was able to win the “game” as they call it – I will be choosing from my top three choices of Barnard College at Columbia University, Cornell University, and the Gallatin School at NYU. I am excited to visit all three and am extremely thankful for receiving acceptances at each. Good luck to all of those still waiting, and best wishes to those deciding on which college to choose! College weekends… here I come!

Your favorite trash celebrity, Kevin Federline has done it all. From text-messaging plans, to tacos… he’s got your gimmicky marketing covered. Who would have thought that this wash up would make it? In fact… he’s looking to be the better parent after Britney’s no-panties tour ending at Promises.

The wit-filled celebrity gossips at Best Week Ever said:

Search With Kevin Marketing Campaign allowing you to search for things on the Internet as you would using Google, but with K-Fed’s stupid face staring at you while doing so. Pretty awesome, right. We still think Gizoogle is a much better “white people who talk black” searching solution, but we’ll admit that it’s pretty funny when you do a “Kevin Federline, Douchebag” search (sadly, BWE.tv doesn’t show up on the first page of results).

Via Gizmodo!

I stumbled upon this awesome online project today called “BookCrossing.” The site is home to a large community project which organizes a sort of an extremely public library service. The site has more than three million books registered with a very strong and active community behind it.

The entire process runs like this:

The “3 Rs” of BookCrossing…

1. Read a good book (you already know how to do that)
2. Register it here (along with your journal comments), get a unique BCID (BookCrossing ID number), and label the book
3. Release it for someone else to read (give it to a friend, leave it on a park bench, donate it to charity, “forget” it in a coffee shop, etc.), and get notified by email each time someone comes here and records a journal entry for that book. And if you make Release Notes on the book, others can Go Hunting for it and try to find it!

The FAQ states that the idea for BookCrossing came from those funny online dollar bill tracking websites that you see on your money but never use. (However there are some awesome tracking sites out there like PhotoTag who releases disposable cameras and then instructs photographers to upload the photos online.) This seems like a great project for a free day (wish I had more of those!) so I’ll definitely check it out.

All but one of the photos featured on Neatorama’s “13 Photographs That Changed the World” are from the past century. All of them are extremely powerful; some are extremely graphic (”Murder of a Vietcong by Saigon Police Chief” and “Hindenburg”) or very amusing (”Loch Ness Monster” a.k.a. “The Surgeon’s Photo” and “Einstein with his Tongue Out”).

I’m sure you’ll find each has it’s amazing aspects, but here are two of my favorites:

The Photograph That Made the Surreal Real
“Dalí Atomicus”
Philippe Halsman, 1948

Philippe Halsman is quite possibly the only photographer to have made a career out of taking portraits of people jumping. But he claimed the act of leaping revealed his subjects’ true selves, and looking at his most famous jump, “Dalí Atomicus,” it’s pretty hard to disagree.

The photograph is Halsman’s homage both to the new atomic age (prompted by physicist’ then-recent announcement that all matter hangs in a constant state of suspension) and to Dalí’s surrealist masterpiece “Leda Atomica” (seen on the right, behind the cats, and unfinished at the time). It took six hours, 28 jumps, and a roomful of assistants throwing angry cats and buckets of water into the air to get the perfect exposure.

But before settling on the “Atomicus” we know today, Halsman rejected a number of other concepts for the shot. One was the idea of throwing milk instead of water, but that was abandoned for fear that viewers, fresh from the privations of World War II, would condemn it as a waste of milk. Another involved exploding a cat in order to capture it “in suspension,” though that arguably would have been a waste of cats.

Halsman’s methods were as unique as they were effective. His celebrity “jump” portraits appeared on at least seven Life magazine covers and helped usher in a new – and radically more adventurous – era of portrait photography.

The Photograph That Isn’t as Romantic as You Might Think
“V-J Day, Times Square, 1945″, a.k.a. “The Kiss”
Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1945

On August 14, 1945, the news of Japan’s surrender was announced in the United States, signaling the end of World War II. Riotous celebrations erupted in the streets, but perhaps none were more relieved than those in uniform. Although many of them had recently returned from victory in
Europe, they faced the prospect of having to ship out yet again, this time to the bloody Pacific.

Among the overjoyed masses gathered in Times Square that day was one of the most talented photojournalists of the 20th century, a German immigrant named Alfred Eisenstaedt. While snapping pictures of the celebration, he spotted a sailor “running along the street grabbing any and every girl in sight.” He later explained that, “whether she was a grandmother, stout, thin, old, didn’t make any difference.”

Of course, a photo of the sailor planting a wet one on a senior citizen wouldn’t have made the cover of Life, but when he locked lips with an attractive nurse, the image was circulated in newspapers across the country. Needless to say, “V-J Day” didn’t capture a highly anticipated embrace by long-lost lovers, but it also wasn’t staged, as many critics have claimed. In any case, the image remains an enduring symbol of America’s exuberance at the end of a long struggle.