There are so many people on Twitter now that the micro-blogging site has become one of the places to go to find out what people around the world are talking about [Not for me, of course. I still refuse].

So Twitter analyzed more than 25 billion tweets and put together a list of the top 10 trends from 2010.

10. Paul the Octopus
Chances are if you don't follow soccer and didn't tune into the World Cup [I realize how high those chances are], you've never heard of this prophetic crustacean. Back in the summer, Paul the Octopus accurately predicted the outcomes to World Cup match-ups. He became so popular that there was even a song dedicated to him.

HP fans have been tweeting about their plans to see the latest installment... then they tweeted about what they thought of the movie... and let's face it, there are a lot of people out there who wish they were a part of the Hogwarts world. [I have yet to see this, btw]

Beiber fever swept the world this year, much to many of our chagrins. The pop sensation's many followers tweeted about who he was kissing... who he was hanging out with... his helmet of hair... and, oh yeah, his music. I was like baby, baby, baby OH. Like baby, baby, baby NO.

Google is slowly taking over the world.

6. Apple iPhone

There were good reviews and lots of bad reviews. So many bad reviews, in fact, that Apple gave lots of their users a case to protect some issue with the antennae. Oh well, you can't win 'em all. Better luck next time, Steve.

5. Vuvuzela

The vuvuzela became symbolic of the World Cup in South Africa. Once again, I realize that many of you will have no idea what this is. It's a horn, and this is what it sounds like:

How could anyone forget this devastation? International aid agencies used Twitter to reach out to people like you and me for donations, and for some victims of the quake the site was the only means of communication they had.

What can I say? Soccer fans apparently love to tweet.

1. Gulf Oil Spill
 The largest accidental marine oil spill in U.S. history. People turned to Twitter for news on what was going on, as well as to vent their frustrations with BP.

There were a few things that didn't make the list that surprised me, including the plight of the Chilean miners and Mel Gibson's mental breakdown.

Not to worry, I will not be joining Twitter anytime soon to add to the billions of trends that these statisticians keep up with.

 As told by Peanut.

I must warn you, this is highly inappropriate... which is what makes it all the more funny.

I love shopping for other people, regardless of what time of year it is. Whether it's for Christmas, a birthday or just because, I absolutely love picking out a gift that's just right. I get positively giddy over the prospect.

But there is one thing I have to confess...I hate wrapping. And I pretty much suck at it.

I always end up with tape stuck to everything but the package I'm wrapping. I can't cut my wrapping paper straight. Chances are I end up with a paper cut or I pinch my fingers between the handles of the scissors. And making those cool folded things on the ends? You can forget about that. Mine always come out looking like it was wrapped by someone without thumbs.

I'm also bad about giving away the surprise because I get so excited about what I bought. I've already almost told the boyfriend everything he's getting. And I'm super excited about his gifts.

I'm pretty much an impulse buyer when it comes down to it. I always end up spending more than I should because I see things that remind me of someone and I just have to have it!

 That's the fun of it to me, though. Finding something I know you'll use and enjoy.

Happy Holidays

I've always wanted to fly somewhere in a hot air balloon. Actually start in one place and end up in another, not just go straight up and right back down.

It's at the top of my list of things to do before I die.

I took this, by the way, last weekend while on the way to a 3-year-old's birthday party. The sun had just popped over the horizon when I spotted the balloon out the window.

It was like a promise of a great day.

Apparently today was "Yell at Ashton Day".

And no one told me.

So I was completely taken by surprise when it happened... multiple times... for things I had no control over.

Oh well. You can't always get what you want, right?

People and their power trips. Geez.

That was the lead sentence of my lead story at 10:00.

This story broke just after 2:00 p.m. when 56-year-old Clay Duke walked to the podium, pulled out a pistol, released all the women from the room and took the men hostage. He was angry that his wife, whose position with the school system hasn't been released, had been fired and the man who signed the termination papers was at the meeting.

Using a can of red spray paint, Duke drew a large V inside a circle on the wall, much like the symbol for anarchy, and then told the members of the board, "Somebody is going to die today."

One of our sister stations, as well as other stations, had a reporter at this meeting so the entire incident was caught on tape. Below is video of the incident shot by WMBB out of Panama City followed by a clip from CNN finishing out the scene. The second clip is very graphic so if you have a weak stomach, please don't watch it.

I hope you noticed the would-be heroine. While her bravery is to be commended, the fact that Duke didn't shoot her point-blank is amazing.

For those of you that chose not to watch the second video, here's what happened. Once Duke fired the initial shots at the board members a security guard rushed into the room and exchanged shots with him, after which Duke turned the gun on himself.

Fortunately none of the board members were injured.

A tragic story with a somewhat happy ending, but combine it with all the other crime news we had and the political mumbo-jumbo, the first part of my show was pretty depressing. So I decided to liven things up a bit at the end by running a story about YouTube's top 10 videos of 2010.

So here for your viewing pleasure is the #1 video of 2010, straight from Alabama.

It's official.

All the stairs in all the world are out to get me.

I slid down a set of three at work today.

Results: badly bruised shin, scraped knee and jammed/possibly broken finger.

You know what this means, don't you?

I will never in my life own a stairmaster.

Ain't that the truth?

I was looking for inspirational pictures when I came across this. Upon seeing it, I found myself nodding in agreement.

Who of us hasn't found ourselves wishing we could rewind time to spend more time with someone we love or have lost? Even if it's just to tell them goodbye.

Who of us hasn't wanted to fast forward through a difficult or trying situation? Wouldn't it be nice if "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" could be an instantaneous thing...

And who of us hasn't found ourselves in a moment so perfect that we wanted to pause time and savor every second?

But all we really need to do is press play and take things as they come. After all, how can we ever move forward if we're constantly rewinding time? And how can we create meaningful relationships or memories if we're constantly fast-forwarding through the rough spots? And how are we to have more perfect moments if we never leave the one we're in now?

One single experience does not define who we are. It's those rough spots that come to define our character. And it's the sum of those perfect moments that makes it all worthwhile.

As I've told you all before, we get a lot of viewer feedback, whether it's by phone, on our website or through email. The feedback varies from viewer to viewer.

We hear everything from "We love how you handled such and such"... to "[insert anchor name] was showing too much cleavage tonight"... to "Your coverage of so-and-so event was horrible."

We have habitual callers, like Paul from Enterprise, and people who only call when they hear the wind blow harder than normal.

In the past two days, I've been the lucky team member to answer the phone for angry and/or rude viewers.

First, I get the lady who can't tell the difference between a newscast and a commercial. She insisted that we did a story on a scholarship foundation and demanded that I give her contact information, when in fact what she saw was a commercial for said foundation. When I told her I couldn't give her any information and directed her to their website, she became affronted that I should even suggest that she maneuver the intricate workings of the world wide web. She became even more aghast when I told her that what she saw was indeed a commercial that we were paid to air and that we had no affiliation with the foundation.

Then I get an irate parent who apparently just wanted someone to yell at. A bomb threat was called in to an area school, at which point the students were taken outside until the threat was either confirmed or proven to be false. This parent was angry that her child had to wait outside for two hours in sub-freezing temperatures and that she was not personally notified of the situation. So she called us and proceeded to yell at me without taking a breath or allowing me to interject a single comment. I finally had to be firm and tell her that we had a reporter on the scene but they wouldn't let him in and she could see further details on our 5:00 show. Then I basically hung up on her, after telling her to have a nice day.

It's day 4 of new producer training, a.k.a. flying solo day.

On day 1, we were introducing a new format to the show. What that means is that I didn't really go into too much depth with the whole teaching process. In fact, other than talk my way through what I was doing, I didn't go into any depth at all. I was more concerned with getting all the kinks and wrinkles ironed out of the show, and honestly just watching the process on the first day can be pretty overwhelming for an hour-long show.

On day 2, I introduced her to the process in a more intimate way. I had her help me choose what stories would go into the rundown and the order they would run. She also helped me edit scripts and watched as I slowly edited videos. Then when it came time for the show, she checked the tape list and ran the server.

On day 3, she chose the stories for the show and I helped her rearrange them. Then she edited all of the scripts. Then I talked her through editing the video. And once again, she was in control backstage.

Today, day 4, is essentially me clipping her dependency on me some more. She had to choose all of the stories and decide where they would run. After she did that, I checked to make sure she understood the concept. Then, she had to edit all of her scripts. Of course I was reading behind her though just in case. And right now, as I type, she's in the edit bay cutting her videos. Once she's done, I'll check them to make sure they're alright.

Tomorrow is the final day of training, a.k.a. 'you're on your own, kid' day. She's going to completely produce the show by herself, and I'll only check things when she's done.

Then on Monday morning, she's completely on her own and I'm back to the evening shift.

When I decided to take a blog vacation last week, it didn't cross my mind that I would be training a new producer this week. So the time I usually devote to writing in the morning has been reassigned because, long story short, I'm a perfectionist. I want to make sure the new producer is all set for when I go back to days next week. So I've been making step-by-step lists for every process that goes along with the show, and that's no easy task because there's so much that goes into the morning show. It is an hour long, after all.

But the format change that went into effect this week is working out well. It's nice to see something you planned coming to fruition, especially something as huge as a show.

So what should you be taking away from this post?

I'll have the new girl producing on her own by the end of the week, which means I'll no longer be a vampire next week!

I'm taking this week off. I have extra stuff going on at work, the week started off pretty somber with a funeral, Thursday is Thanksgiving and Friday I'll be slammed with live shots.

I will try to keep up with all you guys' stuff though.

Very few people have the good fortune of knowing one of life's great people. I'd like to consider myself one of the lucky few who have had that pleasure not once, but twice. In both instances, those great people were taken away too soon. And I didn't get to say goodbye. Selfish of me, I know.

The first was my teacher, my mentor, and my friend. Prof was truly one of the greatest men I think I will ever know. He passed away during my senior year of college. 4 years doesn't seem like enough time, but in that short time he taught me so much. He encouraged me, criticized me and made me better at what I do.

When he passed, I wrote this:

Prof, I hope you knew how many lives you touched during yours and how much inspiration and encouragement you spread to others. You were truly one of the greatest people to have graced my life with their presence, and for that I thank you. Thank you for believing in me, encouraging me, and just being there when things weren’t going my way. You will always be an inspiration.

Fridays on the vampire shift are always tough, even if they are the gateway to the weekend.

You get home from working all night and all you want to do is crawl in bed and sleep the day away, but you know you can't do that if you want to have a normal weekend, i.e. one where you actually see the light of day.

So you try to stay awake all day, maybe with the exception of a one-to-two hour nap thrown in the mix somewhere, running the risk of being a complete and total jerk by the time a normal person's bedtime rolls around. [that last part could just be me]

So what should be an early start to the weekend turns into a race against time as your body shuts down more and more as the day progresses.

Eating helps. So does caffeine. But not sugar, surprisingly. I think it's the crash factor - it intensifies with sleep deprivation or something. Who knows? [it's a good thing I don't eat a lot of sweets]

Sometimes a nap is beneficial, but you've got to get it in there pretty early in the day. Otherwise it's just a tease and your body will rebel against you. For example, last Friday both me and the boyfriend tried to stay awake all day after working all night. We both fell asleep while watching TV at his place that afternoon and woke up about three hours later only because the phone rang. After that, neither of us had any motivation to do anything else. I just laid on the couch in a semi-vegetative state until about 8:00 p.m. when I drug my butt to bed and passed out for good.

Luckily for me today, I have a meeting later this morning to discuss the upcoming morning show reformat. So I'm going to go home, take a shower and nap until I have to be back here. And then I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that my little power nap will get me through the rest of the day so I can have a semi-normal weekend.

Wish me luck!

Do you believe in love at first sight?

Or do you scoff at it?

Used to I'd tell you that it takes more than a look to know if you're compatible with someone, but what if I was wrong?

What if one look, one moment was all it took to fall in love with someone? That moment when your eyes first meet and for just a second you feel as if you can see into his soul?

Sounds far-fetched doesn't it? But it's not.

Science has proven that it takes only a fifth of a second, a moment, for the brain to react after setting eyes on the right person.

When you're falling in love, a dozen parts of your brain release chemicals like dopamine.

So when you meet someone and things just feel right, maybe they are.

What if that moment when you lock eyes and the world stands still isn't just a saying anymore? What if it turns out to be true?

Occasionally we get viewer feedback regarding the inappropriateness of some of our shows' content.

[OK, so it's more like we get a lot of viewer feedback on that subject.]

Older ladies will comment on the slutty suggestive clothes our female anchors wear. And this will happen on days they wear button-up shirts buttoned up to the collar or turtlenecks. Once a lady complained that the morning anchor showed too much leg. [this could have been on a day she had on pants for all I know] Men don't usually complain about stuff like that...

Getting back to the subject at hand: provocative news. To read our viewer feedback, you'd think that's all we cover sometimes. It's too violent, too suggestive, and the list goes on and on.

Remember when all the gay marriage stuff was happening out in California? Of course, we had to include it in our national coverage, and of course we got hate mail because of it. Stuff like, I don't want my kids exposed to issues like these. Newsflash buddy: your kids are being exposed to this in way more places than the news.

We get told that we should censor our coverage of certain things. In this area, anything with sexual leanings is especially targeted, and the earlier in the day it plays the more responses it will get.

In the words of my director, grow up. Get with the times, people. Things are changing, have already changed in a lot of instances. It's not always for the better, but a lot of it is here to stay, i.e. open homosexuality, violence on TV, and racier content. For a television station to stay competitive in today's market, they've got to embrace those risque topics. And let's face it, if they didn't no one would watch their station, including the small-minded people who constantly send in their complaints about the very coverage they can't get enough of.

That's what today feels like.

Life has gotten exponentially better within the past 24 hours. 

Thursday morning I didn't get home 'til about a quarter to noon from a meeting with the general manager, news director and executive producer. We were discussing the complete and total transformation of the morning show that's about to transpire in the next two weeks.

It seems like we just reworked the show, and we did. But that was just a little rearranging and doesn't compare to what we're in the process of doing. It's all very exciting.

We basically took the show and blew it up and gathered all the parts into a pile. It looked like what you have when you start a new jigsaw puzzle.

Then we had this three-sheet long timeline broken down into blocks. Currently we have six blocks every hour. When we're done, we'll have nine. That's two more breaks per hour. The current 20-minute long first block will become two blocks.

In essence, we were starting from scratch with the show. Maybe I'm a nerd, but I loved figuring out the layout of the entire show, establishing flow from block to block. It was a throwback to when I would layout the paper in high school or when I established the ladder for the yearbook in college.

My thought process on the whole thing is probably very different from most people in broadcast given my prior history with print. When I'm stacking my show, or in this case creating a show, I envision the transitions as the turning of pages. My goal is to get the viewer to keep turning the pages.

This whole process is just the first step in a much larger goal for the show. Right now, the show is two hours long with the first hour repeating for the second. The goal is for the second hour to eventually become its own show, meaning that hopefully a second producer will be hired for the morning show specifically to produce the second hour.

Finally the higher-ups are standing behind the advancement of the morning show.

And now for the icing on the cake.

Christmas and New Years schedules have been made and displayed on the newsroom door. I checked mine when I got to work Thursday night to make sure of what days my holidays would fall on, and guess what I saw.

Do you know what that means? I will be off the vampire shift by at least the week before Christmas!

I danced around the hallway in celebration.

Cameraman: (to director) You must be a veteran.

Director: What?

Cameraman: With all the talking you're doing, you must be a veteran.

Director: Aw, man. Don't be hatin' this mornin'.

I had an interesting conversation with some of my coworkers the other day regarding the process our station is going through to hire new people. We were talking about how college grads nowadays don't aggressively pursue careers.

I remember when I first started applying for a real job. I hadn't graduated from college yet. In fact, I still had about three months of classes left.

I started perusing a myriad of "help wanted" websites, sending my clips and resume as far north as Ohio and as far west as San Diego. I got in touch with every contact I had in the print business trying to sniff out leads on open positions and quite frankly, just to get my name out there.

If I saw anything that interested me, I threw my hat in the ring. It didn't matter if I didn't have the minimum years of experience they specified. It didn't matter if it didn't fit inside the parameters of my degree. If it caught my fancy, I applied. And that went against everything I'd ever been told.

Your best bet is to apply for entry-level positions. You need at least three years experience to deserve a second look from most employers. Stick to your field; the odds are better.

Excuse my French, but quite frankly that advice is bullshit.

I landed a handful of interviews, a couple of which I definitely did not meet the experience requirements for. But here's the thing, guys. I was a fresh-out-of-college, talented journalist who was actively pursuing what I wanted to do.

Experience is great, but it isn't everything. Think about it: just because someone has worked somewhere longer doesn't necessarily mean they do a good job. It also doesn't mean that a so-called newbie can't come in and blow the experienced worker out of the water.

Take me, for instance. When I got hired at the t.v. station I work for now, I had absolutely no experience in the world of broadcast whatsoever. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not.

I went to school for print, you know newspapers and magazines. I'd always thought I'd end up working for a prestigious magazine one day [and that dream still hasn't been ruled out]. I hadn't even considered broadcast as an option that was open to me, mainly due to the fact that I had no experience to even get my foot in the door.

So when my news director called and asked me to come in for an interview, I was astounded. My thoughts were something along the lines of, 'what can a print journalist do at a t.v. station?' But I wanted a job [and was curious], so I went to the interview and put my best stuff on the table. And I'll be danged if I didn't get the job.

So if you're out there looking for a job right now, here's my advice. Apply for EVERYTHING and anything that you think you'd like to do. Don't limit your options because you don't think you're experienced enough.

What's the worse that can happen? They could tell you no, that's true. They could put your information in a file that they come back to at a later date when there's an open position. Or they could see your potential to be a great asset to their company and hire you then.

The whole point is that to get anywhere in life you've got to put yourself out there. Go out on a limb every now and then. Sometimes taking a little risk pays off in the end. Just look at me!