By Rachel Josue
This "25 Things" Facebook chain letter has jumped the shark, now that the mainstream media has started writing about it (Thanks, USA Today!). Sure, I posted mine in my abundant free time, but do you really care that I like fish, both sushi and goldfish crackers? No. However, we thought maybe you'd like to know 25 things about our daily life here at MTV News. Then, maybe this whole trend will go away by next week.
1. The MTV newsroom overlooks Times Square.
2. Current and former MTV News correspondents number 17 in all. How many can you name?
3. Tim Kash used to be the MTV UK correspondent.
4. Kim Stolz was a contestant on "America's Next Top Model."
5. Kurt Loder will celebrate his 21st MTVersary on February 19.
6. Do you love "Detox"? Guess what, it shoots in our newsroom! (And it's really, really loud.)
7. Speaking of "Detox," host Jim Cantiello originally worked in MTV's tape-dubbing facility until he was discovered by an MTV News executive producer who read Jim's brilliant and elaborate entry in a company-wide year-end top 10 albums list. The rest is history.
8. Writer James Montgomery wants you to know that his office used to be Serena Altschul's. And, supervising producer Ryan Kroft's office used to be SuChin Pak's.
9. Yesterday we published 50 articles, including your faves: American Idol Dumps Bikini Girl, Beyonce Slammed By Etta James For Singing 'At Last' At Inaugural Ball and Blink-182 To Reunite At The Grammys.
10. Flavor Flav and Sigourney Weaver stopped in this week.
11. Executive assistant Ashley Mastronardi got clocked by Flav while he was here.
12. At my best count, 12 former MTV News interns are current MTV News staffers.
13. One of our staffers was on "The Price Is Right."
14. Senior producer Joseph Patel directed Kid Sister's music video for "Beeper."
15. Charlize Theron has cursed out movies managing editor Josh Horowitz on more than one occasion.
16. We have free soda fountains, but a small handful of M&Ms costs a quarter.
17. There are at least two current relationships (that we know of ...) between employees here. James and Sasha are married; Rachel and Jonathan are engaged. Must be something in the free soda.
18. Kanye West use to date a former employee of MTV News.
19. Multiple MTV News staffers have Facebook groups dedicated to them, but only those dedicated to "Twilight" expert Larry Carroll were created by people outside our department.
20. Warning, Marriott Marquee guests: The south side of our building faces the north side of yours. Yes, we can see you if you don't close the curtains.
21. MTV News started the Choose or Lose campaign during the 1992 election.
22. While covering the Sundance Film Festival for work, senior producer Brian Jacks ended up celebrating his birthday with Paris Hilton.
23. As of this second MTV News has 10,493 MySpace friends.
24. Soulja Boy Tell'em challenged video games editor Stephen Totilo to a showdown and won.
25. After a recent interview, MTV News PAs Rya Backer and Steven Roberts made plans to hang with Asher Roth later in the day. Steven grabbed Asher's number, and Rya and Steven went to the bar for Trivia Night, but Asher never called ... because Steven never sent Asher his number. Bummer.