News - Thursday, February 25, 2010

Wow, it's been a while since I've done a regular news post! Time to break that trend with some wonderfully awesome news right... now.

- According to some site called Pop Eater, the goal of myself and many others is complete, as a pickle now has more fans than Nickelback. Woohoo! The odd thing is that like the creator of that group, I don't actually mind the band that much, except that they are way overplayed.

But more importantly, let's talk pickles, and I don't mean in a sexual way. As the top picture implies, I am quite the fan of Vlasic pickles. They have a nice snap and taste to them, and I also like the deli stackers they have. And, you totally can't beat the variety of their products, between the classic kosher dill, bread and butter, and Tabasco varieties.

- I sometimes wish I still wrote headlines for entertainment sections, like when I was in college, because there is a wealth of material this week. First example: Ole Miss students and random Internet sploozers are pushing for Admiral Ackbar to be their new mascot. Apparently, the group has gotten popular enough on Facebook for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to do an actual article on them. Hopefully, this whole movement isn't a trap for the empire to conquer the South.

- And finally... Boner is still missing :(

The picture of the Vlasic stork is from here.

When LOST and Rhode Island collide

According to The Providence Journal, the Man in Black robbed a credit union in North Providence. I mean, it wasn't THE Man in Black from LOST, but still. The comparison was just too good for me to pass up.

Tonight's real post will be up at 7 p.m., and it concerns fast food. That's how I roll.

Weird Rhode Island news: Eff off, Bambi!

I don't normally like to link to articles from my own paper, but in my defense, this is at least something that I didn't personally write. One of my co-workers wrote this great piece on one Charlestown resident's plan to feed the homeless - with deer meat, because the deer are "nothing more than a disease-carrying rodent."

Good times, good times! For the record, while I find deer to be cute and may or may not have cried when I was six and saw Bambi's mom get shot, the deer in this area are really annoying and unsafe. They are especially bad on my road, Kings Factory Road, late at night - They try to scamper across the road seemingly right as cars are coming. I've almost hit them a half-dozen times, which would be quite bad, considering that I drive a small Toyota Corolla. (Hey, at least it's not a Dodge Stratus.)

Anyway, I'm always reluctant to link stuff from my "real job" to this blog, just because I don't want it to seem like one is feeding the other. I consider them two distinct and separate activities, just to make them clear. But on something wicked cool, like this story, it would be negligent for me to not link.

More weird Rhode Island news - Dog in sweater delays commute

You can tell the difference between Florida and Rhode Island news easily. In Rhode Island, people don't get killed or arrested for ridiculous things; there is more oversight and apathy. For example, citing the lion story I linked to the other day, if that happened in Florida it would have gotten loose from its trailer park by the swamp and eat 20 people before being shot to death. And, not shot to death by a cop, but by a neighbor or loved one.

As a contrast, Rhode Island just has more silly stuff, like a dog dressed in a sweater tying up traffic. Awww - That's just cute. I mean, I would have gotten a bit pissed if I was driving and in a hurry to get somewhere, but still, better a puppy than an accident dealing traffic.

It reminds me that over the summer, I had a similar run-in with a dog. I was driving home around 3 p.m. and saw a scraggy-looking black dog (not Led Zeppelin) on Route 1, which is a four-lane, somewhat-major highway in Southern Rhode Island. I called police about it, because I didn't want the poor guy to get hit, but I couldn't stop because I was running really late for work.

The puppy photo is from Overstock, here.

Weird Rhode Island news - Lions and lions and lions, oh my!

I might not have time to do a proper television entry today - I'm running all over the place working on various stuff. But, I did want to at least post some token weird Rhode Island news.

According to an article in The Providence Journal, a lion was recently taken from the home of a Glocester man. Yeah, I'm a bit surprised this story didn't originate from Florida, the capital of bizarre animal and just bizarre news in general.

Although the article notes that the former owner did have the proper permits for the lion, it makes me think that the animal was grandfathered in as legal, since he's apparently been there for more than a dozen years. I'm surprised there wasn't any outcry from the neighbors about, you know, the lion in their backyard, after earlier news stories about a chimp mauling some people. (I would link to the story, but everyone reading this has probably already seen it, and I'm not chancing that I'll see the horrific picture of the woman without a face again.)

Also, the Rhode Island climate makes me wonder if the lion is really comfortable; don't they normally live in warm portions of Africa? Then again, lions have a lot of hair, so maybe he likes the breeze of 20-degree weather.

Finally, this makes me ponder an exotic pet of my own. Is it legal for me to own a penguin? What about a giraffe or a kangaroo? This is something I seriously have to look into.

The lion photo is from this site.

Weird Rhode Island and Florida news

In this week in weird Rhode Island news, a Johnston man told police that he had found an abandoned dog. In reality, he made up the story because his mom, who was in the hospital, asked him to put the dog down and he couldn't bring himself to do it. He was hoping the dog would get adopted instead if he claimed it was abandoned. Perfectly normal, perfectly healthy. I'm not sure who sounds worse in this story - the mother or the kid.

And in bizarre Florida news - outside of the whole Tiger Woods thing - a man allegedly doused his wife in a flammable fluid and then tried to kill her by setting her on fire. Good times, good times. One of their neighbors is named Freedom, which somehow makes things worse to me. Quote from Freedom: "It's so mind-blowing. I don't understand how any of this could have happened."

The photo is from this site.

Absolutely Insane Video - Tennessee Football Robbery

[Left] Lane Kiffin does get to get home to Layla every night, so I'm not going to feel too sorry for him.

You know, if for some reason Dustin Pedroia or Mark Bellhorn robbed me at gunpoint, I'd like to think that I wouldn't still be fans of them.

Not so much for Corey Zickefoose, a fan of the University of Tennessee football team that was robbed at gunpoint by two players. Click here for ridiculous video with Corey. If you want to read more, here is the latest ESPN story I could find on it.

Anyway, I apologize for the short entry, but I've been busy with work most of the day.

Silliness!

I still love the newspaper chain I used to work for, because they find some truly funny things out in the communities they cover, the kind of stuff you normally only get from immersing yourself into an area. Case in point: The sign to the left, which is from a story here.

News - Thursday, September 24, 2009

Straight off the meat hook and right on to your plate, it's the news!

- The big celebrity news of the week concerns Mackenzie Phillips, who apparently had a 10-year incestuous relationship with her dad, and a lifelong addiction to heroin. Although I didn't see her appearance on Today, the news story that MSNBC.com staff did about it was well-done, I thought.

It is odd to me that people are questioning whether it actually happened or not, though. Yes, she was on drugs, so I suppose you can question the validity of her memories, but she does come across as pretty lucid in her responses, at least in the news article. Also, from listening to Loveline and Dr. Drew, this sort of sexual abuse is somewhat common in horrible, drug-filled situations like these.

- Work on an AIDS vaccine is progressing forward, with clinical first trials showing some promise. Scientists don't seem to think it'll be a perfect solution, but it is great to see progress being made.

- And finally, in bizarro stripper news... A former stripper is claiming that a Catholic priest would preach on Sunday, and then make fun of God by banging her, and attending nudist and sex clubs obsessively, the other six days of the week. You will be absolutely, positively SHOCKED about where this happened. Wait for it... Wait for it... MIAMI FLORIDA.

Just say no to moving to Florida, unless it's for college. (Erin Andrews, call me!)

Thanks to this site for the image at the top.

News - Thursday, September 17, 2009

[Left] This image will be more important later on in the post, so just keep it in mind for now.

Here is some random, trivial news that you nonetheless can't do without:

- This article is from June 2008, but I just recently became aware of its existence. It is written for The Atlantic by a professor at a small liberal arts college and a community college. It is a pretty damning account of how a lot of people are being shoved toward school, even if they're clearly unqualified for it or if it would have little practical value for their career.

For more own experience in college and substitute teaching, I do think this is still the case. People who have no interest in learning and school go to college and community college because it is another year that you don't have to get a real job. Then, as the article spotlights, there are people interested in learning that just don't have the capacity or the underlying ability to do college-level work. While it would be nice for there to be more services to "bridge" this sort of gap, I don't really have a solution at all.

- Slate has a good interview, the first of two parts, with Bill Cosby. He mostly talks about The Cosby Show, which is always a good thing. Also in Slate, a reviewer pans the accuracy of Dan Brown's latest book. And Bill Simmons being sponsored by Miller Lite isn't a gag.

- In neato dinosaur news, scientists have found a smaller version of the T-Rex in fossils. You know, if Jurassic Park was real, I would love to have a pet dinosaur. I promise that I would take care of it and everything! It would awesome, especially one of the ones with a long neck, that I could ride down like a slide. I would also like the plush dinosaur featured above. (See, told you it would be important later.)

- And finally, in strippers news, Las Vegas Weekly notes that the pole is on the rise (get it?) culturally. According to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, a former transportation director is in trouble for shaking down witnesses, and also allegedly traded contracts for sex parties on Lake Erie. Lucy Lawless' new show has strippers cast as extras. And this company is advertising a book from an Ivy League-educated stripper who just recovered from breast cancer.

Scheduling and News - Sunday, September 13, 2009

An example of the Adult Swim schedule. Click here for full-size.

Here is a tentative schedule for the blog in the coming weeks, since I've always liked when Adult Swim posts their schedules on a bump:

- Sunday: Miscellaneous fun
- Monday: iTunes running diary
- Tuesday: A wrap column about how the weekend football picks went
- Wednesday: Miscellaneous fun
- Thursday: NFL picks on early weeks / miscellaneous fun
- Friday: NFL picks on normal weeks
- Saturday morning: Kristin's football picks on normal NFL weeks
- Saturday night: Storytime with Amanda Meyer

With this current schedule, there are three regular features (iTunes running diary, NFL picks and Storytime) and a smattering of other content every week. I will continue to sprinkle in my other semi-regular features, such as Inexplicable Movie Reviews and At The Commercials, instead of giving them their own specific day.

And speaking of a regular feature, let's do one I haven't done in a while - The news!

- Click here for a really good article from The National Post about how the Mexican government is having a big problem cracking down on the drug trade. It reminds me of some of the better work that you'd see in The Wall Street Journal; I think journalism needs more international reporting like this.

Along similar lines, in terms of the war on drugs, The Guardian also had a nice piece in an August issue about cocaine bars in South America, and Bolivia in particular. While I think the article is a bit soft on the abuse aspect and danger of the drug until the end, the enterprise nature of the report is still surprising and interesting throughout. And although the content is a lot different, the enterprise reporting going on in Afghanistan is just as impressive, according to American Journalism Review.

- In stripper news that is actually realistic and not super-sleazy or funny, a Vancouver paper did a really good piece on how strippers and prostitutes are still using Craigslist to setup jobs. The reporter sets up meetings with several of the escorts, and although he compensates some for their time, which is normally a journalistic no-no, the results seem to be worth the overlay. Informative and interesting read.

- In stripper news that is bizarre and surreal, although not what you'd think, a Connecticut man was arrested for dumping paint stripper all over his wife's car, which he then draped with her wedding dress and bouquet. The only thing surprising about this story is that it happened in New England, and not Germany or Florida.

- And in stripper news that is completely what you think, a guy is trying to use pictures of a stripper on a police car near a police deputy to blackmail the deputy from testifying against him in court. Whew; that's a mouthful.

News - Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Before and After.

Because I don't feel like formatting one of my already-typed posts, here is some news...

- In the serious Twitter news department, the State Department asked the company to remain running in order to help facilitate protesters of the Iran election.

- In the non-serious Twitter news deparment, Lindsay Lohan posted old nude pictures of herself. At this point though, I don't care enough to find them, knowing that they're probably after she started doing coke, losing weight and effing anything that moved. Back in the day, Lohan was SUPER hot, and now, I don't know any guys that would willingly stick it in without triple-wrapping it. Even Sam Ronson probably used a tongue condom.

- Here is a wrestling move that looks really awesome, Evan Bourne's shooting star press. And here is an example of what happens when it goes really, really wrong, such as when Brock Lesnar tried it at Wrestlemania and landed on his head. In other wrestling news, Donald Trump bought WWE Raw, but it's all probably an act. Next week's show will be commercial free too, which sounds neat.

- And finally, in stripper news... One in Minnesota on disability is suing White Castle because they won't let her go through the drive-thru in her motorized wheelchair. Fun times, fun times. And also, in what should be a major relief to everyone, a stripper's kids weren't eating dog food, contrary to initial media reports.

News - Thursday, May 28, 2009

This A-hole was by far the most infuriating part of the original Punch-Out for me as a kid, even if he was only on soda pop and not vodka in the NES version.

- At this point, I'm thinking of robbing someone to secure fundage to buy the new Punch-Out! It has been getting good reviews from even the traditional newspaper sources, and the game itself looks slick. Click here to see it in action.

- I've always been a PC loyalist, possibly because they are all that I know. When I was growing up and much more into computers, back in the days of multiplayer gaming on Heat.net and Quake: Team Fortress tournaments, I always viewed Macs as, well, not an option. Most good commercial games didn't get released for them, and if they did, they often came many months after.

Of course, all of that changed with the rise of the iEverything of Apple products, which probably partly explains why Dell's profit has plummeted 34 percent, beyond the bad economy. The odd thing that has surprised me about the rise of Apple has been that all of its products are basically hype. An Apple doesn't get viruses because it is a weaker machine, just like a Toyota Corolla is probably going to breakdown less than a luxury auto. (A PC isn't really a Ferrari, and while I would like to compare it to a Lexus or Audi or Benz, I have no idea how reliable any of those are, making the analogy hard.) An iPod doesn't really offer many functional advantages over the majority of MP3 players, and likewise with the iPhone vs. most other cell phones. I agree with Maddox's take on it.

... Yet despite all of that, I just bought an iPod about a month ago. In my defense, I am a consumer whore, and it was only $30 on eBay. Still, in hindsight, I wish I had just gotten an MP3 player instead.

- Piggybacking on the previous paragraphs a bit, this guy sounds like a friggin' loon, but the idea intrigues me. Too bad that the project seems to be dead, since the last blog post there was in October 2007.