There are a few accepted pursuits that will allow a man to be considered manly whilst wearing spandex. They are: superhero, cyclist, swimmer (yes, please). Figure skating is not considered to be a very manly pursuit. It’s aimed at female audiences, and pretty much every guy I know will give at least a token grumble when it’s put on tv. So I can’t even explain how much I love what a baby Evgeni Plushenko is being about not having won the gold medal. He refused to shake the hand of Evan Lysacek, who did win the gold, and then made the following remarks:
“I was positive that I won. But I saw that Evan needs a medal more than I do. Maybe because I already have one.”
and
“If the Olympic champion doesn’t know how to jump a quad, I don’t know,” Plushenko said. “Now it’s not men’s figure skating. It’s dancing. Maybe figure skating needs a new name.”
Let’s consider this: a disgruntled figure skater is talking smack? I do not question the athleticism required by figure skating, but seriously?? You are not that hardcore, buddy.
I think the TSA keeps doing really stupid things because they know I’m too lazy to look for good posting material. Anyway, this time they detained a college student who was set to board a flight for having Arabic-language flash cards. How do they think that native English speakers are going to learn Arabic? Magic?
As loath as I am to agree with the New York Post on anything at all, I have to say that they got this story right. Why is Mayor Bloomberg’s technology commissioner claiming to live in Florida full time? And to save $3,000 a year in taxes? That’s insane. She makes over $200,000 a year by herself, and I’m sure her husband has income, too. There’s no excuse to be so cheap. Of course, today her husband informed the good people of Florida that she is not, in fact, a full-time resident, and hasn’t been since 2001. It’s not as though this was a case of oversight; they actively claimed that she still lived year round in Florida; she had a Florida driver’s license; and she voted in Florida elections. Seriously???
Was it worth the talk of fraud and loss of reputation? I will never understand politicians.
I’m sure that many drivers have sat alone in their cars in bumper-to-bumper traffic and looked longingly over at the cars whizzing along in the HOV lane. They probably wished for a friend or coworker to be in the car with them, both for conversational purposes, and also to get in that fast-moving lane. They maybe even thought that, in a pinch, a doll or mannequin would do. The difference between these imaginary drivers of mine and Kathleen Frascinella is that she actually went that extra step and put a mannequin in her front passenger seat so that she could use the HOV lane. I know that’s an abuse of the system, but that kind of cracks me up. Still, I hate it when people think that rules that others follow shouldn’t have to apply to them, so I think it’s awesome that she got a ticket and 2 point on her license.
Although…who’s to say that the mannequin doesn’t come to life when nobody else is watching??
I recently saw Zoolander again for the first time in ages. I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it; sometimes, after not having seen a movie in a long time, you realize that it wasn’t as good as you remembered. That wasn’t the case in this situation, which is good, because I have a lot of good memories of watching and quoting Zoolander with my brother.
One of the most awesomely far-fetched parts of it was Mugatu’s line of clothing, Derelicte. It was homeless chic, where they went straight for the homeless look and abandoned chic altogether. At least, I thought it was far-fetched. Fast forward to Vivienne Westwood’s new menswear line, which looks like it should be named “Derelicte 2.0: Now With More Dirt.”
This New York Times article was sent to me by Virginia, my #1, and possibly only, reader (just kidding, Mom). It’s about Michael Hicks, an 8 year old whose name is on a TSA watch list. (Hey, TSA: Good job on improving the way that travelers’ names are checked against government watch lists.) He is scrutinized and subject to extra searches when he flies. Not his parents. Just him. They patted him down when he was 2 years old. Who could do that? How does that make any sense?
I laughed when I read the article, because it is ridiculous to think that any rational person could look at an 8 year old and suspect him of plotting some sort of aviation-related terrorism. But then I got serious; it’s awful when you think of what this child and his family have gone through. It’s even worse when you think that he’s been getting this treatment since the age of 2. I know what toddlers practice their own special brand of terror (my nephew’s nickname isn’t Satanski for nothing), but seriously? This just illustrates the complete lack of logic behind TSA policies, and shows why the TSA justifiably gets such a bad rap.
Also, I was terrified by the story of Mario Labbé, an adult male with the same problem of having his name on a watch list. He was always questioned when he flew, and they always asked him the same thing. He got sick of it, and was able to fix the entire solution by changing his name. To François Mario Labbé. That’s it? That’s all it took? He changed his name just a little, and all the hassles ended? Although he shouldn’t have been on the list in the first place, I’d feel better knowing that it would take more than a trip to the municipal building for people whose travel plans raise justifiable concerns to evade heightened scrutiny. Where’s the followup? The intergovernmental agency cooperation?
The TSA was created in a hurry to allay people’s fears after 9/11, not out of careful strategy. I’m sure that a lot of TSA workers do want to help make air travel safe, but the system also seems to involve a worrying amount of pseduo-science (Only people with something to hide don’t look you in the eyes), racial profiling (Hey, you there, in the brown skin…), and plain retardedness (What were you planning to do with 101 ml of liquid, comrade??? The limit is 100!). For all that some justified people are pulled out of line or questioned further, it is inarguable that a lot falls through the cracks.
The TSA is probably not a good organization to work for. Their mission is vague, scary as all get out, and potentially dangerous. The Transportation Security Officer, which is the main point of TSA contact for many air travelers, is the poorest paying position in the organization. These factors naturally limit the pool of applicants, and thinking for a moment about who that leaves to work for the TSA explains a lot about people’s perceptions of TSA officers. Kip Hawley, a former head of the TSA, famously called airport screening positions a dead end job. Yeah, no kidding.
Reading and thinking about the TSA is depressing the crap out of me, so I’ll stop now.
(I don’t know why I find all of this so entertaining; I don’t even watch any of these shows, although I may catch a particularly entertaining monologue or interview if somebody posts it online AND sends me the link to it.)
So it should be clear by now that NBC totally effed up the way they handled the Jay Leno Show/Tonight Show thing, right? They forced Jay Leno into retirement, then placated him with a show in prime time. They promised Conan O’Brien that he could replace Jay and gave him the Tonight Show. In order to make room for Leno, they canceled Southland, which I’ve never seen but is rumored to be excellent, and moved other shows from the 10 o’clock hour to earlier, less permissive time slots. I mean, the man left New York (current temperature 31 degrees) and moved to that wasteland called Los Angeles (current temperature 63 degrees); if that’s not dedication, I don’t know what is.
Wow. The only person who is currently getting more thoroughly trashed in late night than Jay Leno is Carson Daly.
Update: There are even more hilarious videos from last night. Gawker.tv organized them, so I don’t have to. Also, Carson Daly is still getting worked over by absolutely everybody.
Wow. Lawyer Andy Vickery hates homelessness so much, he’s suing a homeless shelter located in the church across the street from his office. His claim that he is suing because the shelter’s clients are disruptive, driving down property values, and are scaring off business would be easier to believe if he was only asking for the shelter to be shut down, or even for increased measures to control the homeless population who visit the shelter. The $250,000 that Vickery has requested makes him look ever so slightly like a greedy douchebag.
Protip: When a country deports you, they generally mean for you to stay out. Forever.
Say that you were convicted of smuggling drugs in Thailand and sentenced to death. And suppose that sentence was the changed to 25 years in prison. And what if, four and a half years after you got to prison, you were pardoned by Thailand’s king and sent back home to the UK, where you were from? To recap: what if you’d been sentenced to death and then imprisoned in a country, and were later kicked out of it, never to return?
Would you then go back to “tie up some loose ends?” You are probably not a moron, so I’m guessing your answer would be “No.”
So a man recently defected from (richer, democratic) South Korea TO (poorer, dictator-rueld) North Korea. That’s not a joke. He really braved bullets, land mines, and razor wire to get into North Korea. Hardcore.
Also, I don’t know if this is an actual quote or just a translator having some fun, but this is my favorite sentence in the history of news articles: “He is now under the warm care of a relevant organ,” KCNA said.
