Evgeni Plushenko: The gift that keeps on giving

As if the whole Evgeni Plushenko thing wasn’t funny enough on its own (and it is), the matter has become even more bizarre, what with the involvement of Russian president Vladimir Putin (his public message to Plushenko said “Your silver is as good as gold.“), and Plushenko posting on his web site that he actually won a platinum medal. Oh. My. God. This guy is like the king of all sore losers, even going so far as to create an entirely new medal to commemorate his imagined awesomeness. (via Virginia & Josh)

The Figure Skating equivalent of the Internet Tough Guy

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.

Why did we need a rule about this?

I rarely make it to Brooklyn, but I like the few areas there that I’ve been. It’ s a nicer place than blogs make it sound (I think, judging by friends who live there and love it), but some of its residents sound pretty freaking nuts. I laughed pretty hard when I read this post on Gothamist. The Double Windsor, a Winsor Terrace bar, has banned the entry of people under 21 after 5 pm. And some parents are upset about that. Why??  That’s the whole point of bars; it’s happy fun adult time, with alcohol. I feel like the mouth of hell is about to swallow us all or something, because for once all of the Gothamist comments were 1) on topic and 2) coherent.

Why don’t I feel bad about this? Kids get everything. They get toys, they take naps, and they don’t have to pay taxes. Can’t we grown-ups have something of our own?

Jack McFadden, a man who cause an uproar in Park Slope when his restaurant, Union House, banned strollers thinks this makes perfect sense. And he’s the father of a 10-month-old baby. He even said one of the smartest things I think I’ve ever read: “If people would just use some common sense and consideration, there wouldn’t have to be rules.” I totally agree with this, as it is applicable in so many situations. Sadly though, common sense just isn’t as common as one might hope.

As is to be expected, there are some parents aren’t happy about it. I don’t get it. I never went to a bar until I was old enough to drink. It wasn’t a big deal. When my parents went out to n0-kids-allowed type places, I’d go visit with a relative or a babysitter would come over to my house. Babysitters! Remember those?? Stimulate the local teenage economy and hire a babysitter already!

Thanks, TSA

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?

Let’s all sigh and shake our heads sadly.

Pagin Kim Cattrall

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??

It made sense to me

Proving that the law  1) doesn’t have a sense of humor and 2) isn’t always about fairness, a judge who made what I thought was a pretty brilliant ruling was censured yesterday. Los Angeles County Judge Brett Klein ruled that the plaintiffs’ lawyer in a class action case, a man who stood to make $125,000 while the members of the class each received a $10 gift card good only at one store, should also be paid in $10 gift cards. That would have given him 12,500 gift cards for women’s clothing store Windsor Fashions, who also happened to be the defendants in this case. The judge thought that if it was legal and fair for the plaintiffs to have to use gift cards to the defendants’ store in order to receive anything, the same rule should apply to their lawyer. I can see where he was going with this, but apparently the state of California disagreed, and Judge Klein, who’d retired before this decision was made, was found to have shown “a failure to be patient, dignified, and courteous to those appearing before him.”

Bollocks. I think his original ruling was a good one, and that the courts should think about it: if it’s not fair for an attorney to be paid in a way that makes him spend gift cards in order to reap a benefit, then plaintiffs in similar class action cases should not be paid in this way, either. It seems wrong to rule that a company has done something wrong, and then reward it with money received from the plaintiffs’ gift cards. How are you going to teach companies that bad behavior will not be tolerated, when it actually ends up being rewarded?

Derelicte lives

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.”

I found this image on Jezebel, and you can read the rest of their post on this subject.

This time the TSA really does deserve our scorn

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.

Everybody’s got an opinion

(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.

Southland’s Ben McKenzie on the Jay Leno Show: I’m glad it failed.

Conan O’Brien, David Letterman, and Craig Ferguson: Various awesome car- and chin-related Leno and NBC slapdowns.

Even Hitler is upset about this:

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.

More on TSA Mom and Balloon Boy

Just a quick followup to yesterday’s post about Balloon Boy and TSA Mom. Stories about Falcon Heene’s ordeal seeming faked grew louder and louder as the weekend progressed. Gawker posted a weird interview with Robert Thomas, a student who helped the boy’s father, Richard Heene, with his balloon stuff earlier this year. It’s not definitive proof of a hoax on the part of the Heenes (as it’s billed), but it shows how much of a messed up famewhore Richard Heene. As I said yesterday, that’s nothing that couldn’t have been determined by his two appearances on the reality show Wife Swap. Just an hour ago, Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden, who earlier in the weekend said that this was not being considered a hoax, reversed that, and announced the following possible charges against the Heene parents:

Conspiracy
Contributing to the delinquency of a minor (Class 4 felony)
False reporting to authorities (Class 3 Misdemeanor)
Attempting to influence a public servant (Class 4 Felony)

Nic, the woman who wrote of being detained and having her child taken from her by the TSA, has posted a response to those who have questioned her story in light of the release of CCTV footage by the TSA. The post is entitled “My Apologies,” although it seems more defensive than apologetic. She maintains that the video does not show everything that happens, and that at some point, her son was separated from her by the TSA. She says that she doesn’t know why the video doesn’t show things that she stated happened, and I hate to speculate, but I have a theory, and it rhymes with frying….mmmm, frying. I am so hungry right now.