live from siberia, land of the crazy

two people sent me story links today involving siberia. weird.

1. from work matt: a reindeer herder found an incredibly intact baby mammoth.


the story then goes on to talk about jurassic park possibilities and also the "lucrative trade in ivory, skin, hair and other body parts" of animals.

2. from jesse: instead of actual mammoths, here we have a mammoth baby.
Siberian woman's 12th child weighs in at 17 pounds


after having that many kids, i'm sure that woman has other things (parts) that are as mammoth as her latest baby. hiyo.

it's a boy! she's a fatty!

apparently mothers who gained a lot of weight before pregnancy are more likely to have a boy.

that's good news for men trying to pass on the family name. too bad that henry VIII (and his wives) didn't know that. could have saved england and the catholic church a lot of grief. then again, maybe america would never have been founded. something to think about.

"here baby, want some more ice cream? you are so beautiful..."

why words should not have genders

this is what happens when you don't force people to just speak american.

Latino/a Studies hopes prof will boost profile
Chicana/o students given scholarships

i mean really? do adjectives really need gender? it just causes confusion, gender defensiveness, and ugly headlines. "hispanic" might work, but that's just a little too un-pc. no one wins in this situation.

how opportunistic!

"Sorority uses pregnancy suit to raise money for local agency"

if anyone else thinks this is about a lawsuit somehow funding a good cause, then 1) you're sick (like me) and 2) you're wrong. click the link to find out what this is actually about ...

the drama of intermediate coed volleyball

adding to the list of people i've emotionally ravished with painful honesty is volleyball captain dan, whose temper combined with lack of skill led to the displeasure of many and the revolt of just as many.

the full story goes something like this: i joined a craigslist volleyball team in january. it was all fine for about two games, when i realized dan was a total terror on the court. there is yelling (me) and then there is what i'd like to consider unproductive yelling (him). while members of my former coed IM team would probably disagree with positive assessment of myself, i think the consensus is that dan sucks.

anyway, after 3 seasons of despondent wins (yes. i was stressed out when we WON), maggie and i decided we were quitting the team and starting our own. we decided to stay in the same league and find players via craigslist.

none of this story is that extraordinary, except then we ran into not-arguably the best player on our team. he asked if we were playing vball in the fall. we sheepishly said yes, but not on dan's team.
his eyes lit up.
him: "do you have room on your team?"
us: "what? you wanna join"
him: "YES. i hate dan."
us: "um, OF COURSE."
him: "and actually, kristin (another player, obv) will want to join. and maybe charlie."
us: "HOT DAMN"

ok. so we didn't actually say "hot damn" and we didn't say everything in unison. but you get the gist.

that makes 4 people on this new team from the old. OOPS. we didn't bother asking anyone else on that team because they were all friends from the old days, and we assumed pretty loyal. until ...

we get this email:

Dan has quit volleyball—and Jay and I no longer have a team to play with. We heard you guys formed a new team. Do you need players?

he QUIT volleyball. not just this team, but the sport. it's like part of him died inside.

in short, we totally broke the man. and i'm proud of it. our "new" team has only 1 person who is actually new. our team name is "hot mess." the metro sports leagues will have no idea what hit them.

mandy moore > rihanna

great cover of umbrella. how it should have been done in the first place.

fall tv addendum

after visiting my tv guide podcast (highly recommended listening for tv junkies), i'm adding "pushing daisies" to my list. it's about a guy (who supposedly is just like zachary levi from "chuck") who can revive people from the dead with his touch. he then solves the mystery of who killed them, touches them again, and poof, re-dead. kind of reminds me of dead zone, but with a better lead, since i'm not a huge anthony michael hall fan (sorry coop. this video of hall dropping the n-bomb is pretty entertaining, though). anyway, pushing daisies has gotten decent reviews, so i'm curious.

lastly, more on "moonlight." for any of you who are veronica mars fans (especially those of the fairer, smarter, more-put-together sex), jason dohring has joined the cast.


i wish the best to rest of the sadly dispersed VM crew. maybe i'll even make separate google alerts on all you.

fall tv is here

and boy am i excited.

to add a steady stream of shows to my regular dose of law and order franchise and college/pro football, here i list the returning shows i'm eager to see return, the new ones i have high expectations for, and lastly a list of shows i wish i watched but think i've missed the boat. on top of that, a "review" of gossip girls.

first a review
jesse's reaction to my excitement about gossip girl premiering tonight: "you know it's just like the OC on the east coast?" well that might be giving a little too much credit. despite the lovely voiceover by kristen bell (i think she might be the morgan freeman of our generation), gossip girl is mostly droll schlock. the sloppy writing made me groan at least twice (ex.: Chuck: "I'm going to have to tell my parents the hotel they just bought is serving minors." Serena: "And if you get a drink, they're also serving pigs"), yet i'm bemused by the fish-out-of-water bro/sis pair (poor but in prep school? angst alert!) and impressed by the raciness of the content. so far, we've seen two attempted rapes, copious alcohol consumption by high schoolers, at least one baby pink teddy, and one blurry sex scene. i'm not sure if high schools like this even exist, but if they do, i wish i went to one. i'd be the asian girl wearing the disgusting feather gown with the ridiculous fringe bangs.


lastly for gossip girl, i'd just like ask, "separated at birth?" between the main bitchy character vs one of the lead girls in friday night lights. in that order:
leighton meester


minka kelly


minka's voice is pretty brutal, but i only care about looks at this point. as with all things, actually.
gossip girl gets 2.5 out of 5 stars, and i give it 3 episodes before i lose interest. maybe i'll just watch it until kristen bell makes her first appearance on heroes.

and now, long lists of tv shows, and some additional commentary to go with.

old shows
1. heroes: kristen bell (aka veronica mars) is a new hero. she apparently has an awesome power and will be on the show for at least six episodes starting in october. oh yeah, did i mention the show is awesome?
2. friday night lights: football + soap opera + matt seracen = delish. no billy bob thornton to be found.
3. law and order(s): SVU back on NBC, but criminal intent is showing new episodes on USA. i do love the commercials advertising the move, but damn, vincent d'onofrio has gained some weight. yikes.

new shows
1. chuck: horrible tagline (he's the secret. she's the agent), but "alias meets 25-year-old virgin" sounds intriguing enough. plus the virgin's pretty good looking.
2. reaper: parents sell soul of their son to devil. hilarity ensues. many comparisons made to buffy, so i'm definitely in.
3. bionic woman: same creator as battlestar galactica, plus the villain is katee sackhoff (also from BSG). i got a sneak peak of the pilot; good action and solid acting (weakest link is the bionic woman), requiring just the right amount of suspension of disbelief. there's a great girl-on-girl fight scene that was very buffy-esque (season 3, faith vs buffy), so once again, i'm on board. do you see a trend here?
4. gossip girl: see above for opinion
5. dirty sexy money: this is pretty trashy, but i'm a big peter krause fan (ever since sports night, which hasn't actually been that long b/c i only watched the dvds last summer). plus, billy baldwin! instant credibility
6. women's murder club: four women help each other solve murders. i think it's on friday (terrible), but angie harmon (of law and order/jason seahorn fame) is one of the lead women. i'm thinking sex and the city, but solving horrific crimes. weeee
7. moonlight: something about vampires. check.

old shows i wished i watched
bones
ugly betty
supernatural
numb3rs

shows awaiting a mid-season return
battlestar galactica
law and order, the original

and while we're on the topic, shows that i want to watch/catch up on
the company
damages
madmen
the shield (all seasons except 4, which i've randomly seen)
the wire (season 4)
rome (season 2)

phew. i also have a job and a social life. i swear.

hillary clinton: waiting for the shoe to drop

trying to be as apolitical as possible, i was thinking about hillary's bill problem this morning. some pundit was talking about how the clinton campaign is just waiting for a firestorm of bill clinton indiscretions to be released, and how the hillary camp most certainly has a response planned. the pundit said something along the lines of, "when the newest incarnation of a bill clinton sex scandal is released, it can only hurt hillary."

i just wonder if this is really true. is it possible that the more we find out about bill's cad-ish ways, the more sympathetic hillary becomes? do people really think that hillary doesn't have her personal life in order (as michelle obama put it)?

i have some nutty views about relationships, marriage, and love, so maybe my perception of the bill/hillary courtship is atypical, but i am not quick put a pox on a woman who perseveres through a crappy marriage. i wouldn't be surprised if this sort of thing actually helps her among women. is she a disgrace to women/feminism for sticking by her man? i think we all know it's way more complicated than that.

dear fervent blog readers

i'd like to start collecting blog-endorsements and featuring them on the right rail of my blog. i want it to read like a peter travers movie-review quote "BEST comedy of the year so FAR!!"

please leave flattering commentary on the comment board, e-mail them to me, or send it to me via facebook. if you'd like, you can be quoted anonymously. don't hold back! i need the ego boost. and check out one that i already put up. i didn't technically confirm permission to use the quote, but whatever, i'm a bad, bad journalist.

the people of dc must be deaf

no i'm not talking about the excessive ambient noise of city life, i'm talking about PNC bank ATMs and the self-checkout lanes at CVS (damn, that's a lot of acronyms). anyway, both electronic DIY devices are designed to YELL REALLY LOUDLY at the customer. how annoying. please ATM, tell everyone in the world that i am withdrawing money from you. beep deafeningly loudly so that the mugger down the street knows exactly when to start running so he can knock me down and steal my $40 quick cash.
worst off, dear CVS self-checkout, i love when you say out loud, in your sweet mechanical voice, exactly how much money i'm going to fork over. "you owe $105." perfect, now that thief behind me knows exactly how much this bundle of double-quilted toilet paper is worth, i feel extra safe.

UGH.

small penises (libraries) and obvious statements

a slow news day at virginia tech's collegiate times results in this story.
Rumors of Newman's small size exaggerated


they are actually talking about some library, but the caption on the photo reads: "Though smaller than other universities, Newman Library has several floors of bookshelves."
this is a very similar metaphor to "it's not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean" or if you'd rather be blunt, "it's ok to have a small penis."

lastly, a headline from the daily nebraskan:
Research duo aims to find why young Nebraskans leave state
if you replace "nebraskans" with "michiganders," you'd get the same answer: "stop wasting perfectly good research money."

alex the parrot

takes over the world.


except for the fact he's dead.

3 of the new york times' most emailed stories are about this parrot. 3 of 10! that's absurd. the parrot was pretty bad-ass though.

i lost my phone

if you want to be called, send me an email with your phone number. i lost my phone about a month short of its 6-month anniversary. the 6-month mark is my normally scheduled "i lost my phone" announcement, but for some reason, the damn thing was really eager to get gone this time around.

sigh.

i should never have nice things.

thank god i'm not from mississippi

between football and all the other problems of michigan, i can take consolation in one thing. at least we don't live in the great "magnolia state." turns out mississippi's poverty rate is increasing, 1/5 of its residents are uninsured, they have had an outbreak of west nile virus in the south, and it is the fattest state in the nation. besides the west nile, it's all probably related, but damn, that's some problems.

why i love USC

no, i still hate matt leinert and think john david booty is pretentious for having three names. i'm talking about the university of south carolina, whose mascot is the gamecocks.

their school newspaper is the daily gamecock

when we lost to them in the NIT finals in 2006, the daily got to run the awesome headline "cockblocked"

and lastly, we see this gem of a headline from the university of georgia newspaper:

" 'Cock grabbed on street corner prior to game"

and yes, i still giggle when the numbers "6" and "9" end up anywhere near each other.

ali's bizarro sports world

so another horrible week for a michigan fan. we are awful beyond words, but you know it's bad when you have random people at work offering condolences. "sorry to hear 'bout big blue."

then there's my fantasy football team, which got rocked this week. LT did not perform as needed, and matt hasselbeck and deion branch from the seahawks were god awful. my last pick WR did better than branch. UGH.

between oregon and seattle, i say we bomb the whole pacific northwest.

the only thing that saved my weekend was a LIONS win. yes, that's right, the only thing sports related to celebrate in my life right now is a big lions win over the raiders, i believe the only team with a worse record than the honolulu blue last year.

so what now? michigan plays notre dame in the "who can be the least bad" game of the weekend. thankfully, i can't get rocked in my fantasy league by the patriots again, but if my boys don't step it up, i'm gonna be the worst first pick team ever. UGH.

i have nothing to say about the oregon game

except this:

with trembling in my heart, go blue.

can't spell worth shit? neither can these newspaper editors

at this moment, i'm introducing a new (hopefully recurring) feature on my blog. the theme will be ripping apart bad/misspelled headlines with impunity. this may be in some conflict with my *other* blog, but damned if i care. there are just too many gems in the world for me to pass up.

being a grammar/usage/spelling freak comes with its own set of perils. as a critic, i become easy target. that's ok. i'm secure with my own masculinity. by being an utter bitch, i do not intend to cast myself as smarter, wittier, and better-looking than the rest, but rather i just speak objective truths of stupidity. if i commit one of these stupidities, then let me become victim of truth. yada yada, let's get on with it.

and one last formality. for the stories with misspellings in headlines, there's a decent chance that the mistake will eventually get fixed. if you click on a link and find no mistake, well, there was one. you're just gonna have to trust me.

the first two i have aren't GREAT, but we gotta start somewhere.

Student-friendly recipes for the kichen-impaired
you mean the spelling-impaired? hiyo

39 indie bands to play at local festival
no mistake. just sounds hellish. 39 too many

why knowing is everything

i am delighted with google right now. finally, they have updated their RSS feed feature so that it will tell you exactly how many headlines you have waiting for you. before, if you had more than 100, it would give you a little "100+" nonsense, and make you whittle down your list under 100 to find out. WHAT BULLSHIT. i have to read 1,000+ headlines a day and i'd like to know how much progress i'm making. sure, it doesn't change the fact that i'm still going to read them all, but knowing how close to the end i am gives me a little kick in my step.

it's the same concept behind the countdowns on the metro. if you think about it, knowing how many minutes until the train comes is pretty useless. by the time you can see the electronic sign, you've already paid. you're already down there and it doesn't really change much of what you can do. but there's comfort in KNOWING that the train is 2/10/17 minutes away.

comfort in irrational things. the downfall of the human race.

i hate exclamation points ...

more than dangling modifiers.
which is to say, i hate them a lot.

how could anyone ever defend their use?

they bother me a little when used in casual correspondence, but i absolutely hate it when i see it in work e-mails. it's usually the doing of some over-enthusiastic company flak. "Thanks so much for your interest!" "We're so excited to see the story!!" "I just ate a delicious burrito!!!!" YAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAY.