My quick smells like french toast
The Nike Sparq commercials with LT, Steve Nash, Matt Holliday, Hope Solo et al are awesome. The sixty-second spot is on heavy rotation during the AM Sportscenters, and they were exactly what I needed this morning. They also got me thinking of some of the best Nike commercials. There are tons, but here are some of the favorites:
Banned because some felt it promoted violence against women, but a smart concept.
Tiger's trick shot.
Bo knows self-promotion.
MJ's frozen moment.
Couldn't embed this one, but Sampras v. Agassi.
Paralympian Rohan Murphy's legs were amputated when he was 4. Dude benches 300 lbs.
David Robinson and Charles Barkley: "Fined".
Lil Penny and Tyra Banks, before everyone realized she was a terrible person.
Brazilian airport soccer.
Freestyle basketball beat.
More MJ.
And if those weren't motivating enough, there's always ESPN's Sportscentury:
espn all time sportscentury video
Alright, good talk. See you out there.
Gap Year Volunteers
This week we are introducing the Sunday Story from Believe In Youth. Enjoy.
Who: Gap Year Volunteers
Age: Typically 18-26
What: Volunteer internationally in their gap years
The "gap year" is not as often exploited in the United States as it is in the UK and Canada in particular. There, many students take a year either between high school and college or after completing their undergraduate degree to explore the world outside organized educational boundaries. This story from the National Post is about students using their gap years to volunteer internationally.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Presented by 'You will face who you are': A guide to doing good for gap year
Sandy Fife, National Post Published: Friday, March 28, 2008
Courtesy Jacqueline Wong
The winner of a local election was throwing a victory party for residents of the baranguay in AlangAlang, in the central Philippines. He converted the basketball court to an outdoor banquet hall with music, tables and chairs, a stage for speeches and a feast that saw a whole cow spit-roasted over a fire. Jacqueline Wong, a 25-year-old volunteer health worker from Toronto, watched her neighbours party and felt she'd arrived in the Philippines. "It really opened my eyes to the sense of community," she says.
Wong is one of thousands of Canadians between 18 and 34 who take time out to volunteer, work or travel in other countries each year, under international youth programs made possible by federal agreements with about 40 other governments. Gap-year travel - or a trip before, during or just after college or university - is a time-honoured tradition. These days, many kids are choosing to combine it with paid or unpaid jobs.
Their reasons include the desire to do good, to offset travel expenses and to immerse themselves in a particular culture. "The best way to learn about a place is to spend some time living there, and working or volunteering provides that opportunity," says Jeff Minthorn, editor of Verge, a Canadian magazine about travel "with a purpose."
"Working or volunteering abroad also looks great on a résumé or university application," Minthorn adds. "It's one thing to say, ‘I spent the last year backpacking around Australia and Southeast Asia,' quite another to say, ‘While I was there, I worked on a farm in Western Australia and volunteered in Thailand teaching English to schoolchildren.' "
Other rewards are less tangible. "Clients come back from a work or volunteer experience changed," says Karen Moore, Ottawa-based manager of sales and development for Travel Cuts' international programs. "They are more confident, know what they want out of life and realize there is another world where people struggle just to survive. It makes them realize how lucky they are, and more tolerant of other cultures."
Nevertheless, the decision to work or volunteer abroad deserves careful consideration. A good start is to check out the opportunities offered by well-established programs such as Travel Cuts' Work Abroad and Volunteer Abroad. After that, a self-assessment is in order. Factors such as your age, finances, skills and previous travel experience may influence your choice of when and where you go and what you do there, program organizers point out.
"Travelling is not always cool. It is also difficult," says Jonathan Paquet, president and co-founder of Horizon Cosmopolite, a Montreal agency that helps students find and prepare for international volunteer placements. "You will face who you are. You may cry because you miss your mom. You will ask yourself why you decided to go to that village where there are cockroaches in the bathroom."
Here are the stories of three Canadians who braved those hazards and came back from their travels eager to do it all over again:
Alex James, Toronto
James was 18 and finished high school when she went to Guyana as a Youth Challenge International (YCI) volunteer in early 2006. She and 12 other volunteers spent eight weeks in three communities, leading workshops on health and social issues such as HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, substance abuse and women's empowerment.
She had no international travel experience and the trip was the longest that she'd been away from home. But the decision to go was easy. "Post-secondary education didn't excite me. Travel did," she says. "I was fascinated and intrigued and even a little giddy at the idea of volunteering abroad."
YCI, like many volunteer organizations with a focus on developing countries, requires participants to raise the funds for their project and airfare. Scraping together the approximately $5,000 James needed took a lot of work. She hosted an evening of live music and theatre, with a raffle and bake sale, and collaborated with other Toronto-area volunteers on another raffle, for a pair of Lord of the Rings tickets.
YCI provided pre-departure training about culture, communicating and the project, as well as orientation for the volunteers in Guyana. Its Web site warns applicants they may have to sleep on the ground or use outdoor bathrooms in their host countries. But James still missed the comforts of home. "I lived in very close quarters with my group members, slept in a hammock, bathed and washed my clothes in a river, and used stinky, dirty outhouses, which were covered in cockroaches at night," she says.
And she was often homesick. "The first night was especially hard. I was exhausted, already covered in
mosquito bites, and felt very sad - almost wished I could turn around and go home."
But she enjoyed connecting with people in the communities in which she worked, especially playing with the kids, who taught her that the hokey-pokey's appeal cuts across all cultures.
The residents of each community thanked the volunteers by holding a bonfire for them the night before they left. Everybody serenaded each other and had a good time.
James's trip gave her knowledge of another culture and the understanding that there are many other ways of life, not to mention an enduring gratitude for basics like running water.
"More than anything, I came home with itchy feet, wanting to get out there and see more of the world," she says.
Last fall, after a semester of college and a stint at a full-time job, she did just that, travelling to Uganda as a volunteer for Kirabo Canada.
"Travel is such a rewarding and enriching experience," she says. "It's a whole other kind of learning. The opportunity to go to school will always be there; most of the awesome youth programs out there have age restrictions."
Chris Roosenboom, Bathurst, N.B.
Roosenboom, a Guelph, Ont., native who's training in New Brunswick for a career as a geophysicist, had finished his undergrad degree in his hometown and worked for a year when wanderlust struck. He decided to travel instead of starting a PhD program in the fall of 2006. He left in October, on a SWAP UK working holiday that spanned 11 months and five mostly poorly paid service-industry jobs.
"I wanted to learn about who I was and how other cultures do things differently. I also wanted to improve my social skills and get more confidence," he says. He chose Edinburgh as his destination because he wanted to see the Highlands, drink Scotch and learn about the history - and because a friend told him the city is a great party place.
Roosenboom made friends in advance through a SWAP chat room, and arranged to meet them in Edinburgh. SWAP (which is run by Travel Cuts in Canada) helped him arrange visas and accommodation for the first few days. His biggest pre-departure worries were saving enough money for the trip, waiting for his visa to arrive and packing light.
His "Wow, I'm here" moment came when he stepped off the double-decker airport bus on Waverley Bridge, "with big buses going every which way, strange-looking taxis darting about and, down the valley, Edinburgh Castle with the sun shining behind it," he says. "Was quite the day."
Roosenboom used the U.K. as a home base, travelling to other countries as the opportunity arose. He didn't have to cope with a new language or culture. But he had to adapt to being alone and develop self-reliance. Building up his tolerance for alcohol was also a challenge. "It's all one big party," he says.
Well, not quite. His jobs ran from boring and sometimes unpleasant stints cleaning and working the reception desk at a hostel, where he lived for free, to customer service at a baked-potato shop, where he had fun, and waiter/bartender at an Oxfordshire pub, where he felt like a slave. But he landed on his feet at the Jam House back in Edinburgh, where he became headwaiter and employee of the year, winning a trip for two to Birmingham, with dinner at a five-star restaurant and a night of clubbing.
Roosenboom came home "a completely different person," more comfortable with himself, more sociable and more confident with the opposite sex. His advice to other students considering a working holiday abroad: "Take the plunge! It is freaking scary but once you get there, it is excellent. And most important,
don't plan - just go with it. The random experiences are the best, and the ones you learn most from."
Jacqueline Wong, Toronto
Wong, a pharmacy grad, wanted a chance to observe health care in other parts of the world. She spotted a Horizon Cosmopolite ad for a volunteer job at a clinic in rural AlangAlang on a university career Web site in 2006. Knowing many residents of the Philippines speak English and that she'd be close to other Asian countries she wanted to visit, she jumped at the opportunity.
Wong was a seasoned traveller, having toured Europe, explored Spain on her own and studied in Italy for a month on a university exchange. Still, she was nervous about travel and accommodation. Horizon Cosmopolite liaised with the organization Volunteer for the Visayans, in Tacloban, which arranged her placement and home stay. Wong couldn't attend the pre-trip seminar. But a Lonely Planet guide introduced her to the culture and everyday life in the Philippines.
Her home stay in Tacloban was comfortable and welcoming - her hosts gave her their bedroom - and her days settled into a routine: up at 7 for an hour-long jeepney ride to the clinic where she worked as a receptionist for three weeks, tutoring local kids or relaxing at a coffee shop in downtown Tacloban after work and dinner (typically meat, stir-friend veggies and rice) at her home stay. A volunteer for the Visayans arranged excursions to its projects, local tourist attractions and beaches.
Typhoon season limited travel. But Wong and a friend took a weekend trip to a neighbouring island, where they saw rice paddies and swam in hot springs and under waterfalls. Their driver ran out of gas and they purchased two litres from a roadside stand, which was poured into glass Coke bottles - "the perfect quirky ending to an unusual day," Wong says.
Her biggest challenge was "just letting go of what I knew from living in Canada," she says. "Things are done differently in Tacloban, and I needed
to adjust." Her worst time came after eating balut, a fertilized duck egg that's a local delicacy. It didn't agree, and she had to stay home for a day.
But she enjoyed learning about a different culture, making new friends, picking up a bit of Waray-Waray and seeing how health care is delivered in the Philippines.
"Keep an open mind," she advises would-be international volunteers. "Once you find a program offered by a reliable organization, don't hesitate to register. And once you arrive, enjoy what the country has to offer and don't dwell on preconceptions."
MORE: Weigh the risks and rewards
Working and volunteering abroad are popular gap-year options. Horizon Cosmopolite, a Montreal-based volunteer-placement agency founded in 1997, has seen participation grow to 350 a year from 35 in 1999.
Kids who do it may develop a new sense of direction, greater appreciation for family, freedom and our privileged lifestyle and an understanding of what it's like to be the outsider in an unfamiliar culture. They also get valuable international work experience: 82% of respondents to a July, 2007, survey of employers by the University of Toronto's career centre see travel abroad as an asset on a résumé.
On the downside, volunteering abroad is expensive. Most organizations require participants to raise funds, and the service-industry and ESL teaching jobs travelling students often take tend to be poorly paid and are sometimes exploitive. Loneliness and homesickness can loom large - particularly in places with limited phone and Internet service - and scams, illness, accidents and trouble with foreign authorities are real risks.
The Martlet, the University of Victoria's newspaper, warned readers last fall that Japan's biggest private
language school had ceased paying some of its employees, but was still hiring Canadian students to teach in its schools. In November, British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons was imprisoned in Sudan for allowing her students there to name a teddy bear after the Easter Bunny. And in March of last year, British teen Georgia French died in a bus crash in the Andes while on a gap-year trip with friends; her parents, having learned that 500 people die each year in similar accidents in Peru, launched GapAid, a Web site meant to alert other kids and parents to scams and country-specific hazards.
Young, inexperienced travellers and those who strike out on their own are most at risk, regardless of their destinations. Jeff Minthorn, editor of Verge magazine, recommends that kids seek out reputable organizations that specialize in arranging international working and volunteering holidays. These NGOs (non-government organizations) help with everything from cultural orientation, travel arrangements and job and volunteer placements to ongoing support in the destination country. Moreover, they will take into account the traveller's goals, expectations and experience.
For example, Travel Cuts would steer an 18-year-old fresh out of high school to a work placement in the United Kingdom rather than, say, South Africa, says Karen Moore, manager of sales and development for the company's international programs. "It's not too far away and not too much of a culture shock. Our partners there help students find work and accommodation with roommates, and even organize social activities."
Students who hook up with well-run organizations tend to get more out their experiences, because they're well prepared and have realistic expectations, says Jonathan Paquet, of Horizon Cosmopolite.
Beyond that, it helps to cultivate personal qualities such as a positive attitude, sense of humour and flexibility. "We all deal differently in a cross-cultural context," Paquet says. "Some people go on a project and only have complaints; another person comes back from the same project only with positive comments."
Sandy Fife, Weekend Post
Who: Gap Year Volunteers
Age: Typically 18-26
What: Volunteer internationally in their gap years
The "gap year" is not as often exploited in the United States as it is in the UK and Canada in particular. There, many students take a year either between high school and college or after completing their undergraduate degree to explore the world outside organized educational boundaries. This story from the National Post is about students using their gap years to volunteer internationally.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Presented by 'You will face who you are': A guide to doing good for gap year
Sandy Fife, National Post Published: Friday, March 28, 2008
Courtesy Jacqueline Wong
The winner of a local election was throwing a victory party for residents of the baranguay in AlangAlang, in the central Philippines. He converted the basketball court to an outdoor banquet hall with music, tables and chairs, a stage for speeches and a feast that saw a whole cow spit-roasted over a fire. Jacqueline Wong, a 25-year-old volunteer health worker from Toronto, watched her neighbours party and felt she'd arrived in the Philippines. "It really opened my eyes to the sense of community," she says.
Wong is one of thousands of Canadians between 18 and 34 who take time out to volunteer, work or travel in other countries each year, under international youth programs made possible by federal agreements with about 40 other governments. Gap-year travel - or a trip before, during or just after college or university - is a time-honoured tradition. These days, many kids are choosing to combine it with paid or unpaid jobs.
Their reasons include the desire to do good, to offset travel expenses and to immerse themselves in a particular culture. "The best way to learn about a place is to spend some time living there, and working or volunteering provides that opportunity," says Jeff Minthorn, editor of Verge, a Canadian magazine about travel "with a purpose."
"Working or volunteering abroad also looks great on a résumé or university application," Minthorn adds. "It's one thing to say, ‘I spent the last year backpacking around Australia and Southeast Asia,' quite another to say, ‘While I was there, I worked on a farm in Western Australia and volunteered in Thailand teaching English to schoolchildren.' "
Other rewards are less tangible. "Clients come back from a work or volunteer experience changed," says Karen Moore, Ottawa-based manager of sales and development for Travel Cuts' international programs. "They are more confident, know what they want out of life and realize there is another world where people struggle just to survive. It makes them realize how lucky they are, and more tolerant of other cultures."
Nevertheless, the decision to work or volunteer abroad deserves careful consideration. A good start is to check out the opportunities offered by well-established programs such as Travel Cuts' Work Abroad and Volunteer Abroad. After that, a self-assessment is in order. Factors such as your age, finances, skills and previous travel experience may influence your choice of when and where you go and what you do there, program organizers point out.
"Travelling is not always cool. It is also difficult," says Jonathan Paquet, president and co-founder of Horizon Cosmopolite, a Montreal agency that helps students find and prepare for international volunteer placements. "You will face who you are. You may cry because you miss your mom. You will ask yourself why you decided to go to that village where there are cockroaches in the bathroom."
Here are the stories of three Canadians who braved those hazards and came back from their travels eager to do it all over again:
Alex James, Toronto
James was 18 and finished high school when she went to Guyana as a Youth Challenge International (YCI) volunteer in early 2006. She and 12 other volunteers spent eight weeks in three communities, leading workshops on health and social issues such as HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, substance abuse and women's empowerment.
She had no international travel experience and the trip was the longest that she'd been away from home. But the decision to go was easy. "Post-secondary education didn't excite me. Travel did," she says. "I was fascinated and intrigued and even a little giddy at the idea of volunteering abroad."
YCI, like many volunteer organizations with a focus on developing countries, requires participants to raise the funds for their project and airfare. Scraping together the approximately $5,000 James needed took a lot of work. She hosted an evening of live music and theatre, with a raffle and bake sale, and collaborated with other Toronto-area volunteers on another raffle, for a pair of Lord of the Rings tickets.
YCI provided pre-departure training about culture, communicating and the project, as well as orientation for the volunteers in Guyana. Its Web site warns applicants they may have to sleep on the ground or use outdoor bathrooms in their host countries. But James still missed the comforts of home. "I lived in very close quarters with my group members, slept in a hammock, bathed and washed my clothes in a river, and used stinky, dirty outhouses, which were covered in cockroaches at night," she says.
And she was often homesick. "The first night was especially hard. I was exhausted, already covered in
mosquito bites, and felt very sad - almost wished I could turn around and go home."
But she enjoyed connecting with people in the communities in which she worked, especially playing with the kids, who taught her that the hokey-pokey's appeal cuts across all cultures.
The residents of each community thanked the volunteers by holding a bonfire for them the night before they left. Everybody serenaded each other and had a good time.
James's trip gave her knowledge of another culture and the understanding that there are many other ways of life, not to mention an enduring gratitude for basics like running water.
"More than anything, I came home with itchy feet, wanting to get out there and see more of the world," she says.
Last fall, after a semester of college and a stint at a full-time job, she did just that, travelling to Uganda as a volunteer for Kirabo Canada.
"Travel is such a rewarding and enriching experience," she says. "It's a whole other kind of learning. The opportunity to go to school will always be there; most of the awesome youth programs out there have age restrictions."
Chris Roosenboom, Bathurst, N.B.
Roosenboom, a Guelph, Ont., native who's training in New Brunswick for a career as a geophysicist, had finished his undergrad degree in his hometown and worked for a year when wanderlust struck. He decided to travel instead of starting a PhD program in the fall of 2006. He left in October, on a SWAP UK working holiday that spanned 11 months and five mostly poorly paid service-industry jobs.
"I wanted to learn about who I was and how other cultures do things differently. I also wanted to improve my social skills and get more confidence," he says. He chose Edinburgh as his destination because he wanted to see the Highlands, drink Scotch and learn about the history - and because a friend told him the city is a great party place.
Roosenboom made friends in advance through a SWAP chat room, and arranged to meet them in Edinburgh. SWAP (which is run by Travel Cuts in Canada) helped him arrange visas and accommodation for the first few days. His biggest pre-departure worries were saving enough money for the trip, waiting for his visa to arrive and packing light.
His "Wow, I'm here" moment came when he stepped off the double-decker airport bus on Waverley Bridge, "with big buses going every which way, strange-looking taxis darting about and, down the valley, Edinburgh Castle with the sun shining behind it," he says. "Was quite the day."
Roosenboom used the U.K. as a home base, travelling to other countries as the opportunity arose. He didn't have to cope with a new language or culture. But he had to adapt to being alone and develop self-reliance. Building up his tolerance for alcohol was also a challenge. "It's all one big party," he says.
Well, not quite. His jobs ran from boring and sometimes unpleasant stints cleaning and working the reception desk at a hostel, where he lived for free, to customer service at a baked-potato shop, where he had fun, and waiter/bartender at an Oxfordshire pub, where he felt like a slave. But he landed on his feet at the Jam House back in Edinburgh, where he became headwaiter and employee of the year, winning a trip for two to Birmingham, with dinner at a five-star restaurant and a night of clubbing.
Roosenboom came home "a completely different person," more comfortable with himself, more sociable and more confident with the opposite sex. His advice to other students considering a working holiday abroad: "Take the plunge! It is freaking scary but once you get there, it is excellent. And most important,
don't plan - just go with it. The random experiences are the best, and the ones you learn most from."
Jacqueline Wong, Toronto
Wong, a pharmacy grad, wanted a chance to observe health care in other parts of the world. She spotted a Horizon Cosmopolite ad for a volunteer job at a clinic in rural AlangAlang on a university career Web site in 2006. Knowing many residents of the Philippines speak English and that she'd be close to other Asian countries she wanted to visit, she jumped at the opportunity.
Wong was a seasoned traveller, having toured Europe, explored Spain on her own and studied in Italy for a month on a university exchange. Still, she was nervous about travel and accommodation. Horizon Cosmopolite liaised with the organization Volunteer for the Visayans, in Tacloban, which arranged her placement and home stay. Wong couldn't attend the pre-trip seminar. But a Lonely Planet guide introduced her to the culture and everyday life in the Philippines.
Her home stay in Tacloban was comfortable and welcoming - her hosts gave her their bedroom - and her days settled into a routine: up at 7 for an hour-long jeepney ride to the clinic where she worked as a receptionist for three weeks, tutoring local kids or relaxing at a coffee shop in downtown Tacloban after work and dinner (typically meat, stir-friend veggies and rice) at her home stay. A volunteer for the Visayans arranged excursions to its projects, local tourist attractions and beaches.
Typhoon season limited travel. But Wong and a friend took a weekend trip to a neighbouring island, where they saw rice paddies and swam in hot springs and under waterfalls. Their driver ran out of gas and they purchased two litres from a roadside stand, which was poured into glass Coke bottles - "the perfect quirky ending to an unusual day," Wong says.
Her biggest challenge was "just letting go of what I knew from living in Canada," she says. "Things are done differently in Tacloban, and I needed
to adjust." Her worst time came after eating balut, a fertilized duck egg that's a local delicacy. It didn't agree, and she had to stay home for a day.
But she enjoyed learning about a different culture, making new friends, picking up a bit of Waray-Waray and seeing how health care is delivered in the Philippines.
"Keep an open mind," she advises would-be international volunteers. "Once you find a program offered by a reliable organization, don't hesitate to register. And once you arrive, enjoy what the country has to offer and don't dwell on preconceptions."
MORE: Weigh the risks and rewards
Working and volunteering abroad are popular gap-year options. Horizon Cosmopolite, a Montreal-based volunteer-placement agency founded in 1997, has seen participation grow to 350 a year from 35 in 1999.
Kids who do it may develop a new sense of direction, greater appreciation for family, freedom and our privileged lifestyle and an understanding of what it's like to be the outsider in an unfamiliar culture. They also get valuable international work experience: 82% of respondents to a July, 2007, survey of employers by the University of Toronto's career centre see travel abroad as an asset on a résumé.
On the downside, volunteering abroad is expensive. Most organizations require participants to raise funds, and the service-industry and ESL teaching jobs travelling students often take tend to be poorly paid and are sometimes exploitive. Loneliness and homesickness can loom large - particularly in places with limited phone and Internet service - and scams, illness, accidents and trouble with foreign authorities are real risks.
The Martlet, the University of Victoria's newspaper, warned readers last fall that Japan's biggest private
language school had ceased paying some of its employees, but was still hiring Canadian students to teach in its schools. In November, British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons was imprisoned in Sudan for allowing her students there to name a teddy bear after the Easter Bunny. And in March of last year, British teen Georgia French died in a bus crash in the Andes while on a gap-year trip with friends; her parents, having learned that 500 people die each year in similar accidents in Peru, launched GapAid, a Web site meant to alert other kids and parents to scams and country-specific hazards.
Young, inexperienced travellers and those who strike out on their own are most at risk, regardless of their destinations. Jeff Minthorn, editor of Verge magazine, recommends that kids seek out reputable organizations that specialize in arranging international working and volunteering holidays. These NGOs (non-government organizations) help with everything from cultural orientation, travel arrangements and job and volunteer placements to ongoing support in the destination country. Moreover, they will take into account the traveller's goals, expectations and experience.
For example, Travel Cuts would steer an 18-year-old fresh out of high school to a work placement in the United Kingdom rather than, say, South Africa, says Karen Moore, manager of sales and development for the company's international programs. "It's not too far away and not too much of a culture shock. Our partners there help students find work and accommodation with roommates, and even organize social activities."
Students who hook up with well-run organizations tend to get more out their experiences, because they're well prepared and have realistic expectations, says Jonathan Paquet, of Horizon Cosmopolite.
Beyond that, it helps to cultivate personal qualities such as a positive attitude, sense of humour and flexibility. "We all deal differently in a cross-cultural context," Paquet says. "Some people go on a project and only have complaints; another person comes back from the same project only with positive comments."
Sandy Fife, Weekend Post
So hot right now
Update: It should be noted that Popeye Jones in no way asks for, encourages or even is happy about these pictures being posted. Hence, the reoccurence.
Open letter to the tool from West Haven riding on Metro North
Dear tool,
I have found the following facets about you fascinating:
1. All those keggers you threw in high school
2. All those beers you drank in high school
3. All those tailgates you went to in high school
4. When you tell your girlfriend to shut her face
5. The time your dad sold his 7/11
6. The time your dad wouldn't pay alimony
7. Your friends Vinnie, Bobby and Scumbag
8. The time you kicked your mom out of her own house to throw a party in high school
9. Your Denver-the-last-dinosaur fauxhawk
10. Your gravelly kermit the frog voice
11. You rmastery of the word "shit"
12. Your disappointingly hot girlfriend
13. Your plan to have laser-hair-removal surgery so you can stop shaving in your chinstrap
Way to go!
Thanks,
Weekend UpDate™ March 28, 2008
Happy Friday, this week is finally over, for most people at least. And I suggest that you head to some of Manhattan's favorite social gatherings and spend that hard earned money on booze (a 24 oz. domestic can is usually cheaper than bottled water at a deli).
Einstein's birthday was two weeks ago, but since it's the last weekend in March it's still relevant. Here is some knowledge for you....
Albert Einstein's birthday was March 14. He would now be 127. Few people remember that the Nobel Prize winner married his cousin, Elsa Cliental, after his first marriage dissolved in 1919. Einstein said that he was attracted to Elsa because she was well endowed. He postulated that if you are attracted to women with large breasts, the attraction is stronger if there is a family connection. This came to be known as: Einstein's Theory of Relative Titty.
Joke
A guy walked into the local welfare office to pick up his check. He marched straight up to the counter and said,
"Hi. You know, I just HATE drawing welfare. I'd really rather have a job."
The social worker behind the counter said,
" Your timing is excellent. We just got a job opening from a very wealthy old man who wants a chauffeur and bodyguard for his beautiful daughter. You'll have to drive around in his Mercedes, and he'll supply all of your clothes. Because of the long hours, meals will be provided. You'll be expected to escort the daughter on her overseas holiday trips and you will have to satisfy her sexual urges. You'll be provided a two-bedroom apartment above the garage. The salary is $200,000 a year."
The guy, wide-eyed, said,
"You're bullshittin' me! "
The social worker said,
"Yeah, well . . you started it".
Bar of the Week
Black Bear Lodge (274 3rd Ave - Between 21st and 22nd)
Bar type: Ski lodge / Hunting lodge themed
Drink specials:
Happy Hour: $3 drafts, $3 Guiness, $4 well drinks, $4 PBR & Natty light cans, $3 Frozen Margaritas, $3 Rolling Rock
Saturday afternoon: Free bomb shot with every pint
Sunday and Monday nights: $12 Bud and Bud Light pitchers
Tuesday and Wednesday nights: $4 Labatts and Magners Cider, $3 after midnight
Friday & Saturday: Weekly specials - on the chalk board outside bar or ask bartenders
Other Weekend Events/Bars
Black Bear Lodge has 3 sister bars:
Bullshead Tavern - (295 Third Ave btw 22nd and 23rd st)
Take the 6 train to 23rd street, walk 2 blocks east to 3rd Ave and make a right on 3rd, East side of the street
Kings Head Tavern - (222 East 14th St btw 2nd and 3rd ave)
Take the 4,5,6,N,R,Q to 14th St, walk 2 blocks east on 14th, West side of street
Whiskey River - (575 2nd Ave btw 31st and 32nd st)
Take the 6 train to 32nd st and walk 2 blocks east to 2nd ave, West side of street
Have a fun safe weekend and if you'd like to have an event posted please let me know.
PIGGY OUT!!!
Einstein's birthday was two weeks ago, but since it's the last weekend in March it's still relevant. Here is some knowledge for you....
Albert Einstein's birthday was March 14. He would now be 127. Few people remember that the Nobel Prize winner married his cousin, Elsa Cliental, after his first marriage dissolved in 1919. Einstein said that he was attracted to Elsa because she was well endowed. He postulated that if you are attracted to women with large breasts, the attraction is stronger if there is a family connection. This came to be known as: Einstein's Theory of Relative Titty.
Joke
A guy walked into the local welfare office to pick up his check. He marched straight up to the counter and said,
"Hi. You know, I just HATE drawing welfare. I'd really rather have a job."
The social worker behind the counter said,
" Your timing is excellent. We just got a job opening from a very wealthy old man who wants a chauffeur and bodyguard for his beautiful daughter. You'll have to drive around in his Mercedes, and he'll supply all of your clothes. Because of the long hours, meals will be provided. You'll be expected to escort the daughter on her overseas holiday trips and you will have to satisfy her sexual urges. You'll be provided a two-bedroom apartment above the garage. The salary is $200,000 a year."
The guy, wide-eyed, said,
"You're bullshittin' me! "
The social worker said,
"Yeah, well . . you started it".
Bar of the Week
Black Bear Lodge (274 3rd Ave - Between 21st and 22nd)
Bar type: Ski lodge / Hunting lodge themed
Drink specials:
Happy Hour: $3 drafts, $3 Guiness, $4 well drinks, $4 PBR & Natty light cans, $3 Frozen Margaritas, $3 Rolling Rock
Saturday afternoon: Free bomb shot with every pint
Sunday and Monday nights: $12 Bud and Bud Light pitchers
Tuesday and Wednesday nights: $4 Labatts and Magners Cider, $3 after midnight
Friday & Saturday: Weekly specials - on the chalk board outside bar or ask bartenders
Other Weekend Events/Bars
Black Bear Lodge has 3 sister bars:
Bullshead Tavern - (295 Third Ave btw 22nd and 23rd st)
Take the 6 train to 23rd street, walk 2 blocks east to 3rd Ave and make a right on 3rd, East side of the street
Kings Head Tavern - (222 East 14th St btw 2nd and 3rd ave)
Take the 4,5,6,N,R,Q to 14th St, walk 2 blocks east on 14th, West side of street
Whiskey River - (575 2nd Ave btw 31st and 32nd st)
Take the 6 train to 32nd st and walk 2 blocks east to 2nd ave, West side of street
Have a fun safe weekend and if you'd like to have an event posted please let me know.
PIGGY OUT!!!
Who's coming with me?
Opening next weekend is Sex and Death 101, sure to be the worst movies of all time. They couldnt even get the normal trailer voice-over guy. Redeeming quality: looks like the girl from The Skulls plays the (main) love interest
In other movie-related news, check out the guerilla-marketing of I Hate Sarah Marshall, which looks to be another phone'd-in Apatow flick. Not only is there an extensive blog, but there are also a bunch of links to fake myspace and fan sites of auxillary characters. An interesting marketing move that begs the question, who is being paid to maintain these fake sites? Their moms are sure to be proud.
Statch
A friend sent out this article yesterday about three separate cases of teacher/student action that recently took place in Tampa. Check the link for complete details (and mugshots!), but the gist is that three women (28, 45, 40) hooked up to varying degrees with their male students (14-18).
Someone made a binary joke (teacher + student = 1) that got us thinking: there should be a standardized model taking various factors into account when determining how much time, if any, the offending parties should spend in the clink. This is, after all, the country where we judge people first on their looks and then on the facts. Plus, male students in this situation are not always victims.
After a few iterations, we came up with this:
(T/2A) + (LAG - S)(B)(1/H)(1/2*E) = J
T = Teacher's Age
A = Attractiveness (1-10)
LAG = Legal Age of Consent
S = Student's Age
B = Which base did they get to?
H = Number of times
E = Number of students involved, aka Eiffel Towerability
J = Jailtime
This model should account for a number of variables, including regional differences and the degree of complicity on the part of the student. Bankers, you guys love this stuff. Will someone run the numbers and check my math?
Note: There is clearly a degree of gender-bias in this, which I counter with the following: any male teacher preying on students should be automatically removed from society's gene pool. Given the vast percentage of guys who would be absolutely fine with hooking up with a teacher, however, the female-teacher/male-student scenario is a horse of a different color. David Lee would absolutely agree.
The prodigal son to return east
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Austin aka "Almost Salutatorian" is going to business school* in Boston. Send him a congratulatory email / text / love note.
Update: *The school name has been redacted but its Austin - take a fucking guess.
Liveblogging Silverado
10:58. Welp, Paden is the sheriff now and the rest of the guys are going to California. Folks are riding off and the credits start to run, but something's run. Things pause. Oh no, someone's gonna have to go back a get a shitload of dimes. GOOD NIGHT FOLKS!10:55: Alright, it's the big show down. Paden v. Cobb.
"Goodbye, Paden." "Goodbye, Cobb."
Paden shoots Cobb. Lame. Where's Costner!?
10:52: Other montages available from arizonaluv: Swayze, Travolta, Banderas, JLo, The Rock, Catherine Zeta Jones, Ashley Judd, Harrison Ford, Vigo Mortensen, Kate Hudson, Ryan Gosling, and Vin Diesel.
10:50: Great shootout scene with Costner v. two deps. Looked for a clip on youtube, but all I found was this:
nice work, arizonaluv
10:48: Glover just stabbed Jeff Goldblum (presumably for that whole vit-d thing). I had zero clue Jeff was a baddy. Has he ever been a bad guy in another other movie ever? I feel misled.
10:44: Mustang Sally is dying -- Jeff Goldblum must have the Clap.
10:38: Tomorrow on AMC: Death Wish IV "The CrackDown" and Death Wish V "The Face of Death". Apparenly Death Wish VIII "What Am I So Angry About, Again?" didn't make the cut.
10:34: COSTNER! And he just swung in from a barn on a rope. WHere've you been, they ask. "Playing dead." Tits. We retract that last Waterworld call.
10:31: Axe and Glover are riding their horses somewhere and Kevin Kline just joined them. But where's Costner? Crowd assumes he's somewhere drinking his own pee.
10:24: And they each have three shotguns. Awesome. So back to the top guns question. No doubt we've got the Sundance Kid on the list. The Waco Kid. Doc Holliday in Tombstone. Who else?
10:23: Axes took off his bandana. Danny Glover is nodding. Huh?
10:21: Happy so far, although there's hasn't been too much pinpoint shooting. Axe made a can jump with 7 or 8 straight shots, but that's about it. IT's got me wondering who the best shots in Western history are. We'll get to that in a minute, the music just picked up and something exciting is happening.
10:18: Mal is in jail, and one of the deputy's brought his sister in and is feeling her up. Sister has a knife in her boot (there's a SNAKE in my boot...) OH and she just stabbed the dep in the back. The dep staggers against the bars, Mal is choking him. ANother dude comes in, shoots the sister, and somehow someone throws the knife into the second dep's sternum. Scene change. Whoa.
10:05: They just shot Wilson. It hit him in the shoulder, but the soundtrack tells us he's done for. 12-year old Forrest is distraught.
10:04: Costner is either related to or buddies with Wilson from Home Improvement. Ironically, Kev just walked into a trap to find Wilson and the rest of his family bound and gagged. Wilson's face is covered from the nose down.
9:47: To catch you up to speed on the major developments:
- Danny Glover is Mal. Mal left home for unclear reasons when we was young. Now he's back, his Pappy just got shot by the sheriffs' men over a land dispute, and Mal's sister is a prostitute.
- Kevin Kline is Paden and he's in debt to Brian Dennehy (Sheriff Cobb). Now he helps run the gambling at Cobb's saloon along with Stella, that short old lady who played the principal in Kindergarten Cop.
- Costner is Jake and Axe (aka Scott Glenn) is Emmett. Don't know their stories.
- Cobb killed a dude, not sure why.
- Jeff Goldblum is sleeping with Mal's sister and half his wardrobe consists of raccoon skin. Christian Siriano disapproves.
