Strange & Stupid: Amusing News

cus other than me, you may be the only other one.
According to a study released by Magna Global’s Steve Sternberg, the five broadcast nets’ average live median age (in other words, not including delayed DVR viewing) was 50 last season. That’s the oldest ever since Sternberg started analyzing median age more than a decade ago — and the first time the nets’ median age was outside of the vaunted 18-49 demo.

But what’s important is the NOT DVR part. B/c that means people may still be watching. I mean let’s be honest, when’s the last time you sat down promptly at 8:59 on Tuesday to take in your favorite hour of network TV? [I can't remember mine, either.]

For the just-completed 2007-08 TV season, CBS was oldest in live viewing with a median age of 54. ABC clocked in at 50, followed by NBC (49), Fox (44), CW (34) and Univision (34).
At ABC, youngest series was “Supernanny” (with a median age of 41), while oldest was “Women’s Murder Club” (57). At CBS, youngest was “How I Met Your Mother,” “Kid Nation” and the Tuesday edition of “Big Brother,” tied at 45; oldest was “60 Minutes” (60). NBC’s youngest show was “Scrubs” (34), and oldest was “Monk” (58).
At Fox, the youngest shows were “American Dad” and “Family Guy” (29), while the oldest was “Canterbury’s Law” (55). At CW, “One Tree Hill” was youngest (26), while “Life Is Wild” was oldest (45).

Among latenight gabbers, “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” is oldest, with a median age of 54, followed by “Late Show With David Letterman” at 53. Interestingly, “Nightline” — which should conceivably be older than those talkers, is younger, at 52. ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” meanwhile, passed the 18-49 threshold for the first time, clocking in with a median of 50. “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” is getting closer at 46.

From JPost: [granted its a blog, but still]
…there is so much of his life that reveals an absolutely sterling character, but remains largely unknown to the public. And in spite of the tremendous political advantages that publicity could confer, McCain instinctively keeps that information private. …
…How aware is the public that McCain has raised seven children? Or that he adopted his two oldest sons as small boys (children from his wife’s prior marriage)? Or that he has raised a Bangladeshi girl with severe health problems adopted from Mother Theresa’s orphanage? Or that his own sons have served in the military, including in Iraq? …
On POW status… But few are aware that he refused early release until all the POWs captured before him were freed, and that he refused special treatment offered once it was discovered that he was the “crown prince” (the son of the admiral in charge of the Pacific Fleet) because he wouldn’t provide the enemy with any propaganda victories. Although broken and battered, after his release from Vietnamese captivity he went right back to the Navy, where he continued to serve for an additional eight years…

…McCain’s father and grandfather were respected American admirals. Of McCain’s four sons, three have gone the military route. One was a Navy pilot like his father, one enlisted in the Marines at age 17 and recently completed a tour in Iraq, and one is completing his education at the Naval Academy (raising the strong possibility that, for the first time in half a century, the United States will have a president with a son at war)…
continued. talk about disabled Asian daughter, etc.

for the record, I’m still gonna cry if he wins.

Least visited National Park.
9 of Americas tallest peaks.
Scant Visitation.
Ample bear communities.
ICE ICE ICE
HUGENESS
Sounds like a blast.
Wrangell St. Elias NP

sort of.
like earnest hemmingway, but….on myspace.

Love meant everything to her.
Supermodel Ruslana Korshunova poured her heart out on the Web in the months leading to her apparent suicide.

“Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably,” the sandy-haired knockout wrote in a poem that concluded: “And never regret anything that made you smile.”

The Kazakh beauty wrote that love “blinds,” “sets souls afire,” and “is always the answer” in emotion-soaked passages posted on a social networking site.
Korshunova volleyed between Russian and English in her heartfelt prose, but love was a central theme no matter the language. “Do not confuse love and desire,” she wrote in Russian in her most recent posting May 30. “Love is the sun, desire - only flash. Desire dazzles, and the sun gives life.”

“Love does not take away from one in order to give to another,” wrote Korshunova, a 20-year-old thousands of miles from her native Kazakhstan. “Love - this is the essence of life. But you will not give your life to another.”
Korshunova’s most telling message came three months ago: “I’m so lost. Will I ever find myself?”
She appeared angry in some postings, brokenhearted in others.

“I’m a bitch. I’m a witch. I don’t care what you say!!!” she wrote March 11. “I know what it is. I know why my other relationships didn’t work out, ’cause I’m unpredictable. Why are you afraid of it?”

In January, she wrote, “It hurts, as if someone took a part of me, tore it out, mercilessly stomped all over and threw it out.

“My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high,” she wrote in a March note.

http://www.nomarriage.com/

once I called my mom Marsha, because she calls her parents by their first names….my dad threatened to hit me.
Turns out, though, that the Globe thinks it’s common, even cool to have lame ass nicknames for your parents.
Ro Ro and Cha Cha did not think so. We got kicked out of their house for callig them that. Alas, most my age are cooler than me:

Among some teenagers and twentysomethings, “Mom and Dad” are giving way to slangy, quirky nicknames.

Sometimes the nicknames spring up impromptu. Other times they migrate from kids’ shorthand references for their parents into pet names. The simplest are variations on first and last names.

Consider “Shar Shar,” the name a daughter’s friend gave to Sharon Levitan in Weston.

” ‘Shar Shar’ sounds like I’m a cockapoo or something,” Levitan lamented. “If they came up with something a little more mature, I wouldn’t mind, since with these kids a nickname means you’re endeared to them.”

the article goes on to blame everything from text messages to IMs to myspace and even the hippie parents ways of rearing.

Regardless, it’ll be a long time before you hear me call my dad”Sweet Man,” “Glenzo,” or “Pina.”

Sarah Switlik, 18, a Babson College student from Princeton, N.J., said her mother, Pam, wasn’t thrilled at first when Sarah called her P-Money. “Initially my mom said, ‘Really, Sarah,’ exasperatedly. Now when she’s texting she signs off, ‘Love, P$.’ It makes her feel like one of the girls.”
A remindeR: Mom’s not supposed to be one of the girls.
She’s your MOM. Respect her.

from the BBC:

A family from West Midlands is trying to revive a British gastronomic pastime —- faggots.
What is the only thing that could make this story better? The only thing that could make the sentence “my familys favorite food is faggots” a little funnier?
thats right. The DOODY family was recently crowned the national Faggot Family, and are launching a national Faggot Week.

Faggot facts
Faggots are like little meatballs.
Faggots were called “savoury ducks” in the Middle Ages
Faggots were named after the Latin word for bundle
Faggots were originally made with pig’s liver and offal
Faggots are now made from pork liver and pork
Fans have published the Good Faggot Guide

“The nation knows that the Cornish pasty, Yorkshire pudding, haggis and fish and chips are great British dishes, but all too often the faggot is left off that list,” said Janet Doody.

Her husband Fred added: “It’s unfair because faggots were a British delicacy long before any of the others.

“The great British faggot is full of flavour and a great belly warmer at this time of year.”

The family, including Lewis, 13, and Grace, 7, eat faggots twice a week, with mashed potato and mushy peas.

The competition was organised by faggot producer Mr Brain’s Faggots, the largest Faggot producer in the UK.

WASHINGTON- A Metro station manager and a Metro custodian were arrested on prostitution charges after an undercover transit police investigation found they arranged sexual trysts for money from inside the Dupont Circle Metro station.

At one point the employees used the Metro loudspeaker system to facilitate an illicit sexual arrangement, according to police who arrested the pair last week.

Sharon Waters, a Red Line station manager, told an undercover police officer at the Dupont Circle station June 4 that she could arrange meetings with local prostitutes for him, according to court documents.

The officer returned to the station at 11:45 p.m. June 11 and met with Waters, who told him she was organizing a “sex” party in the Washington area for a $100 cover charge, court records show.

Waters then used the Metro loudspeaker system to page Pam Goins, a Metro custodian who Waters said would be interested, and the officer and Waters went to the Farragut North Metro station to meet her, according to the documents.

Goins told the officer she would have sex with him for $200, and the two agreed to meet in the officer’s hotel room later in the week, after Goins grabbed his crotch and made several references to sexual acts she wanted to perform with him, records show.

Two days later, the officer requested Waters send a prostitute to him at his hotel room at the Washington Hilton, and she dispatched “Maria” and “Keisha,” who said they would engage in a “threesome” with him for $1,000.

When they didn’t arrive after two hours, Goins said she would take a break from work and come to his hotel room for sex, according to the documents.

Waters has been a Metro employee since 1990 and is currently on administrative leave, Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said. She earned a base salary of $56,647 in fiscal 2006.

BARNEGAT, N.J. - HOLY CRAP A NINJA!
Public schools were locked down after a student reported seeing a ninja running in the woods behind hte town elementary school.
Turns out. It was a camp counselor. Dressed as a ninja. The dude was late for costume day.