Day: July 6, 2009

The McBournie Minute: Quiet on the tee, please

When I was a kid–wait, where are you going? Stop it. I promise this isn’t some sort of “I remember when” story, despite how the lead sentence sounds. Can we start over again?

When I was a kid, I knew on weekends I could always find my dad watching golf on television. He would eat his lunch, a bologna and cheese sandwich with potato chips mixed in, and sit for hours watching. I tried in earnest several times to watch it with my dad, but my interest always wained.

You see, golf on TV is really, really boring, and this is coming from someone who sits through entire baseball games.

Sure, you can follow along if you know where everyone is and who is leading in the tournament, but the coverage is forced to skip around from one hole to the next after a single shot. This is because nearly every hole has action going on (that’s what she said) and it takes so long for golfers to walk to their next shot. The result is something along the lines of picking up a book, reading page 1, then skipping to page 56, then going to 32, then to page 2 and so on. There’s not much of a story told unless you unscramble it yourself. Continue reading The McBournie Minute: Quiet on the tee, please

‘No, you hang up first …’

They're both thinking this.President Barack Obama and Russian puppet President Dmitry Medvedev reached an agreement, committing to reduce their nuclear arsenals, on only their first day of the Moscow summit.

They quickly agreed to reduce from 2200 warheads to only 1500 or so. (That scraped 500 nukes spares a couple of American cities that are too close to Canada and the populated regions of Siberia.)

Of course, the moment of agreement grew tense when neither president would agree over who would miss who more until day two of the summit. The situation was miraculously resolved when Secretary of State Clinton suggested they each go back to their rooms and write letters to prove it.

Sex, er, “love” continues to thrive in the economy

If there’s anything that countless amounts of incredibly fiction has taught us, it is that love conquers all. None can deny its power, or resist its clarion call. Love cannot be stopped. That goes for its hotels too, apparently. Love hotels, the home of Japanese lust and the way to spend a day (or just a few hours) are doing quite well. So well, in that some chains are considering expansion.

CNN interviewed Steve Mansfield, owner and operator of Isawa’s Bonita Hotel in Japan, who speaks of a 257 percent occupancy rate. That means that the average Bonita Hotel room is rented two-and-a-half times per day. And they aren’t cheap, either. Some of the higher-end rooms can cost roughly $200 a night (though rates run from just 3 to 24 hours), boasting jacuzzis, built-in saunas, TVs, video games and karaoke bars.

It’s hardly surprising. No matter the economic status, people still have needs to be met, and a love hotel can provide a taste of luxury, if even for just a few hours. Plus, some folks just use the hotels to, y’know, sleep in, a temporary place to stay if you’re too drunk to get home or missed the last train. Not a whole lot of them, mind you. We see you in the corner, with the shifty eyes. That’s right. We’re talking about you.

By the way, if you haven’t picked up on it yet, we’re talking about SEX, much like how the song Afternoon Delight talks about the carnal delight.

Not exactly what we were aiming for

Fireworks were seen all over this fine country over the weekend. As we are told, the U.S. celebrated its Independence Day. And if you care, Canada celebrated their existence last week, too. (Seriously? You’re still part of the British Empire, what do you have to celebrate?)

But fireworks aren’t always a good thing, especially if you live in Congo. There, in the city of Goma, a fireworks display intended to celebrate peace that began in January made the civil war-weary city dive for cover, thinking the war had started up again. People went diving for cover upon hearing the explosions going off.

Everyone, let’s agree not to play with bubble wrap around Congo for a while, sound good?