Day: July 24, 2009

You Missed It: Ethics of steel edition

Sooooo, how are things? Yeah? How’s work going for you? That’s cool. Me? Eh, things are slowing down, you know how it is …. Yeah, well, um …. I should get going, but it was great running into you like this. Oh, one other thing. If you were busy downloading peephole videos of sports reporters this week, odds are you missed it.

But enough about that, let’s talk about important things, like Michael Vick being freed
Did you hear that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was accused with sexual assault this week? If you did, you did not hear about it from ESPN, who remained eerily quiet on the topic. The story broke earily in the week, when a worker at a Nevada casino filed a civil suit, saying that Big Ben called her up to fix his television, then, well, you know. The point here is that until last night, ESPN was not talking about it. Yes the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” was mum on the quarterback of the reigning Super Bowl champs being charged in a civl case with probably the most career ending charge, other than murder. We don’t want to offend toothless Ben, after all.

The Eagle has landed and provided us with news in a dry week
Forty years ago this week, man walked on the moon for the first time. It’s the kind of thing that makes you stop and pause. Or, if you’re the media, it’s the kind of thing that makes you cover the story from about every conceivable angle. Did you know that Neil Armstong is very reclusive regarding his fame? Did you know that Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin legally changed his name to Buzz in 1988? Did you know that the astronauts had to go through customs when they came back to Earth? It’s all true. Now, let’s move onto talking about the long bureaucratic process the Apollo program took, or President John F. Kennedy’s famous speech, or ….

Put him altogether, then take him all apart
Michael Jackson’s nose. It’s been the butt of jokes, the subject of wonder, and quite possible the target of a surgery or two over the years. However, it seems now that the King of Pop’s nose is missing! Reports are that while his body was in the morgue, witnesses said the nose was not on his face while he was on the autopsy table. Don’t worry, everyone. Inspired by Mister Potato Head he had 16 different, changeable noses, from the skinny and pointed looking to the downright elven.

It’s a proportional blow out!

And for god's sake, keep a hand on your wallet!This week in America, it’s a sanity sale! All things must be blown out of proportion! That’s right: no credibility checks and no personal accountability for the entire first year of blustering!

This deal, of course, only applies to our Henry Louis Gates, Jr. arrest in Cambridge, Mass. But, the options are entirely up to you! Packages include:

  • Black Rage: The arrest of Dr. Gates is an indictment of all black men everywhere!
  • White Rage: It’s like white men can’t even arrest a black man on a trumped-up charge, only to release him hours later because it would never stick!

And new for today:

  • Authority Rage: Criticizing Sgt. James Crowley is an indictment of all police officers everywhere!
  • Anti-intellectual Rage: These arugula-eating, latte-sipping effete Ivy Leaguers refuse to fear our police (though the anonymous author claims to be one as well)!

Act now, and we’ll throw in our self-satisfaction undercoat and a handjob from the AM radio host of your choice!

Fish DNA yields first ever The Glubber

GLUB GLUB GLUB.

Scientists (though only slightly perturbed) at the University of Connecticut have made adjustable LEDs out of strands of salmon DNA. The DNA is mixed with dye that absorbs UV light and emits bright white light.

The team used two different dyes: one absorbs UV light emits blue visible light, and the other absorbs part of the blue light to emit the desired color of light. The proportions of the two dyes can be altered to create an efficient, easily color-tunable light. The LEDs can be tuned to emit either warmer or colder white lights.

The use of DNA as the base polymer also has its purposes. DNA is a very strong polymer, lasting 50 times longer than acrylic. The DNA fibers also orient the dye molecules in the best way possible to make the energy transfer happen.

The process seems a bit overly involved for the result. The scientists have to extract fish DNA, then spin it into nano-fibers, and then coat a UV LED with the fibers. Of course, how many other technologies can claim that their efficiency comes from fish DNA?

So, does this mean that we need to kill all the fish? Not necessarily now, as their usefulness for lighting hallways and bedrooms at night for small children just became tenfold. Adjustable color usefulness, at that!

NFL player not content with $2 million a year, boycotts Madden

The annual Madden ratings are a big deal to football players-and for the particularly egotistical ones, it’s natural to feel that the game doesn’t properly assess their talents. For the rest of us, it tends to fall under the criteria of Internet ridiculousness.

This one easily crosses a bit too far into absurdity.

Seattle Seahawks wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh feels that Madden NFL 10 has underrated him at a 91. So, in a show of protest, he declared on Colin Cowherd’s ESPN Radio show recently that he won’t be playing the game.

Houshmandzadeh had played his entire career for the Cincinnati Booooo-ngals Bengals until he signed with the Seahawks during the recent off-season, and what’s the first thing he did, before even playing a preseason game in a Seahawks uniform? Why, blame his former team for his shortcomings, of course:

“Man, they don’t get my rating right … I just looked at the game and they have this wrong and that wrong. And I understand I averaged 10 yards a catch [in 2008], but it’s the offense, man, not me.”

In case you were wondering, this year’s edition of Madden lists Houshmandzadeh as the sixth-best receiver in the NFC; the five players ranked above him (co-cover athlete Larry Fitzgerald, Steve Smith, Anquan Boldin, Roddy White, and Calvin Johnson) each had at least two more touchdowns than he did in 2008, and he’s the only one of the six who didn’t have at least 1,000 yards receiving. If this were a LOLCAT, it would be picture saying “FAIR RATING IS FAIR.”

Of course, he claims he’s better than the numbers say he is, even though sports video game ratings are generally based on the prior year’s statistical performance, and he’s adamant that EA Tiburon has wronged him.

“I’m not playing Madden no more, until they get my rating right,”

he whines. Awwww, pobrecito.

The persistent wiener threat

We started off the week telling you about how the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile terrorized a Wisconsin neighborhood, so it seems only right that we get another tale, this time in Hawaii.

Apparently, the hot dog and bun-shaped motor vehicle was so ashamed of its Roethlisberger-esque incident, it had itself airlifted to the Pacific island state to get away from it all. But it ran into even more trouble. It seems the phallic car might be in violation of a state law banning vehicular advertising.

The complaint comes from, get this, an environmental group that hopes to ban the wienermobile from ever coming to  Hawaii again. That will probably go double for the bolognacycle.