Day: January 26, 2010

Eat My Sports: Favre’d again

Every year we approach the end of the football season with our thoughts on the Super Bowl, the upcoming draft, and of course Brett Favre’s impending retired, un-retired, retired, un-retired dance. It gets old, it gets oversaturated, I love it. Favre adds drama in the middloe of February where sports as a whole goes to die. But before we even get there take a look at this season and admire the guy for what he did.

Yes, I think Favre should audition to be the next lead-singer of Me First and The Gimme Gimmes, but look back at Minnesota last year. Remember them? They were the team that couldn’t decide between Gus Frerotte and Tarvaris Jackson to lead their team in the playoffs. Essentially the Vikings were about as close to being a Super Bowl contender as Madonna is to being a virgin, Favre lessened the ever-widening gap. Continue reading Eat My Sports: Favre’d again

Great, now the Internet’s unsafe for children

Pope Benedict XVI has asked Catholic ministers and priests to use the Internet to spread the gospel. Ben (and only we are allowed to call him that) cited the Church’s adoption of other media like books, television and weekly wine tastings as justification to moving online.

We can see a couple of flaws to this plan:

  1. The priests who are already Web savvy are also already on Chris Hansen’s watchlist.
  2. The priests who aren’t online will have trouble setting up blogs and Web sites since they never had children to do it for them. (This is also why the clergy doesn’t use DVRs and their clocks always read “88:88.”)

Still, we think His Holiness is on the right track and welcome him and his brethren to the ’90s.

But are the prison outfits colored plaid?

We’ve heard all the reports of prisoners getting totally sweet perks like cable television, satellite, game consoles and other luxuries that a lot people not in jail normally can’t afford to have. If you’re one of those people that feels righteous indignation about those events, hold onto your hat. There is a plan by the Scottish prison system to raise “literacy” and “numeracy” skills among its prison population by giving the inmates access to Nintendo DS systems. DUM DUM DUM.

The program would be tested in a small number of prison libraries and would involve literacy experts working with the prisoners. Prison officials note that inmates already have access to PlayStations, so going with the DS is seen as consistent and, perhaps, an improvement.

The devices, fitted with “brain training” software, will be put on trial on the advice of Scottish government officials who believe they will reduce the chances of the prisoners reoffending after they have served their sentences by improving their employment prospects. A government study into the education of prisoners, Learning in Custody: Report of the Offender Learning in Custody Workstream, concluded that convicts would benefit from the devices, which are currently being used in many primary schools to raise attainment.

However, not everyone is hunkey dorey with this plan. A Scottish group representing taxpayers calls the plan “ridiculous,” given that many Sottish citizens can’t even afford DSes for their kids in this current economic climate. If they stopped serving haggis, they might get somewhere,  though.

Anyone up for waffles?

And here we go again. After Sunday night’s 31-28 defeat at the hands of Bourbon Street, Brett Favre once again is saying it is “highly unlikely” he will grace us with his presence on the football field. Don’t worry though, given that this story has never gathered much steam in the past, we’ll keep tabs on it for you … right up until Favre signs after training camp.

Tempting fate

Museums are usually safe and secure, we very rarely hear about big heists these days, you have to think that if you have an exhibit about stolen artifacts that were recovered, you have to think it’s going to give people ideas.

In Israel, just such a thing happened. A display of antiquities that had been stolen and recovered were on display, so someone broke in and stole a few items, including a silver ring that belonged to Alexander the Great. This is roughly equivalent to someone stealing a car out of the police impound.