Free at Last! Free at Last!

Chinese officials have relased a captive panda into the wild.

From the article:
"When the door of its cage opened ... Xiang Xiang hesitated for a second, then walked slowly for a few steps and eventually ran into a bamboo forest"

Can't you just picture it?
"They can't really be stupid enough to leave the door open, can they? I'll just take one step outside and they'll realize their mistake.
Hmmm. Nobody's noticed yet. Well, I'll take another step. Surely they'll see me now.
Wow. Here I am, five feet from my cage, and they're all just staring. That bamboo down the street looks pretty tasty. And fresh, too...
Maybe I'll make a break for it...
Here I goooooooo!"

Yuck!

I've spent more than my share of time in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. I used to live in Ottumwa, about half an hour from there, and can tell you first hand that Mount Pleasant is the exact opposite of "mountainous" and it is often not "pleasant."

Mount Pleasant is known for a very cute, old-fashioned downtown area, the Old Threshers, and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, friend to the Beatles and founder of the Maharishi University of Management (along with plenty of brain-washing rumours).

And though Mount Pleasant, Iowa isn't one of my favorite places on the planet, I've never felt the need to dump vomit across the city. But somebody does.

Yummmmmm...

Phish Food. Like Rocky Road, without the nuts... but with little chocolate fishies.

The line was rather long, but fortunately, the Ben & Jerry's here was well-staffed and was only serving free cones (No sundaes, etc). I'd estimate that there were about 35 people in line in front of us, and we got through the line in no more than seven or eight minutes. It was well worth the wait.

Cory, by the way, got Fossil Fuel.

On the Ben & Jerry's website, they have a "graveyard" of "dearly departed" flavors. Some of them ("Jerry's Jubilee," "Chocolate Chocolate Cookie") sound pretty yummy. Some ("Ice Tea with Ginseng," "Peanuts! Popcorn!") sound downright disgusting.

Breaking News!

For those of you who live near a Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop... Run, don't walk to Ben & Jerry's.

It's FREE ICE CREAM DAY!!!

Save the Internet

First-- a disclaimer:
I know that not all of my readers are the same left-wing hippie-types that I am... and that you might not be particularly fond of MoveOn.org. I can respect that.
But I also know that all of my readers use the internet on a fairly regular basis... some even rely on it for their livelihoods. In that case, you may want to read this. (I've condensed it a bit... you can read the entire text by accessing this link).

Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an Ipod? These activities... will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law that gives giant corporations more control over the Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. Amazon doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.

If Net Neutrality is gutted... Amazon and Google either pay protection money or risk that their websites process slowly on your computer. That why these high-tech pioneers are joining the fight to protect Network Neutrality--and you can do your part today.

The free and open Internet is under seige--can you sign this petition letting your member of Congress know you support preserving Network Neutrality? Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/

Get Over It

I'm not going to spend an extended period of time on my soapbox talking about this, but I will devote a brief post.

I always liked Keith Hernandez... He was pretty entertaining when he appeared on Seinfeld, and he was a heck of a first baseman.

But as it turns out, he's not just a MVP (1979), he's also an MCP (2006).

Keith, get over it. Do you really think that a woman can't be professional while taping your ankle? Do you really think that a ballplayer, after getting beaned in the head by a 95-mph fastball, is going to try for a quick grope while a woman makes sure he doesn't have a concussion?

As Cory said, this is what happens when Elaine Benes dumps you. She ruins you for other women.

Marketing 101

How do you market a movie that nearly every man, woman, and child in the civilized world has already seen?

Just ask the ad wizards at TBS.

An Untimely Demise

Thanks to our pal "-b" (as in broccoli) over at Sunless Suitcase for this one. Google your name, followed by the phrase "was killed by" (in quotation marks).

I've discovered that when you share the same name as a famed Danish actress, you get some good stuff. Some of my highlights:

"...was killed by Poeas's arrow" (how's that for literary?)
"...was killed by the tornado which destroyed the Dalton place near Mauston" (also quite dramatic)
"...was killed by drunk driver." (not nearly as romantic)
"...was killed by a mob." (note: A mob. Not the mob.)
"...was killed by the CIA"

All About Me

The lovely Holly forwarded this meme to me over the weekend... and since I seem to have run out of reasons to blog regularly, this will have to do.

Four jobs I have had in my life
(I've worked for 17 different employers... and held many positions at each of them... so I'll try to condense)
1. Television Journalist- for three different stations in Missouri, Georgia, and Florida
2. Communication Instructor- at CMU, Truman, and MACC
3. Retail Whipping-girl at a variety of food service, clothing, and general merchandise stores.
4. "Arena Hostess" (which is a glorified way of saying "Usher") at the Palace of Auburn Hills

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Babe
2. Silence of the Lambs
3. The Blues Brothers
4. Young Frankenstein

Four places I have lived:
1. North Grafton, MA
2. Mt. Pleasant, MI
3. Ottumwa, IA
4. Columbus, GA

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Lost
2. 24
3. The Soup
4. Pros versus Joes (though it may very well be the worst show on television)

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Las Vegas
2. Orlando
3. Cape Cod
4. Cedar Point... many, many, many times.

Four websites I visit daily[almost]:
1. FARK.com
2. ESPN.com
3. EBay.com
4. coryodonnell.blogspot.com (in hopes that if I didn't post anything, maybe he did)

Four of my favorite foods:
1. The Fajita Quesidilla (#80) on the menu at El Vaquero in Columbus, GA
2. Prime Rib (I can feel my arteries hardening, just thinking about it!)
3. Lobster (with artery-clogging drawn butter, of course)
4. Pineapple with Hot Fudge

Four places I would rather be right now: (and as I wrote this, I was at work... so keep that in mind)
1. At home, In bed, watching something that we TiVo'ed.
2. Las Vegas
3. Hanging with friends... except theyre scattered all across the country!
4. Sea World

So now it's your turn. I expect full cooperation.

Paradigm Shift

It's funny... since moving here to the Sunshine State, I feel like a different person. I don't get a dread-induced stomach ache every day while driving to work. I don't have nightmares about my job (well, every now and then I do, but not on a nightly basis). I sometimes even smile and laugh. Nice, huh?

I've been considering making this post for quite some time. There's a lot of reasons to like my new job/workplace. I respect my news director. I like getting paid overtime. I enjoy our news/sports philosophy. But there are a lot of little reasons to like my job, too. This list is in no way complete... just random thoughts that have come to me over the course of the last three months.

1. My new station has a security gate. That's right. No creepy drunk guys wandering the parking lot. And, more important, I no longer have to park an unlit gravel lot down the street from my station.
2. Vending machines that dispense Pepsi products at a reasonable price and have not once eaten any of my money. I've never even seen a post-it note that says "This machine owes me 75 cents." In fact, one day I put 75 cents into the machine, and the digital display flashed "WINNER!" It returned my change, and gave me free cookies. How cool is that?
3. Next to the vending machines at work... an Ice Machine.
4. Every desk in the newsroom has a television on it. The break room has a television. And we're allowed to watch anything we want. (For those of you who don't know, we were only allowed to watch our own station at my last job.)
5. A desk in the newsroom. Yeah, I have to share my desk with another person... but I really like being in the newsroom. I don't feel like an outsider. I actually talk to my co-workers. And sometimes, they even talk back.
6. The sports department has our own vehicle and our own edit bay. No begging for keys to a van. No waiting until the last minute to edit my stories.
7. A station cell phone and pager. The time my van broke down at my old station, I had to walk two blocks in a scary neighborhood to find a pay phone.
8. Though I don't know many of the people that work at our radio stations, for some reason, I find it cool that there are about eight radio stations operating out of our building.
9. Bathrooms with decent plumbing (i.e. toilets that don't overflow on a weekly basis).
10. Did I mention palm trees in our parking lot?

Yeah, ok. I have complaints, too. I hate our newsroom computer system. I hate that most of my co-workers are (still) much younger than me. But nobody's perfect, right?