Up, up and away

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think my not-quite-favorite online news source could have removed the word "apparent" from the phrase "apparent stowaway" in the headline for this article.

Usually, it's a safe bet the passenger has not bought himself a ticket when he's (1) a passenger on a cargo jet and (2) trying to fly in the wheel well.

PC squared: Phil Collins and the evolution of politcal correctness

Occasionally - usually while I'm supposed to be doing something productive - I wonder whether we're all way, way, way more politically correct than we were when I was a kid or it's that I've just been listening to Bill Maher too much.

This afternoon, I think I answered my own question, thanks to, of all people, Phil Collins. (Well, Phil Collins and the other guys who were in Genesis after Peter Gabriel left.)


Mike, Phil and Tony in matching sombreros.

And I'm pretty sure my answer is, that, Yes, PC has reached levels we couldn't have imagined in 1983, which is the year Genesis released a song called Illegal Alien. Because today, it's equally impossible to imagine a Top 40 music act recording a song and appearing in a video, complete with sombreros and tequila and vaguely Mexican facial hair, like this one. Or, if they did those things, not getting absolutely slammed for it.

A slightly related thought: I wonder if California could find a way to use this song as a PSA.

Easy answer

Joanne Herring: Why is Congress saying one thing and doing nothing?
Charlie Wilson: Well, tradition mostly.

- portrayed by Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks

Charlie Wilson's War, 2007

R.I.P., Congressman Charlie Wilson (1933-2010).

If eating you is wrong, I don't want to be right

Perhaps I have a very very very very subtle death wish. But any time I see a list of "worst foods" or "unhealthiest meals" or "snacks that will kill you dead as soon as you take your first bite," I immediately want to eat most of the foods on that list.

When I saw the latest such countdown of the worst artery-clogging, blood-pressure-spiking cuisine, courtesy of Yahoo! and Men's Health, I also felt a sense of pride. Because I'm pretty sure that during my 13 years in Chicago, I ate about 794 Jimmy John's Italian Night Club subs (oh, the bread!), also known as Number 8 on the list.

So, let's see: 794 sandwiches* times 2,165 grams of sodium means I might have consumed something north of 1.7 million grams of sodium during that part of my life. That sense of pride has just ballooned. Kind of like a cardiac catheter.


* It's possible it was somewhat less like, say, 780 sandwiches.

But I sent you away, Oh, Grammy

The Grammys have sort of sucked since at least 1967, when Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was beat out for the Best Performance By a Vocal Group award by that timeless Fifth Dimension masterpiece, Up Up and Away.

The awards' suckiness was reconfirmed the year that Lionel Richie won 394 awards and kept saying "Outrageous!" every trip up to the podium, and more recently when Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot wasn't even nominated.

But this? This is the last straw.*

A quick side note:** As I was researching tonight's post, I came across the roster of Best New Artist winners and nominees. And I guess the Academy sometimes gets those awards right. For instance, I don't really care about Marc Cohn's music that much, but the mere fact that he beat out Boyz II Men, C+C Music Factory and Color Me Badd is somewhat redeeming. (On the other hand, if you're Marc Cohn, do you keep that Grammy hidden so you can avoid having to answer the question, "So, who else was nominated that year?")

Perhaps the strangest two-year stretch in Best New Artist history was 1970 and 1971.

1970 Winner: Crosby, Stills & Nash ... Nominees: Chicago, Led Zeppelin, Oliver, The Neon Philharmonic
1971 Winner: The Carpenters ... Nominees: Elton John, Melba Moore, Anne Murray, The Partridge Family

Has ever the musical tide turned so dramatically for the worse? I'm a big fan of early '70s Elton John, so his nomination in '71 seems warranted, but otherwise that 1971 list is astonishing - particularly coming on the heels of a year in which CS&N, Chicago and Zeppelin were contenders - isn't it? Plus, wouldn't you have guessed that Elton would have won if for no other reason than The Carpenters, Murray and the Partridges would have split the ballots coming from the fluff-pop voting bloc?

* In case you missed it, I really hate Kings of Leon.
** It turns out the quick side note is longer than the main subject of today's post. These things happen.

I'll take "No shot in hell" for $400, Alex

I just took the online test to try qualifying for a Jeopardy audition. How'd I do?

Well, let's just say you probably won't see me standing behind a video-monitor-equipped podium, with a signaling device in hand, asking Alex Trebek questions like, "What is the Venus de Milo?" (er, actually, I mean this one) or, "Where is Lake Titicaca?" anytime in 2010.

I think I acquitted myself fairly well, but in the immediate aftermath of the 50-question test (15 seconds to answer each one), the only thing I'm confident of is that I've got almost no chance to make it to the next round. I'd guess I got about two-thirds correct, but I can think of too many I flubbed. For better or worse, the website doesn't recap which ones you got right or wrong, or even give a score, and I don't even know if there's a preset minimum number of correct responses to qualify for the next round, but... eh.

A few quick highlights and lowlights from the test:

• The first question was about a Dr. Seuss character - child's play! was my first thought - who has some thing or other to do with trees. Argh! Pretty sure that ruled out The Cat, Horton and Sam He Is, and for the life of me, I couldn't think of The Lorax.
• My mom always used to tell me I should read more books, and although I usually do alright on trivia questions about novels, even when I haven't read them, tests like this are pain-in-the-ass reminders that my mom was probably right. One question referred to a Faulkner novel with a title that repeats the same word twice. As time ran out, "Absalom, Absalom" came to mind, but literally only because it was the one two-repeated-words title I could think of. Except that I was completely sure it wasn't a Faulkner work, so I left that one blank. Um, oops.
• I always like ending on a high note, so I was glad that the last question was about a pro tennis player born in Basel in 1981. A cinch for an incurable sports fan.
• My wildest guess that actually worked came on a question about a Supreme Court justice who, from 1801 to 1804, wrote a biography of George Washington. Thought process: "Marshall sounds like an early 19th century judge kind of a name.... There was another Marshall besides Thurgood, right?... Oh, whatever, I'll go with Marshall."
• ZenMom is going to absolutely murderize me for missing the question that sought the name of the TV show whose theme song includes the line "Our whole universe was in a hot dense state" and is performed by the Barenaked Ladies. I knew it was "that show with three science dorks and a cute chick that I watched once and swore never to watch again," but I think the judges were probably looking for The Big Bang Theory.
• I did, however, guess right on another pop culture question, figuring that it was Penelope Cruz who played "neither Vicky nor Cristina, but Maria Elena in Vicky Cristina Barcelona."
• I got the one about Ben Franklin's 1784 invention that was probably a result of his advancing age and increasing trouble reading - bifocals - and I dug back into the recesses of my 11th grade chemistry knowledge and remembered that the chemical symbol for potassium was K. (Fist bump!)
• The one that really fried my brain was a geography question having something to with Albania and a large lake and some peninsula. (Possibly they were going for the Balkan Peninsula - I don't know.) I couldn't even discern the question what the question was asking because as I was reading it, all I could hear was a hilarious scene from a 1985 Cheers episode, with Coach and Sam studying for Sam's GED exam by singing, "Albania, Albania. You border on the Adriatic."

Go figure. Normally, my vast knowledge of Cheers dialogue comes in handy in everyday situations, but this time it was merely a distraction. Maybe if I had been reading Faulkner in 1985 instead of watching Cheers, I would have gotten two more questions correct. Well, at least my mom can say she told me so.

Today's main course? Inspiration

It's going to be very difficult for me to post a feel-good, sunshine-and-happiness kind of story without making some kind of snarky comment, but I'm determined to try.

Because I can tell: You could use a pick-me-up today.

So here's a big ol' heart-warmer, courtesy of that newspaper in Chicago (where, as I write this, it's 19 degrees with flurries, but I'm not gloating). It's about a woman who's been blind since infancy being offered a job as a chef at a world-class restaurant in the Windy City.

The whole story is impressive enough on its face, but to help put it in perspective, here's a sample menu for the restaurant where she'll be working. N.B.: You get to eat everything on the menu for dinner.

Ah, damn. Five minutes ago, I was feeling very inspired. But after looking at that menu, now I'm mostly just hungry.