JR Reynolds' game winner...in Italy

Triple wha?

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Brazilian super stud Ronaldo, who plays for AC Milan, made headlines for some off the field action the other day.

Seems that the man whom women love hired three prostitutes for what ESPN is calling 'fun' and got caught. The shocking part, however, is that the three women turned out to be men. Uh oh.

What what what?

Here's the link.

Six warriors and a dream of water

Great story this morning about six Maasai warriors who will be running the London marathon to promote awareness of their village's need for a water source.

According to this news story, they "survive on fresh blood drained from the neck of a living cow, they often run for days and nights on end to find water and their shoes are made from car tires cut up and strapped to their feet. So running the London Marathon should be no problem for six Maasai warriors who have come to Britain from Tanzania as part of a campaign to raise money to find a vital water source."

Fresh blood from the neck of a living cow? Car-tire sandals for running shoes? And they're running in their traditional red robes, complete with spears and their shields [with their race number on them]. Makes our little jaunts around the neighborhood [complete with Brooks shoes, special sweat-resistant clothes, and IPods blasting music] seem as trivial as...well, as trivial as they are.

Charlottesville's running season is well under way, and we are certainly hoping they make it and raise a ton of money for their village.

Here's their website.

And here's their youtube video:

5 seconds of embassment

Went to the Downtown Mall last night for dinner with friends. Along the way I was crossing the street when the Mrs. pointed out that I was walking slowly while a car was coming quickly. Speeding up a bit, I was pushing the limits of my coordination as I was chomping on some Orbit gum. She took this moment to point out that my barn door was open [XYZ]. Trying to be nonchalant, with one hand in my pocket [Alanis], I casually went to close my door when I encountered one of those circular water access points that was embedded into the roadway. I tripped, in one of those uncontrolled moves that sent me crashing towards some parked cars. It was a bit hard to correct the fall, as I had one hand in the pocket and the other one beginning to pull the zipper to its rightful place. Somehow I managed to right myself without falling flat on my face, but it had to look unbelievably funny to the couple in the car, who were driving past me as it happened. Needless to say this wasn't one of my finer moments, but it was fairly funny.

Sunday soccer

Played 39 minutes in our 3-2 loss on Sunday. One minute before half I got kicked [or kneed] in the knee and went down like a sack of potatoes [or potatos if you're a youthful former VP]. No trip to the ER (though it was a bit scary and hurt like the dickens) and thus no change in the funds.

money updates

With another impressive performance and win on Sunday, the season is looking bright in soccer. And, no injuries.
The cash flow status: Soca $70, UVA ER $0.

Unfortunately the dodgeball team, Swayzehorse, was unable to bring home a trophy yesterday in our 1st season. Good times, though, were had and I'm eager for next year. More reflections on dodgeball coming soon...

Three funny, time-wasting sites

Sitting in class yesterday, trying not to cat nap during endless rounds of (yawn) PP presentations, I heard about a couple of great website from a friend in class.
A couple of clicks during break and I was able to keep focused enough until the end of the session.
What are the sites, you ask. Et alors, voila:

This site is all about things that are overheard in New York City. While I'm not a huge fan of the NYC, this is pretty funny:

This site is all about passive aggressive notes that are left for others. Think 'I hope you enjoyed my sandwich that you stole from the office refrigerator. I'm pregnant and now I'm starving. Have a nice day." It's pretty funny.

Finally, this "site" is all about "unnecessary" quotations. This one goes out to Mitch, K-Man, and JP for "years" of working with "someone" like "this."

Enjoy.

David Sedaris, pizza, and UTube

Cash money updates

With rain cancellations denying me the opportunity for a trip to the ER, the current money race remains SOCA $70, UVA ER $0.

Athletic? Nope.

Great Sunday of Sports yesterday. The soccer team won its first non-forfeit win of the past 2 seasons in a surprising goal-fest, 5-1. In bigger news, I suffered no injuries in the game.

In light of last season's ER-apalooza, I will be running a weekly tally of this season's cost; last year the league cost me $70 and then I paid a small dowry to the medical staff at UVA Health Services.

This far, I've paid $70 to SOCA and $0 to the ER.

To cap Sunday off, we swept two games of dodgeball in convincing fashion. Good times were had by all, including the birthday boy himself, who absolutely tagged a slow-footed doe on the other team three times before she declared herself out. The K is all about equality and Title 9 on the dodgeball court; all are subject to his 13 mph stinger.

Today, athletic humility returned in fine fashion. I managed to trip while running on the treadmill, and suffered a nice hand/wrist injury catching myself. I hurt my hand. While running. Everyone around me gasped as I managed to break my fall by splaying my upper body across the top of the treadmill, while my legs continued their journey to nowhere at a 6 mph clip. I somehow managed to right myself and continue running, though after that my heart just wasn't in it anymore. And I had to go ask the front desk for a band aid, because my hand was bleeding from the treadmill. Good times, good times.

This is what I looked like, except less coordinated.

Pull 'em up...

What's it like driving a school bus?

This would be a pretty bad day.





As a side note, this is one of the many reasons kids are not allowed to use cell phones in school or on buses. These frantic phone calls to parents stir everything up and escalate situations too fast. And the main girl in this situation makes everything worse by her attitude and actions.

Sparky

Quick plug for my favorite local band, Sparky's Flaw. They're the cover story this week over at C-ville weekly. You can check out the story here or by picking up a hard copy anywhere around town.

As a side note, I don't read C-ville Weekly as a general rule. I find it to be sophomoric in humor, genuinely unfunny, and slanted to the left; the latter I can understand, with liberal being the prevalent ideology here in Cville. I prefer The Hook instead, which is funnier, better managed and more interesting than its competitor. But I digress... [The Hook, for the record, has done a couple of cover stories on the band over the years.]

That all being said, this article is well-written and worth reading. It gives a interesting look into the lives of a great group of guys who have worked really hard to get to where they are. I highly recommend you read it and visit the guys' website.

SLLLLLLA

On Saturday a couple of us took the School Leaders' License Assessment. It began at 7:30am [!] and luckily for me it was given over at UVA. Some people drove in from D.C or other points. All for the privilege of paying $500 to take a 6 hour essay exam. Thanks, ETS.

My hand hurts. Still. It's Monday, and it's a little sore; this is most likely my fault, as I never mastered the correct handwriting grip so perfectly displayed to the left here. It's been a long time [never] since I hand wrote for six hours. I ran out of ink in one pen.

Compared to 'real' injuries or other professional licensing exams [e.g. the Bar, Medical Boards, etc], this has been easy.

But at least this exam provided an opportunity for a rare event: a January blog post.

And by the way, ETS [the company that produces and sells the academic cash cows of the SAT, GRE, SLLA, Praxis, etc etc etc] is listed as an organization on the web. Their website is www.ets.org. Get that? Dot Org! Not dot com. That means that they're an organization, not a company. Really? How is that possible?

What else would you do late on a Friday night?