'Til the night closes in!

Useless information strikes again!

Go find what the No. 1 song in the U.S. was on your birthday at the #1 Song on This Date in History site.

So the No. 1 song on my birthday in 1978 was "Kiss You All Over" by Exile. That's them over there, looking classy with their black outfits and facial hair. If it wasn't for Adam Sandler's comedic rendition of the song in Happy Gilmore, I would disown my birthyear.

Pop! Goes My Heart

Every once in a while, I somehow watch a movie I would've never wasted the time and effort to check out and end up actually liking it. The culprit this time? Music and Lyrics, the Hugh Grant-Drew Barrymore romantic comedy about a has-been '80s pop star who serendipitously finds a talented lyricist and, dare I say it, the love of his life.

Music and Lyrics is pretty standard romantic-comedy fare, but it was charming enough to keep my attention. That, or I was too tired to care as this was the third of three stellar in-flight selections by Northwest Airlines (the others being Charlotte's Web and Miss Potter, blech) for my flight to the Philippines. I think it came on around hour eight of the 12.5 hour flight so my brain is usually pudding by that point of the trip.

Anyway, it featured an impressive music video for "Pop! Goes My Heart," the hit single of Hugh Grant's old pop group PoP! (PoP!'s actually a misnomer, the music is actually reggae/soul). I've got to give credit to the filmmakers, as a lot of effort and thought was put into the video. It's got the color-coordinated outfits, the choreography, the shoddy video effects, the Ray-Bans, the electric drumset and a generous helping of cheese. This could actually be the best '80s music video not made in the '80s. And it stands up pretty well against actual '80s videos.

I know you want to watch Music and Lyrics now, but I'll spare you the effort. You can see "Pop! Goes My Heart" here.

My finger is not on the pulse of the mainstream

I always felt like I didn't think like my fellow man, and now I've got proof. Reason the Wii is awesome # 772: The Everybody Votes Channel.

It's described as a channel that "lets you select a question from a list, where you can place your votes by selecting between one of the two responses. You then come back to see the results to see if your choice and predictions were the majority. There are National Polls and Worldwide Polls, where you can see whether people in your country think differently from the rest of the world." All you need to know is how to connect the Wii to the internet via wi-fi and you're good to go.

The questions are pretty random and a new one comes up every other day or so. Here's an example of some of the polls I've voted on (majority answers in bold):

• Which came first? Chicken or Egg?
• What ability would you most like to have? Telepathy or Invincibility?
• Which would you rather ride for ten hours? Elephant or Camel?
• Does everyone have an identical twin somewhere? Yes of No?
  
• From whom would you prefer to receive advice? Oprah or Warren Buffett? (not answered yet)
  

Besides voting, you can predict which answer will garner the most responses. I have a spectacular record of 11-11 for a prediction accuracy of 50 percent. Obviously, my finger is not on the pulse of mainstream thought.

To further illustrate that, the program analyzes my answers according to five categories: thoughts, personality, experience, surroundings and experience, to show how "tuned-in" I am with the rest of the world. As you can see, my thoughts are very dissimilar compared to everyone else's.

Visual aid

So that's how it works...

Letters to the Prez

Oh what one may find on the internet. I can't properly introduce this any better than the original author so here goes:

In August of 2003 I initiated a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding any files the FBI might have compiled on me over the past thirty years. In November of 2003 I was surprised to receive a hefty stack of redacted files, amongst which were a series of fourteen letters written to the President of the United States from December of 2001 to December of 2002.

Oddly enough, I don’t recall writing even one of these letters, despite the fact that each of them bears my handwritten signature. Subsequent handwriting analysis has revealed that these signatures are indeed in my own handwriting and reveal a fair amount of mental disturbance on the part of the writer at the time of their composition. The fact that I have no memory of writing them is a mystery I am now in the process of researching.

If anybody has any clues as to who may have composed these letters, please don’t hesitate to contact me. This case remains an unsolved enigma waiting to be unraveled.

Thank you for your time and attention.
Robert Guffey

The author goes on to include his 14 letters to the president and first lady, which subsequently leads to hilarity. Example:

Dear President Bush:
Can you please tell me what the fuck kind of animals are the Animaniacs? Are they cats or are they dogs? They look kinda like cats but they’ve got the ears of dogs. No self-respecting cat ever had ears like that. But they don’t have whiskers either. What’s going on here? Can someone in your office please explain this?
Sincerely yours,

Check out all 14 letters here.

Lacrosse nirvana

A lazy Sunday watching NCAA lacrosse is time well spent. From noon until 10 p.m., I planted my ass in front of the TV watching four games non-stop, live on ESPNU. Such a thing would've been unheard of more than a decade ago. In recent years, lacrosse has gone from a niche East Coast sport to one of the fastest-growing team sports in the country. One of the rewards of that growth is more television coverage. When I first started playing, lacrosse on TV was such a rarity. The only time I knew I could watch it was on Final Four weekend over the last Saturday and Monday of May. Any other time I caught it on TV was by pure luck. Thanks to the game's increasing popularity, and ESPN's need to broadcast every sport under the sun (or create enough channels to reach ESPN8 "The Ocho", whichever comes first), those days are over.

Anyway, here's some action from the weekend's first-round matchups. I've mentioned my fondness of sports photography before, but I've gotta admit I enjoy lacrosse photos the best (Biased? Nooo...). Especially goalie shots. They contort their bodies every which way to make a save and it takes a great photographer to catch that moment.

Dancing with a Star

Check out Jean-Claude Van Damme pull a Christopher Walken.

Chasing 7:45

One of my beats at the college paper was covering MSU field hockey. I remember writing a story about a prized freshman recruit out of San Diego. I figured that because most people with a brain wouldn't leave sunny San Diego for the midwest just to try out for a Big Ten field hockey team. Anyway, I noticed there was a very talented player who's managed to do nothing but ride the bench for almost the entire season. Once pregame warmups finished, she became a glorified cheerleader.

One game towards the end of the season, she finally played. And in her debut, she tallied a goal in the team's win. It may have even been the game-winner, but I don't remember. I asked the coach why she hadn't played until then, and she said she had 'commitments' that she had not taken care of until now. I learned that 'commitment' was running a mile in less than seven minutes. Apparently, you've got to do before you can play. Talk about earning your varsity letter.

At the time, I kind of scoffed at the notion of running a 7-minute mile. I figured I could run it since I was doing my share of hard running for the lacrosse team. I never really tried to match that pace but I always figured I was close.

Fast forward a couple years and now I run to stay healthy and fend off any risks of heart disease. I scored that Nike+ accessory for the nano a few weeks ago and have been using it to enhance my running experience. It might seem like a glorified talking pedometer at first, but little things like hearing Lance Armstrong and some Australian gal who I can't seem to remember right now telling me that I just achieved my personal best is pretty helpful in terms of motivation. And the words of encouragement help take away the deep burn that courses through my thighs after a strenuous workout. So deep.

Anyway, it's got a multitude of features. First of all, you can track all your workout data through Nike's website. There they keep tabs of things like pace, distance and calories burned. I'm also partaking in the Campus Challenge, where schools race against each other based on miles run by students, alumni and random people with strange allegiances to schools they didn't attend. Michigan is first (surprise) with 75,363 miles. MSU is ranked 9th in the competition with almost 31,000 miles run. So far I've added 31.04 miles to the effort.

Another feature is the ability to set goals. You can set goals according to number of runs, pace, distance and calories burned. My first goal was to run the mile in less than 8-minutes five times within a month. Ultimately, I aim to run a sub 7-minute mile and finally see if I could make the field hockey team. Admittedly, I set the bar low at first because I managed to break eight minutes pretty easily . Now I've upped the ante: run the mile in less than 7:45. So far I've failed to do that in four attempts. Even worse, I'm not even making eight minutes now. I don't know what's up but I don't think I'm going to be running a 7-minute mile anytime soon. Not unless I can start my life over again in Africa and grow up running across the desert.

5/11 UPDATE: I post this and then run a mile in 7:32. Go figure...

Ninjas

Thanks to Asian cinema and G.I. Joe, people across the country have tried to follow in the way of the ninja with varying degrees of success.

See the fruits of their labor in FHM's Top 10 Ninja Moments:

10. Urban Ninja (awesome)
9. Scrubs Showdown (awesomer)
8. Enter the Ninja
7. Kung-fu Carrey
6. Game of Death
5. Ask a Ninja
4. America's Funniest Ninjas
3. Kung Pow
2. Ninja Rap (Vanilla Ice. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2. Oh yes.)
1. Kung Fools (especially the dude with the nunchuks)

Old photo, new vids (mostly)

I've got a feeling this is the guy that just keeps on giving. Forever.

Chinese Knock-offs - The Next Level

After realizing their cars are fuglier than sin, the Chinese have apparently quit creating original car designs and started passing off existing car models as their own. Have they no shame!?

It's not all bad though. Thanks to the same manufacturer (Huanghai), I can finally get the car that's got the nose of a Pontiac Torrent and the ass of a Lexus RX!!