Today in Journalism…

Co-worker: Are you shooting in Columbus Circle today?

Me:  I was planning on it, why?

Co-worker: Gigantic smurf in the middle!  You will be able to shoot around it.

Tags: Fat people, journalists writing about journalists

Today in Journalism

Every now and then, reporters need help rounding out their stories, especially on deadline.    Maybe you are doing a story on Harry Potter, and you need some sort of  anthropologist to talk about the generation of kids who grew up with the franchise.  So, you’d send out a request to a bunch of PR people, and hope that someone out there knows someone else who can help.  Or, maybe this happens:

Tags: diabetes, journalists writing about journalists, Napoleon

Antelope v. Reindeer

Some people mix them up, okay?  They both frolic, they both have horn things, they both think the caribou totally sold out…  I’m sure I can’t be the only person in the world to get them confused when requesting their likeness on a cake pop.  Sigh.  If only there was a scientist or something to explain the difference….  Wait, is it…Friday?

Molly:  hi.  do you have anyone at your institution who could explain what the difference between a reindeer and an antelope is?

Tags: Evan, melons, renting vs. buying

Adult Onset Only Child Syndrome

Happy Birthday, Molly!

Molly’s birthday is coming up. As usual, I am planning it. I like planning parties for Molly because she makes outrageous requests, such as “I want a clambake!” (2008) and “I want to make people dress up as their own ethnic stereotypes!” (2009) and “I want to go to a bar and listen to live music like a normal person, but when we’re at the bar I want to climb up a ladder.” (2010).

Her party is still a week away, so I assume there will be plenty of bizarre requests lobbied at me over the next few days.  Here’s a sampling of what she requested this morning:

Tags: Antelopes, Barbie Cake, molly, Pony Rides

A New Blog Every Day?!

When you think about it, "Blog" is a pretty dumb word

We Have Interents hasn’t had very much internets lately, and for that we apologize.  So from now on, Molly and I vow to blog at least once a day.  Ready? Here we go…

This Week in Janice: March Madness

Ohio State vs. Kentucky: Two schools I don't care about

Last week, my mom called me while Paul Newman* and I were watching basketball.  We talked for a few minutes and then I told her that I had to go because I didn’t want to leave Paul Newman alone, lest he start raiding my pantry and making things into salad dressing. “Okay, have fun” she told me, “And tell Paul Newman that if he needs help picking teams for his March Madness bracket, I can help him out. When I was in college, my boyfriend and his friends liked to bet on football games and they’d always get upset at me because I didn’t know anything about sports but I somehow always picked the winning team. I’m really good at predicting outcomes.”
“Oh, really?” I said to my mom. “Then how about you pick the winners of the Sweet 16?”  She agreed.

So here are Janice’s predictions of the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament.  Schools in bold are the schools that she chose to win. When she emailed her predictions to me, she titled the email: “As Mr. Sheen says, WINNING!!!”

1.    Ohio State University vs.  University of Kentucky

Actual Outcome:  Kentucky.  Janice gets one right. Also, Claire’s bracket is screwed.

2. Marquette University vs. University North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Actual Outcome: UNC.  Wrong.

3. Duke University vs. University of Arizona

Actual Outcome: Arizona. Janice is 2 for 3.

4. University of Connecticut vs. San Diego State University

Actual Outcome: UConn.

5. University of Kansas vs. Richmond University
Janice didn’t pick this one.  “I CANNOT DECIDE BETWEEN KU AND RU,” she wrote instead.

Actual Outcome: Kansas. My mom asked about this game later and I told her who won. “I don’t know why I couldn’t decide,” she said. “I bet it was a close game and that’s why. I just couldn’t tell.” Kansas won by 20 points.

6. Virginia Commonwealth University vs. Florida State University

Actual Outcome: VCU. Nice one, mom.

7. Butler University vs. University of Wisconsin

Actual Outcome: Butler

.

8. Brigham Young University vs. University of Florida

Actual Outcome: Florida.

Four out of seven (with one abstaining vote) is a pretty good record.

Before posting this, I called my mom to ask her to choose the Elite 8.  She said she couldn’t do it verbally and I had to send her the match-ups in an email.  When I told her that she’d gotten most of the Sweet 16 correct, she wasn’t surprised. “Insight runs in our family,” she said. “You just think of the two teams and then suddenly you can decide which one wins. But if you focus too hard you won’t pick it up. It just disappears like smoke.”

“Uh, Mom?” I said. “You realize that you’re basically claiming to be psychic?”

“I’m not psychic,” she said “I just have insight. It’s part of our Polish heritage, from our great grandmother who was a peasant.”

So there you have it. Polish peasants make excellent March Madness brackets.

*Name has been changed to protect the semi-innocent. It has been changed to Paul Newman because, well, he was hot.

Tags: basketball, Insight, Janice, Kansas, Polish peasants

Living the Life

For some reason, people have decided that living in New York is glamorous. “Oh, your life must be so glamorous!” they say to me sometimes. “You live in Manhattan and work in a tall office building, I bet you go to cocktail parties every night!” This is not true, of course. I did go to a party this weekend, but it was in New Jersey and halfway through the night someone poured beer all over a bag of bagels.

So what is living in New York really like? See if you can guess which thing didn’t happen to me this weekend. Did I….

 

- eat someone else’s leftover pasta because it was free

- argue with a homeless man because I wouldn’t give him $5 in exchange for a hug

- watch a man drop his sandwich on the subway floor, pick it up, and continue to eat it

- get pooped on by a pigeon

Tags: New York, pigeons, sandwiches