Things I've Found by Mark Rose

by Mark Rose

Olympics: The Olympics start this Friday and yes, we’ll be watching on both the American and Canadian channels. While the Canadians have become a lot more jingoistic in their coverage, matching the uber-patriotic butt-licking of American media, the Canadians are also willing to show more competitors and more sports. Curling is very cool, no matter what you say. But I’m a little worried about the dietary regimen of the athletes. Apparently, General Mills accidentally sent way, way, way too many bags of their Wahoo corn chips to the Olympics, a mistake on the factor of ten. http://www.startribune.com/stories/1451/1137209.html [No link, old story, but Marion Jones should look into Wahoo corn chips in her blood instead of steroids; maybe it will help her case.]

UCLA Sucks: UCLA will not renew the contract of soccer coach Todd Saldana even though he has a 67% win rate. Why? NOT because he lied, NOT because he’s a bad coach, but because UCLA doesn’t feel the college he got his degree from is classy enough for a Bruins coach:

http://espn.go.com/soccer/news/2002/0131/1320785.html

No, this really pisses me off. Todd Saldana is a damn good soccer coach with a 43-17-4 record in three seasons and a trip to the NCAA tournament each of those years. He did not lie to UCLA, he told them straight out he graduated from Columbia State. It seems that he actually did perform some work to get his degree (I’m thinking of other correspondence schools like Phoenix University here) [this was a needless slam on my part because Phoenix University apparently does require their students to do work, but you should check out the research done by the GAO on people in the Pentagon and other government agencies who got their degrees from diploma mills]. Just because the Feds felt it was a diploma mill and closed it down shouldn’t change UCLA’s attitude towards an employee overnight. But it did. Smarmy athletic director Peter Dalis said that Saldana doesn’t meet UCLA’s expectation that coaches have graduated from an accredited four-year school. Why on earth does UCLA even have this expectation, especially when there are thousands of coaches who meet that expectation who can’t meet the expectation of a 43-17-4 record over three years? Saldana’s degree is completely irrelevant to his performance; it’s a shame UCLA is too blinkered to see that.

Games: A verrrranice miniature golf game. Easy to use, elegant, attractive, a delightful interlude in your stressful day.

http://www.webatease.com/miniputt.swf

No Winona! Department: First it was Winona Ryder who was caught shoplifting. Now it’s Olympic gymnast Olga Korbut!

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/0202/0201olga.html [Dead. The link that is, not Olga.]

In Winona-related news, she will be charged with four felony counts:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/cdnow/winobust.gif [Dead, and frankly, I’m not going to search for it. Why was I so obsessed with Winona Ryder? She’s not even as pretty as half the other women I lusted after in the 80s.]

Guess I Won’t Be Visiting the Space Station Anytime Soon: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020131/sc/space_tourists_1.html [We’re on a roll of dead links here.]

All Kentucky All The Time, Except This Guy Was From France (which explains it, frankly): http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0131jihadgood-ON.html [See, this is what I get for being current and up-to-date in my links. Old news dies a hard, lonely death.]

Politics: Oh President Bush?? President Bushhhhh?? The aliens are here for you, sir. http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20020131/mdf122652.jpg [Nope, not any more. Can’t even remember what this image was.]

The Good Stuff: And you thought you would never see Gary Coleman and David Hasselhoff together again!

http://www.prinnt.com/godspeed/best_picture_ever.jpg [Well, at least THIS LINK is still live!]

Sex: Did you take anyone like THIS to the prom? http://www.ocregister.com/sitearchives/2002/1/27/local/formal00127cci2.shtml [Dead link, but good story.] 17-year-old senior from a California school writes a “sensitive” essay that makes a Playboy Playmate cry. She then goes out with him to his senior prom! Aaaauuuugghhh! I have written LOTS of material that makes people cry, and this has NEVER happened to me. Playmate Promdate Petra Verkaik noted that this boy’s writing was really deep (uhhhh) and that she related to his desire to be popular (oy vey). But you need to read the story because it almost sounds like a hoax with Dad shouting instructions about pinning on the corsage, the Playmate’s memorable quoteline of “His essay was about wanting to be popular. And then not caring about being popular. And just being comfortable with who you are.” Well yes, it makes me cry. And of course, he has to take his date to BJ’s Restaurant (this IS a joke, right?). The only thing that makes me think it’s real is that the “journalists” who posted this story consistently misspelled Petra’s name, which is about par for the yobbos who work for the newspapers. It’s Petra Verkaik, not Petra Verkiak. How do I know? Well, I visited her site:

http://www.petracentral.com