Trying to revive prestige
Published 1:54 pm Sunday, September 12, 2010
While fans nurse remote-control thumbs and ice high-five elbows after a weekend of sports spectating, let’s ease into Monday with some instant replay, challenge calls and inane analysis of the headlines:
•”Iran cancels plans to free imprisoned American hiker”: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn’t like it when some punk Florida pastor steals his thunder.
”Facebook inches past Google for Web users’ minutes”: People are now spending more time socializing on F-book than searching or surfing, according to researchers at comScore Inc. Such studies never mention porn, but apparently more than a few people spend a fair amount of time perusing that area of “socializing” on the Web.
”KFC tries to revive founder Colonel Sanders’ prestige”: While the white-haired gent who wore a white suit was no doubt a good businessman, can someone whose catch phrase is “finger-licking good” really command “prestige”?
”Armenia produces world’s biggest chocolate bar”: Made of all natural ingredients, it weighs 9,702 pounds, is 224 inches long, 110 inches wide and 10 inches thick and has a 70 percent cocoa mass. That just might get us through Monday.
”‘Black Widow’ devours 181 chicken wings in New York contest”: Sonya Thomas, who’s 5 feet tall and weights 105 pounds, ate 4.86 pounds of chicken wings to beat competitive eating superstar Joey Chestnut (6-foot-2, 230 pounds) at the ninth annual National Buffalo Wing Festival last week. Chestnut only managed 169 chicken wings, or 4.55 pounds.
Thomas previously set eating records for oysters, hard-boiled eggs, cheesecake and jalapeno peppers. She calls herself “Black Widow” because she often beats bigger male competitors. But since, thankfully, the men don’t actually die when she out eats them, “Black Hole” would seem a better moniker. Since she’s a champ, perhaps she can help out KFC and Colonel Sanders with that whole prestige thing. Regardless, just keep her the heck away from our gigantic chocolate bar.
•”Study: Flamboyant male dancing attracts women best”: That’s what some British scientists concluded. Something about that doesn’t sound quite right, since “flamboyant” usually modifies “Liberace,” but it was a scientific study.
”Study: Facebook fanatics vain, insecure”: Those who post the most are either narcissistic or are struggling with low self-esteem, according to a York University study, which looked at the habits of 100 York University Facebook users. Facebook has more than 500 million users.
Jumping to flamboyant conclusions and calling it “research” seems a tad bit vain.
