Shirtless Sven

See a shirtless Sven
Sven has posted pictures from his trip to Hawaii on his blog. There's a whole lot of shirtless Sven there--including pictures of shirtless Sven on a motorcycle.

Shirtless Sven on a Motorcycle. They should make calendars of this. My goodness--the sunglasses, the intense stare--there are a lot of fantasies fulfilled in those pictures.

Sven is quite a shapely man. For those less interested in Sven's muscular taut physique, there are also pictures of his sister in a bikini (we will make no lewd comments about the guy's sister). And for those who like legs there are also pictures of Sven in shorts.

Well it looks like Mr. Sundgaard is quite the catch.

Names that Sound Made Up: KMSP

Our search for local news personalities with made-up sounding names takes us to our favorite glorified American Idol commercial, Fox 9 news. Awful jingles in the commercials, awful news, awful website: let's look at some of the "The People at Fox"'s names and speculate on whether their parents gave them these atrocities, or whether they picked the names themselves.

Robyn Robinson: There are three choices here: either her parents thought this name was clever, she thought this name was clever, or somebody named Robyn married a fellow named Robinson.

Jeff Passolt: Already a Minnesota pesonality, evidently, we assume he wouldn't change his name.

Marni Hughes: Was there a time when parents thought "Marni" was a good name for a child? We say yes.

Tim Blotz: Has to be real. A news guy wouldn't choose "Blotz," would he?

Karen Scullin: Real.

Tom Butler: We guess fake.

Alix Kendall: We guess fake. "Alix" is a perfect name for a news anchor (male or female), and "Kendall" just goes too easily with it.

Jeff Baillon: Real.

Ellen Galles: Real.

Maury Glover: Fake. Reminds us of this Maury.

For Pages 2 and 3, we'll just list the names that sound fake to us: Juli Jay (at the very least, she chose that spelling), Dawn Mitchell, Jamie Reese, and Trish Van Pilsum (it's like the name of a female TV reporter on a sitcom).

Why we dislike Virginia (1)

We're going to try keep up with the gimmicks a bit more often. I found no evidence that anybody at KSTP has a stage name, and I'm guessing I'll have as little luck with the other networks, so that gimmick will likely evove into talking about which names at least sound made up.

But we'll get back onto why we dislike every state except Minnesota, and each state might have many entries.

For why we hate Virginia, just go read this post at Signal to Noise. The AP article is here at CBS News.

We reserve the right to dislike a state just for the statements of a single elected individual from that state.

By the way, aren't state legislator's the best? The crazies usually get weeded out of federal office (not always), but they can still come out of small rural districts and get into state office. Then they spout their crazy ideas and try to create funny legislation. It was a Texas lawmaker that inspired this gimmick.

Like I said, we'll try to do this more often.

Made-up Names: KSTP

We're taking it up a notch: in 2007, we pledge more posts about local news broadcasts and broadcasters. Why? Because it's fun. We love Anchorman, and we love making fun of the local news. Our first gimmick will be examining the different local TV news reporters and anchors and guessing whether their names are made up. Is there a Ron Burgundy out there? Wes Mantooth? Veronica Corningstone? We will guess now, and in a few days (or weeks) research and find out if the names are made up. We're going to start with KSTP because I sort of like their news coverage.

Let's look at the KSTP news team. Who's names are made up and who's names are real?

Anchors
Cyndy Brucato: made up. Something about it seems too "trendy news anchor."
John Mason: made up. It's a strong, tough name. A dependable name. The sort of name you want in the guy reading your news. And so, we think he chose it.
Leah McLean: while this sounds like a perfect female anchor name, we believe it is real.
Jessica Miles: Is anybody named "Jessica" anymore? It's got to be made up.
Brad Sattin: Sounds real to me, because it sounds stupid.
Vineeta Sawkar: A fun name to say. Try it. Say it fast. "Vineeta Sawkar." "Vineeta Sawkar." And we think it's real.

Weather
Dave Dahl: We love the alliteration. So do a lot of parents. This seems like an authentic Scandinavian name.
Patrick Hammer: Wow. This has the same "John Mason" appeal. Hard, dependable, trustworthy. But "Hammer" is almost going too far. We're tempted to call it real, but we're going with fake.
Rob Koch: I've always hated the spelling of the last name "Koch" in a completely irrational sense. I'm going to guess others do too. Real.
Chikage Windler: Wow. What a perfect name for a weatherperson. Better than "Brick Tamlund." We actually think this one is real, but wouldn't be surprised to find it's made up.

The other reporters that we think are fake news names
Beth Jett, Kristi Piehl, Tim Sherno, Allison Triarsi (absolutely HAS to be), Tom Hauser, and Anne Hutchinson.

Please remember, we have absolutely no idea whether these names are real or fake, and we're not making accusations. We're guessing for mere amusement. When time allows I'll do what research I can to discover if the names are real or made up. And as always, we'd love to hear your opinions.

Cheap Date

Need a cheap date location, or just want to get out of the house with friends or on your own…
Check out a cheap movie. A Bit More Humid and I attended a $2 movie on Larpenteur in Roseville on Monday night. You can’t get much cheaper than that, but wait, Tuesday nights are only $1 according to the sign inside.
The movies aren’t the newest releases, but still not out on video. We saw Stranger than Fiction. The theatre was the cleanest, but like I said it was cheap!

American Idol on Faux

FOX 9 NEWS IS A GLORIFIED COMMERCIAL
We all know that local TV news sucks, and that only about five minutes of the broadcast (on a good night) actually qualifies as news. But FOX 9 might be the worst. How much of each FOX 9 "news" broadcast is going to be devoted to American Idol? And if a FOX "News" program devotes a great deal of time to "covering" a FOX TV show, does it even get to continue calling itself "news"? FOX isn't alone, of course; MSNBC will often do "news" features about what's going on in The Apprentice.

When TV news devotes a great deal of time to covering a TV show that is featured on its own network, we've basically reached the point where TV news is pointless. There is ZERO credibility, relevence, or integrity involved anymore.

"They're making us look like assholes."
This is the statement made by Possible Flurries (in a laughing, jovial way) as she watched the American Idol auditions in Minneapolis. Basically, American Idol covered Minneapolis with all the knowledge that anybody outside of Minnesota has of Minnesota: obligatory shot of the Mall of America and a thousand references to Prince. That's what we are to the rest of the nation: the place where the Mall of America (inexplicably, to them at least) is, and the place that Prince comes from.

The wrong door
Did FOX purposely make that left side of the double-door locked, knowing that all sorts of people would try to push the wrong door, just so Simon could say "other door" just to make them look and feel like bigger asschucks? And how many people who succeeded ran through the other door that didn't get shown on TV so didn't look like asschucks?

Either way, I wholly approve.

"You're going to Hollywood."
For the life of me, I can't figure out how "You're going to Hollywood" hasn't made it into the common lexicon. When somebody does something well, or wins a game, or does anything of moderate ability, couldn't you wittily say "You're going to Hollywood"?

I would like to add "You're going to Hollywoood" and "Squirt it and desert it" into common usage, while removing "thrown under the bus" and "at the end of the day."

TV ads I love and hate

When you watch as much tv as I do, you know the commercials really well. There are two I woudl like to discuss.

First, anyone who watched Jeopary knows about MeadowWoods Assisted Living. The commercial is on daily, sometimes more than once during Jeopardy. Evidently, the MeadowWoods people think their potential clients enjoy watching trivia shows. They are probably right. Anyway, I see that commercial so often, I feel like I know the people giving testimonials in it. I know that at MeadowWoods, they work with the whole person, mind, body and spirit (to be fair, that probably stuck in my head because it is pretty much identical to the first part of the vision statement of my school. But still.). Anyway, in another 60 years, I am SO moving to MeadowWoods.

The ad campaign I like much less is the credit card one (Discover maybe?) where the whole city is covered with 'cute' little scissor creatures. People think the scissor creatures that have taken over the city and jump and snip into the air are cute, so they keep feeding them credit cards. Let me tell you what would happen if I ever saw a pair of scissors, somehow able to move of its own accord, dancing and snipping around--I would run. I would run as far as I could. I would not encourage the dangerous, deadly thing by giving it my credit cards. I would panic. For this reason, the campaign is, to me, an utter failure. I am surprised it hasn't given me nightmares.

Cold weather has finally arrived.

Do you want a good high? Grow a beard for six months, shave it during the coldest stretch of January, then walk around outside. The winter burn might make you see colors.

Don't forget!!!

Tomorrow night on the news, Sven will have another story about science. Remember the sewer thing last week? Well, it's back, in dinosaur form.

Something fun to do when you don't want to spend money is go around town and take weird pictures. I am reminded of this fun passtime because I once did this with a friend, where the photo was of me running from a dinosaur statue as if it were mid-chase.

A great place for pictures like that is Wall Drug, if you are in that area (don't drive out there just to do pictures with wierd statues--it's not worth it). When I was there a couple years ago, I saw a little boy fall off a huge jackelope statue and land in a pile of rocks. His dad jut looked embarrassed and said, "You're having a rough day, aren't you?" It was like 6:45 am. I wonder if the kid's day got better.

Why we like Sven Sundgaard

I like the chemistry developing between Mike Pomeranz and Sven Sundgaard. Their banter really seems warm, original, and witty. They seem to genuinely like each other, they manage some clever dialogue, and there's always the possibility that while interacting with somebody else on camera, Sven will say something utterly strange.

Sven about town

I had a fun time watching the news last night. It seems our man Sven does more than just the weather. He had a special interest story about water in the area. He talked to people at the water treatment plants and other such places. He even went down a rope into the sewer with a flashlight attached to his head (a la spelunking) and did an interview with some guy down there. It was interesting. I pointed out to VV that it must have been scripted, because everything he said and all his voiceovers (or whatever they call it) were smooth and flawless. But then, during the sewer interview, he pointed to the wall and said to the guy, "What does this mean? There's a spike, and it has some . . . junk hanging down from it." We didn't hear the guy's response, because we were laughing too hard. It was especially funny that he paused before the word 'junk,' like he had to search his vocabulary to select the ideal word, and junk is what he came up with.

Anyway, I am glad to see our favorite local celeb getting more face time. He even said that if anyone has science related questions, they can email them to him and he will try and figure them out. So, this may happen more in the future. It may have been happening for a while already, unbeknownst to me. But I am thinking about emailing him some ideas. Maybe about the science of blogs. Then he might talk about us on the air. I wonder what he would say?

Watch Out, World

It is no secret that PV/VV and I are frugal people. I have always been sort of cheap (at least with what I spend on myself), and it has only gotten more extreme since we got together. However, I think there is a change coming on. Watch out world--I am going to be spending lots of money on Baby Viking.

I assume this is true, anyway. Baby Viking will wear generic clothing and diapers, hopefully that we will have received as gifts (hint, hint). But so far, I have a small obsession on making sure the baby gets what is rightly his or hers. For example, the baby got a bunch of finger puppets from some friends of ours at a shower. They are really cute and fun. For that reason, our cat decided to take them as her own. This did NOT make me happy. I hunted all over the house to find the stolen finger puppets, one of which she had gotten all crusty by sucking on its tail (its a monkey). And I am not satisfied yet, because I don't remember how many there were to begin with. There could be more lurking in the depths of the basement, under the cot upstairs, or God only knows where else. Damn cat. Those were for the baby.

I also regularly accuse PV/VV of taking the baby's money. The baby got some giftcards for Christmas and the shower, and I am pretty adamant that those same giftcards get spent on the baby and nothing else. As PV/VV pointed out to me, we are going to be dropping tons of other money on the baby, and we already have, by buying things like the crib. I know this is true. But also, we are parents. It is our job to buy the baby stuff. That doesn't mean we get to keep any gift money that rolls in for ourselves. By the way, PV/VV agrees with me, and has never attempted thievery of any kind that I know about, but I still am paranoid and accuse him on a regular basis.

Finally, there are two books I have been looking for to add to the baby's library: Feathers and Fools, and Faithful Elephants (both are wonderful, moving, anti-war books--check them out. But be prepared to cry at Faithful Elephants. If you don't you have no soul.). After searching over and over at 1/2 Price books, Borders, and Barnes and Noble, I realized I would have to get them at Amazon. That usually is a good thing, because you can get pretty good deals there. But did I go for a good deal? Not really. I ordered them both in hardcover (even though paperback was an option), and I got the New versions, not used ones in good condition. I am making myself feel better by remembering that I still paid only $14 for two books, including shipping. Also, these books are special ones. All the baby's books don't have to be so nice, but these ones are important to me. So, yeah.

The moral is: I am focused on making sure the baby lacks nothing, despite our frugal nature.

Food Box

We're cheap people. We're getting more and more comfortable in our petty bourgeoisie status, but we maintain our Marxist sensibilities. I really don't know who "we" is here. I'm sort of referring to Possible Flurries and myself, but I shouldn't speak for her. Well, I just asked Possible Flurries, and she says indeed, she has Marxist sensibilities.

Anyway, after hassling for over an hour getting screwed by T-Mobile (I read the Consumerist enough to distrust all rebates, but Possible Flurries does not; still, the screwjob wasn't her fault at all but merely the incompetence of the salespeople. Or "Sales Team," as I'm sure they'd like to be called), we took a unique excursion to W.A. Frost and Company courtesy of a very generous giftcard. I strutted in wearing a hooded UCLA sweatshirt and immediately and constantly felt underdressed. Like I said, we're frugal people; it's not the sort of place we typically frequent. But we had the gift card. I actually ordered a $7 martini. In the past four months, I believe I've spent $7 on a single meal 3 times.

We uncomfortably mispronounced names on the menu. As a vegan and vegetarian, our options were limited, but we did find items that were quite tasty (besides the $7 martini). I truly enjoyed my meal, but it wasn't until hours later that my Marxism creeped in and I realized I paid $13 for essentially lettuce and broccoli (and they were the cheapest items on the menu, people). We enjoyed our time but were slightly uncomfortable the entire time. It was like being in an entirely different life and world for an hour. There were original oil paintings on the wall, the total cost of the meal was more than I spend on food in a week, maybe two, and we were never quite sure if we were acting the way we were supposed to be acting. We figured that the waiter was used to people coming in January with gift cards acting uncomfortable. Ce la vie, it was a night out. A night out. A night out we would remember for a very long time.

After flustering our class sensibilities by striving too high, we immediately flustered our class sensibilities again by going too low. We became perhaps the first people in history to go directly from W.A. Frost and Company to Walmart. We hate Walmart for all sorts of reasons. Yes, the political/social/labor issues. But we also find it a dirty uncomfortable place to be. But we're checking for the cheapest price on an infant car seat, so we were on University for the second night in a row (I stopped by Borders the night before to buy Larry Watson's Montana 1948), this time to stop at Walmart. A dirty confused person walked crookedly by us and I said, "I hate this place." While looking at toys, some very, very loud music started, and I said, "That is awful. We're not buying this anyway, so let's leave."

So our class sensibilities had quite a night. We felt in over our heads at a restaurant that was slightly above our class distinctions, then felt like the snobs we sometimes are at a place seemingly well below.

Fun times, everybody.

News Observations

-Sven must attend a tanning bed on a regular basis, no one in MN is that tan in mid winter naturally.
-Eric Perkins must have had a rough weekend, by Sunday nights 10 o’clock news he was looking pretty tough with large bags under his eyes and crazy hair. They again he kinda looks like that a lot, but it was particularly noticeable on New Years Eve.
-Sven apparently had a big party to attend New Years Eve. He was doing the weather this Sunday, but by the 10 o’clock he was missing. We all assume he was out enjoying the New Year celebrations, as we sit watching the news on New Years Eve…