- Michigan State University may not show up on the Princeton Review or Playboy magazine’s annual list of top party schools, but police reports from last weekend seem to indicate that MSU students deserve a spot on those lists. Six MSU students have been suspended following what police are calling a near-riot near campus late Saturday and early Sunday, April 5-6. It all started, as do most good incidents on or near college campuses, with a party. This party got a little out of control, swelling to between 3,000 and 4,000 people. I’m just guessing here, but that many people aren’t going to fit in one house, apartment building or a block full of student housing. This sounds like a killer block party, which means alcohol and various illegal drugs were in plentiful supply. When some square, party pooper living in the area called the cops, matters escalated quickly. Oddly enough, a group of drunk and/or high college students reacted poorly to police showing up and pelted the cops with rocks and beer bottles. The cops responded with tear gas and in the melee, the six suspended students allegedly violated a disorderly conduct policy and are now suspended from school. They can appeal the decision and seek reinstatement, so here’s hoping the school doesn’t go hard-liner on this one and keep them out. Plus, these kids will be heroes once they get back into school, having brawled with cops and survived to tell the tale. Good times in East Lansing, good times…..
- TVGuide.com hasn’t been a harbinger of good news the past few months, what with keeping tabs on the recent writers’ strike that crippled the current TV season. However, it was great to finally get some positive news from them about one of my fave shows, Lost. In a season when we’ve had a full-length, 23-episode campaign yanked from us by the f’ing strike, it turns out that fans will actually get one hour of that time back. A 14th hour of Lost is now a done deal, with executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have reach an agreement with ABC to make the show's finale a whopping three hours. But in this season of fans getting screwed over, of course we won't be getting those three hours in one night or even on back-to-back nights. No, in a totally jacked-up scheduling move, the first hour of that finale will air on May 15, and then we’ll be forced to wait two weeks — until May 29 — to get the last two hours! On May 22, there will be no Lost at all, and we’ll instead be subjected to the finales of Grey's and Ugly Betty already slated for May 22 at 8 and 9 p.m. respectively. The reason for this is that Lindelof and Cuse convinced ABC that the final two hours had to air together. As a result, working with the already decided season finale dates for the two other shows, ABC didn’t have much of an option other than had no other than to slot Lost's two-hour exit for May 29. That, in turn, opened up an hour on May 22 at 10 pm, which led to ABC giving women everywhere reason to squeal in glee because Grey’s will also be getting an extra hour for its finale. So rejoice, I guess, Lost fans, because even though the finale is really just two episodes artificially packaged as one big finale spread over two weeks, it’s still an extra hour of Lost, good news to be sure.
- Speaking of rioting but for a bigger, more important cause than keg stands and beer bongs, Haitians continue to loot, riot and wreak havoc over perceived inaction on the part of their government to address to issue of rising food prices for the impoverished nation. Despite an appeal from Presidente Rene Preval, bands of looters (one of the more beautiful phrases in any language) ransacked stores, warehouses and government offices as they continued to make the point that they are not happy with their government’s handling of the crisis. The best part of this is that the looting, rioting, pillaging and plundering weren’t just limited to the poor parts of the capital city. Gunfire and rising smoke were present in the wealthy suburbs of the city just as they were in the slums. More than 9,000 U.N. soldiers tried unsuccessfully to stem the tide of rioting, which has become an almost daily occurrence in Haiti as food prices rise and the average citizen has no way to cope other than lashing out in violence as an unresponsive government does nothing. So if you happen to see a ginormous plume of smoke rising from the south in the direction of the Caribbean Sea, now you know why……
- So who will be hosting the 2008 MTV Movie Awards each of the 5,343 times you seem them aired and re-aired over the next year? It will be none other than Austin Powers himself, Mike Myers. Myers last hosted MTV’s tongue-in-cheek awards show in 1997 and busted out a Lord of the Dance montage as part of his act that night. It will by the 17th installment of the show, which honors oddball categories like best kiss, best villain and best comedic performance. The show itself will air live on June 1 from Universal City, Calif., and will then be subsequently re-aired multiple times per day for months on end until MTV viewers can recite dialogue and acceptance speeches from the show verbatim. Nominees will be announced next month, so stay tuned for that…..
- Boy, that declined quickly. I mean that really got out of hand. It went in the trash, didn’t it? The Washington Nationals had one of the feel-good stories of the first few days of the new Major League Baseball season. They opened a sparkling new stadium, won their first game there in walk-off fashion and proceeded to win their first three games. They had good momentum to start the season and although it was just three games, they provided some hope that maybe, just maybe, they would be competitive this season. Then…..the bottom fell out. The Nats followed their 3-0 start up by losing nine straight games, getting outscored 58-31, dropping games to three different opponents and surrendering double-digit run totals in three of those games. In other words, the Nats remembered that they were in fact the Nats. What makes this even more special is that everyone pitched in to make this streak happen - each of the five pitchers in the team’s starting rotation had at least one loss in the streak. Now, Washington finds itself in the very familiar position of last place in the National League East. It didn’t take long to get there, but it should be an extended stay for the Nats in a division with three of the NL’s best teams - Atlanta, New York and Philadelphia. Enjoy your season, Nationals fans, it should be…um…uh….interesting….
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