- Oh, the scheming, plotting and conniving of rush week on Greek. With every fraternity on campus vying for the “it” freshman Andy (guest star and awful musician Jesse McCartney), things of course came down to the Kappa Tau’s and the Omega Chi’s. In typical KT fashion, Cappie and the boys had no interest in anything involving actual work or extra effort. Initially, it took Rusty reminding them that it was in fact rush week to even bring the subject up. Cappie preferred to discuss spring break plans months in advance - the Greek island of Mykanos, by the way - instead, but when Rusty brought up rush week the talk turned to the fact that the KT’s hadn’t actually bothered to elect new officers for the new year and thus had no rush chair. Cappie came up with a brilliant solution - keeping the same officers from last year. That meant Wade was once again rush chair, but it didn’t mean the KT’s had any interest in actively recruiting any rushees, not even Andy. Rusty tried to push the issue, but Cappie elected to stick with “karmic inevitability,” the idea that if someone was meant to be a KT, they would find their way to the fraternity. Despite several path crossings on campus with Andy, Rusty was unable to win Cappie over when it came to recruiting him. On the night when all hopeful rushees toured the various fraternities and sororities - the same night we saw in the pilot episode of the series with Rusty - Andy went through the same test in the KT foyer that Rusty went through his freshman year. Wade stood on the balcony, dropped a cleaver at the feet of the freshmen to scare them and asked who knew of the KT’s reputation. As always, those who had and were looking to get into their sweet rush party were booted and only those who hadn’t raised their hands were let in. Andy was one of those let in, but only because Rusty had told him not to raise his hand. Cappie wasn’t happy to learn that detail, but fortunately he’d spent the entire day treating Rusty like a lackey gopher anyhow. That was because, as Cappie explained, until a new pledge class came in Rusty and his fellow new actives were still the low men on the totem pole. Rusty was forced to get ice for the party, Ben Bennett was put on puke clean-up duty and life was just like their pledge year for another day. Cappie promised the treatment would end in 12 hours when new pledges were chosen, but in the mean time life remained miserable. The Omega Chi’s were clearly much more focused on landing Andy as a pledge than the KT’s and after Cappie gave Andy the brush-off at the party because of Rusty’s violation of “karmic inevitability,” Omega Chi president Evan Chambers instructs Andy’s old high school football buddy Calvin to put on the full-court press. Andy is handed a bid immediately, given a chance to drive Evan’s sweet sports car around campus and made to feel like the fraternity’s top choice. However, he seems swayed by his time around the KT’s and also by a desire not to be pigeonholed as the typical meathead jock in the prototypical fraternity. When the KT’s review the pledges who attended their party the previous night and decide who to give bids to, Rusty argues Andy’s case, apologizes for messing with “karmic inevitability” and is actually able to swing the vote in his favor. Andy gets a bid and accepts, finding himself welcomed to his second KT party in as many nights, ice luge included. Evan tears Calvin a new one for not landing the big recruit, but Calvin hands the blame right back to him for being to lackluster and not getting to know Andy. No shortage of drama on the sorority side either, as Zeta Beta and Iota Kappa Iota continued to do battle. Ex-ZBZ Frannie and the IKI (or “ickies” as they’ve been glossed) had the advantage of not being an official part of the campus Greek system yet and thus not subject to its rules during rush week. In turn, ZBZ had Rebecca Logan, their own spy pretending to be a loyal member of IKI and Frannie’s second in command. Rebecca was feeding information about IKI’s rush week plans to Casey and Ashleigh, ZBZ’s “dynamic duo” of leaders, through some hilarious secret meetings at a local parking garage, a la All the President’s Men. However, when some of Rebecca’s intel proves inaccurate - including a rumor about Martha Stewart’s niece rushing when the girl is actually just a big fraud - Casey and Ashleigh begin to believe Rebecca may be a double agent. Those suspicions seem confirmed when Frannie sweet talks her way inside the ZBZ house, steals their costumes for the traditional skit night that’s designed to help showcase sororities for possible rushees and Rebecca doesn’t warn them about it. On skit night, two possible rushees tell Ashleigh and Frannie that they are way nicer than the IKI’s, especially Rebecca, who is bad-mouthing them at the IKI party. When Ashleigh and Casey storm the IKI house and confront Rebecca, they blow her cover in the process and learn that Frannie already knew about her being a spy anyhow. It turns out that Rebecca really was spying only for them, but Frannie seizes on the chance to embarrass all three in front of the whole party. All seems lost for ZBZ’s hopes of getting the 25 pledges it needed to replenish its ranks after Frannie’s departure with many former ZBZ sisters, along with Rebecca’s hopes to fix her troubled relationship with Casey following their multiple issues last season. However, the two of them are able to mend fences and Rebecca proves helpful immediately by bringing in a couple of extra rushees for ZBZ. In the end, ZBZ gets stronger, Rebecca’s time as a spy is over and life is good - for now. Same seems to be true for the KT’s, but at Cyprus Rhodes, you know the next dramatic twist can't be far away and the happy times will get thrown for a loop. So until then……..
- Because if there’s one thing college students are renowned for it’s their sophisticated taste in alcohol, I have to admit that I like the idea that more and more colleges across the country are starting to open wine tasting rooms, featuring vino produced by their own students. As you might expect, schools in California’s wine country are leading the way. Santa Rosa Junior College in Sonoma County, California, and Napa Valley College will have their own wine labels this year. But the trend isn’t limited to small California schools in regions where wine is the main industry. Colleges and universities across the country are getting in on the wine-making action, in places ranging from Washington State to Virginia. They too are planning to open their own commercial wineries even though most of them don't believe they will make a profit on the wine. What they are hoping for is to offset the costs of the program for their aspiring future winemakers. Personally I didn’t know that that many people went to college for winemaking, because the majority of people I know who have attended even a single semester of college were much more concerned with finding ways to make alcohol disappear as quickly as possible and not actually producing it. That being said, I’d like to challenge students at one of these schools with winemaking programs to find a way to create a cost-effective, affordable wine keg and see if they can start a new trend of their own…..
- This week’s Heroes was supposed to be a big reveal about the sordid past of the Petrelli family and a place somewhere in the desert that played a key role in that history, but the episode that materialized seem to focus on almost anything but. The Petrelli-centric scenes came at the beginning and very end of the episode, but in between it was all about a) Hiro and Ando making the world’s most annoying cross-country trip/promotional plug for Nissan while trying to manage an uber-annoying, whiny baby Matt Parkman, b) H.R.G. having Emile Danko try to sell him on Sylar really being dead, c) Sylar wreaking havoc on H.R.G. courtesy of his new shape-shifting power, d) Matt Parkman (adult version) seeking revenge on Danko for killing Matt’s lady friend Daphne and e) Mohinder Suresh finding out that his apartment had been raided by the government and having his now-former landlord inform him about a stash of files and information that Mohinder’s father Chandra had kept in the building. Hiro and Ando were on a quest to drive all the way from California to the East Coast in their Nissan Cube (now available starting at $13,990!) with baby Matt Parkman in tow. Unfortunately, the tot proves to be a huge burden because his power to make any toy, gadget or electrical item go also swings the other way, i.e. if he’s upset he causes them to stop working. That leaves Hiro and Ando sitting on the side of the road on U.S. 40 in Ohio, stuck with a car that won't run. A trucker stops to pick them up when they try to hitchhike, but the same fate that the Nissan (great gas mileage, MP3 player compatible!) suffered also befalls the truck when the always-crying baby gets upset again. Hiro and Ando realize their problem and are back on the side of the road as the truck pulls away. They must find a way to keep baby Matt happy, leading to the inevitable and always lame “adults making funny faces and sounds” montage that every show has when people have to take care of a crying baby. Ando finally finds a face - a very uncomfortable one - that makes baby Matt finally stop crying and is forced to hold the same face for the rest of the trip in order to keep the car running. A phone call from Hiro to Mohinder Suresh along the way helps pinpoint Matt Parkman’s location, Washington. Hiro and Ando head there, but adult Matt Parkman is in a very dangerous spot when they arrive. He’s gone to seek revenge on Emile Danko for Daphne’s death and bids Mohinder goodbye before heading off on his mission. Parkman then tracks Danko to the airport and uses his mind control powers to compel Danko to immediately go to the one person he cares most about in the world because that person is in danger. That person turns out to be a hot blonde Russian lady named Alena, who thinks Danko is a schoolbook salesman named Jakob. Danko clearly loves her, but when he leaves Parkman sneaks inside the house with much more sinister intentions. He initially plans to shoot Alena just like Danko shot Daphne, but can’t pull the trigger. Instead, he uses his powers to read Alena’s thoughts and pretend to be one of Danko’s co-workers. The two chat for a while before Matt tells Alena that Jakob isn’t who she thinks he is. To prove that point, he forces Alena to go with him to Danko’s D.C. apartment and listen as he uses his powers once again to compel Danko to tell her who he really is. She is horrified to learn that Danko kills people for the government and killed the woman Matt loved. Once the truth is out, Matt turns the gun on Alena to shoot her and cause Danko the same type of pain he’s feeling, but again he can’t pull the trigger. Danko seizes the chance to grab his own gun and pull the trigger, but the bullet stops mid-air when Hiro arrives and freezes time. He then wheels Matt from the room in an office chair and takes him outside where Ando is waiting with baby Matt. Father and son meet for the first time, just seconds after adult Matt was lamenting Hiro saving him because he didn’t have anything else to live for. Seeing his son, Matt’s eyes light up and as the realization that he’s a father washes over him, he seems to be renewed with purpose. Danko isn’t so fortunate, with Alena storming from the apartment and later leaving town even as he’s trying to call her house and plead with her not to leave him. It was actually a very eventful day for Danko, who also had to deal with his new partner Sylar trying on his shape-shifting ability. First, Sylar poses as Danko and talks to Noah Bennet as he examines the supposed corpse of Sylar. Later, Danko is caught in the lie by the suspicious H.R.G., who puts together the pieces and catches up with the body as it’s about to be cremated. To prove it really is Sylar, he pulls the metal spike from the back of the head that Danko used to make the kill. If it’s Sylar, then he’ll heal and come back to life. Instead, the man remains dead and H.R.G. knows he’s being duped. He sends the bloody spike to the lab for DNA analysis and the blood comes back as James Martin, the original shape shifter. That was one lie exposed, but H.R.G. also had to cope with Sylar posing as his wife Sandra, who came to town to confront H.R.G. over the agents who stormed their Costa Verde home and drove away their daughter while he was on the other side of the country. Sylar seizes on the chance to pose as Sandra and visit H.R.G.’s apartment, serving him with divorce papers and storming out. H.R.G. is stunned and as he examines the divorce papers, something doesn’t sit right with him. He takes the papers to his office in Building 26 and compares the signature to previous signatures she inked on utility bills and saw that the two signatures were completely different. Putting two and two together, he realized that Sylar had taken James Martin’s power and posed as Sandra. He then pulled a fast one of his own, walking into Danko’s office sans his famous glasses and pretending to by Sylar posing as H.R.G. He tells Danko he went to H.R.G.’s apartment and found some files he’d been hiding, but when Danko bites on the fake, H.R.G. ends the ruse and pulls a gun on him. After revealing what he knows about Danko and Sylar’s ploy, H.R.G. asks where Sylar is and is told that he’s been posing as an Agent Donner, leader of Team Six as it goes out on missions. H.R.G. waits for Sylar to return and when he does, shoots him in the head after a tense standoff in which Sylar/Donner pleads to be the real Donner. H.R.G. shoots him anyhow, but when the man he shoots doesn’t heal or get up off the ground, H.R.G. appears to be screwed. He flees the building with agents in pursuit, but behind him Donner gets up off the floor, morphs back into Sylar and spits out the bullet - H.R.G. was right. Not exactly what H.R.G needed at the end of a day in which he also went to the hotel room of his wife and pulled a gun on her because he believed that she was Sylar in Sandra’s body. Only a phone call on her cell from their son Lyle about the family dog’s pills convinces him that Sandra is really Sandra, all because she knows exactly where the pills are in their house. However, seeing this side of her husband once again pushes Sandra over the edge and she kicks H.R.G. out with prejudice. So now he’s on the run, having shot a man, alienated his wife and all of this after Angela Petrelli pleaded with him over the phone to stop digging into what Danko was up to and meet she and her family at Coyote Sands, the remote desert village where they’re all headed to learn “the truth about their past.” Mohinder is learning about that past as well, finding information about Coyote Sands and a government project from the 1960s that took place there. Chandra Suresh was there, but what was his role? Perhaps those facts will be recovered by Angela, Peter, Nathan and Claire as they arrive in Coyote Sands, with Sandra explain that this is where their story began and telling the other three that if they want the truth, “start digging.” Handed shovels and given their orders, Peter, Nathan and Claire get to digging. Soon, Nathan uncovers a skeleton and asks his mother if she knows who the person was. “I knew them all,” Angela observes with a calm detachment. A stunned Nathan asks what she means and she tells him to keep digging. Within minutes, the three diggers uncover scores of bodies. Claire’s digging is interrupted when a car pulls up nearby and out steps….H.R.G. That’s where we left off, not at all the episode that was billed but a solid one for the most part. Next week, maybe we’ll finally learn a little more about Coyote Sands and what terrible things took place there…..
- Nice try Mike Vick, but no. What made you think that a bankruptcy judge would give a thumbs up to your so-called Chapter 11 plan to get out of bankruptcy when that plan included you a) keeping both of the homes you own and b) keeping three luxury cars you own on top of your other vehicles, I don’t know. The plan was as stupid and short-sighted as most of the decisions you made to land in prison in the first place. That judge doesn’t care that you claimed to have become a changed man in prison and that you say you’re determined to do all the right things upon your release from prison, he cares about the financial responsibility and feasibility of your plan. With that in mind, hanging on to two homes and banking on the fact that you will once again earn a solid NFL living for years to come are not sound financial strategies. Maybe you don’t understand how bankruptcy works, but the average, non-NFLer in this situation typically has to liquidate many of his or her assets and learn to live a pared-down lifestyle in order to avoid going under financially. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Frank J. Santoro does understand these principles and that’s why he rejected what Vick called his "exit strategy.” Santoro then directed Vick to draft a new plan, one with more certainty. The judge rightly declared that there is no guarantee the league will have the 28-year-old player back. Santoro asked Vick about the likelihood of Goodell lifting the suspension and Vick failed to give a direct answer, saying he can only hope that "if I do the right thing -- if I keep showing I'm remorseful, show true remorse," the commissioner will give him a second chance. Interesting theory that he could play in the NFL another 10 to 12 years if reinstated - assuming that by interesting, you mean a total load of crap. There is no way Vick plays 10 more years of professional football, period. He may not have wanted to hear it, but Judge Santoro was 100 percent right to suggest that it’s time for Vick to start on a new plan by considering liquidating one or both of his Virginia homes and three cars he had planned to keep. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has given no indication if or when he’ll lift Vick’s indefinite suspension from the league. The financial picture facing Vick is not pretty, as he has about $210,000 but owes $1 million in fees from the bankruptcy case and about $3.7 million in legal bills -- some $13,700 a day since he filed for Chapter 11 protection in July. Under the terms of his original plan, he would also have faced at least $200,000 in annual living expenses by keeping the Virginia homes and vehicles. When your only guaranteed income is a $10-an-hour construction job that will be part of your probation upon your transfer from federal prison to home confinement in May, that is what’s commonly known as a bad plan. Adding to the sheer naïveté and fallacy of Vick’s proposed plan is the fact that it also includes marrying his fiancée next summer. Hope she enjoys the idea of ending up like that singing dude in the freecreditreport.com commercials who married a person with abysmal credit and finances and had his life ruined because of it. Step your game up, learn to live with your new reality and stop trying to hang onto the luxuries of your former lifestyle, Mike. You threw those things away when you founded, funded and operated that dogfighting ring, bro………
-Don’t begin booking your vacation deals on Orbitz for that family getaway to Guantanamo Bay for some R&R and a nice family waterboarding session quite yet, but travel to Cuba may be nearer than you thought. A group of senators and other supporters unveiled a bill last to lift the 47-year-old travel ban to Cuba and although this has been a losing battle for the past several years, the winds of change may just be blowing. In recent years such a measure has lacked the votes in Congress or a president who supported it it, but with Democrats holding majorities in both houses of Congress and a non-tool finally in the White House, supporters said they believe their chance has finally arrived. “I think that we finally reached a new watermark here on this issue," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota and one of the bill's sponsors. “When something doesn't work for 50 years, 47 years, clear-headed thinking has to say, 'You know what, it's time to change it.” All of this drama began when the United States broke diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, two years after Fidel Castro assumed power. One year later, the U.S. established a trade embargo and both policies remain in place. Additional restrictions were put in place over the years, including several by former Tool-in-Chief W. Now that W. is (mercifully, blessedly) gone, Dorgan and fellow senators like Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana have submitted this ball that they drafted in February, urging Congress to reconsider its stance on the issue. Who knows, maybe these guys are just tired of having to jump through so many loops and make so many back-room deals to get their Cuban cigars. Either way, I’m with them on this issue. Lugar is the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and if he believes that the “unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of 'bringing democracy to the Cuban people,” then I have to agree with him. Okay, so I don’t have to agree with him and most of the time, I make it a policy to disagree with people in positions of authority, but in this case Lugar is right. Whether we trade with Cuba or not and whether we allow American citizens to travel to Cuba, democracy isn’t coming any time soon. I don’t even subscribe to the theory that because Fidel Castro is supposedly very ill and has passed power o his younger brother Raul, we’re going to see a warmer, fuzzier Cuba. For those reasons, why not lift the trade and travel bans? If nothing else, maybe it will lessen some of the hostilities between the two nations. President Obama has said he favors changes in U.S.-Cuba policy but has offered no take on this bill so far. However, the $410 billion budget Obama signed this month does make it easier for Cuban-Americans to travel to Cuba and to send money to family members on the island, so perhaps that’s an indication of which way he’s leaning. There are still many opponents of the bill in Congress, so passage is far from a sure thing and you can expect an all-out brawl when it comes up for debate. That being said, you might be able to put me down for a flight to Havana some time soon if this bill becomes a law…..
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