Trick-Or-Driving
Upfront was primed to launch a tirade on this page about the apparent death of trick or treating, seeing as how last Friday we only had three groups of masked children come to our door. But we soon learned, upon arriving in a different neighborhood, that kids are still hitting the streets en masse to get a free sugar fix and that Upfront's dearth of trick-or-treaters was due to our non-streetlight, plenty of broken-down cars street.
Apparently, kids and their parents, not unlike Hemingway, enjoy a clean, well-lighted place to knock on doors. While there were plenty of costumed children in this pristine neighborhood, there was one troubling practice we witnessed: parents driving their children from house to house. Folks were loading up the kids for a 25 foot trip to the next house and then repeating this process all the way around the block.
Now, we can understand why you'd want to drive your kids out of the sort of hellhole areas like the one Upfront lives in, but fer crying out loud park the mini van and walk around with the kids. They're about to ingest roughly 4,000 calories worth of high fructose corn syrup, so maybe they should be getting some exercise before they spend the weekend curled up in the corner of their bedroom suffering from sugar withdrawal. Next year, put on some walking shoes and do it the old fashioned way.
The End of Broadcast Journalism Integrity?
Let's face it, cable news has gotten pretty ridiculous. And we don't just mean FOX News. It seems the main three 24-hour cable news networks (CNN, FOX News and MSNBC) have gotten pretty ridiculous during this election cycle - it's all talking heads riffling off whatever thoughts they have on whatever inane subject topic is currently on the table.
But all the while, the real network news operations (NBC, CBS and ABC) seem to have kept things pretty stable - sticking with veteran reporters and commentators genuinely concerned with getting real facts and educated opinions out to the masses. Well, this sense of professionalism swirled clockwise down the toilet of respectability as CBS' morning election coverage featured the verbal diarrhea of one Ann Coulter.
Coulter clearly had been given some boundaries (like don't knock Jews or widows of 9/11, as she's done before) by CBS brass. Still, Miss You're Not Going to Believe What Incendiary Thing I'm Going to Say Next was raving enough to make the other commentators seated next to her a little sweaty as her voice raised and her eerie long blonde hair whipped from side to side as she defended Sarah Palin's benefit to the Republican ticket.
This isn't a partisan bitch on Upfront's part...we would say the same thing if CBS would put someone like Bill Maher on their Election Day commentary team.
Somewhere, Dan Rather is crying...or laughing.
Watch Sex and the City, Get Pregnant
A new study from the RAND Corporation states that sexual content on television is strongly associated with teen pregnancy. Researchers at the nonprofit organization found that teens who watch TV shows with sexual content are twice as likely to get pregnant or impregnate someone as teens who saw fewer of these programs over a period of three years. In a related study, Rand found that teens who play Halo will probably be more likely to shoot someone with a rocket launcher and teens who watch Harry Potter movies are more than others will at some point try to fly to school on a broomstick.
A Bit of a Stretch
It's a time-honored ritual before most amateur and many professional sporting events. Team members in brightly colored uniforms and sweat pants take a break from pre-game warm-ups to plop on the floor, field, or court and extend their fingertips toward their outstretched toes. Ah, the pre-game stretch, the necessity of which has been pounded into many of us by countless parents, coaches and portly P.E. teachers. There's just one problem: it doesn't work. And in some cases it may actually increase the risk of injury, according to researchers, who now say that form of pre-game exercise, known as static stretching should go the way knee-high tube socks and short shorts.
According to the latest research, including a recent University of California at Chico study, athletes need to focus on so-called dynamic stretches that mimic some of the movements of their actual exercise or sport, increasing body heat and blood flow. There's just one problem, they all look kind of dorky, ranging from kicking yourself in the butt (jogging warm-up) to crawling across the floor on all fours like Spider-Man (basketball, tennis, etc).
As far as Upfront, we'll stick with our favorite - the remote control cushion hunt. A perfect warm-up for a long day of couch surfing.
