So, in no particular order, here are people who probably wish they were me this morning:
Barry Bonds.
Because he's fallen into poor favor with Bob Costas. And Bob Costas is an American force to be reckoned with (not to mention object of my 10-year-old-self's innocent desire...in fact, I remember having an imaginary conversation between myself and some out-of-towner that commented on my equally imaginary licence plate frame that read, "Beautiful B.C." (not particularly odd up in these parts where we have plenty of British Columbia transplants). "Oh, you're from BC," they'd remark. "Oh no," I'd say, "That stands for Beautiful Bob Costas." I kid not. He's aged poorly...tends to look like the melting man a bit these days, but 15-20 years ago, he was foxy in that understated, deadpan style...)But back to Barry, the man that drew the Costas ire. According to MSNBC, Costas thinks Bonds' 755th career home run will be an "ambivalent" moment for fans since the history Bonds is making is not "pure or laudable" and that "There are elements of history that are tragic or about which we feel ambivalent, and I think ambivalence is the best possible way anyone outside of San Francisco can feel about this."
It gets better. Barry and Bob make it personal. After Bob made a remark on the air about the existence of "credible information that Bonds has used performance-enhancing drugs to turn himself from a great player into a superhuman one," Barry decided to take the high (and articulate) road and responded by calling Bob "that little midget man."
Barry, Barry, Barry. You're insulting the premier sportscaster of our generation - the man to emcee at least a million Olympic Games - an athlete's advocate. A handsome, easy-going guy.
Bob's response: “As anyone can plainly see, I’m 5-6½ and a strapping 150, and unlike some people, I came by all of it naturally.”
Anyway, Bob goes on to sound decently intellectual, saying “It wouldn’t matter if I were the mayor of the Munchkin City. What matters is the validity of the information and the validity of the comments I have made, and very often when people have no credible argument — and in this case Barry Bonds has no credible argument — they resort to nonsense and ad hominem attacks, and that’s what he did.”
Anyway, sorry Barry - Bob wins on this particular Monday. I'd rather be me than Barry on this particular Monday - this kid never wants to draw criticism from The Bob.
Chief Justice John Roberts
He took a tumble on Monday. That's not what makes his day worse than mine (heck, I trip over my own feet a few times a day, I'm lucky to stay balanced, upright, and maintain a facade of gracefulness for half of my waking...er, walking hours) - what makes this a bad day is that, at 52, it's news when the man falls at home...and is hospitalized as a "precaution."Soooo, did he fall off of a roof? Did he fall while driving the riding mower? He was conscious after the fall (thanks, CNN, for that edge-of-my-seat detail), but apparently fell well enough to warrant a trip to the hospital.
This could go one of two ways: we'll either be bombarded with forthcoming details in the next day or so telling us all about the state of the Chief Justice's dislocated shoulder (an unfortunate accident while building a tree house for his nephew or trolling for lobster)...OR we'll hear nothing and can assume it was somehow related to a sex swing.
Danika McKellar
Who? Oh yeah, WINNIE! From The Wonder Years!!!So, after all these years she's resurfaced. She's as hot as I imagined she'd grow up to be. She's still got the shiniest hair on the entire planet. She's being featured on CNN...and after all of these years she's come back to tell us girls that "Smart is cool." Only trouble is, she manages to make saying so sound pretty ditzy: after making the easy Paris-Lindsay slam she manages to provide global news outlets with this very articulate sound byte:
"I want to show them [girls] that being smart is cool. Being good at math is cool. And not only that, it can help them get what they want out of life."
then this:
"I want to tell girls that cute and dumb isn't as good as cute and smart."
Thanks Winnie...
I'm going to err on the side of confidence in her intellect and suspect that CNN just did a poor job hyping Winnie's return to the American consciousness...she has, after all, just written a book called "Math Doesn't Suck" which includes "tips to avoid mistakes on homework, ways to overcome test-day anxiety and profiles of three beautiful mathematicians."
Hmmm. Well, not to insult the smart, hot chick and fall back into the very predictable gender stereotypes Winnie's trying to fight, but, um, if you're trying to make a statement about valorizing smarts...would it hurt to sound smart?
