yet another sports roundup

the hawks-preds series was pretty entertaining, especially the first quarter of last night's game.  but i was especially impressed by the penalty kills in the third quarter, including the work of brent "modeling career on hold" sopel:

http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/blackhawks/post/_/id/4662876/sopel-penalty-kill-gave-their-all

EDIT:  another great article on sopel -- basically there's an art to blocking shots, at least without losing your eyes:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/hockey/blackhawks/ct-spt-0429-blackhawks-chicago--20100428,0,7237473.story

and you cannot argue with seabrook's response to a determined heckler -- he waited until no one was looking and just nailed him!  he must have practiced that to have that kind of aim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l89Eg9baYOA

on a considerably heavier note, i hope people that the rothlisberger rape saga is ongoing.  yes, i know the criminal case has been dismissed, but creepy stuff continues to turn up:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/thehuddle/post/2010/04/ga-cop-who-took-statement-from-ben-roethlisberger-resigns/1?csp=outbrain&csp=obnetwork

finally, from kath, i believe courtesy of bill simmons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb2UME1fBYo

i don't speak serbian, but the international language of shock and disappointment is pretty clear.

not a climber

check out the slideshow attached to this article:

http://www.slate.com/id/2250625

i almost barfed just looking at the pictures.

cheers for that guy

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/04/meteorite-donated-to-field-museum.html

Because the meteorite hasn't been sitting around collecting contaminates for months - and the folks handling it now are using gloves to further protect it - researchers at the museum's Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies have a rare opportunity to conduct radiation tests not possible on other meteorites.  

"It's absolutely amazing," Grande said.

That's what Boudreaux was hoping for.

"Any time I get the chance to get something really amazing, I want them to have it," Boudreaux said.

i'm super impressed that this guy combed the countryside and then immediately donated the meteorite from that recent meteor shower to the chicago field museum. i feel like you don't read about that kind of public spirited-ness very often. 


on an unrelated note, do you think the white sox and cubs decided ahead of time on home vs. away jerseys for the hawks game?  

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/about-last-night/2010/04/sighting-vince-vaughn-sox-cubs-at-blackhawks-games.html

damn the male metabolism

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/magazine/18exercise-t.html?pagewanted=all:  

In practical terms, the results are scientific proof that life is unfair. Female bodies, inspired almost certainly “by a biological need to maintain energy stores for reproduction,” Braun says, fight hard to hold on to every ounce of fat. Exercise for many women (and for some men) increases the desire to eat.

i love it when scientists confirm something i've always suspected, even when it's a bit of downer.  in better news, the overall crux of the article is that while you can't lose much weight with just exercise, you can protect weight loss from dieting through regular activity.  

sports round-up

paganello results (near miss for jessi and me):  http://www2.paganello.com/risultati2010/lev4b.asp?codTorneo=3

average dude vs. pro, a.k.a. me vs. hellyer: http://kottke.org/10/04/average-dude-vs-pro

last but not least, i wonder what the ultimate equivalent of this is, perhaps a flat chest?  discuss:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2010/04/08/what-can-you-learn-from-staring-at-a-baseball-player-s-butt.aspx

a passover miracle

in honor of the holiday, a small selection of passover articles:

http://www.slate.com/id/2248901/ ("Scientific explanations for the miracles of Passover")

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/us/politics/28seder.html ("Next Year in the White House: A Seder Tradition")
and, http://www.slate.com/id/2248903/ ("Get through the Haggadah in two minutes flat"), with my favorite part being the comment suggesting an  "even more abridged version, which some would argue applies to pretty much every Jewish holiday:  Once upon a time, the goyim tried to destroy us, they failed. Let's eat."

and as a follow up to last week's post:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28rich.html ("The Rage Is Not About Health Care")

really, really, ridiculously good looking

Reading "Above the Law" earlier today, came upon a post entitled "Attractive People May or May Not Be Better Lawyers, But They Do Get Paid More."

This initially got me excited as, "Well I guess it all started the first time I went through the second grade. I caught my reflection in a spoon while I was eating my cereal, and I remember thinking 'wow, you're ridiculously good looking, maybe you could do that for a career.' ... Be professionally good looking."

However, the news for really, really, ridiculously good looking ladies like me, is not all good.   In fact:

"[S]tudies of attractiveness and earnings" showed that " for women, being very attractive means they are less likely to make partner. The data on this was bell shaped. The least attractive and most attractive women were least likely to make partner. This was not the case for men. The more attractive guys are, the more likely they are to make partner."

The study author posits that this is the case because "the very good-looking women are probably getting married.”  Of course there's no reason why married women can't be partners, so I'm assuming he means "getting married, having kids, and being deemed the primary caregiver for those kids," or "getting married and assuming the position of non-working trophy wife."  Actually that second one sounds great...