News Briefs – February 7, 2009

NEWS BRIEFS FOR FEBRUARY 7, 2009

by H, TSD Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL, NC – TSD NEWS SERVICES – INCONSISTENT FCC CENSORING CONFUSES RADIO LISTENERS

The government often makes confusing and strange decisions, but among the most confusing agencies lies the Federal Communications Commission, whose influence in television and radio censorship affects millions of technology users every day. Recently, FCC radio censorship has become increasingly more random, allowing some “offensive” words yet dismissing others.

While listening to G105′s “Club 105″ one Friday night, frequent listener T noticed that several popular songs had words removed, while questionable themes and concepts – often racy or violent – were continued.

“FCC, what were you thinking?” T asked, in reference to Sir Mix-A-Lot’s use of “hoes” in the early 90s. “But you can’t say ‘crack’.”

CHAPEL HILL, NC – TSD NEWS SERVICES – READERS OF WOMEN’S MAGAZINES EVALUATE TECHNIQUES TO PLEASE MEN

Women’s magazine Cosmopolitan often includes margin notes for women – including last-minute beauty tips, fashion advice and newly-created seduction tips. While some women pass over these notes in favor of front-page articles, they often include a wealth of information for the new seductress. Recently, Cosmo suggested stripping techniques for women, to give men a “preview.”

Along with clothing suggestions, Cosmo recommended a Guitar Hero favorite as soundtrack: Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child of Mine.” However, is this guy-friendly power rock a good song to remove your clothes by, or would it remind your man to tune you out and reach for his plastic guitar (no pun intended)?

“I think it would be a good song (to strip to),” said T. TSD News Services was not able to confirm a confirmation date when she would try this for a follow up.

COPYRIGHT 2009 TSD – THE SKETCHY DOOR

7 things I hate about you…wait…25 things about myself…same thing.

1. Sometimes I think I’d like a Pottery Barn life. Complete with cubbies for wet rain boots, a slightly messy desk with apothecary jars and the chalkboard behind the kitchen counter with notes about what my family’s doing that night.
2. The reason I flinch when people hug me is because I have a huge 17-year-old brother who thinks it’s fun to greet me by picking me up off the ground and popping my back. If you want to hug me and not do that, be my guest.
3. My new goal is to spend 10 minutes a day reading a book that is not assigned yet good for me.
4. I should have let my grandparents teach me Chinese when I was seven, like they wanted to. Now I’ve chosen to study a dead language and a language whose speaking population is shrinking.
5. I always wear my UVA shirt on the first day of the ACC Tournament in honor of the school I almost went to. That, and because with any luck, we don’t play the first day.
6. I’m kind of convinced I’m the worst reporter in the world.
7. I embody everything wrong with the Carolina student mentality that we think (know – see?) that we’re better than everyone else.
8. I actually tear up when I watch a UNC basketball montage. I miss the old one – the new one isn’t as good.
9. I used to have waist-long hair.
10. I was the biggest band geek in high school. I actually loved those uniforms. Luckily I’m over that.
11. I can’t parallel park. Or drive a stick shift. Or back into parking spots.
12. I have to get a vertical license this May. It’s quite possibly the most demeaning thing to ever happen to me.
13. I don’t particularly like spicy food or scary movies.
14. Sometimes I’ve considering either leaving college/never using my college degree and doing something with my hands: being a chef, a wedding planner or a photographer. (note from T: or a hand model).
15. I read the last Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book and the last Princess Diaries book: both of which came out this year.
16. I want to hate the Manning brothers so much but I can’t stop watching their commercials on youtube.
17. I trip over everything. Last week, I fell up the stone steps of Carroll and dropped my coffee. Last year, I fell up the spiral steps of the UL, threw my coffee, which went down a flight of stairs and I still have the scar. No wonder my grandparents didn’t want me to hike up a mountain in Hawaii. My grandmother said I inherited her family trait of clumsiness, which her mother told her “she’d never get a husband.” Oh well.
18. I love arm/hand veins on guys. I don’t care if that sounds creepy, but to me that just says “manly”.
19. I hate poetry. Especially epic poetry. You would too if you had to read the Iliad in English AND Latin.
20. I don’t believe in a favorite movie, a favorite band or a favorite song. (Favorite colors are allowed, because that’s what you dress in, what color notebooks you buy and what color piece you want to be in board games.) Because you can’t put everything about yourself into one tiny little entity that then becomes the expression of your existence.
21. I was definitely on the fair-weather fan bandwagon when the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup. Truth: I don’t care all that much about hockey. But fun fact: my parents both played in college. I’m the non-athletic one in the family.
22. My dad bought me an NSYNC t-shirt last week from a hidden vault at the place where I saw Live in Madison Square Garden 8 years ago.
23. I do not hide my emotions well at all. If you’re stupid/annoying/obnoxious/need-to-stop-talking-at-this-minute-or-I-will-kill-you, you will definitely know.
24. My favorite deadly sin: pride.
25. I love to cook.

love,

H

weirdy beardy

men who look best with no beard:

Jake Gyllenhall

Zac Efron (not sure he can grow facial hair)

President Barack Obama (cause he’s president, duh)

Leonardo DiCaprio (titanic-era leo)

John Krasinski

Matt Damon

Ben Affleck

James McAvoy

Ed Westwick (you just can’t hide that jawline)

John Stamos (as Uncle Jesse, because in the present-day, he looks like Rufus Humphrey, which is a bad thing)

Penn Badgley (same about the jawline)

Matt LeBlanc

Matthew Perry

Adam Brody (just Google him with a beard. it’s gross)

James Franco (hot damn)

James Marsden

men who look best with scruff:

Patrick Dempsey

Jack from Lost (Matthew Fox)

Brad Pitt

Eric McCormack (without it he looks gay)

Robert Pattinson (the only reason we watched Harry Potter 4 again)

Justin Chambers (Alex Karev)

men who look best with a beard:

Johnny Depp (didn’t think anyone really could pull off a full mustache)

Eric Dane (McSteamy)

Orlando Bloom

undecided:

John Mayer (T: clean, H: scruff)

Chace Crawford (T: clean, H: scruff)

If you’re on facebook, you understand

H and I have been discussing the recent fad on facebook to make the “25 random things about me” notes.  These have been around longer than facebook I’m sure, but all of a sudden everyone we know is posting these things and tagging all of their friends.

We the roommates of the sketchy door, in order to form a more perfect facebook, establish justice, insure “dormestic” tranquility, provide for the common sanity, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of un-cluttered facebook to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this 25 Random things about me on the sketchy door. Ready, go.

1. Not really a secret, but I hate winter. I hate it so much. Right now, I’m claiming that I have agoraphobia to avoid going out into the winter. I wish it was always summer.

2. I don’t make plans. I don’t have a plan for next week, I don’t have a plan for next semester, I don’t have a plan for my life after college. I don’t make plans. Usually, things just happen to me or I get an urge to try something and it ends up working out.

3. I actually like hugs. Believe it or not, I’m not completely cold-hearted. Hugs are nice. I just feel weird being the one to initiate the hug.

4. Also not much of a secret, but my biggest fear is immaculate conception. Think about that for a minute – no one would believe you. Then you’d be preggers with baby Jesus and have no baby daddy.

5. I’m secretly really into astrology and numerology and all that stuff. I can’t say that I believe it, I just like to read it. However, every horoscope for every sign everyday seems to apply to me so I don’t believe those.

6. Some people know this: I write. All the time. Not like I have papers due all the time kind of writing. (I do that kind of writing a lot too.) Like I wish I had tried to get into the J-school, maybe one day I’ll write a novel, I wish people read my blog kind of writing.

7. Girl’s voices annoy me. Mine especially, but I think everyone hates their own voice. Girls in movies or girls that sing or really any girl voice annoys me so much.

8. This might be too much, but brown eyes are my thing. I will fall in love with a pair of brown eyes. I’ve recently started watching Lost and I am attracted to nothing else about Naveen Andrews other than his eyes.

9. 25 secrets are a lot. Okay, here’s one: I’m starting to like Christmas less and less. That’s sort of a sad one, I’ll try harder on the next one.

10. Not a secret – I LOATHE SOCKS. I hate hate hate hate hate them. They’re constricting. They force my toes to stay together when all they really want to do is be apart. Flip flops are my jam.

11. I think old people are gross. I don’t think this really needs an explanation.

12. A few more greatest fears: the dark, closed stairwells, planned public speaking, falling.

13. Here’s the secret I didn’t want to tell – I usually don’t know what I’m talking about. When I say something and it seems like I know the subject, generally I’m making stuff up that seems logical.

14. I can’t learn a foreign language to save my life. I know about 30 words in Spanish, not including numbers, and that is probably all I’ll ever know of any other language but English. I really wanted to and I tried to learn it, but it’s just not for me.

15. Sometimes when I’m in my car (alone, of course) and a good song comes on, I pretend it’s the finale of American Idol and it’s my turn to sing. I win every time.

16. I don’t get sick (knock on wood). Usually, if someone around me gets sick, I will get it for a day but only have one symptom and then be fine. I like to say I’m just a universal carrier.

17. Bad Day = least favorite song ever. I will walk out of a store if they are playing that song. That silly fantasy football commercial forced me to change the channel. I stopped watching American Idol because of it too.

18. I don’t know what class I didn’t take in middle school with everyone else, but I have a hard time typing without looking at the keyboard. The more I think about it, the worse I get. Thank GOD for autocorrect (sometimes).

19. I can’t stand walking into a home or a room and having it look like no one lives there. Sometimes things get out of place or clutter happens. I just think it’s silly to make your living space look like a showroom in the window of a furniture store.

20. I’d really like to make shoes my “thing” but that’s damn expensive and not really worth the trouble. I like comfortable shoes.

21. Until I got a cell phone, I wore a watch everyday. I got my first real watch in 3rd grade and sometimes I wish I still needed one/I wish I could find one that I like.

22. My phone is set on vibrate all the time. I get really embarrassed by loud ringtones (even if it’s someone else) and I refuse to accidentally make a rumpus in a quiet place. I don’t think the whole world should know when I get a phone call.

23. I have a whole list of things in my head I’d like to be able to do one day, but most of them involve being a CEO of a company or winning the Powerball. It’s not about the money, the things I want to do involve power and/or status.

24. Most times, I can’t control my facial expressions quickly enough to hide what I’m thinking. I have a “you’re dumb” face and I use it quite often.

25. Every time I pull into a parking spot, I put the car in reverse and adjust to make my car straight. Without exception, this happens EVERY TIME.

whatever keeps you warm at night – H

Do you ever think about socks? Like, other than when you have to look around for a pair in the mornings, or notice that you have a huge hole in the toe of one of them, making your entire foot uncomfortable? (One of the many mysteries of socks.)

Anyway, the discussion T and I had tonight was about the role of socks in our lives. It’s a continuation of a conversation we’ve had before, but I randomly mentioned that I wish I didn’t have to wear socks when I sleep. Simple, right? NO.

I’ve always worn socks when I went to bed, but I think now I’ve been conditioned that way. If I take them off, my feet get cold, even if I get under all of my covers. And it’s not a big deal, but what about when I don’t want to wear socks, like when I’m on vacation in the tropics? How lame would that be to pull on a pair of socks? So I’m debating ways to un-condition myself.

(T’s helpful suggestions: sleep with one sock, or pull them down my feet a little more each night). Maybe I’ll wear big, thick socks until I go to bed, and then get rid of them. That way my feet should be warm…

T has a differing opinion about socks. She hates them.

“I hate socks,” said T, as she relaxed on her bed after a long day at the library. “I only wear them when I absolutely have to.”

T buys cute socks, because if she has to wear them, they might as well look good. She disagrees with my assessment of socks, commenting that socks are a constricting cocoon for your feet. However, they are a warm cocoon.

“All my little toesies want to do is be free,” said T.

—-H, Esq.

The Boyfriend Application – T

Being the young, classy, southern women that we are, H and I decided to find ourselves some successful boys worth dating in the near future.  Our pool of dateable young men gets smaller everyday.  Through some highly technical and scientific equations, out of the 8,000 or so guys at our public university, 1846.8 are dateable. (We took all appropriate measures to elminate the gay population, those in committed relationships, those that just aren’t dateable, and freshmen).

For the record, we’re still looking for the 1800 or so that we can’t seem to meet.  If any of you know a category we missed or happen to not be in any of those categories, leave a comment and we’ll get back to you.

So the hunt begins. We opted out of the traditional “meet someone, get to know them, go on a date, blahdy-blahdy-blah.” Our next option involved an application. A simple google search will lead you here:

Boyfriend Application (PDF)

H and I read and started to fill out the application to our prefrences.  H likes any eye color, I prefer brown.  H will take any natural hair color, I still prefer brown.  Sorry shorties, both of us require a 6’0″ height minimum.

Then came the fun part.  There is a question about our potential candidates’ music tastes.  We both agreed rock is good, a working knowledge of popular music (as in not a hatred of all things Fergie), and then we disagreed.

The disagreement is irrelevant. Let’s just say that we agree now.

Future potential boyfriends – print out that application and get writing!

xoxo

t

We’rrrrrrre Baaaaaack

So, like, we, like, decided to come back.  For the time being anyway.  One of us will get bored and we’ll eventually stop updating.  But for now, we’re here.

Things are changing a little.  We’re not just going to post something funny everyday or whenever we see fit. We have noticed our knack for solving life’s problems, one day at a time.  So, on most nights (hopefully every night), we will have a new issue discussed and usually resolved.

Don’t worry faithful reader(s), we won’t get too deep.  We know that politics, religion, and sex are things to be left out of conversation.  However, since H is an aspiring journalist, T is an aspiring …who knows what with a degree in religion, and we’re both single and in our prime, we will be discussing all of the above.  Get ready for the good times.