Mishmash Musings

During the summer and fall, I kept a food journal in which I noted everything I ate during the day and included portion sizes and approximate number of calories. That worked well to curb excessive eating, since I could see in black and white exactly how much crap I was consuming.

But I gave up the food journal right around the holidays, justifying the action by saying that since I eat so many of the same things, I pretty much knew the caloric content by heart and didn’t have to write anything down anymore. The trouble with that point of view is that I couldn’t see the cumulative total of what I had eaten throughout the day, which led to a weight gain of about 4 pounds in the last two months.

So before I spend money on weight loss products or home exercise DVDs, I’m going to revive the food journal. Hopefully, this will work to limit my daily caloric intake and help me shed the pounds I’ve recently gained.

I don’t know anything about Chris Brown or Rihanna since I’m not a fan of their music, but it’s been hard to avoid news about the alleged fight they had on their way to the Grammys last month. There was tons of speculation about what might have happened, and since no details were released by either party or by the authorities, fans felt the need to fill in the blanks themselves.

I even read about a survey of high school students in which some of the students said that these sorts of physical fights were “normal” in relationships or that Rihanna probably “deserved it”. How disgusting is that? It’s shocking to me that teenagers would actually believe something like this.

Anyway, today Brown was charged with 2 felonies in relation to the incident with Rihanna on Feb. 8. According to the AP story, Brown will be arraigned this afternoon on “charges of assault likely to cause great bodily injury and making criminal threats”.

The report goes into some detail about what allegedly happened that day — and it’s pretty brutal. Rihanna is said to have found a text message from another woman on Brown’s cell, which prompted the fight. Brown then supposedly tried to push her out of the car, but she had her seatbelt on still, so he banged her head against the window and repeatedly punched her — while still driving. Later, he allegedly bit her ear and tried to choke her.

The blows were hard enough to make Rihanna’s mouth fill with blood and cause her to almost lose consciousness.

This is some nasty stuff, and though Brown deserves his day in court like everyone else, if he’s found guilty, I hope he has to do jail time. This is flat-out assault and should not be taken lightly. Wow.

Jimmy Fallon has taken over the Late Night show hosting duties formerly held by Conan O’Brien, who is in turn taking over for Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show. I don’t really watch these late shows, but I’ve heard that Conan O’Brien is actually very funny, so I’m planning on tuning in when he starts his tenure as host on June 1.

Fallon, on the other hand, doesn’t seem like someone I’d enjoy watching. Here’s a clip of his first opening monologue as Late Night host, and he’s visibly nervous in it — which I guess is understandable. Then again, he did SNL for so many years and is a professional actor, so it seems like something he would have been able to handle.

Also, doesn’t it look like he’s chewing gum when he first walks on stage during the introduction? But then it disappears while he’s actually talking. What did he do… swallow it? Tuck it between his cheek and gum? Why would he even have gum in the first place???

Did you hear that two NFL players are missing now after having been lost at sea while on a fishing trip? I read about this on ESPN.com a bit earlier and have been seeing reports on sports channels here and there. Detroit Lions defensive end Corey Smith (29 years old) and Oakland Raiders linbacker Marquis Cooper (10 days shy of his 27th birthday) were on a fishing outing off Florida’s Gulf Coast in Cooper’s boat. They left on Saturday morning, but didn’t return to port as expected. The Coast Guard has been searching for the vessel ever since, but bad weather conditions haven’t been helping.

Officials reported that they did not receive any kind of distress call from the boat while it was out to sea. The weather wasn’t bad when the 21-foot craft went out on Saturday morning, but the sea became choppy later in the day, with waves reportedly hitting 7 feet or more.

There were two others aboard the boat with Smith and Cooper.

Hopefully these guys are ok, but I don’t think it looks very good for them at this point. At the lowest estimate, they’ve been missing for around 24 hours already, with no communication at all. What an awful situation….

(AP Photo)