Although I have to say Chuck didn’t do himself any favors.

I don’t give two craps about the NCAA basketball tournament, but I always look forward to Name of the Year. Like March Madness, it’s a seeded, 64-team, single-elimination tourney, and among this year’s hopefuls are Taco Vandervelde, Barkevious Mingo, Glorious Johnson, Crystal Metheny, Chastity Clapp, the Rev. Valentine Handwerker, Juvyline Cubangbang, Infinite McCloud, Nutritious Love, Kermit E. Trout Jr., Dr. Shasta Kielbasa, Chuck Fugger, and (of course!) Moonlit Wang.

Even those who missed the cut are good:

So who didn’t make the tournament? A disappointed crop of onomastic talent, including Long Wang (one Wang per field), Landocalrissan Butler, Batman Bin Supraman (just because), Taffi Dollar, Elvis Magno and Elvis Rambo (one Elvis per field), Quetzalcoatl Carrasco, Hugh G. Dick, Sparkle Wisdom, NaToya Dingle, Darren QX Bean!, Dalcapone Alpaccino Morris, Precious Valentine (one Valentine. . .), Truly Lo, Elizabeth Little-Lamb, Dick Sackman, Bo Ladyman , Deep Master and many more.

The NotY crew does a pretty good job checking the names, so they all should be legit. Check out the rest here.

Update: The comments are outstanding, too.

The “everyday food” list.

The question, as posed by the Epi-Log via Anthimeria:

What ten food items do we require, most days, to really enjoy life?
[...]
This isn’t recipes, or favourite foods, or whole food groups (one person said “cheese”, another “fruit” — not so easy!) but single items that you turn to most days … the building blocks of your meals, the items that are dropped most often in your grocery basket, eaten or imbibed most frequently. [I'm not counting alcohol in this list, though it's probably not healthy that it's even an option -M]

Well then, let’s get it (warning: this list may be skewed towards things I can see from my couch). After all, who doesn’t love listing?*

1. Black pepper.
2. Salt. I think I have three four kinds of salt in my kitchen.
3. Extra-virgin olive oil. I prefer a little pepperiness.
4. Bagels. I don’t eat a real breakfast too often, but I will usually take the time to toast a bagel.
5. Chicken/chicken broth. I wish I had time to make stock more often, but I don’t. The tribulations of this modern life could drive a man insane.
6. Garlic. Really, this should be up higher.
7. White onions and shallots. Again, probably should be higher.
8. Unsalted butter. Butter is awesome, although I knew a girl in college who loved to eat it straight. Everything in moderation, and all that.
9. Cilantro and parsley. Combined because they look similar from a distance, and they’re both nearly always in my fridge (The home-grown cilantro experiment was cut short by nibbling critters. We’ll try again next year).
10. Arugula and other leafy green things. Take that, Sarah Palin!

Runners-up: Bacon, tomatoes, cumin, asparagus, Italian Parm-Reg, squash, various mushrooms, lemons/lemon juice, proscuitto, bread (mostly French & ciabatta), rice (arborio & brown, usually), and some more stuff. Cranberry juice. Eggs, probably, too. Anything grillable in summer.

* Sailors, I imagine. [sfx: rimshot]

“I shot it six times in the head with a spear and I wasn’t having much luck.”

Oh my goodness. From the Daily Mail:

Craig Clasen was hunting yellow fin tuna with fellow fisherman Cameron Kirkconnell, photographer D.J Struntz and film maker Ryan McInnis in the Gulf of Mexico when the encounter took place.

Mr Clasen grabbed his speargun and swam to his stranded friend, who was being circled by the giant predator.

Mr Clasen spent nearly two hours wrestling with the giant 12ft shark, spearing it seven times and even attempting to drown the beast before eventually finishing it off with a long blade knife.

Photo and money quote after the jump.
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Steele yourself.

I really don’t have anything against Michael Steele. I think he’s out of touch and in over his head, but anyone would have trouble getting anything done with today’s GOP.

That said, the man’s recent GQ interview can’t be too encouraging. Maybe it sounded better in person, but it reads like a man who won’t be in charge much longer, especially with stream (dribble?)-of-consciousness quotes like this:
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I’ll bet he didn’t plan for that.

In today’s WaPost, there’s an interesting little article about Santino, “an adult male chimpanzee in a Swedish zoo [who] often collects stones before opening time so he can have them ready later on when visitors arrive… On some days, he’s barraged visitors with up to 20 projectiles thrown in rapid succession, always thrown underhand. Several times he has hit spectators standing about 30 feet across a water-filled moat.”

First off, that is pretty cool. I don’t really like zoos, and I have to think I’d be a little grumpy if I were stuck in one. Anyway, the article talks about planning behavior in chimps, such as Santino’s little stockpiles or a female chimp who “would bring an armful of straw from her enclosure when she went outside in the morning in order to have something to sit on” when it was cold out. Then it ends with these last two tragic grafs:

Santino’s rock-throwing may not be in evidence when spring comes to Sweden this year and he emerges to see visitors again across the water.

In order to decrease his agitation, which was fueled in part by high testosterone levels characteristic of dominant males, the animal was castrated last fall.