G:TB Week in Review

A compendium, of sorts, our first recurring feature destined not to recur very much of the new year.  Here's what happened in the larger World of Gheorghe this week:

The sainted Greg McElroy found cause to express his dismay at some of his New York Jets teammates, telling Birmingham, AL radio station 97.3 The Zone, "It's the first time I've ever been around extremely selfish individuals.  There were people within our locker room that didn't care whether we won or lost as long as they got theirs, they had a good game individually. And that's the disappointing thing." McElroy, who's destined to be an NFL Hall of Famer, is obviously a leader of men and clearly in the right, but that didn't stop washout former NFL quarterback Erik Ainge from piping up on Twitter, saying: "@nyjets Someone tell McElroy to keep his mouth shut about the NYJ "Locker Room" speaking in the media about your teammates, entitled brat!"

We're known in these parts for adopting teams and players that strike our fancy. Whatever the opposite of adoption is, we're about to do it to Virginia Tech and its increasingly obnoxious group of fans. Less than a generation ago Tech was as relevant as the shit on its work boots. Today, we can barely tell the difference between a Hokie and a Wahoo in terms of self-serious entitlement. 'Twas bad enough Virginia Tech got a BCS bid despite a resume that gave George O'Leary pause (losing twice to a Clemson team that gave up 70(!) to WVU, among other things), but the whining about just about everything associated with the game, from officiating to Frank Beamer's coaching, is tiresome. Deep down in places you don't talk about at cocktail parties, you know that without Beamer you people are East Carolina. I'd prefer you just said thank you, and went on your way. It's really hard to make UVA seem sympathetic, but Hokie Nation's doing a bang-up job of it. (Danny Coale's effort was pretty sick, though - we'll refrain from disowning him.)



Apparently week one of 2012 was Wheelhouse Week here, as Jerry's colleague Geoff sent along news of the Large Hadron Collider's attempt to infiltrate our children's minds.  Niels Bohr Institute Physicist Sascha Mehlhase (obvious alias, as well as anagram for Ha! Ha! Cashless Me!) built the 50:1 scale replica "as part of an outreach project".  Indeed. I think we all know what that actually means.

Amazingly, the LHC's steady creep towards Skynet-like awareness was only the week's second-most frightening scientific news.  Wired Magazine reports on a disturbing report from a pair of former clandestine operatives, who claim that a young Obama was teleported to Mars as part of a DARPA/CIA mission. Operating under the alias "Barry Soetero", an 18 year-old Obama joined current DARPA Chief Regina Dugan on a team of "chrononauts", who traversed the "boundaries of time and space".  Naturally, the White House denied Obama's involvement, laughing off the allegations with a joke about Marvin the Martian. Somewhere, Ron Paul is tightening the security precautions on his escape pod.

Finally, we're sad to report that Dave did not care about Canada at all this week.

Late edit: Dave cared about Canada! Once.