9to5 (dot cc)

Today’s special topic is apparently sluts.

First of all, Paulina Gretzky is still in the news, but we already talked about that so who cares?  I think it’s just a case of the real world taking its sweet ass time to catch up to the internet. I mean, this was a story that broke on twitter and was “broken” by Paulina herself. That means that thousands of people found out about it as it happened so by the time Entertainment Tonight or whatever had time to figure out an interview and get sound bites from people, it was already old hat for the rest of us. We’re on the internet, we know things.

However, the fact that she’s still one of the top trending searches right now means only one thing: it’s a slow news week. Maybe I’ll take a look at what Canadians are looking at. Top search term? Veena Malik. Related searches? Veena Malik photo and Veena Malik FHM.

Who the fuck is Veena Malik and is this seriously one of the top rated searches in the entire country? Ah, she’s on the cover of FHM magazine more or less naked. Wait, everybody has been on the cover of FHM magazine (more or less naked), what’s the big deal about this time around? Oh, there’s a controversy, joy.

So first of all, who is she? Apparently she’s a Bollywood actor. Why’s she on the cover of the magazine? Well she has tits you see. It’s all coming together, what’s the controversy?

Well, first there’s the tattoo “ISI” which stands for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. That’s controversial enough almost. The ISI is Pakistan’s CIA, and critics have said they’re not accountable enough to the actual government. There have even been allegations that ISI was guilty of plotting the Mumbai terror attacks. So having a celebrity sporting that kind of tattoo might be considered controversial.

Nope, that’s not why the whole thing has blown up though. The reason everyone is up in arms is because Malik says she never posed topless for the magazine at all. You know what I think? I think the whole thing is a big fucking scam. It worked too; it had me searching the shit out of “Veena Malik” to find out about what the hell was going on. Seriously, check out her filmography, she’s been in nothing any of us have probably seen. Yet here we are, in Canada, looking her up on the internet. Soon she’ll be in the new Transformers movie or something and we’ll be like “Hey yeah, I heard of her.” Playing right into their hands. Their grubby little hands.

Fuck, this is a seriously slow news week. You know what else is trending? Something about Mindy McCready. Some country singer got custody of her kids or something. Not even a sextape. Oh, I mean, she has a sextape, but that came out last year, so why are we still talking about this?

Fuck this, I’m talking about sports.

The NHL announced today that it’s just about finalized the plan for the upcoming realignment. You see, when Atlanta moved to Winnipeg the whole Eastern/Western conference thing started to get screwy. To make matters worse, Detroit has been bitching for years that they want to be in the East. Complaining that playing outside of their time zone all the time hurts their ratings. Makes sense. Seemed time for a shakeup yeah?

So now, starting next year, pending final approval from the NHLPA, the NHL will be switching to an all new 4 division system. Two 8 team divisions, two 7 team divisions. Playoffs work with the top 4 teams from each division meeting up 1-4 and 2-3, winners play each other in the second round. Third round is the final four teams from the second round re-seeded based on regular season points 1-4, same matchup. Finals are the final two teams. You can read all about it all over the place, I’ve just got a few quick things I’d like to share on each division (if you don’t mind me sharing, here’s half of my butterscotch candy). The divisions have yet to be named, so I’m going to use the system of naming them after the all-time points getters from teams in the various divisions (this works out great since Edmonton and LA are in the same division now):

• Wayne Gretzky Division: Los Angeles, Anaheim, Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Colorado
  • I know the NHL is supposedly all about evening the playing field in this salary cap era of the game, but wow, I mean, from where I’m sitting, it sort of looks like (at least next year) San Jose and Vancouver sort of get a free pass. I know they’re changing the playoff format and everything, but in the current format, 5 of these teams don’t make the cut. In this new format though, that doesn’t really matter, only one of these teams make it out, so I mean, it might mean other teams make it to third round based solely on San Jose’s and Vancouver’s tendency to choke. Although, maybe this new format will trick the Sharks into being a better team since they might not realize they’re in the playoffs so they won’t suck as hard.
• Gordie Howe Division: Detroit, Columbus, Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago, Minnesota, Dallas and Winnipeg
  • A big part of this shuffle up has to do with Detroit not wanting to travel as much as they used to. However, they can’t just up and start bitching about not wanting to travel now can they? Nope, instead they complained about time zones and how this impacted ratings. Well, as you can see in that map, what goes around comes around. They’re better situated (slightly) in terms of time zones but now they have to travel all over the fucking place, ha! Take that! A lot like in the Gretzky division, it looks like Chicago and Detroit will be top dogs in this group.
• Mark Messier Division: New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Washington and Carolina
  • Also known by its other name “The TV Ratings Division”. There were talks that Philly and Pittsburgh were going to be in the same division as the Habs (instead of the two Florida teams, see below), that didn’t happen though, since Ed Snider owns the Flyers. Ed Snider also owns Comcast Sportsnet. Comcast Sportsnet has one of the biggest TV contracts with the NHL of all time. Yep, Ed Snider wants ratings and he wants ratings for his team too. Basically every major rivalry that doesn’t involve the Montreal Canadiens is accounted for here. Rangers/Islanders, Rangers/Jersey, Flyers/Penguins, Penguins/Capitals, Jersey/Flyers, Rangers/Flyers… and Carolina’s in there too! I don’t actually have a problem with this, hockey has to fight for ratings in the States and I think putting some of the best rivalries together in a single division is a good thing for the sport.
• Phil Esposito Patrick Roy Division (I only just now realized my system didn’t have any goalies, so I figured I would add the goalie with the most wins from this division, totally impartial decision on my part and had nothing to do with not naming the division after a Bruin): Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Buffalo, Florida and Tampa Bay
  • Again, this makes a lot of sense, keeping the rivalries together. The other thing is that the Florida teams will benefit from having 3 Canadian teams making regular trips to the Sunshine State to get the retirees out of their homes and into the arenas. You would think I would have more to say about this one, but I don’t, I think it makes sense.

Yeah, this was just a reason to share my fun naming convention with you all. I don’t really care what you think.