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Hey PopWatchers, did you hear? Word is a very naughty newcomer with a mysterious past returned to stir things up for everyone, but especially one, on last night’s Gossip Girl.
See, I too can write like our omniscient narrator, voiced by Kristen Bell. In fact, the acronym-tastic way of speaking is pretty addictive. I’ll confess to seeing GG star Taylor Momsen (Jenny) on the street in the New York’s Meatpacking District one sunny Saturday afternoon—and immediately texting my co-worker Tanner Stransky with the following: “Spotted. One social-climbing freshman with a nose for trouble heading into a coffee shop. Guess who? XOXO.” Groan, I know. But the funny thing? Nearly everyone who passed by her appeared to be doing the same thing, whipping out their phones and whispering madly into their companions’ ears. The whole situation felt very meta, as if the 14-year old Momsen were the Serena to my Kati, with someone else, far away, writing about it.
But enough about that. Let’s move on to the multiple-choice test GG slipped us last night. So many possible answers to the huge question mark that is Serena’s troubled past—and Georgina’s stranglehold on her. Mischa Barton reportedly turned down the part of the UES muckraker, but Michelle Trachtenberg excelled at playing harlot-villain Georgina. The first sign that her intentions were evil? Those inky latex leggings. They don’t look good on anyone, and no "good" girl I know would actually wear such things. Anyway, I enjoyed the two joining forces at a club and reminiscing fondly about their party-girl ways, holding hands, fending off the Wall Street-types swarming around them. (And Crystal Castles in the background! Double happiness.) Aww! Until? Serena realized she was drunk, and had to return home immediately…to Chuck. But more on that later.
Georgina certainly has a bag of tricks up her sleeve—staging an accidental meeting with Dan at Central Park was genius—but slipping a drop of GHB into Serena’s diet coke? Really? What exactly was she trying to accomplish? Either way, a crumpled Serena woke up the next morning too woozy to remember the previous night’s antics, and just minutes too late to make it to her SAT exam. (The anxiety surrounding the latter incident felt realistically handled.) Nate’s donation of SAT hand-me-downs, however, was not, especially if you were like me and you scribbled all of your answers into the book. And given Nate’s behavior on the show, I’m guessing that most of those filled-out bubbles were wrong. Sly sabotage? Don’t they both want to go to Dartmouth?

popwatch.ew.com

will be released at the end of the month, but before she departs on a ten-state tour to promote it, she stopped in at the Lab to share some tips on healthy eating, sensible snacking and being a hungry girl for life.
CalorieLab: How did you get started as the Hungry Girl?
Lillien: I have always been obsessed with food — and I am good at finding products that taste great that are low in calories and fat — and also ways to make food at home that tastes super-fattening but isn’t. One day the idea for Hungry Girl popped into my brain — to create a diet brand for women that was from a regular person (like me), as opposed to a doctor or a dietitian — and the brand needed to be fun and a little funny — not boring at all. So Hungry Girl was born. I decided to make it a daily e-mail instead of a destination website because I wanted to bring the content directly to the people who were interested in it, as opposed to waiting for them to visit the site.
CalorieLab: What’s your favorite part of the website/e-mails?
Lillien: That’s a toughie! I love it all — but if I had to choose a few things I like best — I’d say I love our Tuesday emails — our Bite It/Fight It food comparisons. And shockers are fun, too — I love to expose foods and find better-for-you swaps for them.
CalorieLab: Can you share a few of your favorite diet/healthy eating tips?
Lillien: The most important thing is to not think of yourself as being on or off “a diet.” Try to snap into the frame of mind that allows you to embrace a true lifestyle change. One that will have ups and downs as far as eating is concerned. Don’t deprive yourself. Find better alternatives that satisfy you as opposed to completely giving up certain foods. It really works!

calorielab.com

A sold-out crowd at Beijing’s Wukesong Baseball Field didn’t know it, but on March 15 they kicked off the celebration of the 100th anniversary of a great American tradition, two weeks before March 31’s Opening Day on U.S. soil. During the seventh-inning stretch of the first Major League Baseball game in China, between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, several thousand Chinese fans swayed back and forth to the tune of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
It was a tribute that composer Albert Von Tilzer and lyricist and singer Jack Norworth couldn’t possibly have expected when “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was published as sheet music in the spring of 1908. In fact, the song that would become the third-most-performed tune in America — after “Happy Birthday to You” and “The Star-Spangled Banner” — wasn’t a hit until people heard it performed. In late October of that year, just after the World Series, two recordings of the song — one by a singer named Edward Meeker and another by a group called the Hayden Quartet — vied for the top of the pop charts and continued to sell right on through the winter holidays.
By the 1910 season, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was being sung at all the major league parks and on its way to becoming baseball’s unofficial anthem. According to Tim Wiles, director of research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and co-author of the recent “Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of Take Me Out to the Ball Game” with Andy Strasberg and Bob Thompson, the song is performed about 2,500 times a year at major-league games.
Exactly why is a puzzle to baseball historians. Jerry Silverman, musician, musicologist and author of “The Baseball Songbook: Songs and Images From the Early Years of America’s Favorite Pastime,” says, “There was a lot of competition out there. In 1906 there was a song called ‘It’s Great at a Baseball Game,’ which anticipated not only the mood and meter of ‘Take Me Out’ but its menu as well.” Instead of the familiar peanuts and cracker jack, the lyrics called for “hot buttered popcorn and peanuts.” But that song, says Mr. Silverman, never caught on.

online.wsj.com

By JOE RYAN
STAMFORD — The first thing that strikes you about Allie Oakes is her poise.
The junior co-captain of the Westhill High School boys golf team answers questions with an air of confidence that tells you a long putt in a big tournament is not going to make her weak in the knees.
In fact, it is that type of competition she thrives on as she has achieved two-time, all-state status and shared the girls individual state title last year. Oakes shot an 80 at Blue Fox Run in Avon, tying Newington’s Kirsten Lapointe for 2007 title.
She said the example given set by last year’s captains, Andy Granowitz and Travis Denicola, gave her insight into the kind of leader she wants to be. She wants to help the younger players like the former captains had helped her.
“Last year was a great year and I learned a lot from our captains, Andy and Travis, ” said Oakes. “It’s not only playing golf, but being a good role model for the guys out on the course.”
She still has some aspects of her game she wants to improve, but the Vikings are facing a rebuilding year and she wants to help her team and keep her personal goals in perspective.
Oakes got an early start in her pursuit of the sport that’s been called “a good walk spoiled.”
Her passion for the game started when she was about seven years old. Her father introduced her to the game. It allowed her to share a common activity with him and gave her an outlet away from the team sports she had been playing.
She found the peace of the course alluring and the singular challenge of self-improvement fulfilling. While sometimes kids get frustrated by the nature of the game and it inspired Oakes to work harder.

thestamfordtimes.com

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Denver _ So we’re sitting here battening down the hatches and waiting for the snowstorm. Ahh, baseball fever in the mountains in April … Catch it!
But seriously, the person responsible for scheduling interdivision baseball games in cold-weather cities in April should be beaten about the head and shoulders with an icy pair of batting gloves. Or worse.
It’s about 50 degrees here now at 3:08 p.m. local time, but the snowstorm is moving across the mountains and headed straight for us. Game time is 6:30, and the ETA for the storm is about 7-7:30 p.m.
Unless we get in five innings before it arrives, the Braves are probably going to have a doubleheader to make up in Denver later this season on an off day in the schedule.
Yes, a doubleheader. Because the forecast for tomorrow is for temps in the 30s, snow and high winds. Let’s play two … uh, later this summer.
The only folks pleased by a snowout tomorrow might be the Rockies, who would avoid facing Tim Hudson, who appears to be in midseason form right out of the chute. Hudson has held hitters to a .188 average in two starts, including a league-best .050 (1-for-20) by right-handed hitters, with no walks.
Then again, he has a 13.00 ERA in two starts at Coors Field, so maybe they wouldn’t mind facing him.
Rarely do you see such a clean split as you see in Hudson’s stats against the Rockies home and away. He’s 0-2 with a 13.00 ERA in two starts against them at Coors Field, and a 3-0 record and 1.23 ERA in three at Atlanta.
Huddy’s also been sick all week, just like tonight’s starter, Chuck James.
Oh, yes, Chuck. He comes off the DL tonight to face the Rockies and briefly-a-Brave Mark Redman. For Chuck’s sake, let’s hope he gets to work a few or more innings before the storm blows in.

ajc.com

NEW YORK: The identity of the high-priced prostitute at the centre of the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal emerged yesterday after the embattled crime-busting New York state governor declared that he would resign.
The brunette - identified in federal court papers as “Kristen,” a call girl for the Emperors Club VIP agency - was revealed to be Ashley Alexandra Dupre, 22, the New York Times reported and who Spitzer arranged to have brought from New York to Washington for $4,300 (BD1,600) for about two hours.
“I just don’t want to be thought of as a monster,” Dupre, an aspiring R’&’B singer from a broken home in New Jersey, was quoted as telling the newspaper.
In a stunning fall from grace, Spitzer, 48, announced he would resign effective Monday amid revelations that he had arranged through a prostitution ring to meet an escort on February 13 at a Washington hotel.
Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, 53, will take over on Monday to become the state’s first black governor and the first blind governor in US history.
Spitzer’s resignation came as more details emerged of his use of prostitutes, with the New York Post saying he had spent up to $80,000 (BD30,000)on call girls going back 10 years to his time as New York state attorney general.

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By KAREN MATTHEWS – 4 hours ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Gil Rosa’s high school students were young children when Bill Clinton’s trysts with Monica Lewinsky threatened his presidency.
A decade later, the news that Gov. Eliot Spitzer was caught consorting with high-priced hookers left students in his social studies class largely unfazed.
“My kids are desensitized,” said Rosa, who teaches at School Without Walls in Rochester, N.Y. “They’re like, ‘Whatever.’”
Yet for Rosa, and other teachers across the nation, the Spitzer prostitution scandal has been a teachable moment.
“The kids are very opinionated,” he said. “It’s split between the kids saying that he’s being a hypocrite and others who feel that it’s a victimless crime and that we have a lot of other things to worry about.”
Experts say that most teenagers are unlikely to be shocked by the tawdry details of Spitzer’s downfall, but that parents of younger children should tread carefully and wait for the child to broach the subject.
“I would follow their lead and only discuss it if they’re interested,” said Dr. Dominic Ferro, a psychiatrist in Nanuet, N.Y., and past president of the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry. “And then I think the discussion has to be according to the kid’s developmental age.”

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