From Dogs and Cats to a Pet Deer

The Butera's in Canal Fulton, Ohio make headlines with none other than their pet DEER. These creatures that are mostly viewed as hunting trophies and roadside hazards have now made their way into domestication. Just a few months old, the baby deer was brought to Melanie Butera, who is a vet, because the baby fawn was suffering from sever eyesight problems and extreme malnutrition. She decided it fitting to bring the deer home with her and personally nurse it back to health. However, her plan of temporarily nursing the deer was thwarted when she and her family fell in love with the deer and the deer fell in love with them. Once the deer was fully healthy again they just could not part from each other. Now the deer lives with them just as any cat, dog, or any other household pet would. I present you with Dilly.

Times Get Crazy In Time Square

On Thursday at Time Square in New York, holiday craze got to a couple of street peddlers. A policeman noticed two street peddlers trying to sell Cd's to anyone and everyone they could. While in ordinary circumstances this would be a very easy situation to handle, the peddler's became aggressive in their sales tactics almost forcing people passing by to buy unwanted items. The police approached the men to try and diffuse the situation, that's when one of the men pulled a gun and fired on the policeman. He missed shattering the windows of the stores behind. The police returned fired hitting the suspect, who was later pronounced dead at the hospital. A business card was found at the scene for a gun dealer that had been dropped by the suspect, on the back of the card was a note that said "I feel sorry for a cop who thinks I'm getting into his paddy wagon." Luckily no one else was injured, this shows that you never can be too careful around the holiday times.

Christmas Comes Early For Survivor

The winner of Survivor: Africa, Ethan Zohn received great news from his doctor's in Manhattan on Tuesday. After over a year of struggling and fighting Hodgkin's Disease, that he was diagnosed with since last April, and PET Scan that was taken revealed that as of now there are no cancer cells in his body. Hodgkin's disease which is now called Hodgkin's Lymphoma is a type of cancer originated from one's white blood cells, called lymphocytes, and then spreading to other groups of the lympnodes. After this last round of radiation treatments, Zohn is finally free of all the cancer cells his is diagnosis last April, however his battle is far from over. His cancer has proven to be very likely to come back, after a few weeks of chemotherapy in the summer, Zohn's cancer came back. Now, he plans to go on with stem cell transplant, hoping that this will finally put an end to his battle. He plans to begin the operation within the next two weeks.

The Bashing Continues

Everyone knows about the Kanye West upstaging of Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMA's in September. Every since, he has gotten bashed over and over and over for it. Yes, while his actions were rude and idiotic, enough is enough for me. FAIL Blog, a blog that tallies prospective failures of the year based on various epic failure moments, has named West as the King of Fail for 2009. Many other other candidates including John Gosselin, Glen Beck, Spencer Pratt, Heidi Montag, and Lindsay Lohan all made it on the list. However, it was Kanye's actions against poor little Taylor Swift that put him on top. While I don't support Kanye's actions in any way shape or form, I am a little tired of hearing about it.

A Time For Giving?

At TD Bank in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania a bank was robbed by none other than Santa himself! A bank robber decided to disguise himself as Jolly Ole' Saint Nick and robbed the bank at gunpoint. Talking about a time for giving. Times get rough for everyone, however tarnishing the name of the big man himself is just not cool. The robber somehow seemed to allude the cops on foot? Investigators are looking over the footage and searching the city for the masked robber. Talk about being a Grinch at Christmas.

Money Isn't Everything...

The CBS series The Amazing Race recently crowned its new champs, Meghan Rickey and Cheyne Whitney both from San Diego. The pair traveled through 8 countries and over 25,000 miles in only 21 days. This was the 15th season of the show, and the cash out for first prize is 1 million dollars. At first they were speechless, as anyone would be if they had just won 1 million dollars; but once they were able to gather their words, they placed the cash prize second to the experience that they gained from the game. Now I can see how fighting, long sleepless nights, and many uncomfortable and confusing situations can be more important that a million bucks... wait no I can't. All joking aside the experience of traveling the country with a friend can be quite more rewarding than any amount of money, well maybe not any...

Surprise Surprise...

This just in, the UNC Women's Soccer team crowned National Champs. The Tarheels played undefeated and untied Standford in the championships at College Station, Texas. The third minute goal by forward, Jessica McDonald gave the Tarheels the 1-0 lead and ultimately the win. This win not only gave UNC the national championship and the bragging rights but also their 21st championship in women's soccer. Senior
Casey Nogueira was named the MVP in offense for the tournament and fellow senior Whitney Engen was named MVP in defense for the tournament. The UNC women's soccer team has created a dynasty out of their outstanding soccer play and has always set the standard for other soccer teams to follow.

Victoria Secret Angel to Helicopter Pilot

After eight weeks of pregnancy Gisele Bundchen has finally put her pursuit of getting her piloting license on hold, until after the baby is born. Bundchen has already passed the written part of the exam and only had the flying part left to complete. However, with the baby's best interests in mind, she put her test on hold. She will have to go through the intense study sessions again, which she says that she will start sometime in June and she plans on taking her test around this time next year. Gisele Bundchen was famous for once being a Victoria Secret Angel and gave all that up to marry New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

Matches Set For FIFA 2010

Yesterday, Friday, December 5th, the pairings for group stages were chosen. Teams from around the world representing their country were essentially put into a hat and drawn at random. The group stages consist of 8 groups with 4 teams in each of those groups. While no country is ever an easy country to beat with the World Cup at stake, the United States got a much easier draw than years before. With the World Cup only happening every 4 years, the stakes are extremely high. The way the group stages work are pretty simple. Each team plays the teams in their group and they get a certain amount of points whether they win or tie. At the end of the group stages, the top two teams from each group make it into the single elimination bracket. In years before the United States have been stuck with powerhouses such as Italy and Ghana. This year they literally had the luck of the draw getting put into a group with England, Algeria, and Slovenia. The games begin in late June in the 2010 host country South Africa.

One of the Elites

To take a break from all the celebrity news, I decided to talk about a couple of local stories. UNC senior soccer player Kristi Eveland received the Elite 88 award Thursday at college station in Texas. For those of you who have never heard of the Elite 88 award, it is an award connecting academics to athletics, it takes the highest GPA of all of the soccer players from the final fours teams, and likewise with all other sports. The player with the highest GPA is selected to receive the award. Kristi Eveland is a senior enrolled in the Kenan-Flagler School of Business Administration with a GPA of 3.96 and a four year starter on the women's soccer team. Eveland is certainly deserving of the award, and has been an important factor in the UNC soccer team's success. They will play for the national championship once again tomorrow against undefeated Stanford.

Time For A Change

Everyone knows that the White House around Christmas time is the epitome of holiday decoration. The halls are literally decked in holly and there are a ridiculous amount of Christmas trees. However, this year the Obama's decided to implement their plan for change to the house decoration, with the First Lady being the main supporter of the idea. In this time of economic turmoil, Michelle Obama saw it a waste to spend so much money and time on the over the top decorations this year. Instead she decided to recycle the older decorations once used by previous administrations and sent them to over 60 community groups across the country; they let them decorate the ornaments with something that symbolizes their towns and sent them back to the White House. These ornaments were put up throughout the house and on the Christmas tree that they put up. I personally think that saving time and money and not putting up as many decorations as previous years is very smart and sets a good example for many others to follow.