Well, it’s been an interesting week around here at Lowdown HQ.  A monsoon washed through London leaving the parts of campus along the Thames flooded.  We taped a show but we couldn’t get a hold of the interviewee we wanted.  There’s a new boss in town at UWO that I unfortunately won’t work for.  And tomorrow I’m due to colour commentate basketball which is only a problem considering that I know more about BASEketball than basketball.

Anyway, on with the show:

Big news at Western this week is Emily Rowe winning the presidency of the University Students’ Council.  I’ve given my thoughts on her platform on the February 3rd episode of the show but I’ll sum them up here:  Her platform reflects that of someone running for the presidency of Mark Burnett Productions rather than the students’ council.  I’m not saying this because the candidate I voted for didn’t win.  After all, I’ve voted for the winning candidate once in four years so I know I’m a curse.  I’m not the only one that doesn’t think much of her platform.  The Gazette actually agreed with me saying that most of her platform is unfeasible, too expensive, and aiming largely to win voters.  I’d tend to agree with all of that and it’s especially true now that the student contribution to the student center’s renovation has been voted down making most of her promises damn well near impossible.

She was a good campaigner (helped largely by being pretty… er, persuasive, that is).  She was the best prepared to campaign in what is largely a popularity contest.  Again, I’m not the only one to think so.  Ask MacLean’s.  Speaking of that video Mr. Coleman mentions, here is the obligatory YouTube embedding:

Interesting to note that the clip of students cheering at 1:08 was put in the second version of the video.  The original version had a clip of Laurier students cheering instead of Westerners.  While Mr. Coleman suggests a group of Laurier students had too much fun with it, I think they were well within their rights.  I would have had a laugh too if the roles were reversed.  Turnabout is fair play after all.  You can check out the Emily Rowe Loves Her Laurier facebook group here.  They’re a funny bunch that don’t take themselves too seriously.  Somehow, I can relate to that.  That said, still a neat video and satire-ish moment.

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One thing that came up a few times in the previously mentioned Laurier facebook group is who has better school spirit.  While the video clips in question are from O-Weeks at both schools, I can only judge based on what I saw at football games at the two schools.  I’m planning on doing a blog series about my time as a football broadcaster later on this summer.  For now, I will say this.  UWO crowds were tame, relatively quiet, and there were often almost as many opposition fans in the stands as UWO students.  At Laurier, the crowd was mostly students, they were generally abusive to anyone wearing purple (including me with CHRW microphone in hand on the sideline), and my god were they loud.  Only Queen’s had a louder crowd and for that game I was in the press box on the alumni side of the field.  Casting obvious biases aside:  Yes, yes, yes they do!  Laurier’s got spirit!  How ’bout you?

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This is probably a bad time to mention that I’m trying to get a hold of her worshipfulness Rowe for an interview.  I would have preferred to grab that interview before Valentine’s Day (no particular reason for that) but I think I’ll live if it’s afterwards.

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The Daytona 500 is this weekend.  Fans of the show (read: people that may have accidentally listened to it once) might recall that while I’m a motorsports fan, my preferences lie with Formula 1.  Sadly, the F1 season doesn’t start until March 29th so I’m stuck talking about NASCAR instead.  Never fear though, we will preview the F1 season on the show on March 17th.

Anyway, this is the second full NASCAR Sprint Cup season with the new car of tomorrow/today so I would expect the racing to be closer and more exciting.  This should be helped by the fact that no testing has been allowed so most teams are starting on a relatively even playing field.  The thing I like so far this season is that two teams that only opened last month (#36 Tommy Baldwin Racing and #41 Mayfield Motorsports) are in the 500 and running competitively and the same can be said for Tony Stewart’s new Stewart-Haas Racing although that’s not very surprising.

Anyway, my predictions:  12 caution flags, 48 lead changes at the line and the winner will drive a Toyota.  All complete shots in the dark.  No education behind those guesses.  After all, a restrictor plate race is a 190 MPH cross between chess and a demolition derby.

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Now that word has gotten out about how Nicolas Sarkozy wooed Carla Bruni, all I have to say is that every man in the world should consider him a god.  This man is now the alpha of all alpha males.  Proposing to her in under a couple of hours takes a serious pair of cajones… or whatever the French call testicular fortitude.  If only I had that luck with the ladies…

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It seems as though President Obama is part of a secret campaign to destroy Chuck Bartowski.  Last week’s Presidential press conference killed any momentum Chuck has built up after the Super Bowl.  The show got its highest rating of the season for “Chuck vs. the Third Dimension” but was pre-empted by Obama.  Hopefully, Chuck does well enough for the rest of the season to get picked up for a third season.  The problem is that there are too many good shows on Monday at 8:00… And for some reason people like Strictly Come Sequins.

Also good news is that there is no shortage of 8:00 PM Monday eye candy:

 

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The next episode of The Lowdown comes your way on February 17th at 6:30PM.  This week I go to the USC’s Clubs Week 2, we wheel the What Were They Thinking board out of storage, and we pick the Canadian Olympic hockey team.  You can listen on the radio on 94.9FM CHRW in the London, ON area or online at CHRWradio.com/listen.