7 Things You May Have Missed

If I learned anything from There’s Something About Mary, it’s that good things come in sevens. When Ben Stiller’s character picks up a psychotic hitchhiker en route to Miami, the soon-to-be-discovered serial killer tells Stiller about his can’t miss idea for entrepreneurial stardom – 7-Minute Abs. When Stiller asks what his passenger will do if someone comes up with 6-Minute Abs, the man launches into a tirade about the importance of the number 7:

“7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 doors. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby.”

Aside from the sheer hilarity of such a statement, it’s hard to disagree with a serial killer who carries around the dismembered remains of one of his victims. With that in mind, I present to you “7 (Not 6) Things You May Have Missed”:

1.What better way to celebrate Father’s Day than to get into a fistfight in front of your kids? At least that’s what two fans at Sunday’s Yankees/Marlins game thought. Although it’s unclear what started the melee, a Yanks fan and a Marlins fan exchanged haymakers in front of their kids (check the video above). The end result, the 10-year-old son of the Marlins fan throws a punch at his dad’s nemesis, while the Yanks fan has to console his crying daughter at the end of the fight, saying, “Quiet, Sweetheart. Daddy’s fighting.”

2.According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the longest word in the English language is “Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanocon.” It means, “a lung disease caused by the inhalation of volcanic ash, causing inflammation in the lungs.” That’s too bad because I heard huffing volcanic ash was the new “butt hash.”


3.Fifteen drawings Salvador Dali made for a Buffalo doctor (the city, not the animal) who treated him are going on exhibit for the first time. The famed Spanish surrealist gave the drawings to the late dermatologist Edmund Klein as a means of payment for treatment in the ‘70’s. The drawings, which have never been on public display, will be exhibited for two months this summer at the University of Buffalo’s Anderson Gallery.

4.Remember Brian Collins? Probably not by name, but he’s the mumbling broadcast train wreck who gave us one of sports’ most memorable catchphrases, “Boom goes the dynamite.” Well, the dynamite just went boom on his broadcast career. According to multiple reports, Collins was recently fired from his gig as an on-air reporter for an ABC-affiliate in Waco, Texas. What’s more, this news comes just two days after Bob Costas used Collins’ catchphrase during his own on-air segment at the US Open.


5.Before Rudy Giuliani ruined our city, Washington Square Park used to be a safe-haven for pot smokers – remember all those scenes from “Kids?” Since Giuliani’s “city cleansing,” the park, which was recently renovated, has become a breeding ground for undercover pigs looking to sell drugs to unsuspecting individuals. And now this… according to the NY Post, “A group of ‘wealthy, high-level’ Greenwich Village residents plans to hire a security force of off-duty NYPD cops to keep the refurbished bohemian playpen from returning to its bad old days as an open-air drug market.”


6.In an address to his National Parliament today, French President Nicolas Sarkozy railed against the use of burkas in France. He threw his weight behind attempts to bar French Muslim women from covering their faces in public, calling their full-body dress a “debasement of women.” “In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,” Mr Sarkozy said to applause in the Parliament’s ceremonial Versailles home. He went on firmly, adding, “The burka is not a religious sign. It is a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement… It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic.” While I agree with pretty much everything he said about the burka, I’m not sure how this doesn’t threaten the notion of a separation of church and state.

7.And now, last but not least, a Florida woman is claiming that former NFL running back/ current convicted cocaine trafficker Travis Henry is the father of her 18-month-old twins. If the report proves true that would make 11 children with 10 different women for Henry. Out of his nine children, he admits only one was planned. By the time he left the University of Tennessee for the NFL draft in 2001 , Henry already had three children with three different mothers. Recently, a NY Times reporter asked him how he managed to get all these women pregnant: "I did use protection at first. Then they'd be saying they'd be on the pill. I was an idiot to trust them. Second or third time with them, I didn't use it. Then, boom!" … goes the dynamite.