In 2006, Tim Russert talked with the New York Times magazine about regularly attending Saturday afternoon masses at the Georgetown Hospital’s chapel. After his death last Friday, this time Georgetown’s talking about Russert.

In the hours and days after the news of Russert’s death broke, I spotted several status messages remembering Russert that ranged from “Missing Tim” to “RIP Tim Russert” to “In this Sunday’s issues” to the one that I found the most touching, “All that and more on Meet the Press. But for now…”

Eulogizing a 20th century media icon in away message form might seem banal or self-important at first, but I think it’s actually a pretty fitting way to honor a journalism giant who always kept up with the times.

Flickr photo from user bladerunner009 used under a Creative Commons license

After last week’s Pompous Olympics, this week’s Daters both sounded a little desperate in their questionnaire answers. Of course I wouldn’t expect anyone to be totally confident during a real-life blind date, but if you can’t hide your insecurity on a paper application, we’ve got some sincere struggles.

Sure, his morning routine of coffee, cigarettes, and BBC World News before going off to his defense analyst job suggests well-informed badass, but his admission that “dating was nonexistent through university but began to peak after [he] reached 30″  sends off major creep vibes. Meanwhile, she’s the kind of chronic oversharer who sends mass emails about a speed dating evening gone wrong.

The combination could have produced either blind date gold or arsenic, and unfortunately (or hilariously), these two don’t quite agree on which mineral it was.

Actually, that’s an understatement: it’s hard to believe they were even on the same date. His interview quotes include sparkling adulations like “When she told me her birthday is three days before mine, it was like, ‘Is this fate or what?’” and “I was on cloud nine, thinking, ‘I don’t want this date to end’”

On the other hand, she says the date “wasn’t torturous or anything.” Producing a date that’s the romantic equivalent of waterboarding? Date Lab just can’t win.

Their post-date ratings are almost too sad to mention. She gives it a 2.5 while he gives it a 10; with his score a whopping 300% greater than hers, that’s got to be the biggest DL discrepancy I’ve ever seen. I hope for our sakes that he’s more perceptive at his defense job.

Rating: 1. If neither party is feeling it, that’s an amusing Saturday morning read. But if one person is borderline Fatal Attraction and the other is on the verge of faking an emergency phone call to leave early, that’s just a bummer.

Chances of Success: 0. After reading her answers, there’s no way he’ll try to take it further (not that he could if he wanted to, since she wouldn’t even give him her number.)

Kurt Cobain used to wear a T-shirt that said “Grunge is dead.” But if you saw Mudhoney—who ushered in grunge rock in the late 1980s with their EP “Superfuzz Bigmuff”—at the Rock and Roll Hotel last Monday night, you’d have to agree that it’s still alive and moaning. (more…)