It's Been Such A Long Time...

...I think I should be posting.

More often, that is. Actually, my plan is to find any free hosting that I can and redirect my URLs to that. I'm going to brand myself with a one-stop Michael Grillo hub, complete with credentials, clips and the works. Don't hold your breath: the next few months will be busy for sure.

This month, I'm wrapping up my formal education with my Master's project for Quinnipiac. I'm offering a glimpse at the sustainable energy industry's successes and pitfalls in the midst of the global recession. I've toured the Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center at UConn and witnessed the installation of a geothermal well system in Fairfield, and there's a bunch of other journalistic juicy bits on the way as well.

Next month, I will graduate, then I will pack up my meager belongings in my hot car and move 30 minutes north to Hartford. Don't know where in Hartford yet, but I'm trying to snag a one-bedroom on the 7th floor overlooking Main Street.

And the shameless plug for my professional work...

Are you depressed over the UConn Men's loss to MSU last night in the Final Four? Too bad! Drown your sorrows at courant.com/huskies with last night's recap, game photos, box score and the world's most comprehensive UConn sports coverage. courant.com/huskies: it's a Web site. Online.

The Best UConn Coverage In The World

A lot of people, including yours truly, worked extra-hard to create this wonderful hub for UConn sports news and information. Reward our efforts and proliferate this masterpiece throughout the Internet, if you don't mind.

That's www.courant.com/huskies.

There's No "I" In PONT AC

Some bad news in the automobile world...I'm missing a vowel on my awesome fuel-efficient, affordable, peppy American-assembled vehicle. If anyone has seen my missing "I" or knows where I can find a similar one, please reply to this post.

Headline Mirth (Oh, The Double Entendre)

As an online producer, I often have to write headlines for stories or rewrite them to fit within a certain space. For better or worse, I write headlines pretty fast, often gleaning the key details from the first line of the story and posting in a matter of seconds.

Since most headlines I write are for breaking news stories, I try to stay to the point. I don't try to get cute and create a masterpiece. But I do screen my work for the oft-hilarious double entendre. ESPN.com posted a story about an NFL player asking his team to release him from his contract, and the headline came out like this (click to enlarge the image if you can't read it):

Since EPSN is the Worldwide Leader and one of my biggest time-consumers, I don't mean to make them look bad. I'm just the kind of person who laughs at these kinds of innuendo.

For more suggestive headlines, follow this hyperlink to Deadspin's post on suggestive sports headlines.

CL&P Follies

I received my electric bill from Connecticut Light & Power, and they notified me of their rate increase. That's fine, but they waste a lot of paper doing so:



Imagine if they sent multiple fliers to all of their customers across the state. It's the little things the company can do that will save money for its customers.

Welcome Back America

http://www.courant.com/news/custom/topnews/hc-sns-ap-election-rdp-sl,0,5708989.storylink

Lions, Huskies And Debates

The freedom of Wikipedia and the persistence of cached material in Google's search results are two things that can bring a smile to my beautiful face. When someone with a sense of humor revises a Wikipedia entry--in this case, for the Detroit Lions football team--they can be removed immediately from their site. But Google's bots (or whatever the technical term is) pull a cached snapshot of those changes and displays them as a search result. Here is a screen grab of the gem:


Note the first entry, which refers to the Lions as "a cheerleading squad aspiring to become an American football team." Somewhere, James Lipton is giving his long-winded approval.

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UConn @ Louisville 2nite On ESPN2: The Huskies look to get their fifth win during their Big East opener.

Get your UConn football fix here please. I work hard to make these things look nice.

Look for a decent game from this Donald Brown character. He's supposedly the nation's leading rusher, but since he plays in the Big East, the ESPN guys couldn't care less.

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I'll keep the remote handy in order to maintain vigilance on the game and the DEBATE between the old guy and the idealistic guy.

I'm sure nobody will pick on John McC for attending the debate while the bailout boondoggle continues, despite suspending his campaign two days earlier.

And you will want to check this site, naturally, for anything debate-related: the print jockeys picked a bunch of smart people to give their two cents on the verbal fisticuffs (including the Hon. Richard Hanley from Quinnipiac, whose proudest accomplishments include being my adviser and grading my papers).