This report called in by Russian journalist Baba Booski

Okay, maybe I have the mind of a 12-year-old. But I found this hilarious.

So I'm listening to the BBC today and they're talking about Russian operations in Georgia. And they discuss what the Russian army did in Poti, a city on Georgia's Black Sea coast. (You can see it on this map.) In fact, it's not just a coastal city, it's a port city. And it's pronounced pot-tea. Or, if you like, potty. And that was what the BBC reporter kept saying.

The port of Poti.

Thank God he wasn't Irish, if you get my drift. I don't know what they call portable toilets in the UK - possibly "portable toilets" - but you have to love that the end result is this slipped right past the goalie. I mean, it sounds like something you'd get on some prank phone call, where someone calls CBS News and tells them he's in the port of Poti, and then they put him on air and he milks that joke for a while, then yells out something about Howard Stern's butt cheeks.

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Russians make pit stop in Georgian port of Poti

POTI (Reuters): A number of Russian soldiers, under orders to return to their country, have paused in this seaside city for what Russian president Dmitry Medvedev termed "a quick pit stop."

"Our soldiers merely need to make brief use of the port of Poti," Medvedev said. "I assure NATO and the Georgian people that our troops will move on once they have done their business."

Told that Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili had declared that "Russian soldiers have to go," Medvedev replied, "I agree completely," before lapsing into a brief giggling fit.

That berry's not getting any pinker

If you live in New York City or Los Angeles and have any sense of the latest trends, you're probably aware of Pinkberry, the hip frozen yogurt joint. If you don't, like me, you're probably only aware of it via the many, many television shows on which it's been name-dropped, or perhaps via this American Express ad.

In the last few days, I've read several accounts of people complaining about how lousy Pinkberry is. Keith Law, professional baseball writer and amateur food writer, made a post on his blog in which he complained that "[t]he flavor made me feel like I was sitting inside a bottle of white vinegar, licking the sides and inhaling the fumes." The main gripes I've seen all seem to hinge on the fact that Pinkberry's frozen yogurt tastes like, well, frozen yogurt. In other words, this isn't TCBY; it's mildly sweetened frozen yogurt that otherwise tastes like a big spoonful of plain Dannon. I can't speak for Law, but at least one other person I heard complaining was clearly expecting TCBY or Colombo, and wondered who liked the taste of plain yogurt anyway.

Well, I like the taste of plain yogurt. There are no Pinkberries in Chicago, but there is one location of Red Mango in Evanston. Red Mango, as I understand it, is extremely similar to Pinkberry, right down to the "color+fruit" theme of the company name. The catch is that while Pinkberry has been open in the United States since 2005 and Red Mango only for about a year now, Red Mango is actually a stateside expansion of a South Korean chain which dates to 2002. (In what seems unlikely to be a coincidence, the founders of Pinkberry are Korean-American.) Frozen yogurt that tastes like actual yogurt seems to be all the rage, presumably because it seems healthier that way; in fact, looking at TCBY's nutrition facts, "standard" frozen yogurt really doesn't have many more calories. But the semblance of health value is usually enough to create a stir, and one trendy place usually begets ten others (think of all the Chipotle clones that popped up shortly thereafter). So now there's Pinkberry, Red Mango, Berry Chill (local to Chicago) and... well, just look at this list, which surely isn't even close to complete. It reminds me of the end of the Simpsons episode "Flaming Moe's," where the street is clogged with imitators (including "Famous Moe's" and "Flaming Meaux") once Homer reveals the secret ingredient.

Anyway, I like plain yogurt, and the idea of a dessert place with low-calorie (90 per serving) frozen yogurt and simple fruit topping (you can also get cereal of various types) had its appeal, so Alma and I decided to check it out. Quick review points:

The taste: Well, you have to like plain yogurt. If you're expecting vanilla soft serve, prepare to be sorely disappointed. You have to enjoy that tangy yogurt flavor; if not, you're going to leave scratching your head as to what the fuss is about. As I've said, I like the taste of plain yogurt, although this is sweeter than that, not surprisingly. It didn't change my life or anything, but I thought it wasn't bad. If I hadn't known what it was going in, I wonder if the unpreparedness for it would have bothered me even though I like tangy stuff and plain yogurt. Fortunately for me, I had that awareness ahead of time.

The fruit: I got raspberries and also granola. The raspberries were pretty great; they were extremely fresh and added an additional tartness to the tang of the yogurt which I liked. The granola was probably overkill, though it would have been good by itself. There were some nice chewy dried cranberries in it.

The value: Well, not so much. A medium is about a cup of yogurt; add two toppings and it ends up running you about five dollars, which is just a bit on the insane side. You're certainly paying for the "couture" aspect to some degree, but if you're like me you probably don't feel that need. I can throw together raspberries, granola and yogurt from the store for less than five bucks, and even if the yogurt isn't frozen, I'm not exactly losing a ton of the experience, personally. Your mileage may vary, but since the frozen yogurt is non-fat, it isn't terribly creamy, which means that trading it for regular plain yogurt may not be that big of a loss unless you actually prefer that somewhat icier consistency.

In summary, it wasn't too bad, but not something I'd do more than occasionally. I encourage the existence of relatively healthy dessert places - better people eat a large Red Mango yogurt than a "Gotta Have It" size Cold Stone Creamery offering with multiple mix-ins - but just like with most ice cream places, the cost is simply too high for me to justify going there with any kind of frequency. Which is certainly just as well when it comes to the ice cream. Red Mango at least removes a large percentage of the guilt associated with dessert, which probably has its upside and downside, but I suppose better this than most of its substitute goods.

Citius Altius Fortius

I always think I'm not a big Olympics guy, and then the Olympics actually start. I've never been the gung-ho patriot type, but I'll be damned if international competition doesn't bring out in me a fierce rooting interest in anything United States. Of course, it's one thing when it's the World Cup; soccer, that's a sport I follow on a regular basis. With the Olympics, by comparison, we're talking swimming, and track, and gymnastics. Like most people, I have no idea what's happening in the world of swimming at any point in the four years between Olympics. I knew what Michael Phelps did in Athens; I knew what he was trying to do in Beijing. I did not know, nor did I care, what he was doing from September 2004 to July 2008. But when Jason Lezak touched the wall a barely perceptible .08 seconds ahead of France's Alain Bernard - whose braggadocio I, no doubt like most American viewers, had been quietly seething over since being informed of it mere minutes earlier - I involuntarily yelled out of sheer excitement.

Lezak had entered the pool nearly a full body length behind Bernard, only one of the fastest sprinters in the world and the world record holder in the 100m free until it was broken by Australia's Eamon Sullivan on the relay's opening leg. (Because the 4x100 starts with a tone, as do regular races, the opening legs are eligible for world records; the later legs are not because their starts are not controlled by the tone.) A full body length is an eternity in Olympic swimming, especially against one of the world's best sprinters and especially after Lezak had failed to make up significant ground after the first 50 meters of the final leg. With only 30 or so meters to go and Lezak still at least 3/4 of a body length behind Bernard, the commentators began discussing how the United States would have to settle for holding onto the silver medal, with Australia charging hard to Lezak's left.

Then, suddenly, the atmosphere changed. Almost no sooner had the announcers written the U.S. off than they began to remark upon the fact that Lezak seemed to be gaining. Like a championship thoroughbred breaking free of the pack, everyone could see Lezak closing on Bernard, a man seven years his junior. The intensity in the Water Cube reached fever pitch, and when Lezak touched the wall after just 46.06 seconds in the pool (in a finish so close that replays showed Phelps checking the scoreboard before celebrating), there was sheer exuberance from the rest of the team, the announcers, and surely Americans just like me all over the world, suddenly glued to their sets not four minutes earlier, having no idea until it unfolded in front of them that they were about to witness one of the most dramatic moments in Olympic history - perhaps the most dramatic moment for an American athlete at any Games since the 1980 hockey team stunned the Soviets.

Once the XXIXth Olympiad fades into memory, I probably won't remember much about it. If Phelps does indeed eclipse Mark Spitz's record by tallying eight gold medals, I'm sure I'll remember that; if he falls short, I may remember the race he lost. I'll certainly remember his name, as he's already just one gold medal shy of becoming the most decorated Olympian in history, a record he's sure to obliterate this year and possibly put even further out of reach in London in 2012. And I'll probably remember what the basketball and soccer teams did, sports that I care about outside of an Olympic context. But no matter what else happens at these games, I'm sure I'll always remember Lezak's charge, the hair standing up on the back of my neck as the announcers' voices began to break, the scream erupting from my mouth before I could even think of holding it in. It's moments like this for which we watch sports, and with the added incentive of national pride on the line, it's especially moments like this for which we watch the Olympics. We're a jaded society when it comes to sports these days, but when Lezak touched that wall, he was a pulsing reminder of how athletic competition can really still matter.

Apocalypse now

We had a pretty ridiculous storm here on Monday night. It had rained in the morning, so I took my umbrella into work (fortunately). When I left the office around 7, it wasn't raining, though things seemed a little ominous. By the time I got off the train, around 8, it had started to pour. I got into the car and started to drive towards Alma's house, thinking she was home, but I called her from the car and left a message saying that it was raining, but wasn't too bad at the moment, if she still needed to drive back down from school (which turned out to be the case).

Then I got about a mile from her house and things went crazy. The rain started coming down so heavily that I couldn't see ten feet in front of the car except for other car and building lights. I managed to get to Alma's driveway, where I called her apartment and told her not to drive back down if she hadn't left. It turns out that up at the school, it was barely doing anything! Meanwhile, lightning was striking within blocks of me; the sky was flashing constantly. I've never seen anything like it. It's what I imagine being in the middle of a military battle would look like. I turned on WGN to see what was happening with the Cubs game and there were tornado sirens going off at Wrigley. I'm not sure I can recall ever seeing a storm of comparable intensity.

Within an hour things had tapered off, but at around 11, it started up again, though by this time I was home in bed, trying to rest up for a doctor's appointment the next morning. Of course it turned out that the office lost power due to the storm, which I didn't find out until I got there at 8:30 am.

Probably not a very exciting post, in retrospect. So here's interesting news: there's a good chance I will be going to the Philippines with Alma and her family in late December/early January. It's not a cheap flight, but (even with a girlfriend of Filipino descent) how often do you get a chance to take a trip like that, especially when you wouldn't have to pay for hotels? Plus Asia is the last continent I've never been to, and with stopovers this would be a chance to add several countries to my list, aside from the fact that two weeks in the Philippines, especially in the middle of winter, would probably be crazy awesome.