- When you’re already ripping people off by $25-30, what’s another $3-4? That seems to be the philosophy of Walt Disney, which further hiked it’s already exorbitant admission prices for its domestic theme parks, beginning Sunday. At Walt Disney World in Orlando, one-day ticket prices for visitors age 10 and up will increase from $71 to $75. For children ages 3 to 9, prices will go from $60 to $63. As a quick aside, how are five-year-olds going to afford that extra three bucks? Did anyone consider that? Out in Anaheim, California, Disney Land admission prices will also get a bump. Tickets for those 10 and older will increase from $66 to $69, while the 3-to-9-year old crowd will now pay $59 instead of $56. Just to make sure they have all their bases covered, Disney will also hike up the cost of park hopper passes, which allow patrons to jump between Disney’s four Florida theme parks in a day. Those passes will now cost $50, an 11 percent increase from their previous price of $45. In other words, it’s an all-around, equal-opportunity dicking over. But again, the prices were already such a blatant rip-off before now that the extra f’you of these new increases is just the insult icing on a cake made of screw you….
- Maybe you’re not understanding the concept or spirit of protesting and social dissidence, Chinese government. You don’t fill out a petition to protest five days in advance and allow the government to censor your message if it’s objectionable. So no, I don’t accept your declaration that foreign and local protesters who want to speak out against the Beijing Olympics must apply five days in advance and not harm “national interests.” Your response to accusations of repressing dissent is to allow officially approved demonstrations to be held at three parks in the capital? No, no, no. Protests by their very nature aren’t state approved, they don’t follow rules and they happen wherever the hell the protestors feel like meeting. So Liu Shaowu, security chief for the Beijing Organizing Committee, and his cronies can SUCK IT. They can post all the informational messages they want on the official Olympics news Web site Saturday, I don’t give a rat’s ass and neither does any social dissident worth his or her salt. Your ignorant statements about protesting prove that you don’t understand the fundamental principles of the practice. “Assembling to march and protest is a citizen's right. But it must be stressed that when exercising this right, citizens must respect and not harm others' freedoms and rights and must not harm national, social and collective interests,” reads a particularly ignorant and laughable part of Liu’s statement. If you’re a protestor and you’re will to turn in a written application to police (for Chinese citizens) or submit an application to the border entry-exit administration (as foreigners must do), then you should be officially denounced as a social dissident. The disapproval of The Man should be a reaffirmation of your need to demonstrate, not a deciding factor in you not rioting, protesting or marching. Just further proof that these Olympics are going to blow and blow hard…..
- I’m still not sure this justified the exorbitant ticket prices for Lollapalooza, but the festival at Chicago’s Grant Park got off to a great first day thanks in large part to Radiohead. The band capped off a hot first day on Friday and its set was comprised mostly of songs from its new "In Rainbows" and 1997's classic "OK Computer." They played to a sell-out crowd of 75,000 fans, which stretched out hundreds of yards from the stage. There was also the requisite scene of fans busting out their cell phones and lighting up the field. Radiohead even played an extended encore, including “Videotape,” the epic “Paranoid Android” from "OK Computer,” “Reckoner,” the touching “House of Cards,” “Optimistic,” and finally “2+2=5.” Leading up to Radiohead, British alt rockers Bloc gave the crowd a serious jolt of energy and intensity with high-energy tracks like “Banquet.” Had I been at the festival, I probably would have missed that action because on the opposite end of the field, Brendon Benson and Jack White were leading the Raconteurs, who put out what I believe is the best album of 2008, in awesome tracks like “Salute Your Solution" from the recent album "Consolers of the Lonely." Before that, Akron, Ohio’s own Black Keys delivered raw blues rock to crowds who loved material from their own stellar 2008 release, “Attack & Release.” The standout track from that effort, “Strange Times,” was also the standout song from their set. The Keys followed Cat Power's ended set on a nearby stage. There were duds too, mostly because Lollapalooza seeks to include a wide range of musical sounds. Thus, Brazilian dance-punk act CSS played most of its recent sophomore Sub Pop album, "Donkey,” and the Cool Kids' dropped their hip-hop set. Not exactly what I’d want to hear if I paid that much for tickets to a festival and exorbitant concession prices, but whatever. The day was a success overall, because for the first time since its reinvention in 2005, a single day of Lollapalooza sold out at 75,000 tickets. Tickets for Saturday also sold out in advance, with only ducats for Sunday’s session left to buy as the weekend got underway. Saturday’s headliners included Rage Against the Machine and Wilco, two bands who could hardly be at more opposite ends of the musical spectrum.
- This time, the leak that took down a corrupt government official was from a toilet. Not only that, the leaky toilet will be the chief witness in sending a former Chinese government official to his death. Yan Dabin was the former director of transportation for Wushan County in southwest China. He was sentenced to death Friday for accepting bribes totaling 22.3 million yuan ($3.2 million) and in return, he awarded contracts for road and bridge construction. So how was he taken down by a toilet? Well, Dabin was arrested after a resident called a police station to complain that water was leaking through the ceiling from the vacant apartment above. Why someone would call the police because of water leaking through their ceiling I don’t know. Maybe it’s a Chinese thing, because here in the United States, if you call the cops because of leaky plumbing, they couldn’t hang up on you quickly enough. But the Chinese police took that call and after doing a little digging, they found that Yan owned the unit. A police officer was sent to help a building maintenance worker entered the property, where the two of them discovered the cause of the overflowing toilet: eight soaked cardboard boxes containing 9.39 million yuan ($ 1.3 million). Nothing like some toilet water-soaked money to do in a corrupt government official. It wasn’t just Dabin who went down for his crimes either. His wife was hit with a three-year prison sentence after she was found guilty of laundering more than 9 million yuan ($ 1.3 million) in a series of house purchases. You know what they say, the couple that accepts bribes and launders money together stays together….until the husband is executed, that is. The swift death sentence could have something to do with the fact that Beijing has been trying to stamp out corruption after a series of several highly-publicized corruption cases involving officials stealing large amounts of money. The lasting lesson here: always stash your cash in the freezer, under your bed or in the attic. Shoving it inside your toilet will not only lead to you being exposed as a corrupt scum bag, it will also ruin your plumbing….
- It’s not the type of tribute that I’d be looking for, but Stephen Colbert, host of one of my two favorite fake news shows on Comedy Central, will have a species of trap-door spider named after him on his show tomorrow night. Colbert began campaigning for a spider to be named for him after East Carolina University biologist Jason Bond named one after rocker Neil Young. Bond and his team of researchers study both known and new species of spiders and millipedes and often provide names for new ones. The spider named after Colbert will be called Aptosichus stephencolberti, and like its namesake, the spider will have a silent “t” in its last name. Tune in Wednesday night at 11:30 p.m. on Comedy Central to see Bond’s appearance and Colbert’s reaction to his new eight-legged, creepy crawly namesake. Personally I’d rather have something less dirty, revolting and creepy than a spider, but oh well….
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