- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! And where else could we be going but to those beautiful rioters in Thailand who clashed with police today and forced The Man to fire tear gas canisters at the several thousand angry demonstrators trying to bar lawmakers from Parliament? Because of this wholly justified, totally rockin’ protest, police ended up injuring dozens of demonstrators and dumping gasoline on a political crisis that has been jarring the country for six weeks. As you might expect, the police are doing their best to lie, deceive, manipulate and bend the truth, with but police Maj. Gen. Viboon Bangthamai said that only tear gas was being used against the crowd even though reporters at the scene in Bangkok heard sounds of gunfire. A total of forty-six people were injured, including two seriously. One of them lost his leg, another was hit with shrapnel in the chest, so great job on that, Thai police. Way to go completely overboard against a group of innocent civilians looking to take a stand and make a statement. The timing of the demonstration was ironic, coming just hours before Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who was sworn in Sept. 25, was scheduled to deliver his government's policy statement to lawmakers. Hopefully that policy statement included a vow to stop abusive, overzealous use of excessive force by police, but somehow I doubt it…..
- Never been a huge fan of Esquire magazine or of those “world’s sexiest” lists that such mags like to throw out there. That sort of stuff is completely subjective, but in spite of that, I had to say something when I heard that Esquire had released it’s list of the sexiest women alive and none other than Halle Berry was at the top of the list. Yes, Berry is hot, but she is also 42 years old. That doesn’t mean she’s not stil attractive, but you mean to tell me you’re passing over women like Scarlett Johannson, Jessica Biel and Kiera Knightley for the 42-year-old Berry? Come on…..you’ve got to be kidding me. This story plays out in the magazine’s November issue, with Barry saying of the honor, “I don't know exactly what it means, but being 42 and having just had a baby, I think I'll take it.” Nice, so not only did you pick a 42-year-old, you picked one who just had a baby seven months ago. To be fair, Berry should probably be stripped of this title if for no other reason that her über-cheesy comment regarding winning it. “I share this title with every woman, because every woman is a nominee for it at any moment,” she says. No Halle, every woman is not a nominee for it at any moment. Face it, there are some women out there who are not sexy at any moment, given the fact that they are hundreds of pounds overweight. But anyhow, I digress…..do a better job picking these honors if you’re going to pick them at all, Esquire…….
- Not a good year for the University of Tennessee football team and it’s getting worse (and weirder) by the minute. With the team sporting a pathetic 2-3 record and coming off a far-too-close home win over Northern Illinois, Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer announced that offensive linemen Ramone Johnson and Darius Myers have been suspended for the Volunteers' upcoming games against Georgia and Mississippi State due to lack of academic effort and violation of team rules. The two aren't stars or players whose loss will decimate the Vols, but it’s another personnel loss and black eye for a team that is failing to meet expectations in every possible way. Not what you want for a team preparing to travel to No. 10 Georgia (4-1, 1-1) on Saturday. As for the weird, we now come to Tennessee’s starting tailback, Arian Foster. The senior, who is on the verge of becoming UT's all-time leading rusher, decided that for any interviews he conducts, whoever interviewed him had to speak Pterodactyl, a made-up dinosaur language. Since no Pterodactyl-speaking people could be found to talk to Foster, no interview was conducted. Maybe it was supposed to be funny, maybe Foster just didn’t want to talk and this was his way of accomplishing that, but seeing dude shriek, “Veeeeek! Veeeeek! Veeeeek!” was equal parts bizarre and sad. Nice season, Tennessee, I bet you’re wishing for a do-over at this point…..
- Much of this week’s Heroes took place four years in the future, a very differtent and dangerous place. The vision of the future is seen on two fronts, one of which is Matt Parkman, still on his spirit walk in Africa, having been given a mystery paste to eat and headphones to wear that play some sort of noise or music that put him into a trance in which he can see the future. We also see the future via Future Peter Petrelli, who has brought Present Day Peter into the future to see how bad the world has become, which is evident almost immediately as everyone in sight has a super power courtesy of Dr. Mohinder Suresh’s formula, developed earlier this season. Before Future Peter can show too much of this new world to his past self, he is gunned down by Claire Bennet, who is sporting brown hair and a bad attitude in the future. She kills Future Peter for reasons that still aren't clear and takes his body back to Company headquarters where Knox, one of the villains from earlier this season, and speedster Daphne are waiting. With his future self dead, P.D. Peter’s only directions were to go to Costa Verde, California, the former home of Claire and her family. There, he found Sylar, albeit in a very unfamiliar, bizarre role: homemaker. Sylar has a son, Noah, for whom he is making waffles when Peter arrives. Sylar and Peter talk in the study, with Peter telling Sylar he’s there to take his power from him. Sylar cautions him not to do so, but after Peter tells Sylar to use the ability he stole from Isaac Mendez to paint the future and Sylar paints the same exploding Earth that we’ve seen depicted throughout the season, he agrees to let Peter take on his power, but warns him that the power comes with an insatiable hunger for more power and to understand how everything works. Peter takes the power anyhow after the test of fixing Sylar’s broken watch, apropos because Sylar was a watch repairman and learning how watches work drove him to want to understand how people and their powers work. Peter gets Sylar’s power and is prepared to leave when Claire, Daphne and Knox arriving, having used Molly, the girl with the power to locate anyone, anywhere in the world, to track down Peter. A showdown ensues in which Peter and Sylar are attacked by Claire, Knox and Daphne, with little Noah ending up as a casualty. That set off Sylar, who like Peter in Season 1, had the power to generate immense heat and thus could explode like a giant atom bomb. That’s exactly what happened, with an explosion resulting that wiped out the entire town of Costa Verde. Claire survives because she’s indestructible, but Daphne isn't fast enough, even with her super speed, to get away unscathed. She’s badly burned and barely makes it back home to New York, where as it turns out, she is Parkman’s wife and Molly’s adopted mother. They’ve been living happily together and Parkman and Daphne even have a baby daughter, but Daphne insisted on going to apprehend Peter and she ends up paying for it. Also in this episode, Tracy Strauss, the Nikki Sanders look-a-like, visited the doctor who she tracked down last week to find out what the link was between her and Nikki. The doctor tells her that people from the Company paid him and other doctors to genetically alter Nikki, Tracy and a third sibling, all born at the same time, with special abilities. When this doctor tells Tracy there is no way to take away her ability to freeze things to deadly temperatures with just the touch of her hand, she can't handle it and tries to jump off a bridge to kill herself. However, Nathan Petrelli, now the junior senator from New York thanks to Tracy, flies in and saves her. Four years into the future, we find out that, true to the word of Linderman, who was an all-powerful figure in Season 2 but was killed and is now appearing to Nathan in visions, Nathan has become President of the United States and Tracy is the First Lady. In that capacity, Nathan goes toNew York to visit Peter, who is now in Company custody. He tells Peter that because of Costa Verde, Congress has agreed to full proliferation to battle the growing problem of people with powers using them irrespnsbiliy, but Peter reads Nathan’s mind and tells him that though his intentions are good, he’s doing the wrong thing. Using his telepathic hand, moving people with his mind trick, Peter raises Nathan up off the ground and is choking the life from him as the hunger that goes with Sylar’s power takes him over. He starts to slice open Nathan’s head, just like Sylar, but stops when his conscience kicks in. He teleports back to the present, to Level 5, and goes toe to toe with Sylar, who taunts Peter that now they are exactly the same, which he reinforces by reminding Peter that they are, in fact, brothers. One other storyline bridging present and future is that of Mohinder Suresh, who in the present has injected himself with a serum that is at the heart of the trouble in the future, the serum that can give powers to anyone by enhancing their DNA. In the present, Mohinder has locked himself in his lab, neglected all of his life outside of working on a way to reverse the effects of the serum and help his new gal pal Maya in the process. He snaps at her because among other things, the serum has affected his moods and he is tense and irritable. He vows to find a cure, but in the future, it’s clear that cure didn’t come because 1) nearly everyone who can afford the serum has powers, and 2) when Peter visits Mohinder four years in the future, Mohinder is cloaked in a hooded shirt that covers his face, insists on remaining out of the light (as he showed aversions to the light in present day scenes) and the small part of his skin that is visible, his hand, is some sort of dark, scaly mess. Things aren’t looking good for Mohinder, as they aren’t for the world in general. One hope to right the ship is Hiro Nakamura, heir to the Nakamura Industries throne of his late father Kaito and the one who allowed both halves of the deadly formula that could destroy the world fall into the hands of Daphne Millbrook, who was paid to steal them for a still-unidentified buyer. Hiro and Ando have been captured and are prisoners in Level 5 at the Company, but as they try to mend their differences and ailing friendship so they can escape, the eerie Haitian foils their plan and they are taken to meet with new Company head Angela Petrelli. She informs Hiro that only he can save the world because he has the key figure to do so - Adam Monroe, a.k.a. Takezo Kensei, whom Hiro spent much time in the year 1671 last season and who has the power of healing and immortality. Hiro imprisoned Adam in a coffin in the same Japanese cemetery where his father is buried in last season’s finale, but now Hiro must dig up Adam/Kensei, who isn't too happy to see him. Parkman also is in an unhappy state after waking up from his trance of seeing the future and realizing he now must try to stop it from happening. His African friend tells him to find his totem, a guide to lead his way, which often takes the form of an animal. Parkman begins following a turtle around the wilderness, so you have to wonder where that will lead also. As the episode ends, Adam Monroe’s hand is around Hiro’s neck, so that’s how it’ll stay until next time…..
- Britney Spears has never been accused of being smart. It’s a reputation she appears intent on defending, because she says she is prepared to go to trial in her misdemeanor driving-without-license case after rejecting a plea offer of a year's probation and a $150 fine. Yes, she could have paid a fine that amount to the loose change ratling around in her purse and been on probation for a year, but she insists on going to trial…for what? Nice legal strategy by her lawyer, J. Michael Flanagan (always, always make sure your attorney rocks an initial before their first name, very important), who claims that the pop singer was being targeted because she's a celebrity and doesn't deserve even a minor criminal conviction on her record. The issue isn't whether she was targeted, Joe; it’s whether she drove without a license or not. Her trial is set for Oct. 15 in Van Nuys after an appeals court rejected Spears' efforts to dismiss the misdemeanor charge and put the case put on hold. Not that Brit was even on hand for her own court appearance; Flanagan had said in court papers that Spears, a perpetual train wreck to be sure was “currently unable to participate meaningfully” in the traffic case. These charges stem from her fender-bender in August 2007, after which a hit-and-run charge was eventually dismissed after the singer compensated the other driver for damages. Since then, Brit has obtained a California license, but that probably isn't going to be enough here. Then again, this is Southern California, where famous people go free for most anything…..
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